20th Century Women (2016)
Annette Bening: Dorothea Fields
Photos
Quotes
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Dorothea : Wondering if you're happy is a great shortcut to just being depressed.
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Dorothea : What is that?
Abbie : It's The Raincoats.
Dorothea : Can't things just be pretty?
Jamie : Pretty music is used to hide how unfair and corrupt society is.
Dorothea : Ah, okay so... they're not very good, and they know that, right?
Abbie : Yeah, it's like they've got this feeling, and they don't have any skill, and they don't want skill, because it's really interesting what happens when your passion is bigger than the tools you have to deal with it. It creates this energy that's raw. Isn't it great?
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Dorothea : Men always feel that they have to fix things for women, but they're not doing anything. Some things just can't be fixed. Just be there, somehow that's hard for all of you.
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Dorothea : Having your heart broken is a tremendous way to learn about the world.
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Abbie : I gave him beer, and then I taught him how to verbally seduce women. Then we drove drunk, but I stopped that, and then he kissed Trish, and then we walked home.
Dorothea : Ah.
Abbie : You're not mad? You're mad.
Dorothea : You get to see him out in the world, as a person. I never will.
Abbie : [pulls a photo of Jamie from a stack of Polaroids] Just... there.
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Dorothea : I think history has been tough on men.I mean, they can't be what they were,and they can't figure out what's next.
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President Carter : As you know, there is a growing disrespect for government, for schools, the news media and other institutions. This is not a message of happiness or reassurance. But it is the truth and it is a warning. It is a crisis of confidence. We can see this crisis in the growing doubt about the meaning of our own lives and in the loss of a unity of purpose for our nation. Too many of us now tend to worship self-indulgence and consumption. But we've discovered that owning things and consuming things does not satisfy our longing for meaning. We always believed that we were part of a great movement of humanity itself involved in a search for freedom. We are at a turning point in our history. The path that leads to fragmentation and self-interest. Down that road lies a mistaken idea of freedom. It is a certain route to failure. Thank you and good night.
Dorothea's Dinner Guest : Wow. He is so screwed.
Dorothea's Dinner Guest : No shit.
Dorothea's Dinner Guest : It's over for him.
Dorothea : I thought that was beautiful.
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Jamie : I thought that was just the beginning of a new relationship with her, where she'd really tell me stuff. But maybe it was never really like that again. Maybe that was it.
Dorothea : In March of 1999, I'll start to feel tired and confused. When I finally go to the doctor, he will say that the cancer in my lungs had already travelled to my breast and brain. I'll try to teach Jamie what to do with my stocks, but my instructions will be impossible to understand.
Julie : Abbie will take me to Planned Parenthood. And I will go on the pill. I will go to NYU and lose touch with Jamie and Dorothea, and I will stop talking to my mom, I will fall in love with Nicholas, we will move to Paris, and choose not to have children.
Abbie : I will stay in Santa Barbara. In just two years, I'll marry Dave. A month after I get married Carlotta will die. A week later, Max will die too. I will work out of my garage and show in local galleries. Against my doctor's advice, I will get pregnant, and by the time I'm thirty I'll have two boys.
William : I'll live with Dorothea for another year. Then I'll open a pottery store in Sedona Arizona. I will marry Laurie, a singer-songwriter. We'll get divorced in a year. Then I'll meet Sandy, we will marry, and I will continue to do my pottery.
Jamie : My mom will meet Jim in 1983, they'll be a couple until she dies. On her birthday each year, he will buy her a trip on a biplane. Years after she's gone I'll finally get married and have a son. I'll try to explain to him what his grandmother was like - but it will be impossible.
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Dorothea : It's 1979, I'm fifty-five years old, this is what my son believes in. These people with this hair and these clothes making these gestures, making these sounds. It's 1979, I'm 55 years old and in 1999 I will die of cancer from the smoking. They don't know this is the end of punk. They don't know that Reagan's coming. It's impossible to imagine that kids will stop dreaming about nuclear war, and have nightmares about the weather. It's impossible to imagine HIV, what will happen with skateboard tricks, the Internet. Before I die, I will prepare for Y2K. I put canned food and water in the garage. I put 16 000 dollars' worth of gold coins into a safe deposit box at the Bank of Montecito. I died before the new year. Dolphin shaped balloons floated over my head. They were playing Louis Armstrong on a boom box.
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Dorothea : You got birds?
Abbie : They're a boy and a girl, and that they're monogamous for life, so if one of them dies, then the other one will die like a week later.
Dorothea : Wow. Well how 'bout Maximilian and Carlotta? You know, they deserve something grand if they're gonna be monogamous their whole lives.
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Dorothea : My son was born in 1964. He grew up with a meaningless war, with protests, with Nixon, with nice cars and nice houses, computers, drugs, boredom. I know him less every day.
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[William and Abbie come to pay Dorothea's bail]
Dorothea : These people have no sense of humor.
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Dorothea : What he likes is making bowls. He doesn't smell like oil and grease. His hands don't look like dumb mechanics hands.
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Dorothea : That was my husband's Ford Galaxy. We drove Jamie home from the hospital in that car.
Jamie : My mom was forty when she had me. Everyone told her she was too old to be a mother.
Dorothea : I put my hand through the little window, and he'd squeeze my finger, and I'd tell him life was very big... and unknown.
Jamie : And she told me that there were animals, and sky, and cities...
Dorothea : ...music, movies. He'd fall in love, have his own children, have passions, have meaning, have his mom and dad.
Jamie : When they got divorced, my father moved back east and left the car with us. He calls on birthdays and Christmas. Last time I felt close to him was on my birthday in 1974. He bought me mirrored sunglasses. I saw the president fall down the stairs and I threw up on the carpet.
Dorothea : Since then it's just been us.
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Dorothea : I know him less every day.He said it was just a game.You breathe real hard and another kid.He said you're supposed to come to a few seconds later. But it took Jamie almost a half an hour to wake up.
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Dorothea : Actually, it was, it was built in 1905, and the same family had it forever, but they lost all their money during the war, and then there was a fire and... You should've been here for that. Anyway, so, it was just a mess. They let it fall apart. Then a bohemian inherited it in the '60s, then a bunch of free spirits moved in, and they lost it to the bank.
