Clean Slate (1981)

Philippe Noiret: Lucien Cordier

Photos 

Quotes 

• Lucien Cordier : Do you know why dogs sniff each other's butts? When dogs still ruled the world, they held a convention to vote new laws. The head dog said: "I suggest that due to poor hygiene here, our assholes we leave at the door." The dogs agreed and de-assholed. But just then, a tornado blew in and mixed all the assholes up. Not one dog recognized his own. Ever since, they smell each other's asses. And it'll go on till the end of time.

• Lucien Cordier : Do you know the question no one can answer? The big question?

  George Le Peron : Go ahead.

  Lucien Cordier : When you scratch your balls, is it 'cause they itch, or 'cause it feels good?

• Lucien Cordier : I'm not a policeman, George. I'm Jesus Christ in person, sent here with a load of crosses, each bigger than the next.

  George Le Peron : I see.

  Lucien Cordier : I try to save the innocent but there aren't any. All crimes are collective. We contribute to each other's crimes. We all shot your brother. And maybe I did a bit more than my share.

• [Le Peron and Leonelli are shooting at corpses floating in the river] 

  Lucien Cordier : What are you hunting?

  Leonelli : Nothing, jerk. We're shooting stiffs.

  Le Peron : Doesn't bother them and it's fun for us. When dysentery's cured, we'll find a new sport.

• Le Peron : You can always be bribed.

  Lucien Cordier : I've got no choice. First, I'm underpaid; second, my wife takes all my money; and third, fining you is practically a civic duty.

• Anne : I'm the new schoolteacher of Bourkassa.

  Lucien Cordier : That's a fine profession. A vocation, I'd say. Thanks to you, black children will be able to read their daddy's name on French war memorials.

• Priest : You'll never arrest anybody. How can they respect you? You've got to show folks you're brave, honest, and hard-working. Here, hold this.

  [Lucien Cordier holds down a statue of Christ while the Priest nails it to a cross] 

  Lucien Cordier : I can't.

  Priest : Why not?

  Lucien Cordier : First, because I'm not brave, honest, and hard-working, and second, because I don't think my bosses want me to be.

  Priest : How come?

  Lucien Cordier : If they wanted someone brave, honest, and hard-working, they wouldn't have hired me.

• [Vendredi realizes that Lucien Cordier intends to kill him] 

  Lucien Cordier : What's wrong? You know I have to.

  Vendredi : But Captain, I trusted you. You're different from other white men.

  Lucien Cordier : There's your mistake.

• Lucien Cordier : Didn't your regiment squash the peanut pickers' revolt?

  George Le Peron : Sure did.

  Lucien Cordier : It sure took guts. All those niggers armed with clubs. And all you had was machine guns.

• Lucien Cordier : I'm exhausted, Rose.

  Rose : Sleep is all you do.

  Lucien Cordier : It's the best thing besides eating. When you eat or sleep, you forget about the things you can't solve. Think about it. You'll see I'm right.

  Rose : Thinking's not what I need.

• [Rose realizes she is wanted for murder] 

  Rose : You have to help me. I can't take it. What can I do?

  Lucien Cordier : How the hell do I know? Any idiot can see they were shot with your gun.

  Rose : But that's horrible!

  Lucien Cordier : At first it is horrible. But then you start to think about starving kids, little girls sold into slavery, women whose sex is sewn up... God created murder out of pure kindness. Murder is nothing compared to those horrors.

• Lucien Cordier : I can't read the aviator's book. It's too well-written.

  Anne : You like sounding illiterate? You're not. So why?

  Lucien Cordier : Habit. Grammar gets rusty like everything else if you don't use it. And in Africa the same goes for good and evil. What's good? What's evil? Nobody knows. It's not much use here. So it gets rusty too. Must be the climate.

• Marcel Chevasson : Next time your two pimps start up, kick 'em as hard as you can in the balls.

  Lucien Cordier : But that'll hurt a lot!

  Marcel Chevasson : You gotta have good shoes...

  Paulo : ...with no holes in the toes.

• Lucien Cordier : They say we are made in God's image though if that were true I wouldn't want to meet him in a dark alley!

• Lucien Cordier : We've got to laugh in this world, or else we'd shoot ourselves.

• Le Peron : You've got nothing to do around here.

  Lucien Cordier : Doing nothing is my job. I'm paid for it.

  Le Peron : So go do nothing somewhere else.

• [Marcel Chevasson is bragging about how he dealt with two offenders] 

  Marcel Chevasson : Where do you think they are now?

  Lucien Cordier : In jail?

  Marcel Chevasson : Someday you'll learn a coffin costs the state less than a man in a cell, old chum.

• [Lucien Cordier shoots Marcaillou and then kicks him as he lies on the ground] 

  Lucien Cordier : Kicking a dying man isn't very nice. But first, I wanted to, and second, it's no risk. This hurts me more than you.

  [Lucien Cordier kicks Marcaillou again] 

• Lucien Cordier : I do things without thinking. Later I understand. I never plan ahead.

• Rose : Having you is an honor. Killing my husband for love.

  Lucien Cordier : No, I was just getting rid of trash. The trash also happened to be your husband.

  Rose : There's a lot of trash around.

  Lucien Cordier : There'll be less and less. Had to start somewhere.

• Lucien Cordier : We all kill what we love.

• Lucien Cordier : Better the blind man who pisses out the window than the joker who told him it was a urinal. Know who the joker is? It's everybody.

• Lucien Cordier : You kissed too much white ass. You asked to get fucked. This is what I do with friends like you.

  [Lucien Cordier shoots Friday] 

• Lucien Cordier : Can you excuse a pole for filling a hole? It may squash some rabbits, but is it the pole's fault if it fits that hole?

  George Le Peron : But a pole is an inanimate object.

  Lucien Cordier : Aren't we all more or less inanimate?

  George Le Peron : What do you mean?

  Lucien Cordier : Who knows!

• Lucien Cordier : You'll manage. I'm sure of that. You could make a mint just doing what you like best, which you do better than any woman I know. And since we'll probably never see each other again, I'll be glad to bang you one last time, even though you're a fugitive.

• Marcaillou : You gonna arrest me for clubbing a nigger?

  Lucien Cordier : No, not exactly. The main thing is the board. Marcaillou The board? Lucien Cordier Yeah, covering that hole there. What if somebody fell in and broke his leg? It'd be your fault.

  Marcaillou : So?

  Lucien Cordier : So, since nobody did, I'll let you off this time.

• Le Peron : The brothel's throwing a party for the new colonel. Got any prisoners who can wait on table?

  Lucien Cordier : You know I never arrest anyone unless I have to. I have enough troubles of my own.

  Leonelli : What good is an empty prison?

• [Rose has just killed Huguette and Nono] 

  Rose : You saw everything?

  Lucien Cordier : Let's say I heard everything.

  Rose : And you did nothing?

  Lucien Cordier : Why should I have done something?

  Rose : Why... to stop me.

  Lucien Cordier : It wasn't up to me to stop you. It was up to you, to Huguette, Nono, Marcaillou. If I put temptation in front of you, it's not a reason to use it. I just help folks reveal their true character. It's a dirty job, Rose. And I deserve all the dirty pleasure I get out of it.

  Rose : You're not ashamed?

  Lucien Cordier : Part of my job is enjoying other folks' misery.