"M" (1931) Director: Fritz Lang Screenplay: Fritz Lang, Thea von Harbou, Paul Falkenberg, Adolf Jansen, Karl Vash http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=hAzJrBoNqvA HANS BECKERT: Who are you? All of you. Criminals. Probably proud of it, too... proud you can crack a safe or sneak into houses or cheat at cards. All of which it seems to me you could just as easily give up if you had learned something useful, or if you had jobs or if you weren't such lazy pigs. But me? Can I do anything about it? Don't I have this cursed thing inside me? This fire, this voice, this agony? DER SCHRANKER: So you mean to say... you *have* to kill? HANS BECKERT: I have to roam the streets endlessly, always sensing that someone's following me. It's me! I'm shadowing myself! Silently... but I still hear it! Yes, sometimes I feel like I'm tracking myself down. I want to run... run away from myself! But I can't! I can't escape from myself! I must take the path that it's driving me down and run and run down endless streets! I want off! And with me run the ghosts of the mothers and children. They never go away. They're always there! Always! Always! Except... when I'm doing it... when I... Then I don't remember a thing. Then I'm standing before a poster reading what I've done. I read and read... I did that? I don't remember a thing! But who will believe me? Who knows what it's like inside me? How it screams and cries out inside me when I have to do it! Don't want to! Must! Don't want to! Must! And then a voice cries out, and I can't listen anymore! Help! I can't! I can't! --------------------------------------- So many chocolate chips embedded in this cookie of a scene. Beckert is at the mercy of a kangaroo court composed of criminals and those seeking back alley justice. His impassioned monologue humanizes what until this moment was a wild animal snuffing out little children on impulse. He also indicts the criminals who’ve cornered him, saying that, while his brutal acts are an uncontrollable compulsion, their illegal actions – which include murder – are choices they make, often proudly. Ultimately, he fails to acquit himself – they intended to execute him anyway – but there isn’t a person in the room unaffected by his speech. And the viewer is left to wonder: If, instead of nicotine/ drugs/ alcohol/ sex/ hoarding/ stamp collecting/ etc., their “attractioin” was to child murder, would *they* want leniency and understanding?

Dr. Strangelove or: How I Learned to Stop Worrying and Love the Bomb (1964) screenplay by Stanley Kubrick, Terry Southern, and Peter George, based on the novel RED ALERT by Peter George Ripper: Mandrake. Mandrake: Yes, Jack? Ripper: Have you ever seen a commie drink a glass of water? Mandrake: Well, no I... I can't say I have, Jack. Ripper: Vodka. That's what they drink, isn't it? Never water? Mandrake: Well I... I believe that's what they drink, Jack. Yes. Ripper: On no account will a commie ever drink water, and not without good reason. Mandrake: Oh, ah, yes. I don't quite.. see what you're getting at, Jack. Ripper: Water. That's what I'm getting at. Water. Mandrake, water is the source of all life. Seven tenths of this earth's surface is water. Why, you realize that.. seventy percent of you is water. Mandrake: Uhhh God... Ripper: And as human beings, you and I need fresh, pure water to replenish our precious bodily fluids. Mandrake: Yes. Ripper: You beginning to understand? Mandrake: Yes. Ripper: Mandrake. Mandrake, have you never wondered why I drink only distilled water, or rain water, and only pure grain alcohol? Mandrake: Well it did occur to me, Jack, yes. Ripper: Have you ever heard of a thing called fluoridation? Fluoridation of water? Mandrake: Ah, yes, I have heard of that, Jack. Yes. Ripper: Well do you know what it is? Mandrake: No. No, I don't know what it is. No. Ripper: Do you realize that fluoridation is the most monstrously conceived and dangerous communist plot we have ever had to face? Window in the office is shot through by automatic weapons fire. Ripper: Two can play at this game soldier! more rounds ricochet through the office, cutting down the overhead desk lamp. Ripper: That's nice shooting, soldier! Ripper produces a machine gun from a golf bag in his closet. He turns off the lights, then sweeps his desk clear with the gun barrel, placing the gun squarely on the desk. Ripper: Mandrake! Come here! Mandrake: You calling me, Jack? Ripper: Just come over here and help me with this belt. Mandrake: I ah, I haven't had very much experience, you know, with those... sort of machines, Jack. I only ever pressed a button in my old Spitfire. Ripper: Mandrake, in the name of Her Majesty and the Continental Congress come here and feed me this belt, boy! Mandrake: Jack, I'd love to come. But, what's happened, you see, is the string in my leg's gone. Ripper: The what? Mandrake: The string. I never told you, but, you see, I've got a gammy leg. Oh dear. Gone. Shot off. Ripper: Mandrake, come over here. The Red Coats are coming. Come on! http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Qr2bSL5VQgM Dialogue takeaway: The calm, rational, persuasive tone of Ripper's dialogue brings the utterly paranoid insanity of his message into sharp relief. Playing the tone against the content makes for effective - and blackly hilarious - dialogue as well as embodying an ongoing Kubrick theme - how rationality often cloaks violent and psychotic impulses.