Withnail and I

west

Ok , i thought i'd start a thread about this fantastic film and it's oh so quoteable dialogue ....

i have loved it for years , and have no idea how many times ive watched it .

it really did /does capture a moment a certain time/ vibe  , now i dont laugh along as much as i used to , i now weap in butchers shops , i have drunk along many times 2 large gins 2 pints of cider ice in the cider ....

i also did live a similar way when in one of my formative bands , we had a house , i didnt live there but was there most of the time  lots a characters coming and going , deperate poverty , and the usual tales ....

Share any quotes tales of when you saw it  ( if you havn't ! see it now !! ) with a bottle from uncle monty's cellar ...

most poinient for me is the closing scene and shakespeares soliloquy ... i always though , someone should have told withnail how good he was .... also if you dont know what the ending was going to be er .. look it up ....... eek .

I have of late - but wherefore I know not - lost all my mirth, forgone all custom of exercises; and indeed it goes so heavily with my disposition that this goodly frame, the earth, seems to me a sterile promontory; this most excellent canopy, the air, look you, this brave o'erhanging firmament, this majestical roof fretted with golden fire, why, it appears no other thing to me than a foul and pestilential congregation of vapours. What a piece of work is a man! how noble in reason! how infinite in faculty! in form and moving how express and admirable! in action how like an angel! in apprehension how like a god! the beauty of the world! the paragon of animals! And yet to me, what is this quintessence of dust? man delights not me: no, nor woman neither.

JezWynd

Best kill it quick before it tries to make friends with us.  Great script, talented actors - a master class in how to make a movie on not much money.

axisus

I've never seen it. I realised that I had to see it so I bought the DVD about 3 years ago. Still haven't seen it.

west

axisus said:

I've never seen it. I realised that I had to see it so I bought the DVD about 3 years ago. Still haven't seen it.

Demand some booze and give it a spin !

Blaendulais

Monty you terrible cunt

west

I mean to have you boy ! even if it must be burglary !!

LuttiS

I don't advise a haircut, man. All hairdressers are in the employment of the government. Hair are your aerials. They pick up signals from the cosmos, and transmit them directly into the brain. This is the reason bald-headed men are uptight.

Words to live by

Watch it Axisus, you may or may not be disappointed! 

west

It's the most devastating moment in a young mans life, when he quite reasonably says to himself, "I shall never play The Dane!" It is at that moment that all ambition ceases to exist.

matdotcodot

With Nails by Richard E. Grant is a most amusing read if you haven't read it already.

https://www.amazon.com/Nails-Film-Diaries-Richard-Grant/dp/0879519355

cpcompany

I love the scene where he is covering himself in deep heat because they can’t afford heating in the house

Blaendulais

cpcompany said:

I love the scene where he is covering himself in deep heat because they can’t afford heating in the house

Embrocation you mean

Kilgore

I haven't seen it for a good few years. I can't remember many specific quotes but then my memory's not what it used to be. Too many Camberwell carrots.

vale

i love withnail & i. have got the script paperback (weird upside down & backwards cover) & dvd. & it's as easily as good a read as it is a film, i think.
if you read it & try not to just recreate scenes from the film but to recreate it from the text afresh, it reads so much like the best joe orton & oscar wilde. pg wodehouse in there too.

it's curious that it appeared in the 1980s when there was that big 'school of UEA' creative writing contingent hitting the lit scene. martin amis, ian mckewan, kazuo ishiguro all writing in a brit way about very brit themes. kind of 'book britpop' ten years early. because the withnail script also seems to have no obvious offshore influences (ok, so wilde was irish & deeply proud of it, but he lived & published & flourished in london, so 'brit-ish' irish).

far too many quotable lines. all of it is one huge quotable line. blue velvet is like that, which is another film i like from that year (1986 i think).
no dead or makeweight characters either. uncle monty is a dazzling jewel of a monster. danny ffs. who doesn't know a danny?

& i suppose the big universal theme dilemma is whether you choose to go down with your impossible dreams, or 'settle for less' in return for something you can cash in. idealism v pragmatism.
show me a musician who ever dared to dream big at some point, who hasn't eventually had to wrestle with that one...

Withnail: "You've had an audition. Why can't I have an audition? It's ridiculous. I've been to drama school. I'm good-looking. I tell you, I've a fuck sight more talent than half the rubbish that gets on television. Why can't I get on television?"

viz

It’s the only film in which sherry is mentioned five times in a row. 

https://youtu.be/-CHKFnV3wx8

west

Thats sherraaay 

west

An observation i made as a fan of steptoe and son , harry h corbett seemed to change his accent in the later years , the similarity of danny and harrys accent  from the early years of steptoe is quite uncanny .....

english_bob

Our regular Indian takeaway charges £2.10 for pilau rice.

Withnail must be quoted every time we tot up how much a takeaway is going to cost. 

@west that original ending is pretty grim. The Hamlet speech is better, still hints in the same direction.

David5150

Great film

On occasions I'll ask for a 'pair of pints' in the pub

mudslide73

vale said:

& i suppose the big universal theme dilemma is whether you choose to go down with your impossible dreams, or 'settle for less' in return for something you can cash in. idealism v pragmatism.
show me a musician who ever dared to dream big at some point, who hasn't eventually had to wrestle with that one...

This is true in so many ways. When everyone you thought would be in it forever goes off and gets a job in a bank. "Working in a bank Colin!" oops wrong film. 

west

west

mudslide73 said:

vale said:

& i suppose the big universal theme dilemma is whether you choose to go down with your impossible dreams, or 'settle for less' in return for something you can cash in. idealism v pragmatism.
show me a musician who ever dared to dream big at some point, who hasn't eventually had to wrestle with that one...

This is true in so many ways. When everyone you thought would be in it forever goes off and gets a job in a bank. "Working in a bank Colin!" oops wrong film. 

apologies to vale , and props to mudslide for highlighting what i skimmed , this is on the money and i think why ive identified with this film for all these years and my own life experience .... i cannot watch the end without empathy and emotion ....