Daily Dialogue — October 5, 2011

JEROME I got it.

EUGENE Of course you got it.

JEROME (VO) And that’s the way it was. Each day I would dispose of as much lose skin and fingernails and hair as possible to limit as much of my invalid self I would leaving the valid world. At the same time Eugine prepared samples of his own superior body matter so that I might pass for him. Customized urine pouches for the frequent substance tests. Fingertip blood sachets for security checks. And vials filled with other traces. While Eugene supplied me with a new identity I paid the rent and kept him in the style which he’d become accustomed. Eugene never suffered from the routine discrimination of a utero — a faith-birth or invalid, as we were called. A vaild, a vetro, a made-man. He suffered under a different burden — the burden of perfection. I was now a member of a relatively new and particularly detested segment of society, one of those who refuses to play the hand that he was dealt. I’m more commonly known as a ‘borrowed ladder’, or a ‘de-generate’.

— Jerome (Ethan Hawke), Eugene (Jude Law), Gattaca (1997), written by Andrew Nichol

The Daily Dialogue theme for the week is great exposition, suggested by Teddy Pasternak. Gattaca suggested by Saint McSaint.

Trivia: The film was shot under the title “The Eighth Day”. This was a reference to the Biblical creation story, which states that the earth was created in six days and on the seventh day, God rested. The original title implies the tampering of man with what God has already made, and “The Eighth Day” is still the name of the center in the movie where the children are engineered, as noted on the DVD deleted scenes. By the time the much-delayed release of the film came around, a Belgian film, The Eighth Day, had already been released in the US under the title “The Eighth Day”. Because of this, writer-director Andrew Niccol was forced to choose a new title for his film.

Dialogue On Dialogue: Why do you consider this great exposition?

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