Metropolitan, 1990

 

 

 

"Nick Smith: The cha cha is no more ridiculous than life itself."

 

 

"Fred Neff: Men are dates, date substitutes or potential dates. I find that dehumanizing."

 

"Nick Smith: Rick Von Slonecker is tall, rich, good looking, stupid, dishonest, 

conceited, a bully, liar, drunk and thief, an egomaniac, and probably psychotic. 

In short, highly attractive to women."

 

 

"Charlie Black: I can't believe you don't have a driver's license.
Tom Townsend: Of course I don't. I live in Manhattan."

 

"Tom Townsend: You don't have to read a book to have an opinion."

"Nick Smith: I've always planned to be a failure anyway, that's why I plan to marry an extremely wealthy woman."

 

"Jane Clark: Whatever. And, that you're completely impossible and out of control, with some sort of drug problem and a fixation on what you consider Rick Von Sloneker's wickedness. You're a snob, a sexist, totally obnoxious, and tiresome. And lately, you've gotten just weird. Why should we believe anything you say?
Nick Smith: I'm not tiresome."

 

 

 

 

"Man at Bar: The acid test is whether you take any pleasure in responding to the question "What do you do?" I can't bear it."

 

 

 

"Audrey Rouget: What Jane Austen novels have you read?
Tom Townsend: None. I don't read novels. I prefer good literary criticism. That way you get both the novelists' ideas as well as the critics' thinking. With fiction I can never forget that none of it really happened, that it's all just made up by the author."

 

 

 

 

"Tom Townsend: I've never been this drunk before. 

The problem is, with Fred no longer drinking, I can't pace myself."

 

"Nick Smith: Playing strip poker with an exhibitionist somehow takes the challenge away."

 

 

 

"Tom Townsend: He seems less pessimistic than you.
Charlie Black: I know: it doesn't ring true."

 

 

 

 

"Nick Smith: The most important thing to realize about parents is that there is absolutely nothing you can do about them."

 

 

 

"Serena Slocum: I didn't save your letters but I didn't throw them away.
Tom Townsend: I don't understand, is that a riddle?"

 

 

 

 

"Cynthia McLean: Is our language so impoverished that we have to use acronyms of French phrases to make ourselves understood?
Nick Smith: Yes."

 

 

 

"Nick Smith: Tom's hardly a phoney. Just mildly deluded. He's a perfectly nice guy.
Charlie Black: That's just another aspect of his phoniness. He's a terrible phoney, and when he's not being a phoney, he's a bastard.
Nick Smith: Oh, come on."

 

 

 

"Nick Smith: I guess you could say it's extremely vulgar, I like it a lot."

Metropolitan, 1990

Barcelona, 1994

"Fred: You are far weirder than someone merely into S&M. 

At least they have a tradition. We have some idea what S&M is about. 

There are movies and books about it. But so far as I know, there is nothing to explain the way you are."

"Ted: Here in Barcelona, everything was swept aside. The world was turned upside down and stayed there.
Fred: Has it ever occurred to you that maybe the world was upside down before, and now it's right side up?"

"Marta: You seem very intelligent for an American.
Fred: Well, I'm not."

"Ted: Positive thinking is fine in theory. 
But whenever I try it on a systematic basis... I end up really depressed."

"Fred: And one of the things that keeps popping up is this about "subtext." Plays, novels, songs - they all have a "subtext," which I take to mean a hidden message or import of some kind. So subtext we know. 

But what do you call the message or meaning that's right there on the surface, completely open and obvious? They never talk about that. 
What do you call what's above the subtext?
Ted: The text."

"Ted: You see, that's one of the great things about getting involved with someone from another country. You can't take it personally.
What's really terrific is that when we act in ways which might objectively seem asshole-ish or, or, incredibly annoying, they don't get upset at all. 
They don't take it personally. They just assume it's some national characteristic."

"Fred: They're calling us pigs. That's meant to hurt!

 

"You can't say Americans are not more violent than other people. All those people killed in shootings in America?
Fred: Oh, shootings, yes. But that doesn't mean Americans are more violent than other people. We're just better shots."

"Ted: Spanish girls tend to be really promiscuous.
Fred: You're such a prig.
Ted: No, I wasn't using 'promiscuous' pejoratively. It's just a fact. They have completely different attitudes toward sex.
Fred: Well, I wasn't using 'prig' pejoratively."

Whit Stillman,  filmmaker extraordinaire

More views & reads:

Barcelona original trailer [click to view]

Stillman's 2011 project,12 years in the making

Barcelona, 1994