Malcolm & Marie (2021)
John David Washington: Malcolm
Photos
Quotes
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[Marie walks into the room with a knife]
Malcolm : Marie, what are you doing? Put the knife down, please. Marie?
[she kneels down in front of him and plays with the knife]
Marie : Do you remember those antidepressants I was on? I'm not on them anymore. I'm not doing well. I'm really, really not doing well. I've never been clean. And I don't plan on getting clean. I'm a piece of shit. I'm a liar. I cheated on you. I fucked your friends
[she laughs]
Marie : I fucked your friends. God, I feel like I'm crazy. I've stolen from your mother. And you know what the fucked up thing is? I don't even care. I don't mind. Because I deserve it. Tell me where the fucking pills are. Tell me where the pills are.
[Malcolm struggles to answer, Marie puts the knife down and acts like herself again]
Marie : And that, Malcolm, is what authenticity buys you.
[she flips him off with both hands as she leaves the room]
Malcolm : Well, damn! Why didn't you do that in the audition?
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Malcolm : Cinema doesn't need to have a message. It needs to have a heart.
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[on an angry rant after reading a review for his film]
Malcolm : You can't hang everything on identity. You can't say that I brilliantly subverted this trope 'cause I'm black, but I fell into this one because I'm a fucking man! Identities are constantly shifting. Does the male gaze exist if the filmmaker's gay and not straight? And to what degree? What if they're asexual? What if they're transitioning and you don't even know it? You can only look back at things and wonder what the fuck it all means! I mean, why did Ben Hecht and Selznick, two fucking Jewish men, spend so much time on "Gone with the Wind"? To this day, no one can explain to me why the fuck Billy Wilder made "Spirit of St. Louis" and lionized that Nazi bastard Lindbergh, huh? Or why Ida Lupino loved film noir and fucking violent men! Why Ed Wood wore fucking panties? He wore panties and made B films about fucking space aliens! Or Elaine May was fascinated with emotionally stunted men. I mean, did she see herself in them? Did she hate them in real life, but wanted to get to know them through the work? I mean, the fact that Barry Jenkins isn't gay, is that what made "Moonlight" so fucking universal? Or was being gay the reason Cukor empathized with women more than men? It's all a fucking mystery's the point! What drives a filmmaker? What drives an artist? I mean, why did Pontecorvo, a fucking rich Italian Jewish man, why did he... why did he feel such a kinship to Algerian Muslim guerrilla fighters that he fucking made "Battle of Algiers"? A fucking classic! Tell me that! Can you tell me that? Fucking Karen! Can you tell me that? No, you can't, can you? Because why? 'Cause nobody knows! Who the fuck knows? Who the fuck knows? I mean, why did I shoot the scene the way I did? Is it because I'm a man, is it because I'm straight? Is it because I'm desensitized to violence or is it because I believe that if you witness trauma onscreen, the audience should also feel that fucking trauma? That is the mystery of art, of film, what drives someone to make something and fucking say something. Now, you can criticize this system, which, like every fucking system, is white as fuck and, in our business, fucking male and white as fuck! I mean, goddamn! Shit, I've been waiting my whole life, I've been asking, "Where the fuck are all the black filmmakers 'cause I'm getting sick and tired of these little British boys running around here all in their feelings trying to overcome a fucking birth defect to save the fucking Queen from Hitler!" You know, just do me a fucking favor, all right? Ban every fucking film with a postscript and we'll be good. We'll be fucking great! But to write shit like this? To write this bullshit? To box people in because you don't have the love of film, because you don't have the mind to critique the form, the medium, the technique, you don't have the words to describe the fucking emotions or too much fear that you're not gonna get clicks or too much fucking fear that you afraid the mob's gonna turn on you! Well, then, fuck you! Fuck you for inhibiting the ability for artists to dream about what life may be like for other fucking people. Fuck you, twice! With a sick cactus dick! And even if you come up short, even if you could do better, fuck you! You're the reason they make this fucking stale, safe, stagnant turgid fucking shit in the first place! You're the reason, not me! You're the reason! I mean, you should be fucking bold! You should be fucking reckless! People should be fucking reckless! They should be yelling at the top of their lungs: "Hey Karen! Hey Al! I hear you and I don't give a fuck!" Because they're not gonna get any better until they start rebelling against this fucking purist, moralistic, academic nonsense in the same way that Spike Lee rebelled against the white system when he made "Do the Right Thing". You know, normally, I'd fucking wish death upon someone like this, someone who lacks the fucking imagination like this, but instead, I'm gonna pray fucking hard, the way my mama taught me, that she gets fucking carpel tunnel until her hands atrophy and cramp and she can no longer write nonsensical fucking garbage like this anymore!
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Malcolm : She kept saying that I'm the next Spike Lee, the next Barry Jenkins, the next John Singleton. And I just looked at her, was like, "What about William Wyler?" And you could tell, for three whole seconds, she was like, "Was William Wyler black?"
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Malcolm : "Avoids being a white savior?" She IS a savior, she's trying to save her! Avoided the white savior trap? If I were white they'd say I fell into the trap!
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Malcolm : You're by far the most excruciating, difficult, stubbornly obnoxious woman I've ever met in my *entire* life. I go from wanting to cut your head off one moment to fucking wanting to kiss your beautiful stupid little face the next. I fucking love you. I love you. Should we get married?
Marie : Not in the mood.
Malcolm : Seriously, I feel like we're gonna get married and divorced at least a couple of times, we might as well started now.
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Marie : You're gonna start making fake movies about fake people with fake emotions. And then you'll start having dinner with the white girl from LA Times
[they laugh]
Marie : Yeah.
Malcolm : [laughs] Oh, no! Not the white girl!
Marie : Mm-hmmm. You'll be taking about this one-take and... and that one-take... and how the camera...
[makes framing gestures as she talks]
Marie : You know you do that, right?
[Malcolm laughs]
Marie : Literally. Next thing you know, you'll be on your press tour for your new LEGO film. Talk about hw it's an allegory for the failures of reconstruction.
[imitating Malcolm]
Marie : "Well, the original working title was, uh, 'Forty LEGOs and a Mule', but the...
[struggling not to break character]
Marie : "... the studio got a little, uh...
[she finally cracks; Malcolm can't stop laughing]
Marie : Malcolm, you laugh, but I can see it. I'm serious, I can see that shit. All your new Twitter friends will be quote-Tweeting your ass, handclaps and shit, talkin' 'bout, "This is what change looks like." "Yes, king!"
Malcolm : Oh, brutal.
Marie : Mm-hmmm. But then the rest of America is gonna be like, "Well, what the fuck is this Negro doing selling us some shit with these LEGOs? I'm not seeing that shit!" Then there's gonna be boycotts, fucking protests because you're politicizing these LEGOs, but thankfully, you'll have your new white girlfriend from the LA Times. I mean, she's gonna come riding in with her SPF-50 brigade on some real soccer mom shit, tweeting' at people left and right.
[in a white voice]
Marie : "Well, this is literally censorship! Who is in charge here? It is our moral obligation to go and see this movie written and directed by a real Bla... I mean, person of color. We are going to make history, okay? We're going to make it the biggest box office ever!"
[in her regular voice]
Marie : And the next thing you know, you will have made a toy company a billion dollars.
Malcolm : Yes!
Marie : Yes! "Congratulations, Malcolm Elliot! You fucking did it!
[she imitates an airhorn]
Marie : "Here's a couple million dollars and a fucking fruit basket. But just as a thought, have you ever considered doing the Angela Davis biopic, but with LEGOs?"
Malcolm : [laughs] You know your white voice is crazy.
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Marie : All of y'all are a bunch of hookers and hoes.
Malcolm : You calling me a ho?
Marie : Yes, I am calling you a ho.
Malcolm : [laughs] Fuck you.
Marie : 'Cause you're a ho! What? You are. That's fine. That's why you're hell-bent on sounding smart, 'cause you're compensating for the fact that you're a ho. Instead of just understanding that... This is just how the world of ho-dom turns. You know, you got an actress in a $2,000 dress, talkin' about socialism on a red carpet because she's too afraid to admit that, guess what, she's just... she's just a fuckin' actor. There's no shame in that. And then you got every entertainment outlet running with her call to arms, her "viva la revolution". Not because they actually care or want to spread the message. But because they know that there's nothing that sells more than disgust. That's what gets the clicks. And you dumbasses fall for that shit every time. Honestly, nobody cares what you have to say. They don't. You guys play fucking dress-up for a living. This is some only-in-America, ho-ass shit. And all of you are guilty. You know? So just stay in your lane. Keep doing your ho shit. It's fine.
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Malcolm : Well, fuck you! Fuck you twice with thick cactus dick!
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Marie : You wanna make movies, and no one's allowed to say anything bad about them? Give me a break. "Oh, no! Someone attacked my movie."
Malcolm : Well, fuck these lazy-ass critics.
Marie : Malcolm, you are not making pottery for a living, okay? You are a filmmaker, and film-making is the most capitalistic, mainstream fucking art form on the planet Earth.
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Malcolm : I'm going to be part of the larger conversation about film-making, without always having some white-ass writer making it about race 'cause it's fucking convenient. You know, I could see... I could see the reviews now. It goes something like this. This is how they be writin' and shit: "This film is an acute study of the horrors..." they like to use words like that, "... the horrors of systemic racism in this mental healthcare industry." Instead of it being a commercial film about a drug-addicted girl trying to get her shit together. I mean, these people, these fucking people are so pedantic. They are... I mean, we get it. You're smart, we get it. You're woke, we get it. Let us, us artists, have some fucking fun with the shit. Let us have fun with the art.
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Malcolm : It's not a film about race. No. It's about shame, it's about guilt, and how that shit is inescapable. And it annoys me that so many of these journalists can't help but to flex their college education.
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[Malcolm bangs on the bathroom window pane]
Malcolm : What do you mean, "mediocre"?
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Malcolm : None of us are proud of where we first start off. I started off, I had to do token fuckin' punch up on straight to VOD rom-come, and under-the-table rewrites on films that didn't wanna pay writers! But you keep working! You keep on trying! You work harder and harder 'cause even if you're not talented, which you are, you can still get somewhere, as long as you don't have an ego. You don't have to be proud of everything you do! But you do have to work harder than 99% of people.
