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From: mattyohe
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  • Only Caden can play Caden.

  • I agree with everything he said except "fuck everybody".

  • This is brilliant, very sad

  • this movie gets too real. thats why its so f-ing great

  • Please could you guys check out my take on this monologue? Bit of a different spin, I'd really like some constructive criticism, Thanks! 

  • One of the best scenes ever! But people need to see it within the movie...it is just...very emotional and it makes way more sense

  • Amen.

  • @hmp22 so it's probably made for you

  • amen

  • I cried during this scene.

  • First Malkovich, then the mindfuck that was Adaptation (a stunning film) then Eternal Sunshine (amazing), then this dense masterpiece. What will we see next?

  • What is the song in the background called? I think it is appropriately placed, and wish to listen to it on its own. It is almost, if not as amazing as the monologue

  • This is easily the most moving monologue I've ever seen in a film. Just beautiful- sums up exactly how I feel about life.

  • Finish the goddamn play already! It took you 40 years to make this? With the amount of money you were given in a grant, you could take over a third world country!

  • Of course, whose message is this? Is it Caden's, delivered through his stand in (Millicent)? Is it Millicent's take on Caden with her own thoughts mingled in? Or does the monologue belong to the actor playing the preacher, given direction by Millicent to speak his own truth? Of course, it's Kaufman's message, but maybe how diluted its ownership seems to be among the various people is a implied statement about that message's universality in people, that this is the human experience.

  • @calum66

    I'm still amazed at how many replies/messages I get based on this post. Anyway: I think you're more on the right track. What worries me about the scene/people's interpretations of it is that it makes it seem as if there's some kind of uplifting "moral" to the movie about fuck everyone, reclaim your destiny, make something of your life. And the movie to me isn't just saying that things are fucked, it's saying things are fucked AND your attempts to un-fuck them are fucked. FWIW.

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  • I would've loved for the protagonists daughter as a child to have said that speech.

  • i'm pretty sure this scene is supposed to be CADEN'S corny internal monologue. its something that he would write out of his soul-searching. though there's truth to what's said, i don't know that it's the distillation of the movie's message. it's more complicated than everyone being dissatisfied.

  • "People don't want to hear about your miseries, maybe because they have their own..."

    Well, more likely, maybe because people want to hear and feel good things.

    Wonder if it is any good to make even more people unhappy than there already are. Excellent acting, zero utility, yet another way to corrupt the thoughts.

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  • brutal

  • I agree that while this scene embodies one of the main, overarching "sentiments" of the film, it's definitely not the heart of it.

    Directly after this, Hazel and Caden lie in bed together in her house that's burning down, and she says- "I wish we had this when we were young. The end is built into the beginning, that's just life...."

    "God, you're perfect" "

    "I'm a mess but we fit, don't we?"

    If that's not the most heartbreakingly perfect antithesis to this monologue, I don't know what is.

  • fuck everybody, amen

  • One of the most illuminating monologue i've ever seen in a movie.

  • Amen.

  • truly beautiful......

  • something else.

  • charlie kaufman is one of the only people in the entertainment industry that i truly respect, total and complete respect

    thank you charlie for being yourself

  • there are times in life when one realizes we are all living a lie... though it is hard to admit, it feels amazing to know we are not alone in it. To me that is the beauty of this movie... definately not for everybody.

  • i still cant figure out why caden's hair seems to have reverted back to the way it was at the start of the movie as if he's young again but hazel and the others are still old.

  • @abarrona it's a wig. in the scene before you can see him admiring the wig on a bust.

  • Definitely out of context, but I think that everyone can associate with this scene at some point in their life. This movie deserves so much more praise than it got. It is a little confusing, but I'd rather be confused than be spoon-fed the same old Hollywood bullsh!t again. This movie is amazing.

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  • I agree that it's wrong to post this scene out of context.

    When viewed in the film though, it's such a powerful scene. This is the only scene that has made me tear up when watching a film.

  • The scene is beautiful. Truly, transcendently beautiful. But there's never been a scene anywhere, ever, that's more wrong to pull out of context. The film does not endorse this scene. And that's so much of what the film is saying.

    I love the scene but it's fucking wrong to post it here.

  • @jollybengali887 I can find some people who disagree.

  • @mattyohe I'm quite sure you can. And there seems to be a camp out there that views this film as an optimistic assessment of the human condition. But they're selectively misreading - and that's what pulling this scene out as a thesis is.

    Again, this movie is wonderful and this scene is beautiful. But why the movie is wonderful is that it doesn't endorse what's beautiful about this scene. And I worry about pulling it out and people drawing their lessons from it, when the film is a sincere

  • @mattyohe I'm sure you can. There's a camp that endorses this film as an optimistic one. But they're selectively misreading, which, to me, is the same thing as pulling out this scene as a thesis of some kind. The movie is wonderful, this scene is beautiful. But the movie is wonderful because it can present this as beautiful while not endorsing it in the slightest. All I worry about is that focus on this magnificent scene will distract from what the movie is trying to say.

  • @mattyohe I'm sure you can. There's a camp that endorses this film as an optimistic one. But they're selectively misreading, which, to me, is the same thing as pulling out this scene as a thesis of some kind. The movie is wonderful, this scene is beautiful. But the movie is wonderful because it can present this as beautiful while not endorsing it in the slightest. All I worry about is that focus on this magnificent scene will distract from what the movie is trying to say.

  • @jollybengali887 Much as I love that you love the film, you do seem very up your own arse about it. Let people enjoy what they can, what's it to you if someone wants to think that it's optimistic?

  • @jollybengali887 and yet, this scene makes it astoundingly easy for me to convince people to watch the movie. Is that horrible or wonderful? I don't know.

  • @RealJollyRoger Probably a good thing. Anyways, thanks for posting it!

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  • @jollybengali887 I have just seen the film and would have thought this pretty much summed it up. It seems to me to be a study in and of utter futility but intend to watch it again. What do you think the film is really saying?

  • @jollybengali887 It's a reflection of his life presented by someone else.

  • @4spaces90 This is a great example of a scene that is wholly right, in theory, but it's not endorsed by the film itself. There's a cheap gospel chorus behind it, there's a clear sense that it's being staged - listen to what's going on behind "Amen." - this is the film acknowledging that what is being said is surely "right" but also not worth throwing its weight behind. See Carcetti's Season 3 speech from "The Wire." Complicated fiction doesn't want us to pull scenes and declare it as the intent.

  • @jollybengali887 Then why does Caden repeat 'Amen' after the pastor?

  • @glimglim1 Caden says "amen," yes. Part of what I'm saying is that his perspective is something the film adopts but doesn't endorse - what he makes of the experience that we take in is not holy writ, it's worth subjecting to scrutiny. On that basis alone, it's not necessarily the case that "amen" = dear audience, endorse this scene. // His amen also means a genuine loss of artistic legitimacy for him. He witnesses a scene that is schlocky & crappy and says, "yes." It's a sign of decadence.

  • @jollybengali887 I'm dumbfounded by this comment. It's not as if someone who has never seen this film is going to come onto youtube and search for this specific scene and not understand it for it being out of context. This clip is clearly for people who have seen the film and want to marvel at it again and so go onto youtube to watch it. The context is irrelevant.

  • @simon271088 Judging by the likes for my post vs. the likes for one disagreeing with it, up on the top of the page, I think you've got the better of the argument. And listen, many a scene is on YouTube without proper context, and for those of us who've seen the films it's a great thing that this is the case.

    Nonetheless, I wouldn't want people to come away from a movie as complex as this and believe that this scene is the thesis or the easy takeaway. I hope this won't be the case.

  • genius,

    is there a better monologue ever?

    thought i might use this as part of my best man speech..

    just to get the party cheer going...

    : )

  • Amen.

  • Yep, fuck everybody.

  • This scene gives me writer's/director's/actor's envy. So good and intense and logical and REAL.

  • It's just poetry, tragic and beautiful.

  • It's like this movie was a discovery, not an idea.

  • Who the fuck hit the dislike button?

  • I love this monologue. Charlie Kaufman is a genius.

  • Just before this clip starts, a new director has taken over; her approach is different from the original director's ideas. She gives new instructions to the actors. Then there's the gospel music and the priest doing this moralistic, pseudo philosophical monologue. I think Kaufman wrote this sequence as a parody of those sentimental Hollywood endings where the audience is flattered by being told how special they are.

  • @snelwegkat I think you're absolutely right. The pan upwards to the rain machine highlights how much our emotions are being manipulated with this sort of speech.

    And yet...

    Caden's approach hasn't been working either. He has been trying to achieve truth through raw realism, but the result never satisfies him. In this scene Caden seems to be almost hypnotized at how effectively the priest is articulating his concerns, despite the theatricality.

  • Amen indeed. Probably the best film ever made. And I still don't know what the hell it's about. All I know is that it's the truth

  • This scene is amazing, and I still haven't stopped thinking about movie since I first saw it. It's brilliant and beautiful and honest and real in such a bizarre mind twisting way. Love it.

  • One of my most-favorite scenes of this movie.

  • Something to make you feel connected, something to make you feel whole, something to make you feel loved. And the truth is:

    I feel so angry.

    And the truth is: I feel so fucking sad.

    And the truth is: I feel so fucking hurt for so fucking long, and for just as long have been pretending I'm ok, just to get along, just for,

    I don't know why.

    Maybe because no one wants to hear about my misery, because they have their own...

    Well,

    fuck everybody.

    Amen.

  • Even though the world goes on for eons and eons, you are only here for a

    fraction of a fraction of a second. Most of your time is spent being dead or not yet born. But while alive, you wait in vain, wasting years, for a phone call or a letter or a look from someone or something to make it all right.

    And it never comes, or it seems to but doesn't really.

    And so you spend your time in vague regret or vaguer hope for something good to come along.

  • Everything is more complicated than you think.

    You only see a tenth of what is true. There are a million little strings attached to every choice you make; you can destroy your life every time you choose.

    But maybe you won't know for twenty years. And you'll never ever trace it to its source. And you only get one chance to play it out. Just try and figure out your own divorce. And they say there is no fate, but there is: it's what you create.

  • WE HAVE TO GO DEEPER

  • this describes my life

    As far as the film goes, stop trying to analyze it, it's not meant to be analyzed. Life isn't meant to be analyzed. Life. Death. That's the fucking jist of it. All the small metaphors for what we all feel are just icing on the shitty cake.

  • @ButtersGettingHard It describes ALL our lives. That's what makes this scene so special.

  • @jjamska

    I never thought about that before, but you're right. Actually one of my favourite scenes ever though. Great movie too.

  • ...fuck everybody. amen

  • @OhhEmGeez

    Amen 

  • Charlie Kaufmann is the greatest screenwriter ever. all of his movies make me think about my life differently.

  • This movie blew my mind.

  • I truly believe that Charlie Kaufman is one of the best screenwriters of all time.

  • oooh "AMEN" you`re all fucking retarded

  • Incredible

    

  • amen

  • I watched this movie last night, incredible in every way.

  • Is the vicar the actor guy who is eager to impress, the one you see in the pink shirt when hes being told how to walk?

  • fuqk this shhit

  • amen

  • this scene is one of the most blatant, preachy scenes i've ever seen in a movie. and what better way than for a guy in church uniform to preach the message of the movie straight to the audience. and you know what? it's amazing! this whole movie is just. plain. amazing.

  • probably should watch this movie!! because this, this is amazing.

    (new friend....iloveyou!)

  • @darlingfx the movie is starkly different than this monologue. However, the monologue does seem to somehow encapsulate everything that the film is.

  • @baconkingbrown Saw the movie and yeah It was intense. I loved it. A bit different but still flows into what I already like to watch.

  • amen

  • Amen

  • amen

  • the best movie monologue ever written write there

  • this is the defining moment of the film as a whole. "while *

    alive, you wait in vain, wasting *

    years, for a phone call or a letter *

    or a look from someone or something *

    to make it all right (i.e. ART). And it never *

    comes or it seems to but doesn't *

    really."

    -it explains why the film is so 'weird' because nothing really satisfies or truly makes u feel whole.

    at the same time its quite contradictory cuz this monologue seems to make one feel right or some sense of catharsis.

  • I love this movie, it really deserved a bigger audience. This monologue is so true.

  • This movie strait up MIND FUCKED me. I almost cried ffs.

  • Kaufman fucking rocks dude... ;)

  • solid film but it did depress me too much to ever want to watch it again

  • Charlie Kaufman is a fucking genius.

  • I'm doing this monologue for my Acting for the Camera class, love this movie. One of the best I've seen.

  • such a heavy movie. this is certainly the climax... kind of the only part that makes sense in a way. so fucking heavy.

  • The movie is incredible.

  • I can't even described how much of a mindfuck this movie is. It is a good movie, and good God I'm still trying to understand it.

    It's a movie with play,

    in a play,

    in a play,

    in a play.

    For much of the movie its a play with no audience. But at the same time isn't that what life is? One of the most greatest/surrealist/hyperreali­st movies ever created/born.

    Kaufman, I salute you.

  • I fucking love this movie.

  • @johnjohn302 I thought it was about the importance of living your life, as opposed to looking for meaning in it. Reality was taken over by the play... but I'm sure that's a very simplistic take on things.

  • @ssenmail I like it! :) Thanks for the insight.

  • @johnjohn302

    Who are YOU to dictate on what TRUE ART is? Art is SUBJECTIVE...it can inspire or demoralize...

    Fuck it, I just wanted to tell you that you're an idiot and that SNY is fucking awesome.

  • @johnjohn302

    All art is true and you are an ignorant, arrogant fuck for thinking you can dictate otherwise.

  • @Salvagiera screw you buddy i`ll say what i want. U = thought police

  • Is this Kaufman saying "fuck everyone" or is he implying that everyone wants to "fuck everyone"?

  • I think it's the director saying "fuck everyone" through the priest character saying "fuck everyone."

  • I could fucking cry at this. Fantastic piece of work.

  • This scene gave me a veritable shock when I first saw it & it remains one of the most powerful moments in my personal movie history. Kaufman is a genius for nailing this sentiment spot on without being neither haughty nor condescending.

  • I fucking love this part of the movie-- along with every other second that there is in that movie. Man.

  • Hey, I say "fuck everyone" too!

  • I'm sure it is for someone as anal as you, who couldn't for the life of them stop posting in a video they didn't like because they are actually a fucking loser.

  • @johnjohn302

    Are you really from Bhutan?

    I found this film uplifting. Merely because its about ideas and thoughts I have had and I bet a lot of other people have had aswell. Most middle of road contemporary culture is desperately alienating to most people with any slither of intelligence or individuality. I am sure you have both but I think you are accusing this film of things it doesn't really contain or is trying to express. I also found this film funny at times.

  • Interesting, I liked the movie much, & I expect to like it more in subsequent views, but this scene was one of my least enjoyed.

    Perhaps it was simply my poor sensibilities failing to appreciate the understated humour of this scene, but to me, it seemed too sincere, too serious, if only in the impact the sermon had on Cotard & his assistant (& supposedly on us the viewers).

  • this is one of the most incredible films i've ever seen.

  • what an incredible film.

  • This is by far, the most brilliant, uplifting, amazing, incredible honest, full of love, despair and depression scene I've seen in my life. The same goes for the entire movie. Charlie Kauffman is my hero.

  • Word.

  • most amazing true scene from any movie..... ever....

    proberly

    64

  • All you people who loved this movie and were deeply affected - who felt this piece of work land in their souls - well we're simpatico, true compatriots. And this scene captures all of it in one speech. Achingly gorgeous.

  • +100

  • A-fucking-men.

  • ur full of shit, ul for you as most people can walk away from this movie with something, youll live a life never getting it... sad 4 u :(

    64

  • is this the best movie ever made?

  • maby

    64

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  • Ayer la vi y qde casi muerto.....

  • Por diosss. Me pregunto, cómo carajo soporto montar esta escena el editor ??? Es algo suicida. Realmente la voz de las palabras hacen a las imagenes tan insignificantes... Si lo hubiera montado yo, no hubiera aguantado los primeros 10 segundos...

  • es de los mejores monologos del año pasado...

  • Amen

  • Amen.

  • does anyone know the song in the background?

  • i want to know as well.

  • i sometimes cant watch this scene.

    Its too good if you know what i mean.

    Its too right and watching it can rip your heart out if youve spent the last 3 hours watching fat kids falling over on youtube or likewise. Should be nominated for best picture, best american film ive seen since i dont know when. maybe millers crossing.

  • @RichardHill1 couldn't agree more!

  • Fucking hilarious.

  • It's a good movie, but it's so fucking depressing and sobering.

  • Amen.

  • AMEN.. Just saw this film tonight nd thought it was pretty fucking amazing.. could watch it again strait away..

  • people aren't ready for kaufman. this movie is his directorial debut. bless him for his true sense of the world and people as it is.

  • Why don't you see it first, and then you decide for yourself.

  • This could hands-down be the most influential monologue in theater in the several decades. In contemporary society Kaufman has nailed heads on what it is like to be a modern man in modern day America in city like New York, LA, Chicago or anywhere in America. "Trying to figure out your own divorce"... "Nobody wants to hear about my misery because they have their own" are elements of the human condition. Kaufman is a damn genius or human with the gift of the pen. Amen.

  • why only america?

  • Good point, I can't speak for other nations but I would easily grant the possibility that this could apply to any major city world-wide. I just know the feel for the cities I've listed. If you're from another nation and it's like that for you, I'm glad this could still affect. Good catch on my comment.

  • A great scene delving into the benign indifference of the universe in relation to our insignificant existence.

  • reading a bit of camus, ey?

  • But i'm not entirely convinced that this movie is necessarily "sad," it inarguably delves into the seemingly morbid, bleak, & pathetic existence of our species, however, this is shown as universal & undeniable. It deals little with happy or sad, but rather it tears apart all sentimentality in hopes of showing the unadulterated Truth, which cannot be :) or :(, it simply is the phenomal existence of a species that was briefly alive and which had many dramas and tragedies, but in this we are united

  • This is one of the most poignant scenes in movie history, if only for the unflinching pursuit of the truth for one man (Charlie Kaufman), most films NEVER dare to roam this close to the "ugly truth," it's part Jung, part Bukowski, part soul, and part materialist revelation, this transcends film in a way that is nearly horrifying and, for me and others, resonates strongly with the current consciousness of our age and other ages past: melancholy, despair, and the (false) hope for the good life

  • AMEN

  • im a massive kaufman fan, and i love and profoundly relate to everything hes done...but while i love this scene, is it wrong that i feel so numb and empty that it doesnt really move me like it was meant to because i AM angry and sad and empty? i mean i dont feel anything at all anymore so nothing really moves me.

  • I'm pretty numb, but this crushed me. Its like he explains my mind.

  • You don't feel anything at all anymore?

    You're lucky.

  • I love this movie.

  • I absolutely love the ongoing motif that we're all One in this life. Like, when the priest says "Fuck everybody. ... Amen." and the "congregation" repeats it -- it's ... TRUTH, y'know? Sigh. LoL, sorry, I just love it ... <3

  • I interpret this as basically the theatrical ramblings of a man who refuses to deal with his problems or take responsibility for his life and blames everyone else. I think the idea of the whole movie being performed in front of Cotard, the audience, kind of implicatively agrees with me.

    Not a critique on the film, it was good if a little long and needy of repeat viewings. Liked the house-fire, though :D

  • It seemed to me that he pointed out no one can ever really take responsibility for their lives, because no one really knows how each moment effects their life's unfolding story. Life is filled with an infinite amount of "cause and effects" to be able to keep up with them. If you don't believe me, "just try to figure out your own divorce."

  • My eyes filled up when I saw this part. Such a painful film, then this scene came out of nowhere and I realised that Charlie Kaufman truly understands the sorrow of existence.

    I disagree with the people below though... I think this was the most uplifting scene in the film.

    Amen.

  • The first time I saw this movie, it was one of the weirdest most depressing flicks I've ever seen. But after watching it again, and catching a lot of the things I didn't the first time around, it's nothing short of pure brilliance! Kaufman does it again!

  • Yeah, that's why I love Kaufman's films: they demand repeat viewings.

    A film that isn't worth watching twice, isn't worth watching once.

  • For me, this monologue was the key to the film.. Endlessly pessimistic, but brilliantly true... Fantastic movie. :)

  • Fuck everybody.

    ...Amen.

  • Powerful movie. This movie was made for depressed people like me.