{"id":958,"date":"2005-08-30T07:44:00","date_gmt":"2005-08-30T07:44:00","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/biblicalstudies.org.uk\/blog\/?p=958"},"modified":"2024-03-18T13:54:03","modified_gmt":"2024-03-18T13:54:03","slug":"one-of-my-favourite-films","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/biblicalstudies.org.uk\/blog\/one-of-my-favourite-films\/","title":{"rendered":"One of my Favourite Films"},"content":{"rendered":"\n<figure class=\"wp-block-embed is-type-video is-provider-youtube wp-block-embed-youtube wp-embed-aspect-16-9 wp-has-aspect-ratio\"><div class=\"wp-block-embed__wrapper\">\n<iframe loading=\"lazy\" title=\"Born Yesterday (1950) Movie trailer\" width=\"720\" height=\"405\" src=\"https:\/\/www.youtube.com\/embed\/wvlPSB2IU4A?feature=oembed\" frameborder=\"0\" allow=\"accelerometer; autoplay; clipboard-write; encrypted-media; gyroscope; picture-in-picture; web-share\" referrerpolicy=\"strict-origin-when-cross-origin\" allowfullscreen><\/iframe>\n<\/div><\/figure>\n\n\n\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\"><em>Born Yesterday<\/em> (1950) is a film that can watch again and again. The basic plot is straightforward. Scrap metal dealer Harry Brock moves to Washington DC to set up&nbsp;a scrap metal cartel with the help of a crooked Congressman. His efforts are hampered by his girlfriend &#8220;Billie&#8221; (played by Judy Holliday) who proves an embarrassment to him as his attempts to ingratiate himself with polite society. Whilst trying&nbsp;to &#8220;make her less dumb&#8221; he employs an investigative journalist called Paul Varrall (William Holden) to teach her. Varrall sets about his task with gusto and pretty soon Billie&#8217;s eyes are opened to her situation and what her boyfriend is really trying to do.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\">The film is interesting from a linguistic point of view, as Billie sits down with complicated books and a dictionary:<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\"><span style=\"font-size: 85%;\">[JH] &#8230;You know it\u2019s interesting how many interesting things a person can learn &#8211; if they read.<br>\n[WH] I don\u2019t suppose you got a chance to read my piece?<br>\n[JH] What are you talking&#8230;? Of course I read it &#8211; twice!<br>\n[WH] What\u2019d you think?<br>\n[JH] I think it\u2019s the best thing I ever read &#8211; I didn\u2019t understand one word.<br>\n[WH] What didn\u2019t you understand?<br>\n[JH] None of it.<br>\n[WH] Here, show me what.\u2026 Now what didn\u2019t you understand.<br>\n[JH] Well, like the name of it? \u201cThe Yellowing Democratic Manifesto.\u201d<br>\n[WH] Simple.<br>\n[JH] To who &#8211; whom &#8211; who &#8211; well anyway, not to me!<br>\n[WH] Well look, you know what yellowing means?<br>\n[JH] Not this time.<br>\n[WH] Well, when a piece of paper gets old, what happens to it.<br>\n[JH] It\u2019s thrown away?<br>\n[WH] No &#8211; it turns yellow!<br>\n[JH] It does!<br>\n[WH] Of course.<br>\n[JH] Well, what\u2019d you know!<br>\n[WH] Now democratic &#8211; you know what that means don\u2019t you?<br>\n[JH] Not Republican.<br>\n[WH] Well, not exactly. It just means pertaining to our form of government which is a democracy.<br>\n[JH] What\u2019s pertaining?<br>\n[WH] &#8230;has to do with.<br>\n[JH] Pertaining &#8211; nice word!<br>\n[WH] Alright &#8211; \u201dManifesto.\u201d<br>\n[JH] I don\u2019t know.<br>\n[WH] Why didn\u2019t you look it up?<br>\n[JH] I did look it up &#8211; I still don\u2019t know!<br>\n[WH] Well look, when I say \u201cmanifesto\u201d I mean a set of rules and principles and ideals and hopes on which the United States is based; the ideas of those men who wrote that Constitution up there.<br>\n[JH ]And you think it\u2019s turning yellow?<br>\n[WH] Yes, I think a lot of the original inspiration has been neglected and forgotten.<br>\n[JH] And that\u2019s bad?<br>\n[WH] And that\u2019s bad.<br>\n[JH] [Continuing to read.] \u201cEven a cursory?\u201d<br>\n[WH] \u201cCursory\u201d<br>\n[JH] \u201c&#8230;examination of contemporary\u2026 society in terms of the Greek\u2026 philosophy which defines the whole as a representation of its parts send one immediately to a consideration of the individual as a citizen and a citizen as an individual.\u201d<br>\n[WH] Well.<br>\n[JH] I looked up every word!<br>\n[WH] Listen. Thousands of years ago a Greek philosopher said that the world could only be as good as the people who lived in it.<br>\n[JH] Makes sense.<br>\n[WH] So I said, you take one look at America today and right away you figure that you\u2019d better take a look at the people who live in it, one by one, sorta.<br>\n[JH] That\u2019s this?<br>\n[WH] Sure.<br>\n[JH] Well why didn\u2019t you say so?<\/span><\/p>\n\n\n\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\">This is exactly what many people do when they read the Bible, especially when learning to translate the Greek New Testament. One of the mistakes Judy Holliday\u2019s character made was to think that the meaning of a sentence is equal to the sum of the words in it, such as:<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\">\u201cThe\u201d + \u201cYellowing\u201d + \u201cDemocratic\u201d + \u201cManifesto\u201d = the meaning of the sentence.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\">In fact this didn\u2019t give the meaning of the sentence, as she stated later on in the excerpt, because the meaning of a sentence is not the sum of the meanings of the words in it. It could almost be said that considered apart from their context words have no meaning; they receive a meaning only when a sentence, paragraph, chapter or even the entire book or letter is considered as a whole. [<a href=\"https:\/\/biblicalstudies.org.uk\/article_language.html\">Read more on linguistics<\/a>].<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\">Sadly, the high ideals of the original movie were lost in the remake (1993). Gone are the museums, libraries and the moral philosophy, replaced by a set of smart comments designed to give the illusion of erudition with no effort.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\">One of my favourite lines from the original film (and there ar many) is when Paul Varrell says, &#8220;I want everyone to be smart, the world is too dangerous a place to be filled with stupid people.&#8221; Amen to that!<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>Born Yesterday (1950) is a film that can watch again and again. The basic plot is straightforward. Scrap metal dealer Harry Brock moves to Washington DC to set up&nbsp;a scrap metal cartel with the help of a crooked Congressman. His efforts are hampered by his girlfriend &#8220;Billie&#8221; (played by Judy Holliday) who proves an embarrassment&#8230;<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":3,"featured_media":9096,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"inline_featured_image":false,"_uag_custom_page_level_css":"","_kad_post_transparent":"","_kad_post_title":"","_kad_post_layout":"","_kad_post_sidebar_id":"","_kad_post_content_style":"","_kad_post_vertical_padding":"","_kad_post_feature":"","_kad_post_feature_position":"","_kad_post_header":false,"_kad_post_footer":false,"_kad_post_classname":"","footnotes":""},"categories":[118],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-958","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-interpretation"],"yoast_head":"<!-- This site is optimized with the Yoast SEO plugin v27.7 - https:\/\/yoast.com\/product\/yoast-seo-wordpress\/ -->\n<title>One of my Favourite Films - Biblical Studies<\/title>\n<meta name=\"robots\" content=\"index, follow, max-snippet:-1, max-image-preview:large, max-video-preview:-1\" \/>\n<link rel=\"canonical\" href=\"https:\/\/biblicalstudies.org.uk\/blog\/one-of-my-favourite-films\/\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:locale\" content=\"en_GB\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:type\" content=\"article\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:title\" content=\"One of my Favourite Films - Biblical Studies\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:description\" content=\"Born Yesterday (1950) is a film that can watch again and again. 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The basic plot is straightforward. Scrap metal dealer Harry Brock moves to Washington DC to set up&nbsp;a scrap metal cartel with the help of a crooked Congressman. 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