Babylon (I) (2022)

Jean Smart: Elinor St. John

Photos 

Quotes 

• Elinor St. John : In a hundred years, when you and I are both long gone, any time someone threads a frame of yours through a sprocket, you will be alive again. You see what that means? One day, every person on every film shot this year will be dead. And one day, all those films will be pulled from the vaults, and all their ghosts will dine together, and adventure together, go to the jungle, to war together. A child born in 50 years will stumble across your image flickering on a screen and feel he knows you, like... like a friend, though you breathed your last before he breathed his first. You've been given a gift. Be grateful. Your time today is through, but you'll spend eternity with angels and ghosts.

• Jack Conrad : Elinor, you peddle gossip. You don't make anything. You don't know what it is to put yourself out there. You're just a cockroach. I've been counted out before. This isn't new to me.

  Elinor St. John : Have you ever stopped to think why, when there's a house fire, the people die and the cockroaches all survive?

  Jack Conrad : Jesus Christ.

  Elinor St. John : What happened was you thought the house needed you. It doesn't. Doesn't need you any more than it needs the roaches. And the roaches, knowing this, crawl back into the dark, lay low, and make it through. See, but you, you held the spotlight. It's those of us in the dark, the ones who just watch, who survive.

• Elinor St. John : Marbled meadows metamorphose into the medieval plains of Iberia. Soldiers swarm the fields like flecks of paint from a madman's brush as your humble servant bears witness to the latest of the moving picture's magic tricks. - - Oh, why do I bother? Look at these idiots! I knew Proust, you know.

• Elinor St. John : And this boy, who breathed his first decades after you breathed your last, will look at your image and think he's found a friend.

• Elinor St. John : When in doubt, say something in French.

• Jack Conrad : [enters her room as she is typing]  Madame? Let's chat.

  Elinor St. John : I'm on a deadline, darling.

  Jack Conrad : You know, when I first moved to LA, you know what the signs on all the doors read? "No actors or dogs allowed." Yeah, I changed that. I helped build this place you call home. I've never had any illusions about us. I've never pretended we're friends. We're friendly. I scratch yours, you scratch mine. That's our work. But this?

  [tosses the Photoplay magazine on Elinor's table] 

  Jack Conrad : This is something else.

  [sits down on a chair in front of Elinor's desk] 

  Elinor St. John : [places her glasses on her desk]  What do you want, Jack?

  Jack Conrad : I want to know why you wrote it.

  Elinor St. John : No, you want to know why they laughed. Would you like me to tell you?

  Jack Conrad : Why they laughed. Sure, Elinor. Why?

  Elinor St. John : There is no why. It wasn't your voice. It wasn't a conspiracy. And it certainly wasn't anything I wrote. There's nothing you could have done differently. There's nothing you can do. Your time has run out. There is no why. Stop questioning it.

  Jack Conrad : I'm on a dry spell.

  Elinor St. John : No. It's over. It's been over for a while. I'm sorry.

  Jack Conrad : Elinor, you peddle gossip. You don't make anything. You don't know what it is to put yourself out there. You're just a cockroach. I've been counted out before. This isn't new to me.

  Elinor St. John : Have you ever stopped to think why, when there's a house fire, the people die and the cockroaches all survive?

  Jack Conrad : Jesus Christ.

  Elinor St. John : What happened was you thought the house needed you. It doesn't. Doesn't need you any more than it needs the roaches. And the roaches, knowing this, crawl back into the dark, lay low, and make it through. See, but you, you held the spotlight. It's those of us in the dark, the ones who just watch, who survive.

  Jack Conrad : A house fire.

  Elinor St. John : And there'll be hundreds more like it, too. An earthquake could wipe this town off the map and wouldn't make a difference. It's the idea that sticks. There'll be a hundred more Jack Conrads. Hundred more me's. Hundred more conversations just like this one, over and over again, until God knows when. Because it's bigger than you.

  [gets up from her chair] 

  Elinor St. John : I know it hurts. No one asks to be left behind.

  [sits on her desk in front of Jack] 

  Elinor St. John : But in a hundred years, when you and I are both long gone, any time someone threads a frame of yours through a sprocket, you will be alive again. You see what that means? One day, every person on every film shot this year will be dead. And one day, all those films will be pulled from the vaults, and all their ghosts will dine together, and adventure together, go to the jungle, to war together. A child born in 50 years will stumble across your image flickering on a screen and feel he knows you, like... like a friend, though you breathed your last before he breathed his first. You've been given a gift. Be grateful. Your time today is through, but you'll spend eternity with angels and ghosts.

  Jack Conrad : [sadly gets up from his chair, begins to walk away, and stops for a second to sigh]  Thank you for that.

  [continues to walk away as Elinor returns to her typewriter] 

• Elinor St. John : There is no why. It wasn't your voice. It wasn't a conspiracy. And it certainly wasn't anything I wrote. There's nothing you could have done differently. There's nothing you can do. Your time has run out. There is no why. Stop questioning it.

• Jack Conrad : Elinor, I will master the talking film on film.

  Elinor St. John : Do you miss the silents?

  Jack Conrad : [long pause]  No. We shouldn't stand in the way of progress.

• Elinor St. John : Would you mind showing me to the upstairs powder room, my dear boy?

  Manny Torres : Sure. Uh, it's here down the hall.

  Elinor St. John : No! No, no, upstairs.

  Manny Torres : The stairs are very steep, I think.

  Elinor St. John : I can be carried.

• Elinor St. John : So, upstairs is where Don keeps his underage girls, then?

• Elinor St. John : So, Jacky boy, how do you think it turned out?

  Jack Conrad : Ah, people want the kiss, we give them the kiss.

• Nellie LaRoy : [Is at the Hearst party, struggling to cope with the upper-class snobbery. Finally she breaks:]  Actually, I've got one. A bear and a rabbit are shittin' in the woods one day. And the bear says to the rabbit, 'Hey, do ya ever have a problem with the shit sticking to your fur?' And the rabbit finishes shitting and he says, 'No, I never do. Why?' And the bear says, 'Fan-fuckin'-tastic!' And he grabs the rabbit behind the ears and...

  [She grabs the rabbit fur scarf from around Mildred Yates' neck and imitates wiping her butt] 

  Elinor St. John : [Dumbfounded]  I can't believe you just...

  Nellie LaRoy : Why not? Why, haven't you heard what they say about me? I'm a degenerate fuckin' animal. 'Oh, Nellie!' Look at them. 'Oh, who knows what she might do? She's from Jersey, y'know.' This is what a degenerate fuckin' animal from Jersey does.

  [She viciously downs the buffet like an animal, to everyone's horror] 

  Nellie LaRoy : That's what the degenerate fuckin' animal from Jersey does. So y'know what? I'm gonna let you go on fuckin' your cousins, polishing your guest lists, plying your fuckin' underage mistresses with fuckin' Beaujolais, you sick fucks! I'm the animal? What is this shit? What is this shit? Oh, I'm the sick one! I'm the fuckin' crazy one! You people make me fuckin' sick! You're not better than me! You're not! You're not fuckin' better than me. I don't need this shit. Y'know what? I'm gonna go home, I'm gonna stick some coke up my pussy. And you all can stick your champagne flutes up your rose-smellin', candy-tastin', snow-white fuckin' assholes!

  [She goes to leave, but quickly runs back inside. She then projectile vomits on the floor, horrifying and disgusting everyone] 

  William Randolph Hearst : My rug! You puked on my rug!

  [Nellie proceeds to projectile vomit on Hearst, before taking a sarcastic bow and leaving] 

• Elinor St. John : Never have I seen such a maelstrom of bad taste and sheer magic.

• Elinor St. John : Ordinary and uncool as she may be, there's something about her that speaks to us in a language as vital and as pressing as life itself. Never have I seen such a mess of a bad taste and sheer magic. Your humble servant bares witness... just killed our grandmothers, and we thank her for it!

• Elinor St. John : There is no why.

  [Yoda!]