On The Waterfront and The Departed's Cheese-Eating Rats -- The Movie Board

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Subject: On The Waterfront and The Departed's Cheese-Eating Rats

Author:
Jimmy

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Date Posted: 03:56:22 08/16/07 Thu
Author Host/IP: c-68-41-237-93.hsd1.mi.comcast.net/68.41.237.93

"What kind of a Saint hides in his Church?" asks an irate Eva Marie Saint. Her brother has just been thrown out the window and Karl Malden's Priest, though not going through the motions, is trying to quell her outrage...out of fear. But that one beautifully angry challenge sets into motion a Priest who realizes that this is his flock...and he's gonna go the distance. And he does.

Granted, this is Brando's movie and he is awe-inspiring in his technique while playing a dummy on the surface yet projecting through that exterior the heart-and-soul of a once proud man whose merely accepted his bum status because he isn't a cheese-eater. I must confess I know very little about the inner, inner-workings of the mob but Brando's character was in the same boat as DeNiro's Jake LaMotta's who was able to hold out longer before being forced to take his dive.

"On The Waterfront" may be more melodramatic than Raging Bull but when did that become such a bad thing? Sure, it's overdone and oversentimental at the wrong times but that doesn't mean it doesn't have its place. It's almost as if someone wanted to destroy it by overdoing it. Fuck that, that's too conspiratorial. The masses don't know the difference and the Elitists are too smug. FINE!!! Let's see ANY OF THEM TAKE THE BEATING BRANDO TAKES AT THE END!!! LET'S SEE ANY OF THEM GO THE DISTANCE LIKE KARL MALDEN'S PRIEST!!!

Whew, off track already. I wanted to talk about the Rats. More specifically, the community's reaction to the ratter. There is a huge disconnect today between ratting and whistle-blowing. I applaud the hero status whistle-blowers need to get (Russell Crowes "The Insider" is a perfect example) in order to get the truth out. The other side of that coin is that they were not being loyal. We don't think about that these days YET Nicholson and Scorsese were obsessed with it in "The Departed."

Nicholson's Costello is the perfect illustration of doublethink. He can plant all the moles he wants but when they do it to him that person is a rat. That is why he is successful...that and because he can bully his local clergy--I'd like to see him go up against Karl Malden.

The answer why the masses are ambivalent about rats today and stridently opposed back in the day is quite simple: Today nobody cares about anything back then they feared for their lives. And fearing for your life is pretty strong motivation to start youth gangs that preach the value of 'not ratting.'

Brando does the right thing and goes the distance. Does that make Waterfront corny? YEAH RIGHT!!! Fuck anybody who thinks that because if it is corny then that means you yourself could stand up to the mob AND THEN face the confused scorn of the people YOU ARE FIGHTING FOR!!! Then take a beating and be out on your feet. But wait...here comes the Priest. Where is he these days? I'm going to find him.

P.S.

I treat my girlfriend like shit simply because I can and that has to stop. She's agreed to act like a mother and forgive alot of the things I do but I cannot take someone willing to sacrifice so much for granted.

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