Sophie's Choice (1982)
Peter MacNicol: Stingo
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Quotes
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Sophie : My mother, she's very sick, you know. And I can't do anything. But I think - if only I could have got - that meat for my mother it would make her strong. So I go to the country and er... the peasants were selling ham and I buy it with the black market money and I bring it back. But it's forbidden, you know, because all the meat goes to the Germans. So I sat on the train and I hid it under my skirt, I am pretending that I am pregnant, you know? Oh I was so afraid. I was shaking. And then the German, was in front of the train and he saw me. So he come over and take under my skirt that ham and...
[pause]
Sophie : So they sent me Auschwitz.
Stingo : You were sent to Auschwitz because you stole a ham?
Sophie : No, I was sent to Auschwitz because they saw that I was afraid.
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Stingo : Sophie, I want to understand. I'd like to know the truth.
Sophie : The truth does not make it easier to understand, you know. I mean, you think that you find out the truth about me, and then you'll understand me. And then you would forgive me for all those... for all my lies.
Stingo : I promise, I'll never leave you.
Sophie : You must never promise that. No one, no one should ever promise that. Ah, the truth, ah, the truth, I don't even know what is the truth - after all these lies I have told.
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Stingo : [groping interrupted] What is going on!
Leslie Lapidus : You don't understand. I can't go all the way. I've reached a plateau in my analysis. Before I reached this plateau of vocalization, I could never have said any of those words. Those Anglo-Saxon four-letter words that everybody should be able to say, and now I'm completely able to vocalize.
Stingo : [narrating] Leslie Lapidus could say fuck, but she could not do it.
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Stingo : I let go the rage and sorrow for Sophie and Nathan... and for the many others who were but a few of the butchered and betrayed and martyred children of the Earth. When I could finally see again, I saw the first rays of daylight reflected in the murky river. This was not judgment day. Only morning; morning, excellent and fair.
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Sophie : I didn't know your mother died.
Stingo : When I was 12
Sophie : You loved her very much?
Stingo : Not enough.
Sophie : What do you "not enough"? What do you mean?
Stingo : I mean not enough.
Sophie : That is what is so terrible about - outliving those people that we love, I mean that's. - that guilt.
Stingo : Your father?
Sophie : My father, my mother, my husband.
Stingo : You were married?
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Stingo : Well, I love you very much, Sophie. And I want to marry you. I want you to live down there on that farm with me. When I write my books there, I want you to help me and I want you to help me raise a family because I love you very, very much. Is it too much to hope that you might love me, too?
Sophie : Listen, Stingo, I'm beyond 30 years now, you know. What are you going to do with an old Polish lady like me?
Stingo : Manage. I'll Manage. "Old woman".Don't talk that way. You're always going to be my number one.
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Sophie : This is ridiculous language and there's too many words! The word for "velocity", okay, there's "fast", "quick", "rapid" and they all mean the same thing.
Nathan Landau : "Swift". "Speedy".
Stingo : "Hasty".
Nathan Landau : "Fleet".
Stingo : "Brisk".
Nathan Landau : Expeditious".
Stingo : "Accelerated".
Nathan Landau : "Winged".
Sophie : No, no! Stop it! It's ridiculous! Oh, in French it's so easy. You say: "vite". Or in Polish, "szybki" and in Russian, "bystro". It's only in the English it's so complicated!
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Stingo : I bet your father is a - very interesting man.
Sophie : Yeah, my father was - a civilized man. That's a word, yeah? "Civilized"?
Nathan Landau : A very good word.
Sophie : Yeah? My father was a civilized man living in a uncivilized time. The civilized, they was the first to die.
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Sophie : Good morning, Stingo.
Stingo : Good morning.
Sophie : We wanted to make friends and to take you out on this beautiful summer day! We want you to come up and to have breakfast with us.
Nathan Landau : And then...
Sophie : Yes?
Nathan Landau : Coney Island.
Sophie : Coney Island! Oh boy.
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Leslie Lapidus : Have you ever read D.H. Lawrence, "Lady Chatterley's Lover"?
Stingo : No.
Leslie Lapidus : He has the answer. He knows so much about fucking. He says - he says that when you fuck you go to the Dark Gods. Stingo, I really mean it. To fuck is to go to the Dark Gods.
Stingo : Let's go to the Dark Gods!
