Which phrases from cinema and literature tell your story? – 10/15/2023 – The Worst of the Week

Miguel writes to me with an interesting question: “What scenes or dialogues from scripts and books could you narrate?”

The first of all, forgive the cynics (I include myself here), is Julia Roberts, in “A Place Called Notting Hill”: “I’m just a girl, in front of a boy, asking him to love her.”

I’m obsessed with the play “God of Carnage”, by playwright Yasmina Reza, and I always remember the mother who says, already exhausted from the discussion: “Our son was right to hit yours. And as for his human rights, I clear my ass with them!”

From “A Glass of Wrath”, by the author Raduan Nassar, I always remember the man slowly salting a tomato, and devouring them with horse’s teeth — which made the woman crazy with lust.

If I’m not mistaken, it’s in the film “Melinda and Melinda”, by Woody Allen, that the character played by the director says, when asked if he exercises often: “Yes, I get all sweaty when I have anxiety attacks.” Only I laughed at the cinema.

Psychiatrist Kay Redfield wrote an incredible autobiographical book about her bipolar disorder called “An Unquiet Mind.” It’s impossible not to be struck by the phrase: “When I complain about being less excited, less energetic, less happy, people say that now I’m like the rest of the world.”

In “The Young Man”, by Annie Ernaux, I had the excerpt in my head for days: “I often made love to force myself to write. I wanted to find, in the feeling of tiredness and helplessness afterwards, reasons not to expect anything more from life. “

How could I not remember Clarice Lispector throughout my journey as a psychoanalysis student? In “A Passion According to GH”, Clarice writes the following: “The unspeakable can only be given to me through the failure of language.”

In Sorrentino’s film “The Great Beauty”, protagonist Jep Gambardella remembers that, at the height of his life, he not only wanted to be invited to every party, but he wanted to have the power to make every party fail.

Anyone who has read “O Anjo Pornográfico”, a great biography of Nelson Rodrigues, written by Ruy Castro, will remember the most impactful passage, when at the end of the third act of the play “Vestido de Noiva” the audience is left speechless. At that moment, Nelson, who had written the play in a desperate attempt to escape the poverty that plagued his family, is certain that he has failed, and even thinks about giving up writing for the theater forever. That’s when they start to applaud him and the night ends with the playwright receiving an ovation.

In “Call Me By Your Name”, directed by Luca Guadagnino and my favorite film of my entire life, Elio’s father says more or less the following, upon seeing his son suffer: “We take so much from ourselves, afraid of suffering, that close to 30 we have nothing left to offer in new relationships”. And again: “Forcing yourself not to feel anything! What a waste!”

How can we forget Cecília, protagonist (for me, a heroine) of the brilliant book “The Pediatrician”, by Andrea Del Fuego, saying that she wanted to sew (close) her lover’s wife’s vagina? Regarding her own vulva, Cecília said it was very different from her competition, as she had “the vitreous mucosa like a fair apple.” A masterpiece of irony and evil.

In “Writing”, a collection of essays by Marguerite Duras, I love the passage in which the author suggests that writers who are squeamish or afraid of what they have to say are not the best and, still in the same text, I would like to tattoo the phrase: “You It needs to be stronger than what you write.”

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