I'm Not There. Quotes
Ruminations on the life of Bob Dylan, where six characters embody a different aspect of the musician's life and work.
Arthur: Seven simple rules of going into hiding: one, never trust a cop in a raincoat. Two, beware of enthusiasm and of love, both are temporary and quick to sway. Three, if asked if you care about the world's problems, look deep into the eyes of he who asks, he will never ask you again. Four, never give your real name. Five, if ever asked to look at yourself, dont. Six, never do anything the person standing in front of you cannot understand. And finlly seven, never create anything, it will be misinterpreted, it will chain you and follow you for the rest of your life.
Billy the Kid: People are always talking about freedom. Freedom to live a certain way, without being kicked around. Course the more you live a certain way, the less it feel like freedom. Me, uhm, I can change during the course of a day. I wake and I'm one person, when I go to sleep I know for certain I'm somebody else. I don't know who I am most of the time.
[first lines]
Narrator: There he lies. God rest his soul, and his rudeness. A devouring public can now share the remains of his sickness, and his phone numbers. There he lay: poet, prophet, outlaw, fake, star of electricity. Nailed by a peeping tom, who would soon discover...
Jude: A poem is like a naked person...
Narrator:
Arthur: ...but a song is something that walks by itself.
Narrator: There he lies. God rest his soul, and his rudeness. A devouring public can now share the remains of his sickness, and his phone numbers. There he lay: poet, prophet, outlaw, fake, star of electricity. Nailed by a peeping tom, who would soon discover...
Jude: A poem is like a naked person...
Narrator:
Arthur: ...but a song is something that walks by itself.
Woody Guthrie: [the jump cut into this scene occurs after Hobo Joe or Hobo Moe has, apparently, asked the 11-year-old African American boy who call himself Woody Guthrie where he's from] Well, Missouri, originally. A little town called Riddle.
Hobo Joe: [the rest of this dialogue is an almost exact paraphrase of dialogue from the 1957 film, A Face in the Crowd] Uh, is there really a town called Riddle?
Woody Guthrie: Well, tell you the flat truth, it's just a sort of a whatchamacallit, a...
Hobo Joe: ...A composite.
Woody Guthrie: Compost heap's more like it.
Hobo Joe: [the rest of this dialogue is an almost exact paraphrase of dialogue from the 1957 film, A Face in the Crowd] Uh, is there really a town called Riddle?
Woody Guthrie: Well, tell you the flat truth, it's just a sort of a whatchamacallit, a...
Hobo Joe: ...A composite.
Woody Guthrie: Compost heap's more like it.
Jude: You know, saying 'cause of peace', it's like saying, 'hunk of butter', you know, I don't want you to listen to anybody who wants you to believe is dedicated to the hunk and not the butter.
Reporter: I'm not sure I follow.
Jude: You know, I didn't come out of some cereal box. There's no one out there who's gonna be converted by a song.
Reporter: I'm not sure I follow.
Jude: You know, I didn't come out of some cereal box. There's no one out there who's gonna be converted by a song.
Jude: Doesn't really matter, you know, what kind of nasty names people invent for the music. But, uh, folk music is just a word, you know, that I can't use anymore. What I'm talking about is traditional music, right, which is to say it's mathematical music, it's based on hexagons. But all these songs about, you know, roses growing out of people's brains and lovers who are really geese and swans are turning into angels - I mean, you know, they're not going to die. They're not folk music songs. They're political songs. They're already dead. You'd think that these traditional music people would - would gather that mystery, you know, is a traditional fact, you know, seeing as they're all so full of mystery.
Keenan Jones: And contradictions.
Jude: Yeah, contradictions.
Keenan Jones: And chaos.
Jude: Yes, it's chaos, clocks, and watermelons - you know, it's - it's everything. These people actually think I have some kind of, uh... fantastic imagination. It gets very, uh, lonesome. But traditional music is just, uh... it's too unreal to die. It doesn't need to be protected. You know, I mean, in that music is the only true valid death you can feel today, you know, off a record player. But like everything else in great demand, people try to own it. Has to do with, like, uh, the purity thing. I think its meaninglessness is holy. Everybody knows I'm not a folk singer.
Keenan Jones: And contradictions.
Jude: Yeah, contradictions.
Keenan Jones: And chaos.
Jude: Yes, it's chaos, clocks, and watermelons - you know, it's - it's everything. These people actually think I have some kind of, uh... fantastic imagination. It gets very, uh, lonesome. But traditional music is just, uh... it's too unreal to die. It doesn't need to be protected. You know, I mean, in that music is the only true valid death you can feel today, you know, off a record player. But like everything else in great demand, people try to own it. Has to do with, like, uh, the purity thing. I think its meaninglessness is holy. Everybody knows I'm not a folk singer.
Jack Rollins: [looking up in the sky] It's hard not to go to Hell.There's so many distractions,so many influences.Start walking right and pretty soon,there's someone gonna drag you down.Sure as we're living,sure as we're born,look up,look up,
[there are three angels in the sky with trumpets]
Jack Rollins: Gabriel blows his horn.
[there are three angels in the sky with trumpets]
Jack Rollins: Gabriel blows his horn.
