Scott Joplin (1977)
Billy Dee Williams: Scott Joplin
Quotes
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Belle : I was remembering the time we said we'd marry. Does it embarass you so much to talk about it?
Scott Joplin : Ultimately, you'll see that I was wise not to talk about it.
Belle : You needn't stop talking altogether, you know. I've been made love to before. I know a lot about love. But it wasn't the same with them as it was with you. With you I felt soft and sorry inside. No matter how much you rejected me, I could stand it. Not anymore.
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Scott Joplin : You failed me!
John Stark : Scott, I know how you feel. You were overpowered by the extravagance of sound, the sheer weight of volume. Your music wasn't meant to compete at that level. It was just never heard.
Scott Joplin : Well, it will be heard! If volume is what they want, volume is what they'll get!
John Stark : What are you talking about?
Scott Joplin : I'm going to write an opera.
John Stark : An opera?
Scott Joplin : An opera in ragtime. A ragtime opera.
John Stark : Why?
Scott Joplin : Because it is right! Because it is their music.
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Scott Joplin : 'I got those old Monday blues, those hang-over Sunday blues... '
Chauvin : Jelly Roll Morton.
Scott Joplin : 'If it wasn't for my baby, I'd go crazy from all those wrong things I choose... '
Chauvin : You'd play that stuff. You'd play that stuff for the girls.
Scott Joplin : I sure remember him.
Chauvin : Yeah... 'Let me tell you about that gal of mine, together we seen some very hard times. But a shot of that old gin, my friend, would start us rolling again... '
Scott Joplin , Chauvin : [singing together] 'I don't mind those Monday blues, homes I got the cure, I can't lose. Playing with my heart driven' forward...
Chauvin : Made me forget all the blues.'
Scott Joplin : The blues, yeah.
Chauvin : Yeah.
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Madam Amy : Hey, how about a big last night, Professor?
Scott Joplin : You passin' out favors, Amy?
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Scott Joplin : I am going to be playing here tonight and I don't mind a little bump every now and then, but I do mind - a flat A-flat.
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John Stark : Now, your music, you can play it, you can dance to it, you can listen to it. Can you write it? Can you put it down on paper? Now, most of you people can't. You can improvise. But you can't put it down.
Scott Joplin : Oh, I can write it.
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Scott Joplin : When I was a boy I used to steal my pappy's long pants and go down to the Tenderloin and listen to piano players come down from New Orleans, talk in' about Zulu Balls, Baby Dolls and King Champagne. Smokin' cigars and flingin' money through the air.
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Scott Joplin : Buy a new suit, fancy hat, let the landladies plunk you down on a stool with whiskey and a lot of light-skinned colored women. That's how you make a fiddler out of a violinist, and a strummer out of a pianist.
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Scott Joplin : I'll pamper you disgracefully.
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Scott Joplin : Says there's gonna be royalties. Says - I demonstrate.
Chauvin : What's a royalty?
Left Hand of God : An investment in the proceeds, boy. He proceeds, you invest.
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Scott Joplin : Here I is. Gotta get a pair o' overalls I'll work it out. Ain't gonna run off, no talk 'bout that, 'cause I's a good workin' nigger.
John Stark : Oh, to be a black piano player in a brothel in the United States of America who could have a care? Playin' for pimps, prostitutes and alcoholics.
Scott Joplin : Man's only in this world once.
John Stark : If he doesn't die of whiskey or syphilis before he's 40!
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John Stark : Scott, I'm goin' to New York. Go with me. There's a new musical theater there.
Scott Joplin : Vaudeville! Jigtime piano!
John Stark : You haven't even looked it over!
Scott Joplin : They may talk of dandy niggers, but they never see this coon a-promenadin' Broadway on a Sunday afternoon. Do I genuflect or kneel?
