SACHA PFEIFFER, HOST:
Maybe you've heard this movie quote before.
(SOUNDBITE OF FILM, "TAXI DRIVER")
ROBERT DE NIRO: (As Travis Bickle) You talking to me? You talking to me?
PFEIFFER: Or this one.
(SOUNDBITE OF FILM, "THE GODFATHER")
MARLON BRANDO: (As Don Vito Corleone) I'm going to make him an offer he can't refuse.
PFEIFFER: Or this one.
(SOUNDBITE OF FILM, "WHEN HARRY MET SALLY")
ESTELLE REINER: (As Older Woman Customer) I'll have what she's having.
PFEIFFER: Even if you haven't seen "When Harry Met Sally" or "The Godfather" or "Taxi Driver," you've probably heard those quotes somewhere before, maybe in other movies, TV shows, commercials or just from family and friends. Some of the most iconic lines for movies become part of everyday conversation. But are movies still generating memorable lines? With us to talk about that are two of NPR's biggest movie fans, editor Barrie Hardymon and ALL THINGS CONSIDERED producer Marc Rivers, who produces these weekly movie talks. Hi to both of you.
BARRIE HARDYMON, BYLINE: Hi.
MARC RIVERS, BYLINE: Hey, Sacha.
PFEIFFER: I want to plunge right into this and hear what each of you consider some of the most famous movie quotes of all time and why.
RIVERS: Well, I think you can kind of make two buckets, like most famous quotes for film buffs and then most famous quotes for everybody that anybody will know even if they've never seen the movie that you're referring to.
HARDYMON: You can tell that Marc is the former.
(LAUGHTER)
RIVERS: I am the former. Sorry, not sorry. And some that come to mind immediately, I think about Al Pacino as Tony Montana, you know, waging his last stand when he says this...
(SOUNDBITE OF FILM, "SCARFACE")
AL PACINO: (As Tony Montana) Say hello to my little friend.
RIVERS: ...Or another one, Arnold Schwarzenegger as the Terminator.
(SOUNDBITE OF FILM, "THE TERMINATOR")
ARNOLD SCHWARZENEGGER: (As Terminator) I'll be back.
RIVERS: And to go even earlier, 1969's "Midnight Cowboy" - Dustin Hoffman as the hustler Ratso, when he almost gets hit by a taxi, and he says this.
(SOUNDBITE OF FILM, "MIDNIGHT COWBOY")
DUSTIN HOFFMAN: (As Ratso) I'm walking here.
(SOUNDBITE OF HORN HONKING)
HOFFMAN: (As Ratso) I'm walking here.
RIVERS: My girlfriend has quoted that to me all the time, and I've asked her, you know, oh, have you seen "Midnight Cowboy"? And she says, what's "Midnight Cowboy"?
(LAUGHTER)
RIVERS: So, you know, there - I mean, there's so many quotes we can talk about, right? I mean, "may the Force be with you," "Star Wars," you know, "go ahead, make my day," you know, Clint Eastwood - there's so many iconic quotes.
PFEIFFER: By the way, Barrie, before you tell us yours, in terms of not knowing where quotes came from, I'm embarrassed to tell you that until I started prepping for this, I didn't realize that "as if" came from "Clueless."
RIVERS: Oof.
PFEIFFER: That is just so out there.
RIVERS: You've deeply hurt Barrie just now.
(LAUGHTER)
HARDYMON: No. No, I'm OK. That's fine.
PFEIFFER: Barrie, which ones do you love?
HARDYMON: Well, I actually would have said "as if."
(LAUGHTER)
HARDYMON: "Clueless" was very important to me.
(SOUNDBITE OF FILM, "CLUELESS")
ALICIA SILVERSTONE: (As Cher) Ew, get off of me. Ugh, as if.
HARDYMON: But I will say, like, I was raised on old movies and, like, a certain kind of dame. So mine growing up, we're sort of in the Mae West category.
RIVERS: Oh, yes (ph).
HARDYMON: And my real favorite one that I love to say all the time - as a child, a young adult and still now - is Bette Davis' famous line from "All About Eve" when she says...
(SOUNDBITE OF FILM, "ALL ABOUT EVE")
BETTE DAVIS: (As Margo) Fasten your seat belts. It's going to be a bumpy night.
HARDYMON: That for me is sort of the pinnacle. But I also - here's the other thing. There is no line in "The Godfather" that I don't want to say again the minute I have seen Marlon Brando or Robert De Niro or Al Pacino say it. I immediately want to take a gun and leave a cannoli.
(LAUGHTER)
HARDYMON: Immediately. Every single thing is good in that movie.
PFEIFFER: I feel like sometimes we think catchy lines only come from recent movies but, I mean, "Gone With The Wind," 1939...
RIVERS: Oh, sure.
PFEIFFER: ..."Frankly, my dear, I don't give a d***," or "Wizard Of Oz," "there's no place like home." Of course, "Gone With The Wind" did start with the book. But for as long as we've had movies, we've had famous quotes. And I actually wonder whether you think that when the writers write these movies, they know the lines are going to land that way. How often are they manufactured and how often are they organic?
RIVERS: Yeah. You know, I think, you know, you think - I think about writers like Preston Sturges or Billy Wilder or Ernest Lehman, who could - you know, who've forgotten more witty lines than most screenwriters today could write a witty line. But a lot of the time, it's - you know, it's happenstance. It's improv. We heard "you talking to me" from De Niro up top. And that was an improved line. In the script for "Taxi Driver" from Paul Schrader, it just had De Niro's Travis Bickle - it just said, talk in the mirror.
HARDYMON: Mae West, apparently, actually wrote and improved most of her lines.
RIVERS: Absolutely, yeah. And, you know, "you're going to need a bigger boat" from Roy Scheider in "Jaws," that was a line - you know, when he first sees the shark, that was the line that Roy Scheider improved. I think about a classic last line from a movie - "Some Like It Hot" from Billy Wilder when Jack Lemmon, disguised as a woman, he reveals to his would-be suitor that he is a man, and Joe E. Brown says...
(SOUNDBITE OF FILM, "SOME LIKE IT HOT")
JOE E BROWN: (As Osgood Fielding III) Well, nobody's perfect.
RIVERS: That was a placeholder until Billy Wilder and his cowriter could figure out something better to write. But they never figured anything out. And now - and that's one of the great last lines in a movie. So I think these writers never know what is going to hit. And also, yeah, a lot of time, it's just improv on the fly.
HARDYMON: Yeah. I mean, that's the thing. It's all lightning in a bottle, right?
RIVERS: Yeah.
HARDYMON: Because the movie comes out at a moment - the movie has to meet the moment.
RIVERS: Yeah.
HARDYMON: So the writing has to meet the moment. The acting has to meet the moment. The images have to meet the moment, and the writing is really an important part of that.
RIVERS: Yeah.
HARDYMON: So who knows, you know?
PFEIFFER: Yeah. I was thinking recently about "Field Of Dreams" - "if you build it, they will come." I mean, to me, that line - I use that line sometimes. And I found myself wondering, why do some of them land? What is it that makes them quotable? What are your theories on why some have that impact, and they just end up sometimes for decades becoming part of the lexicon?
RIVERS: I don't...
HARDYMON: (Inaudible).
RIVERS: I don't want to correct you, Sacha, but it's actually - "if you build it, he will come." But it's - that's one of those, like, kind of commonly misquoted lines, just like, you know, "play it again, Sam" in "Casablanca." That's not the real line. I think about a line like "Field Of Dreams," and I mean, it's kind of the mantra, the thesis statement of the movie, you know? Like, it's about the allure of baseball. But I also think - I think about, like, iconic quotes from the '70s that they kind of reflected or embodied the attitude of that era. You know, in 1976's "Network," Peter Finch is this, like, disgruntled anchorman who says...
(SOUNDBITE OF FILM, "NETWORK")
HOWARD BEALE: (As Peter Finch) I'm as mad as hell, and I'm not going to take this anymore.
RIVERS: Or when Al Pacino in "Dog Day Afternoon" is screaming, Attica, Attica.
(SOUNDBITE OF FILM, "DOG DAY AFTERNOON")
PACINO: (As Sonny, yelling) Attica. Attica. Attica.
RIVERS: These lines reflect or embodied the antiestablishment and rebellious nature of that period in American history. Similarly, in the '80s, I can't think of a better line that embodies that, like - you know, the Reaganomics, greedy era of the '80s than that line from "Wall Street" that Michael Douglas says.
(SOUNDBITE OF FILM, "WALL STREET")
MICHAEL DOUGLAS: (As Gordon Gekko) Greed, for lack of a better word, is good.
RIVERS: So yeah, so I think some of these quotes, they just - they can reflect the attitudes of the times that they were produced in.
HARDYMON: So, I will say, I do feel like, when I think about why movies' quotes become viral or popular in the culture, I would sort of divide them into three categories. And one is that, I would say, what it tells us about the character.
RIVERS: Yeah.
HARDYMON: And if it tells us something about the character that makes us feel kind of good or the same - like, you know, it's fun to say, fasten your seat belt, let's have a bumpy night. You know, it's kind of...
RIVERS: (Laughter).
HARDYMON: You know, those are sort of a thing you can identify with. But then the other thing is, is how does it make us feel and how does it make us feel when we say it ourselves? And can we - and is that the same as the movie? Often, it's actually not. So it's sort of like there's both the quote as it exists in the movie, but then there's the quote how it exists in the culture. And sometimes it's literally we are just saying the thing to say to the person across from us, I connect with you. You and I both like the same things.
RIVERS: Yeah. Yeah, it's like an inside joke that we can all kind of share, you know, as a collective. Yeah.
HARDYMON: Exactly. And the same - that's how culture has been forever. And so I think beyond whatever the movie represents, which Marc is quite right about, I do think there is also this kind of thing where it's like, how does it make us feel in general? And that's an important - that's a really important line.
PFEIFFER: Yeah. So without disclosing all of our ages, Barrie, you're Gen X. Marc, I think you're a millennial.
RIVERS: Correct.
PFEIFFER: And Barrie, I know your sons. I think one of them is Gen Z, yeah? He's, like, an early teen?
HARDYMON: I got a Z and an Alpha.
PFEIFFER: So for the Z's and the Alphas...
HARDYMON: Generation Alpha, he's actually sort of a beta.
(LAUGHTER)
HARDYMON: Just kidding.
PFEIFFER: What do you hear from them? Do you feel like they identify differently with movie lines? Do you ever hear them saying anything?
HARDYMON: Well, yes, and this is something we do know from, you know, research. Like, Gen Z actually really likes movies, you know? They go to the movies, but they - when they go to the movie, they want it to be an event...
RIVERS: Yeah.
HARDYMON: ...Which doesn't actually lend itself to quotes. But it does lend itself to more of a "Rocky Horror"-type experience, right? And so, "Wicked" is an example of this, "The Minecraft Movie (ph)," you know...
RIVERS: Chicken jockey (laughter).
HARDYMON: ...Extremely - exactly. And the funny thing is, is that I actually - I asked my older one the other day if there's a movie quote he could think of that he liked. And he said, I don't know what it's from, but it's like this teacher, and he's saying, like, you really got to seize the day.
(LAUGHTER)
HARDYMON: And I was like, oh, yes, my young Latin student. It is, indeed, carpe diem, and I guess we should watch "Dead Poets Society." But so what he has, you know, encountered is that clip of Robin Williams saying it a million times.
RIVERS: Yeah.
HARDYMON: These things do get - they take on this life of their own that's actually quite separate from the movies, which kind of makes sense, I feel like, with Gen Z. A lot of these memes are - the whole point is that they are kind of...
RIVERS: It's pulled out of context, yeah.
HARDYMON: ...Disconnected from context. That's...
RIVERS: It's a contextless (ph) space.
HARDYMON: Exactly. You know, in the world of 6-7, of course, there's a random...
RIVERS: I still don't know what that means.
HARDYMON: ...Line from - you don't even need to 'cause it's over now.
RIVERS: Yeah (laughter).
PFEIFFER: Do the two of you think that movies are being quoted from as often today as they used to, or is it kind of a dying habit?
HARDYMON: I think more.
RIVERS: Yeah, it's an interesting question. I think movies are being quoted in different ways, and Barrie kind of already got at this. You know, I think I see so many memes and gifs from "Wolf Of Wall Street," you know, Leonardo DiCaprio dancing in that movie, or "Captain Phillips" when the pirate says...
(SOUNDBITE OF FILM, "CAPTAIN PHILLIPS")
BARKHAD ABDI: (As Muse) I'm the captain now.
RIVERS: I see that image of that pirate all across social media. So I think we're still quoting these films, but where we're quoting them online, and we're quoting them visually now through these memes and gifs. And it's happening at a really rapid pace.
HARDYMON: Yeah, I think that's right.
PFEIFFER: That's NPR's Barrie Hardymon and Marc Rivers. Thank you.
HARDYMON: Thank you.
RIVERS: Thank you.
PFEIFFER: By the way, the actual line from "Casablanca" is "play it, Sam" - in case you want to quote the movie.
(SOUNDBITE OF MUSIC) Transcript provided by NPR, Copyright NPR.
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