Cancel The Show

14-08-2008

Diana - I think the time’s come to re-evaluate our relationship, Max.
Max - So I see.
Diana - I don’t like the way this script of ours is turning out. It’s turning into a seedy little drama. Middle-aged man leaves wife and family for young heartless woman, goes to pot.
Max - The Blue Ángel with Marlene Dietrich and Emil Jannings.
Diana - I don’t like it.
Max - So you’re gonna cancel the show.
Diana - Right. (...) The simple fact is, Max, that you’re a family man. You like a home and kids. But I am incapable of any such commitment. All you’ll get from me is intermittent sex and recriminate and ugly little scenes like the one we had last night. I’m sorry for all those things I said to you last night. You’re not the worst fuck I’ve ever had. Believe me, I’ve had worse. You don"t... you don’t puff and snorkel and make deathlike rattles. As a matter of fact, you’re rather serene in the sack.
Max - Why is it that a woman always thinks the most savage thing she can say to a man is to impugn his cocksmanship?
Diana - Well, I’m sorry I impugned your cocksmanship.
Max - I gave up comparing genitals back in the school yard.
Diana - You’re being docile as hell about this.
Max - Aw, hell, Diana, I knew it was over with us weeks ago.
Diana - Will you go back to your wife?
Max - I’ll give it a try but I don’t think she’ll jump at it. But don’t worry about me. I’ll manage. I always have. I always will. I’m more concerned about you. You’re not the boozer type. So I figure a year, maybe two, before you crack up or jump out of your 14th-floor office window.
Diana - Stop selling, Max. I don’t need you. I don’t want your pain. I don’t want your menopausal decay and death. I don’t need you. Now get out of here.
Max - You need me. You need me badly, because I’m your last contact with human reality. I love you! And that painful, decaying love is the only thing between you and the shrieking nothingness you live the rest of the day.
Diana - Then don’t leave me.
Max - It’s too late, Diana. There’s nothing left in you that I can live with. You’re one of Howard’s humanoids. If I stay with you, I’ll be destroyed. Like Howard Beale was destroyed. Like Laureen Hobbs was destroyed. Like everything you and the institution of television touch is destroyed. You’re television incarnate, Diana. Indifferent to suffering, insensitive to joy. All of life is reduced to the common rubble of banality. War, murder, death - all the same to you as bottles of beer. And the daily business of life is a corrupt comedy. You even shatter the sensations of time and space into split seconds and instant replays. You’re madness, Diana. Virulent madness. And everything you touch dies with you. But not me. Not as long as I can feel pleasure... and pain... and love. And it’s a happy ending. Wayward husband comes to his senses, returns to his wife, with whom he’s established a long and sustaining love. Heartless young woman left alone in her arctic desolation. Music up with a swell. Final commercial. And here are a few scenes from next week’s show.

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