Title: The Count of Monte Cristo IMDB Plot Summary: 'The Count of Monte Cristo' is a remake of the Alexander Dumas tale by the same name. Dantes, a sailor who is falsely accused of treason by his best friend Fernand, who wants Dantes' girlfriend Mercedes for himself. Dantes is imprisoned on the island prison of Chateau d'If for 13 years, where he plots revenge against those who betrayed him. With the help of another prisoner, he escapes the island and proceeds to transform himself into the wealthy Count of Monte Cristo as part of his plan to exact revenge. Clip: Scene: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=qzefViZ6UoU&list=RDqzefViZ6UoU#t=6579 Edmond: What do you want of me? Mercedes: I want to be free of you… the way you obviously are free of me.Just a few answers from you, and I shall be gone forever. Edmond: Ask your questions. Mercedes: Where have you been? Edmond: Thirteen years in the Chateau d'lf… and everywhere else you can imagine. Mercedes: The Chateau d'lf for 1 3 years. Did you suffer? What happened afterward? Edmond: Much. Mercedes: Why did you not come to me? Edmond: Why did you not wait? You married the very man who betrayed… She holds up her hand. He is suddenly speechless at the sight of her finger with the piece of twine tied around it like a ring, that Edmond put there years before. Mercedes:I told you that night on the rocks, remember? It would never leave my finger. And it never has. Edmond: Why? Mercedes: You know why. Edmond: If you ever loved me… don't... don't rob me of my hate. It's all I have. Mercedes: Let it go, Edmond. Let it go. I don't know what dark plan lies within you. Nor do I know by what design we were asked… to live without each other these 1 6 years. But God has offered us a new beginning… Edmond: God? Mercedes: Don't slap His hand away. Edmond: Can I never escape Him? Mercedes: No. He is in everything. Even in a kiss. She's kisses him. [Note: I could only find a dialog transcript. I added the action lines.] Analysis: This is a pivotal scene in Edmond's transformation from seeking vengeance to becoming human and accepting his past fate, and his new found success. Until this point he had been stripped of everything that mattered to him. Even though he regained riches and a friend in Jacopo, and now in Mercedes, he has no loyalty nor caring for anyone. He is focused relentlessly on vengeance. But Mercedes brings him to see the light. He cannot ignore her, in his face with her twine ring, evidence of her own suffering through the years. She melts him. Edmond had become so obsessed with vengeance that he would forsake his own happiness and shut out everyone and everything to carry it out, even himself. His vengeance was all he had left. It is all he was. It seems interesting that vengeance was a strong theme in these early French related works, as in A Tale of Two Cities, or Les Miserables. It also lends itself well to dramatic story. A person filled with relentless vengeance makes for a very strong driving character, like a runaway train. It makes for a great plot to explain what made the character vengeful, what happens to the people around them, and what extremes they will go to. Perhaps this is what makes it classic, surviving all these centuries, seeming relevant even today. There is something to be said for writing that becomes classic, and what we can learn from it. There is a sub-theme of God (opposing vengeance). In an earlier prison scene, Edmond's mentor, the priest, Abbé Faria, speaks to him in another memorable moment: Abbe Faria: Here is your final lesson - do not commit the crime for which you now serve the sentence. God said, "Vengeance is mine." Edmond Dantes: I don't believe in God. Abbe Faria: It doesn't matter. He believes in you. Later after he first encounters Mercedes and turns her away, Jacopo confronts him, again, to question his vengeance: Edmond: If you ever presume to interfere in my affairs again, I will, I promise you, finish the job I started the day we met! Do you understand? Jacopo: I understand you are mad. Edmond: Mad? My enemies are falling into my traps perfectly! Jacopo: Mad, your grace, for ignoring this: you have a fortune, a beautiful woman who loves you. Take the money, take the woman, and live your life! Stop this plan, take what you have won! Edmond: I can't. Jacopo: Why not?... I'm still your man, Satara. I swore an oath I will protect you. Even if it means I must protect you from yourself. I'll drive you home now. This script is full of such classic scenes.

Kill Bill Vol. I, Quentin Tarantino This is a great start to two films full of vengence. Copperhead: So I suppose it's a little late for an apology, huh? The Bride: You suppose correctly. Copperhead: Look, bitch... I need to know if you're going to start any more shit around my baby girl. The Bride: You can relax for now. I'm not going to murder you in front of your child, okay? Copperhead: That's being more rational than Bill led me to believe you were capable of. The Bride: It's mercy, compassion, and forgiveness I lack. Not rationality. Copperhead: Look. I know I fucked you over. I fucked you over bad. I wish to God I hadn't, but I did. You have every right to want to get even. The Bride: No, no, no, no, no. No, to get even, even-Steven... I would have to kill you... go up to Nikki's room, kill her... then wait for your husband, the good Dr. Bell, to come home and kill him. That would be even, Vernita. That'd be about square. http://youtu.be/q8vn-ZoM28M

The Specialist, 1994 John Shirley (novels) Alexandra Seros Video clip: http://youtu.be/fOoSMd2mcNA?t=11s (can't find script so this is my transcript from the clip. For those of you who haven't seen it the entire movie is about vengeance. As a child, May aka Adrienne has watched from a closet while her parents are tortured and killed by Tomas and his men. She manages to enlist Ray Quick, an explosives expert and ex-CIA man, to kill these men. At the end, Ray asks May how does she feel. "Better" she says. No ambiguity there. Screenwriter only has two credits on IMDB.) Ext. Miami Nightclub- Night Ray is at first standing on the street across from the the nightclub where May is dancing with Tomas, the son of a Cuban mafia don who killed her father. He is listening to recording of her voice from previous phone calls while he watches her. May Munro (V.O.) Every time he touches me..I mean the man who shot my father...and he's kissing me...and...Oh God. Ray Quick (V.O.) You don't have to do it. May Munro (V.O.) It's the only way I can get close enough to kill him. See, I have this dream. I'm right there when it happens. He looks at me like I'm a stranger, and I say my name. And it's the last thing he ever hears. Ray Quick (V.O.) They don't suspect you. May Munro (V.O.) I'm trusted, for the moment. Ray Quick (V.O.) He's with you all the time. How do you live? May Munro (V.O.) Alone. Ray Quick (V.O.) That's not what I mean. How do you live...with yourself? May Munro (V.O.) How do you?

Scott, I forgot to add what I liked about the dialogue from Kill Bill Vol. I: For me the line "It’s mercy, compassion, and forgiveness I lack. Not rationality." is the crux of this scene. She is bent on revenge, but understands the formality of the process. Like a true samurai, she won't just go into and sneek up on Copperhead and kill her. She goes to the front door to confront her vengence face to face. Also, she states that she would have to kill the whole family to get "square" but that is not her plan. That, to The Bride, would be as irrational as the actions that were taken upon her and her family at the Chapel. Finally, after she does kill Copperhead only to find the daughter standing behind her she offers this to the young girl," It was not my intention to do this in front of you. For that I'm sorry. But you can take my word for it, your mother had it comin'. When you grow up, if you still feel raw about it, I'll be waiting." That's being rational about vengence.