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.
Comments
Words to live by
Watch it Axisus, you may or may not be disappointed!
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
My feedback thread is here.
http://www.thefretboard.co.uk/discussion/57602/
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?"
https://youtu.be/-CHKFnV3wx8
Supportact said: [my style is] probably more an accumulation of limitations and bad habits than a 'style'.
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.
Don't talk politics and don't throw stones. Your royal highnesses.
Great film
On occasions I'll ask for a 'pair of pints' in the pub