I’m watching Bang The Drum Slowly, which I haven’t seen in years. At one point, Bruce Pearson says “Probably everybody would be nice to you if they knew you were dying .” Arthur Wiggins responds, “Everybody knows everybody’s dying. That’s why people are as good as they are.”
Is Wiggins saying that people are basically good/merciful because we recognize our common mortality? Is he saying that knowledge of our mortality prevents us from being better? How do you read this?
I’m pretty sure the first is what is meant, though on a second read your second interpretation is kind of interesting.
Not having seen the dialogue in context, I can’t claim certainty.
-FrL-
Dylan said, “He not busy being born is busy dying.” Or something like that. But it’s true; everyone is dying. Perhaps your movie’s character is saying that we’d be nastier to each other if we were immortal.
I got nothing. I’m dyin’, here.
Henry “Author” Wiggen – see, for example, the topic Recommend Omni a Book – is talking with his roommate, catcher Bruce, at about 52:35 in the US Region I DVD. Bruce, somewhat dim (by him, his roommate’s nickname is “Arthur”), and good-hearted, is feeling sorry for himself after he woke up suddenly, feeling poorly.
As I saw it, both the plot’s complications and Henry’s nature made his response the only one that he would have said then. Bang the Drum Slowly is one of my favorite (baseball, metaphor-for-life, etc.) movies. I appreciate the real-world details, like when a man in the stands is one of the many fans standing and cheering a good play. Next to him is a very bouncy and attractive young female fan. He becomes more interested in his neighbor than in the game.
Thanks 11811 for reminding me of a fun movie, when the As with Campy Campaneris were running and winning.
All 4 of Mark Harris’ Henry Wiggen novels are well worth the read, and there are enough of them to tide you over until spring training starts. The Southpaw, It Looked Like For Ever, A Ticket for a Seamstitch.
There’s no question to me that your first interpretation is correct - the Mammoths players don’t have a lot of respect for Bruce Pearson, who’s friendly but a marginal player and more than a bit dimwitted, and really only has Henry for a friend. But as soon as the word gets out that he has leukemia and will be gone soon, they all take him into all their activities, to be as kind to him as they can in the time he has left. Only Henry among them shows up at the funeral to be Bruces’s pallbearer, though - their kindness was real but superficial, after all; they weren’t *really * his friends.
I liked what Jim Bouton (“Ball Four”) had to say about the movie:“If a real ballplayer had leukemia, his teammates would call him Luke.”
Thanks all. This is one of the first movies I can remember tearing up over, and I don’t even follow sports all that much. I remembered only Wiggins’ kindness and not the rest of the team’s. I’m all gutted up now just thinking about it.
11811
And there’s the famous dialogue between Yossarian and Doc Daneeka, from Catch-22:
*“The family travelled all the way from New York to see a dying soldier, and you’re the handiest one we’ve got.”
“What are you talking about?” Yossarian asked suspiciously. “I’m not dying.”
“Of course you’re dying. We’re all dying. Where the devil else do you think you’re heading?” *