Angels in America (2003)
Mary-Louise Parker: Harper Pitt
Photos
Quotes
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Harper Pitt : I burned dinner.
Joe Pitt : I'm sorry.
Harper Pitt : Not my dinner, my dinner was fine. Your dinner. I put it back in the oven and turned everything up as high as it could go and I watched 'til it burned black. It's still hot, very hot, want it?
Joe Pitt : You didn't have to do that.
Harper Pitt : I know, it just seemed like the kinda thing a mentally-deranged sex-starved pill-popping housewife would do.
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Harper Pitt : I don't understand why I'm not dead. When your heart breaks, you should die.
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Harper Pitt : I dreamed we were there. The plane leapt the tropopause, the safe air, and attained the outer rim, the ozone, which was ragged and torn, patches of it threadbare as old cheesecloth, and that was frightening. But I saw something that only I could see, because of my astonishing ability to see such things: Souls were rising, from the earth far below, souls of the dead, of people who had perished, from famine, from war, from the plague, and they floated up, like skydivers in reverse, limbs all akimbo, wheeling and spinning. And the souls of these departed joined hands, clasped ankles, and formed a web, a great net of souls, and the souls were three-atom oxygen molecules, of the stuff of ozone, and the outer rim absorbed them, and was repaired. Nothing's lost forever. In this world, there's a kind of painful progress. Longing for what we've left behind, and dreaming ahead. At least I think that's so.
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Harper Pitt : In my church we don't believe in homosexuals.
Prior : In my church we don't believe in Mormons.
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Harper : In your experience of the world. How do people change?
Mormon Mother : Well it has something to do with God so it's not very nice. God splits the skin with a jagged thumbnail from throat to belly and then plunges a huge filthy hand in, he grabs hold of your bloody tubes and they slip to evade his grasp but he squeezes hard, he insists, he pulls and pulls till all your innards are yanked out and the pain! We can't even talk about that. And then he stuffs them back, dirty, tangled and torn. It's up to you to do the stitching.
Harper : And then up you get. And walk around.
Mormon Mother : Just mangled guts pretending.
Mormon Mother : That's how people change.
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Joe Pitt : I think we ought to pray. Ask God for help. Ask him together.
Harper Pitt : God won't talk to me. I have to make up people to talk to me.
Joe Pitt : You have to keep asking.
Harper Pitt : I forgot the question?... Oh, yeah. God, is my husband a homo?
Joe Pitt : Stop it! Stop it! I'm warning you! Does it make any difference that I might be one thing deep within? No matter how wrong or ugly that thing is so long as I have fought with everything I have to kill it? What do you want from me? What do you want from me Harper, more than that? For God's sake, there's nothing left. I'm a shell. There's nothing left to kill. As long as my behaviour is what I know it has to be, decent, correct that alone in the eyes of God.
Harper Pitt : No, no, not that. That's Utah talk, Mormon talk. I hate it, Joe. Tell me, say it.
Joe Pitt : All I will say is that I'm a very good man who has worked very hard to become good and you wanna destroy that. You wanna destroy me but I am not gonna let you do that.
Harper Pitt : I'm gonna have a baby.
Joe Pitt : Liar!
Harper Pitt : You liar!... A baby born addicted to pills. A baby who does not dream but who hallucinates, who stares up at us with big mirror eyes and who does not know who we are.
Joe Pitt : Are you really?
Harper Pitt : No... Yes... No... Yes... Get away from me. Now we both have a secret.
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Harper Pitt : I don't understand this. If I didn't ever see you before, and I don't think I did, then I don't think you should be here in this hallucination because in my experience the mind which is where hallucinations come from shouldn't be able to make anything up that wasn't there to start with that didn't enter it from experience from the real world. Imagination can't create anything new can it? It only recycles bits and pieces from the world and reassembles them into visions. Am I making sense right now?
Prior Walter : Given the circumstances, yes.
Harper Pitt : So when we think we've escaped the unbearable ordinariness and, well, untruthfulness of our lives it's really only the same old ordinariness and falseness rearranged into the appearance of novelty and truth. Nothing unknown is knowable.
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Harper Pitt : Oh well don't apologize, I can't expect someone who's really sick to entertain me.
Prior : How on earth did you know?
Harper Pitt : Oh that happens. This is the very threshold of revelation. Sometimes you can see things like how sick you are. Do you see anything about me?
Prior : Yes, you are amazingly unhappy
Harper Pitt : Big deal, you meet a valium addict, you figure out she's unhappy -that doesn't count. Of course I - something else? something suprising?
Prior : Something suprising?
Harper Pitt : Yes
Prior : Your husband's a homo.
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Harper Pitt : What are you doing in my hallucination?
Prior Walter : I'm not in your hallucination, you're in my dream.
Harper Pitt : You're wearing makeup.
Prior Walter : So are you.
Harper Pitt : But you're a man.
Prior Walter : [looks into mirror and screams] My hands and feet give it away.
Harper Pitt : There must be some mistake here. I don't recognize you. Are you my... - some sort of imaginary friend?
Prior Walter : No. Aren't you too old to have imaginary friends?
Harper Pitt : I have emotional problems. I took too many pills. Why are you wearing makeup?
Prior Walter : I was in the process of applying the face, trying to make myself feel better. I swiped the new fall colours at the Clinique counter at Macy's.
Harper Pitt : You stole these?
Prior Walter : I was out of cash. It was an emotional emergency.
Harper Pitt : Joe will be so angry. I promised him no more pills.
Prior Walter : These pills you keep alluding to...
Harper Pitt : Valium, I take Valium. Lots of Valium.
Prior Walter : And you're dancing as fast as you can.
Harper Pitt : I'm not addicted. I don't believe in addiction and I... I never drink and I never take drugs.
Prior Walter : Well, smell you, Nancy Drew.
Harper Pitt : Except for Valium.
Prior Walter : Except Valium in wee fistfuls.
Harper Pitt : It's terrible. Mormons are not supposed to be addicted to anything. I'm a Mormon.
Prior Walter : I'm a homosexual.
Harper Pitt : Oh. In my church, we don't believe in homosexuals.
Prior Walter : In my church, we don't believe in Mormons.
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Harper Pitt : I wish I could go traveling. Things aren't right with me.
[Harper opens cabinet door in bathroom to remove pill container. She closes the door which reveals Mr. Lie's reflection in the mirror. She gasps.]
Mr. Lies : Cash, check, or credit card?
Harper Pitt : You startled me.
Mr. Lies : Cash, check, or...
Harper Pitt : I remember you. You're from Salt Lake. You sold us the plane tickets when we flew here. What are you doing in Brooklyn?
Mr. Lies : You said you wanted to travel.
Harper Pitt : How thoughtful!
Mr. Lies : Mr. Lies of the International Order of Travel Agents. We mobilize the globe. We set people adrift. We are adepts of motion, acolytes of the flocks. Cash, check, or credit card, name your destination.
Harper Pitt : Antartica, maybe? I want to see the hole in the ozone. I heard on the radio...
Mr. Lies : We'll arrange a guided tour. Now?
Harper Pitt : Soon, maybe soon. I'm not safe here, you see. Weird stuff happens.
Mr. Lies : Like?
Harper Pitt : Like you, for instance. Just appearing. Or last week. Well, nevermind. People are like planets, you need a thick skin. Joe stays away and now, well look, my dreams are talking back to me.
Mr. Lies : The price of rootlessness, motion sickness. Only cure, keep moving.
Harper Pitt : I'm undecided. I feel that something's going to give. It's 1985... fifteen years to the third millennium. Maybe Christ will come again or maybe the troubles will and the end will come. And the sky will collapse and there'll be terrible rain and showers of poison light. Or maybe my life is really fine... maybe Joe loves me and I'm only crazy thinking otherwise. Or maybe not. Maybe it's even worse than I know. Maybe I want to know, maybe I don't. The suspense, Mr. Lies, it's killing me.
Mr. Lies : I suggest a vacation.
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Harper Pitt : Night flight to San Francisco - chase the moon across America.
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Harper Pitt : There's something creepy about this place. Remember Rosemary's Baby?
Joe Pitt : Rosemary's Baby?
Harper Pitt : Our apartment looks like that one. Wasn't that apartment in Brooklyn?
Joe Pitt : No.
Harper Pitt : Well, it looked like this. It did!
Joe Pitt : Then let's move.
Harper Pitt : Georgetown's worse. The Exorcist was in Georgetown.
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Harper Pitt : I'm gonna have a baby.
Joe Pitt : Liar.
Harper Pitt : You liar. A baby born addicted to pills. A baby who does not dream, but who hallucinates. Who stares up at us with big mirror eyes and who does not know who we are.
Joe Pitt : Are you really?
Harper Pitt : No. Yes. No. Yes. No. Yes. Get away from me. Now we both have a secret.
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Joe Pitt : I think we ought to pray. Ask God for help. Ask Him together.
Harper Pitt : God won't talk to me, I have to make up people to talk to me.
Joe Pitt : You have to keep asking.
Harper Pitt : I forgot the question. Oh yeah... God, is my husband a homo?
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Harper Pitt : Imagining, just like me. Except the only time I wasn't imagining is when I was with you. You, the one part of the real world that I wasn't allergic to.
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Joe Pitt : If you have something you want to ask me ask me! Ask me, go!
Harper Pitt : I can't, I'm scared of you.
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Harper Pitt : Well this is the most depressing hallucination I ever had.
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Harper Pitt : It's a sin and it's killing us both.
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Harper Pitt : I got this tree from the great Antarctic pine forest, right over the hill.
Mr. Lies : There are no pine forests in Antarctica.
Harper Pitt : This one's a blue spruce.
Mr. Lies : There are no blue spruce in...
Harper Pitt : I chewed this pine tree down with my teeth. Like a beaver. I'm hungry, I haven't eaten in three days. I'm gonna use it to build something. Maybe a fire. Lucky I brought these.
Mr. Lies : Snow'll melt
Harper Pitt : Let it. I don't understand why I'm not dead. When your heart breaks, you should die. But there's still the rest of you. There's your breasts and your genitals... They're amazingly stupid, like babies or faithful dogs. They don't get it, they just want him. Want him.
Mr. Lies : Eskimo's back.
Harper Pitt : I know. I wanted a real Eskimo, someone chilly and reliable. An Eskimo dressed in seal pelts. Not this. This is just some lawyer, just...
Joe Pitt : Hey, buddy.
Harper Pitt : Hey.
Joe Pitt : I looked for you. I've been everywhere.
Harper Pitt : Well, you found me.
Joe Pitt : No, I'm not looking now. I guess I'm having an adventure.
Harper Pitt : Who with?
Joe Pitt : No one you know. No one I know, either.
Harper Pitt : ls it fun?
Joe Pitt : Scary fun.
Harper Pitt : Can I come with you? This isn't working anymore, I'm cold.
Joe Pitt : I wouldn't want you to see.
Harper Pitt : You think it's worse than what I imagine? It's not.
Joe Pitt : I should go.
Harper Pitt : Bastard! You fell out of love with me.
Joe Pitt : That isn't true, Harper.
Harper Pitt : Then come back!
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Harper Pitt : You try to walk out right now I'll put your dinner back in the oven and turn it up so high the whole building will fill with smoke and everyone will asphyxiate. So help me God I will, now answer the question.
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Harper Pitt : People are like planets, you need a thick skin.