Educating Rita (1983)

Michael Caine: Dr. Frank Bryant

Photos 

Quotes 

• [Rita is being nosy about Frank's marriage] 

  Dr. Frank Bryant : We split up, Rita, because of poetry.

  Rita : You what?

  Dr. Frank Bryant : One day, my wife explained to me that, for the past fifteen years, my output as a poet had dealt entirely with the part of our lives in which we discovered each other.

  Rita : Are you a poet?

  Dr. Frank Bryant : Was. And so, to give me something new to write about, she left me. A very noble woman, my wife - she left me for the good of literature. And remarkably it worked.

  Rita : What, you wrote a lot of good stuff, did ya?

  Dr. Frank Bryant : No. I stopped writing altogether.

• Dr. Frank Bryant : Did you know that Macbeth was a maggoty apple? Not many people know that!

• Dr. Frank Bryant : Found a culture, have you Rita? Found a better song to sing? No, you found a *different* song to sing, and on your lips it's shrill and hollow and tuneless.

• [Rita discovers Frank packing all his books into crates] 

  Rita : Have they sacked you?

  Dr. Frank Bryant : Not quite.

  Rita : Oh... Why are you packing your books up?

  Dr. Frank Bryant : Well, I made rather a night of it last night, so they're, uh... they're giving me a holiday. Two years in Australia.

  Rita : Did you bugger the Bursar?

  Dr. Frank Bryant : Metaphorically.

• Dr. Frank Bryant : What does it say?

  Rita : Right. I've passed. Now will you get on that bloody plane?

  Dr. Frank Bryant : Let me see. You've passed with distinction. I'm proud of you, Rita.

  Rita : I'm proud of both of us.

• [Frank has just been officially reprimanded for being drunk while giving a lecture] 

  Dr. Frank Bryant : Sod them, eh, Rita! Sod them!

  Rita : Will they sack you?

  Dr. Frank Bryant : Good God no. That would involve making a decision. Pissed is all right. To get the sack, it would have to be rape on a grand scale. And not just with students, either. That would only amount to a slight misdemeanour. No, for dismissal it would have to be nothing less than buggering the Bursar.

• [last lines] 

  [Rita is saying goodbye to Frank at the airport departure gate] 

  Rita : Frank.

  Dr. Frank Bryant : What?

  Rita : Thanks.

• Rita : I just... wanted to tell someone who'd understand.

  Dr. Frank Bryant : Rita, I am honored that you chose me.

• Brian : Yes, well, apparently you were a little... drunk at your tutorial today.

  Dr. Frank Bryant : No.

  Brian : No?

  Dr. Frank Bryant : No. I was a lot drunk.

  Brian : Oh, Frank, why do you do it? When you've got... well, what haven't you got?

  Dr. Frank Bryant : A drink at the moment.

• Collins : Doctor Bryant, I don't think you're listening to me.

  Dr. Frank Bryant : Mr Collins, I don't think you're saying anything to me.

  Collins : Doctor, are you drunk?

  Dr. Frank Bryant : Drunk? Of course I'm drunk. You don't really expect me to teach this when I'm sober.

  Collins : [angrily bundling his books together]  Then you won't mind if I leave your tutorial.

  Dr. Frank Bryant : Why should I mind?

• Dr. Frank Bryant : Morgan? Fuck off!

• Dr. Frank Bryant : In reply to the question "Suggest how you would resolve the staging difficulties inherent in a production of Ibsen's Peer Gynt", you have written, quote: "Do it on the radio." Unquote.

• Rita : Do you think you did nothing for me? You think I just ended up with a load of quotes and empty phrases. Well, all right, I did. But that wasn't your doing. I was too hungry for it all. I didn't question anything. I wanted it all too much, so I wouldn't let it be questioned. Told you that I was stupid.

  Dr. Frank Bryant : You're not stupid.

  Rita : Listen, if I say I'm stupid, then I'm stupid, okay? So don't argue!

• [first lines] 

  [Frank walks on campus and addresses some students] 

  Dr. Frank Bryant : Good afternoon.

• Dr. Frank Bryant : You really can't bear to spend a moment with me now, can you?

  Rita : Frank, that is not true. It's just that tonight, I've got to go to the theatre.

  Dr. Frank Bryant : As I was saying, if you want to stop coming...

  Rita : Oh, for Christ's sake, Frank, I don't want to stop comin'! I've got to keep comin'. What about me exam?

  Dr. Frank Bryant : Oh, I shouldn't worry about that. You'd, uh, sail through it anyway. You really don't have to put in the odd appearance out of sentimentality. I'd rather you spared me that.

  [he downs a glass of whiskey] 

  Rita : If you could stop pouring that junk down your throat, in the hope that it'll make you feel like a poet, you might be able to talk about things that matter, instead of where I do and don't work. And it might actually be worth turnin' up.