Movie buff trivia

So here's my little theory about homoeroticism in the films of Tony Scott. True Romance was written by Quentin Tarantino, it's true, but I still consider it all the better to have been directed by Tony Scott. Anyway, here we go:

Remember the famous scene in the Hunger where Catherine Deneuve seduces Susan Sarandon? Well, it plays out to the rather over-familiar strains of the flower duet from Lakme, the Delibes opera.

Fast fwd to True Romance, a truly great film (hey, he had QT writing the story) and there's another love scene, although it's much more subtle -- the one where Christopher Walken is torturing Dennis Hopper and the latter starts in on one of the greatest monologues in the history of cinema, all about how all Sicilians are niggers. It's a tour-de-force speech, where Hopper is deliberately trying to get Walken to kill him, but it also has a homoerotic subtext at least as strong as anything in Top Gun. (qv Tarantino's deconstruction in Sleep With Me). And what is the music? Is it something full of malice and suspense? No, in a touch of absolute genius, Tony Scott once again plumps for that flower duet, not only subtly ironising the whole scene, but also giving a nice little nod-and-a-wink to those of us who got rather excited by what was at the time one of the most famous and explicit homosexual love scenes in mainstream cinema history.

And for those of you who want it, here's that scene in full:

INT. TRAILER - DAY

He steps inside the doorway and then, before he knows it, a gun is pressed to his temple and a big hand grabs his shoulder.

					GUN CARRIER (DARIO)
	Welcome home, alchy. We're havin' a party.

Cliff is roughly shoved into his living room. Waiting for him are four men, standing: VIRGIL, FRANKIE (young Wise-guy) LENNY (an old Wise-guy), and Tooth-pick Vic (a fireplug pitbull type).

Sitting in Cliff's recliner is VINCENZO COCCOTTI, the Frank Nitti to Detroid mob leader Blue Lou Boyle.

Cliff is knocked to his knees. He looks up and sees the sitting Coccotti. Dario and Lenny pick him up and roughly drop him in a chair.

					COCCOTTI
			(to Frankie)
	Tell Tooth-pick Vic to go outside and do you-know-what.

In Italian Frankie tells Tooth-pick Vic what Coccotti said. He nods and exits.

Cliff's chair is moved closer to Coccotti's. Dario stands on one side of Cliff. Frankie and Lenny ransack the trailer. Virgil has a bottle of Chivas Regal in his hand, but he has yet to touch a drop.

					COCCOTTI
	Do you know who I am, Mr. Worley?

					CLIFF
	I give up. Who are you?

					COCCOTTI
	I'm the Anti-Christ. You get me in a vendetta kind of mood, you will tell 
	the angels in heaven that you had never seen pure evil so singularly 
	personified as you did in the face of the man who killed you. My name is 
	Vincenzo Coccotti. I work as a counsel for Mr. Blue Lou Boyle, the man your 
	son stole from. I hear you were once a cop so I assume you've heard od us 
	before. Am I correct?

					CLIFF
	I've heard of Blue Lou Boyle.

					COCCOTTI
	I'm glad. Hopefully that will clear up the how-full-of-shit-I-am question 
	you've been asking yourself. Now, we're gonna have a little Q and A, and, 
	at the risk of sounding redundant, please make your answers genuine.
			(taking out a pack of Chesterfields)
	Want a Chesterfield?

					CLIFF
	No.

					COCCOTTI
			(as he lights up)
	I have a son of my own. About you boy's age. I can imagine how painful this 
	must be for you. But Clarence and that bitch-whore girlfriend of his 
	brought this all on themselves. And I implore you not to go down the road 
	with 'em. You can always take comfort in the fact that you never had a 	
	choice.

					CLIFF
	Look, I'd help ya if I could, but I haven't seen Clarence -

Before Cliff can finish his sentence, Coccotti slams him hard in the nose with his fist.

					COCCOTTI
	Smarts, don't it? Gettin' slammed in the nose fucks you all up. You got 
	that pain shootin' through your brain. Your eyes fill up with water. It 
	ain't any kind of fun. But what I have to offer you. That's as good as it's 
	ever gonna get, and it won't ever get that good again. We talked to your 
	neighbors. They saw a Mustang, a red Mustang, Clarence's red Mustang, 
	parked in front of your trailer yesterday. Mr. Worley, have you seen your 
	son?

Cliff's defeated.

					CLIFF
	I've seen him.

					COCCOTTI
	Now I can't be sure of how much of what he told you. So in the chance 
	you're in the dark about some of this, let me shed some light. That whore 
	your boy hangs around with, her pimp is an associate of mine, and I don't 
	just mean pimpin', in other affairs he works for me in a courier capacity. 
	Well, apparently, that dirty little whore found out when we're gonna do 
	some business, 'cause your son, the cowboy and his flame, came in the room 
	blastin' and didn't stop till they were pretty sure everybody was dead.

					CLIFF
	What are you talkin' about?

					COCCOTTI
	I'm talkin' about a massacre. They snatched my narcotics and hightailed it 
	outta there. Wouldda gotten away with it, but your son, fuckhead that he 
	is, left his driver's license in a dead guy's hand. A whore hiding in the 
	commode filled in all the blanks.

					CLIFF
	I don't believe you.

					COCCOTTI
	That's of minor importance. But what's of major fuckin' importance is that 
	I believe you. Where did they go?

					CLIFF
	On their honeymoon.

					COCCOTTI
	I'm gettin' angry askin' the same question a second time. Where did they 
	go?

					CLIFF
	They didn't tell me.

Coccotti looks at him.

					CLIFF
	Now, wait a minute and listen. I haven't seen Clarence in three years. 
	Yesterday he shows up here with a girl, sayin' he got married. He told me 
	he needed some quick cash for a honeymoon, so he asked if he could borrow 
	five hundred dollars. I wanted to help him out so I wrote out a check. We 
	went to breakfast and that's the last I saw of him. So help me God. They 
	never thought to tell me where they were goin'. And I never thought to ask.

Coccotti looks at him for a long moment. He then gives Virgil a look. Virgil, quick as greased lightning, grabs Cliff's hand and turns it palm up. He then whips out a butterfly knife and slices Cliff's palm open and pours Chivas Regal on the wound. Cliff screams.

Coccotti puffs on a Chesterfield.

Tooth-pic Vic returns to the trailer, and reports in Italian that there's nothing in the car.

Virgil walks into the kitchen and gets a dishtowel. Cliff holds his bleeding palm in agony. Virgil hands him the dishtowel. Cliff uses it to wrap up his hand.

					COCCOTTI
	Sicilians are great liars. The best in the world. I'm a Sicilian. And my 
	old man was the world heavyweight champion of Sicilian liars. And from 
	growin' up with him I learned the pantomime. Now there are seventeen 
	different things a guy can do when he lies to give him away. A guy has 
	seventeen pantomimes. A woman's got twenty, but a guy's got seventeen. And 
	if you know 'em like ya know your own face, they beat lie detectors to 
	hell. What we got here is a little game of show and tell. You don't wanna 
	show me nothin'. But you're tellin' me everything. Now I know you know 
	where they are. So tell me, before I do some damage you won't walk away 
	from.

The awful pain in Cliff's hand is being replaced by the awful pain in his heart. He looks deep into Coccotti's eyes. 

					CLIFF
	Could I have one of those Chesterfields now?

					COCCOTTI
	Sure.

Coccotti leans over and hands him a smoke.

					CLIFF
	Got a match?

Cliff reaches into his pocket and pulls out a lighter.

					CLIFF
	Oh, don't bother. I got one.
			(he lights the cigarette)
	So you're a Sicilian, huh?

					COCCOTTI
			(intensly)
	Uh-huh.

					CLIFF
	You know I read a lot. Especially things that have to do with history. I 
	find that shit fascinating. In fact, I don't know if you know this or not, 
	Sicilians were spawned by niggers.

All the men stop what they were doing and look at Cliff, except for Tooth-pic Vic who doesn't speak English and so isn't insulted. Coccotti can't believe what he's hearing.

					COCCOTTI
	Come again?

					CLIFF
	It's a fact. Sicilians have nigger blood pumpin' through their hearts. If 
	you don't believe me, look it up. You see, hundreds and hundreds of years 
	ago the Moors conquered Sicily. And Moors are niggers. Way back then, 
	Sicilians were like the wops in northern Italy. Blond hair, blue eyes. But, 
	once the Moors moved in there, they changed the whole country. They did so 
	much fuckin' with the Sicilian women, they changed the blood-line for ever, 
	from blond hair and blue eyes to black hair and dark skin. I find it 
	absolutely amazing to think that to this day, hundreds of years later, 
	Sicilians still carry that nigger gene. I'm just quotin' history. It's a 
	fact. It's written. Your ancestors were niggers. Your great, great, great, 
	great, great-grandmother was fucked by a nigger, and had a half-nigger kid. 
	That is a fact. Now tell me, am I lyin'?

Coccotti looks at him for a moment then jumps up, whips out an automatic, grabs hold of Cliff's hair, puts the barrel to his temple, and pumps three bullets through Cliff's head.

He pushes the body violently aside. Coccotti pauses. Unable to express his feelings and frustrated by the blood in his hands, he simply drops his weapon, and turns to his men.

					COCCOTTI
	I haven't killed anybody since 1974. Goddamn his soul to burn for eternity 
	in fuckin' hell for makin' me spill blood on my hands! Go to this 
	comedian's son's apartment and come back with somethin' that tells me where 
	that asshole went so I can wipe this egg off of my face and fix this 
	fucked-up family for good.

Tooth-pick Vic taps Frankie's shoulder and, in Italianm asks him what that was all about.

Lenny, who has been going through Cliff's refridgerator, has found a beer. When he closes the refridgerator door he finds a note held on by a ceramic banana magnet that says: "Clarence in L.A.: Dick Ritchie (number and address)".

					LENNY
	Boss, get ready to get happy.