Daily Dialogue — February 27, 2013
YALE (Chuckling, to Ike) How are you? (To Tracy) Hi.
IKE Okay, good. That’s so funny. We were talking about-you know, we’re-we’re all gonna go to that Shakespeare in the Park thing this weekend. See if we can go ahead and do that.
YALE Oh, yeah, right. (Mary Wilke walks through the doorway and stands beside Yale) I wanna do that. (Turning to Mary) Issac Davis and Tracy.
MARY (Shaking Ike’s hand) Well, hello, hi.
IKE Hello, how do you do? How are you?
MARY Nice to meet you.
IKE You, too. You, too.
TRACY Hi.
IKE (Chuckling nervously) We were downstairs at the Castelli Gallery. We saw the photography exhibition. Incredible, absolutely incredible.
TRACY Oh, it’s really good.
MARY Really, you liked that?
Yale sighs, not participating in the conversation.
IKE The-the photographs downstairs . . .
MARY Yes, downstairs.
IKE (Overlapping) . . . Castelli Gallery . . . great, absolutely great. (Pausing) Mm-hm, did you?
MARY Huh? No, I-I really felt it was very derivative. To me, it looked like it was straight out of Diane Arbus, but it had none of the wit. It was-
IKE (Interrupting) Really? Well, you know, we-we didn’t like ’em as much as the-the Plexiglas sculpture, that I will admit. I mean, it-
MARY (Interrupting) Really, you liked the Plexiglas, huh?
IKE You didn’t like the Plexiglas sculpture either?
MARY (Sighing) Oh, it’s interesting. (Shrugging) Nah, I-uh, I, uh, tsch.
IKE It-it was a hell of a lot better than that-that steel cube. Did you see the steel cube?
TRACY (Overlapping) Oh, yeah, that was the weirdest.
Ike laughs nervously.
MARY Now, that was brilliant to me, absolutely brilliant.
IKE The steel cube was brilliant?
MARY Yes. Uh, to me, it was-it was very textural. You know what I mean? It was perfectly integrated and it had a-a-a marvelous kind of negative capability. The rest of the stuff downstairs was bullshit.
— Manhattan (1979), written by Woody Allen, Marshall Brickman
This week’s Daily Dialogue theme is boy meets girl suggested by TaraPhelps. Today’s suggestion by Jeff Messerman.
Trivia: While talking to Mary in the museum, Issac (Woody Allen) says that the brain is the most overrated body part. While in Allen’s film Sleeper, his character Miles Monroe says that it’s his second favorite body part.
Dialogue On Dialogue: Commentary from Jeff: “Whenever I’m inclined to write the beginnings of relationships in my scripts, I always harken back to this scene. Not exactly the start of a beautiful friendship. In fact, before these two couples part ways for the day, I believe Isaac states that he’d like to “knock her teeth in.” (Takeaway — don’t disparage Bergman around Woody)
Not too long after, Ike and Mary are indeed an ‘item.’
I’m sure we’d all love to believe that romantic relationships begin with rainbows and flutes and unicorns and faeries. But the reality is they often begin much like this…raised brows, nervous laughter, awkward silences.”