The Legend of 1900 (1998)
Pruitt Taylor Vince: Max
Photos
Quotes
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Max : You're never really done for, as long as you've got a good story and someone to tell it to.
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[last lines]
'Pops', the Shopkeeper : [returning his pawned trumpet] A good story's worth more than an old trumpet.
Max : Okay Pops.
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1900 : Hey, Max, gimme a cigarette, will you?
Max : [bitterly] You're not handling this well.
1900 : [calmly] Just gimme a cigarette.
Max : [matter of factly] You don't smoke. What is the matter with you? You could lick this guy with one hand, come on!
1900 : [getting agitated] You gonna gimme a cigarette?
Max : [emphatically] We're gonna be chucking coal a couple a hundred years and all you can say is...
1900 : Give me a *fucking* cigarette, will you?
[Max throws him a cigarette angrily]
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Max : Sometimes that is the way you have to do it: you go right back to the beginning.
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Max : What the hell do you think about when you're playing? Where does your mind go when you hit the keys?
1900 : Last night I was in a beautiful country. Women had perfume in their hair, everything glowed. It was full of tides.
Max : He traveled. And each time he ended up some place different. In the heart of London, on a train in the middle of the country, on the edge of a giant volcano, in the biggest church in the world, countin' the columns and staring up at the crucifixes. He traveled.
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[first lines]
Max : I still ask myself if I did the right thing when I abandoned his floating city. And I don't mean only for the work. The fact is, a friend like that, a real friend - you won't meet one again. If you just decide to hang up your sea legs, if you just want to feel something more solid beneath your feet - and it's then you no longer hear the music of the gods around you. But, like he used to say, you're never really done for, as long as you got a good story, and someone to tell it to. Trouble is, nobody'd believe a single word of my story.
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Max : Leave the ship, marry a nice woman, and have children. All those things in life which are not immense but are worth the effort.
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Max : His music was made of notes that were everything but normal.
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Max : [on deck of ship] It happened every time. Someone would look up, and see her. It's difficult to understand. There'd be more than a thousand of us on that ship, traveling rich folks, immigrants, and strange people, and us; yet there was always *one*, one guy alone, who would see her first. Maybe he was just sitting there eating, or walking on the deck, maybe he was just fixing his pants. He'd look up for a second, a quick glance out to sea, and he'd *see* her. Then he'd just stand there, rooted to the spot, his heart racing. And every time, *every* *damn* *time* I swear, he'd turn to us, towards the ship, towards everybody, and *scream*.
Passenger : [pointing] America!
Crowd : [everyone turns to see the Statue of Liberty, and break out in cheers]
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Max : Oh you can get off the ship alright, but the ocean?
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Max : I often thought about him during the war; if only 1900 were here, who knows what he'd do, what he'd say. 'Fuck war' he'd say. But somehow, coming from me, it wasn't the same.
