Daily Dialogue — August 27, 2012

“And after the awful deed is done, he finds that he’s plagued by deep-rooted guilt. Little sparks of his religious background which he’d rejected are suddenly stirred up. He hears his father’s voice. He imagines that God is watching his every move. Suddenly, it’s not an empty universe at all, but a just and moral one, and he’s violated it. Now, he’s panic-stricken. He’s on the verge of a mental collapse-an inch away from confessing the whole thing to the police. And then one morning, he awakens. The sun is shining, his family is around him and mysteriously, the crisis has lifted. He takes his family on a vacation to Europe and as the months pass, he finds he’s not punished. In fact, he prospers. The killing gets attributed to another person-a drifter who has a number of other murders to his credit, so I mean, what the hell? One more doesn’t even matter. Now he’s scott-free. His life is completely back to normal. Back to his protected world of wealth and privilege.”

— Judah Rosenthal (Martin Landau), Crimes and Misdemeanors (1989), written by Woody Allen

The Daily Dialogue theme for the week is Woody Allen, suggested Sean Harris. Today’s suggestion by DJ Holloway.

Trivia: Woody Allen felt that he had been too “nice” to the characters in the end of Hannah and Her Sisters, so he wrote this film as a response to those feelings.

Dialogue On Dialogue: Commentary from DJ that this side reflects the “haunting theme of a lack of meaning/morality in a modern world.”