Monday, April 2, 2018

MOVIE DIALOG OF THE DAY ― IN BRUGES (2008)

Connection to the previous post (THE EDGE OF TOMORROW): Brendon Gleeson co-starred in both films.

Ratings: IMDB ― 7.9/10, Rotten Tomatoes ― 84%, ME ― 80%



Ken: Coming up?
Ray: What's up there?
Ken: The view.
Ray: The view of what? The view of down here? I can see that down here.
Ken: Ray, you are about the worst tourist in the whole world.
Ray: Ken, I grew up in Dublin. I love Dublin. If I grew up on a farm, and was retarded, Bruges might impress me but I didn't, so it doesn't.

Colin Ferrell as Ken  and Brendon Gleesson as Ray


Trivia (From IMDB):


In the original script, Ray and Ken are English, but when Colin Farrell and Brendan Gleeson came on board, the characters were changed to Irish as to suit their natural sensibilities.

The painting that occasions comment even from Ray is "The Last Judgment" by Hieronymous Bosch. Bosch-like symbolism recurs throughout the movie (the dwarf is one example), suggesting that Ray and Ken may indeed encounter their own Last Judgment - or that the waiting period in Bruges is akin to purgatory.

Except for the flashback, Ray wears a single outfit throughout the whole movie. While he does remove his jacket and unbutton his shirt, he has no other change of clothes. Ken, on the other hand, has several wardrobe changes.

In order to create the feeling of the holiday season, Christmas decorations were kept in some streets of Bruges until the end of March. The town council made an official communication to the people of Bruges explaining the reason why.

A scene was filmed which showed a young Harry brutally killing a police officer whilst in custody. This does not appear in the finished film.

Both Colin Farrell and Brendan Gleeson were nominated for Golden Globes. Farrell won the award.

When Ray refers to the dwarf in Time Bandits (1981), he is thinking of actor David Rappaport, who committed suicide in 1990.

When Pieter Lanchals was executed in 1488, Maximillian of Austria's punishment was that Bruges keep swans forever.

The screenplay for this film was featured in the 2006 Blacklist; a list of the "most liked" unmade scripts of the year.

The word 'fuck' and its derivatives are said 126 times in this 107-minute film, an average of 1.18 'fucks' per minute.

The scene in which Ray and Ken visit the Basilica of the Holy Blood is in fact filmed in the Jerusalem Church, Bruges, although the veneration of the relic discussed is accurate.

When the characters visit Groeningemuseum they are shown viewing paintings "Death and the Miser" by Jan Provoost (ca. 1515), "The Flaying of Sisamnes" by Gerard David (1498), "The martyrdom of St George" by Unknown artist (1500-1510), and "The Last Judgment" by Hieronymus Bosch (1482).

Ken and Ray check into the hotel under the names "Cranham & Blakely", presumably after actors Kenneth Cranham and Colin Blakely who played two hit-men in a television adaptation of Harold Pinter's The Dumbwaiter, one of the film's major influences.

Harry's strict moral code gets a further insight in a deleted scene, where a young version is played by actor Matt Smith, best known for his role as the 11th doctor in 'Doctor Who'. In it, Harry discovers his partner holding a dead woman in a club, so he marches into a police station and beheads the man who did it, a dirty detective. Ultimately, film makers decided to cut the scene, as the CGI decapitation looked fake.

According to Brendan Gleeson, it took 12 weeks to shoot the entire film, he mentioned on Late Night with Seth Meyers. Seth Meyers himself is admittedly a huge fan of the film.

It took two hours to film the brief, uncredited cameo of Ciarán Hinds.

The film has a total of 5 actors who are also part of the Harry Potter franchise: Ralph Fiennes (Harry), who plays Lord Voldemort; Brendan Gleeson (Ken), who plays Alastor "Mad-Eye" Moody; Clémence Poésy (Chloe), who plays Fleur Delacour; Ciarán Hinds (The Priest), who plays Aberforth Dumbledore; and finally Colin Farrell (Ray), who plays Percival Graves. Fiennes, Gleeson, and Poesy all appear in Harry Potter and the Goblet of Fire (2005), though none of them share dialog together. Fiennes, Gleeson, and Poesy again appear together in Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows: Part 1 (2010), while Fiennes, Poesy, and Hinds all appear in Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows: Part 2(2011). Fleur Delacour's re-appearance is also largely due to her marriage to Bill Weasley, who is played by Brendan Gleeson's son, Domhnall Gleeson. Finally, Farrell appears alone in Fantastic Beasts and Where to Find Them (2016), which is a prequel/spin-off to the Harry Potter films.

"Bruges" is from the Flemish "Brugge," which is based on the Dutch word "Brug" meaning port or bridge.

In a deleted scene, Ray is discussing his date with Ken, and when Ken finds out that it will take place at a restaurant, he predicts correctly that it will turn out badly.

A scene was filmed with Harry on a train on his way to Bruges, where he is verbally aggressive to a fellow traveler who attempts some small talk. This scene was cut from the theatrical version of the film.

In one scene, Ray (Colin Farrell) fires a blank into a thug's eye, blinding it. In Tigerland (2000), Farrell's character fires a blank into a man's eye, but doesn't blind him.

With the release of the spin-off movie from the Harry Potter franchise, Fantastic Beasts and Where to Find Them (2016), starring Colin Farrell as Percival Graves, that makes five actors who were part of that franchise starring in this movie: Farrell, Ralph Fiennes, Brendan Gleeson, Clémence Poésy and Ciarán Hinds. However, the five of them never appeared together in a single movie, and Farrell and Hinds didn't appear in the franchise until after In Bruges.

Chloe refers to Ken as Richard Burton in a deleted scene.

The Tottenham joke is referring to Tottenham Hotspur Football Club, it is a football/soccer team in the English Premier League that was -during the movie era- a team that's always good enough to reach near the top 3 teams but never actually really reaches there, it was a good team against all the other teams that are under him but never good with the top teams.

When talking to Harry (Ralph Fiennes) over the phone, Ken (Brendan Gleeson) mentions that Ray (Colin Farrell) was initially put off by a recently built dual-carriageway. A scene in the beginning would have showed Ray refusing to get into a carriage to get from the station to the central town, but it was deleted from the final print.

In the film everybody dressed for winter. Winter coats, snow flakes, Christmas decorations all indicate it's winter time. However the film were shot in August.

Farrell mentions Time Bandits which is directed by Terry Gilliam. He was in his film "The Imaginarium of Doctor Parnassus"

Gleeson plays Madeye in Harry Potter. Colin Farrell is currently filming a Harry Potter spinoff.

Spoilers ― 

The last scene where Ray stumbles on to the set and he sees all the costumes: the imagery is akin to the paintings of the last judgement; the animal heads, animal skulls, peasant looking people. Plus the dwarf dressed as a schoolboy represents his sin right before he is shot (his judgement). However, he attempts to save Harry by telling him that the dwarf is not a child despite the fact that Harry tried to kill him, thus redeeming himself, so he lives. Plus he notes that waiting in Bruges may be hell for him, however it was more than likely Ken's idea of Heaven. The waiting in Bruges before his judgement may represent purgatory.

When Ken receives the phone call from Harry, the opening scene from Orson Welles' 'Touch of Evil' is playing on the TV, possibly one of the most famous scenes made with one continuous shot. From this point on, Ken's phone call with Harry is one continuous shot, in a homage to 'Touch of Evil'.

The screenplay contains a scene after the shoot out revealing, among other things, that Ray survived his wounds and the murdered boy's name is Tobias.

In a deleted scene, Ray and Ken are lying in their beds discussing Ray's murder of the priest and the little boy. Ray ponders over why he was sent to kill the priest, guessing it was likely pedophilia. Ken counters that Harry was behind a land-buying deal that the priest opposed. These two explanations are coincidentally two different motives that are suggested for the archbishop's murder in Primal Fear (1996).

During Ken's suicide scene, the coins that he drops (to clear the way) before jumping are the same coins he tried to use earlier in the film when trying to gain access to the same tower, but since the amount was insufficient, he had to pay in notes. Therefore, if he had been let into the tower earlier using coins instead of notes, he wouldn't have been able to jump at all.

Blank bullets can actually be quite deadly. In 1984, while on the set of the short-lived series "Cover-Up", actor John Erik-Hexum unintentionally killed himself when he playfully fired a gun loaded with blanks into the side of his head. The force of the blast blew a plug of bone into his brain, killing him.

Ken is never seen killing anyone on-screen (except himself) despite his profession as a hitman. Although given a gun to kill Ray on the orders of Harry over a botched hit, Ken fails to complete this task after preventing Ray's suicide attempt.

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