Last edited Wed Apr 8, 2020, 12:06 AM - Edit history (2)
Billy Bob Thornton's voiceover (as Ed Crane) in "The Man Who Wasn't There" (Coen Brothers, 2001)
[about his lawyer's courtroom speech] "And then it was Riedenschneider's turn. I gotta hand it to him, he tossed a lot of sand in their eyes. He talked about how I'd lost my place in the universe; how I was too ordinary to be the criminal mastermind the D.A. made me out to be; how there was some greater scheme at work that the state had yet to unravel. And he threw in some of the old "truth" stuff he hadn't had a chance to trot out for [Ed's late wife] Doris. He told them to look at me, look at me close. That the closer they looked, the less sense it would all make; that I wasn't the kind of guy to kill a guy; that I was The Barber, for Chrisssake. I was just like them - an ordinary man. Guilty of living in a world that had no place for me, yeah. GUILTY OF WANTING TO BE A DRY CLEANER, SURE. But not a murderer. He said I *was* modern man, and if they voted to convict me, well, they'd be practically cinching the noose around their own necks. He told them to look, not at the facts, but at the meaning of the facts. Then he said the facts had no meaning. It was a pretty good speech. It even had me going..."
A brilliant (& overlooked) deadpan homage to classic Film Noir.
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