Withnail & I (1987)
Written by Paul on February 25, 2008 – 2:01 pm -
Best times, worst times, best lines
Has a movie ever consigned so many catchphrases to posterity?
‘We’ve gone on holiday by mistake! Are you the farmer? Course he’s the fucking farmer, Withnail!’
This writer distrusts cults and sensations, and even more those loved by students (don’t get me started on The Smiths, for example). But if one memory of my sister’s largesse will abide, it’s when she sat me down to watch this almost sickeningly funny film.
‘Scrubbers! Scrubbers!’
It IS funny – quite apart from the tragic-comical way in which struggling thesps Withnail (Richard E Grant) and Marwood (Paul McGann) scrape what can’t really be called an existence, let alone a living, there’s the strawberry-faced outbursts of scandalously camp Uncle Monty (Richard Griffiths), the coffee-house confrontation in Penrith, all of which are time-capsule jobs for British cinematic historians.
‘I mean to have you, boy…even if it must be burglary…’
But Bruce Robinson’s script and direction have another dimension, that of time - remembered, passed and wasted. The verminously scruffy dealer Danny (Ralph Brown) recites his own lament for the end of the 1960s (the setting is the autumn of 1969). Thereafter, in the teeming rain of Regents’ Park, Withnail bids farewell to Marwood - who has finally found work - and thus to a part of his sagging, defeated life. For Robinson, this is also a monument to a past become unthinkable in the Britain of Thatcher and monetarism into which the film was released; a 1960s that was not all Jane Asher, Carnaby Street and mod ensigns.
‘I feel like a pig shat in my head…’
It’s the film’s quality of tackling temporality, often concealed by the belly-laughs, which is what elevates merely a great British comedy into a classic movie, one which – unlike, say, Brassed Off (1996) or The Titfield Thunderbolt (1953) – can resonate with audiences from Camden Town to Kuala Lumpur. Even if the bits we remember are the bits everyone remembers.
‘Look at him, Withnail! His mechanism’s gone’
The signature piece featured on the soundtrack is Hendrix’s All Along the Watchtower as the heroes motor up an empty M1 in a ruined Jaguar D-type. This is a neat analogy – popular culture at its most inventive, dynamic and inspiring.
107 mins.
Tags: Bruce Robinson, Marwood, Paul McGann, Ralph Brown, Richard E Grant, Richard Griffiths, Withnail, Withnail & I (1987)
Posted in british, comedy |
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February 26th, 2008 at 10:08 am
It’s a funny thing - as a reactionary, I absolutely LOATHED Withnail & I when I first saw it, and absolutely because all the bloody students (and I was one at the time) would not cease blathering on about it. So, I didn’t like it on purpose, just to show ‘em. However, when I watched it again later in life, with the shackles of studentship removed, I realised what a joy it actually is. And that’s my story…
February 26th, 2008 at 2:01 pm
Don’t threaten me with a dead fish…
Like James (although I was enrolled at the Toodimfor University), everyone I knew at the time was banging on about Withnail. When I finally got around to it, I could see why they were so enamoured. I have since moved countries and luckily have not had to back down and admit how funny it is.
March 3rd, 2008 at 8:35 pm
Withnail & I has to be one of my favourite films. I’ll ignore Paul’s list for now. But as someone who cannot, for the life of her, get any quotes correct - either from a song, film or even a play (God - I hate that Shakespeare bloke) - ‘I must have some booze. I demand to have some booze’
March 4th, 2008 at 11:41 am
And let’s not forget, Zed, ‘Monty - you terrible c**t!’
March 4th, 2008 at 11:49 am
LOL - ‘FORK IT! FORK IT!’
March 5th, 2008 at 1:34 am
What did I say about catchphrases? Catching, aren’t they?
‘And naeeh I’m caeelling yee a ponce…PONCE!’
‘No my dear boy, you must leave, you must leave…once again that oaf has destroyed my day…’
‘It’s obsessed with its gut, it’s like a rugby ball now… it will die, IT WILL DIE!’
‘There must and SHALL be aspirin’
‘We may as well sit around a cigarette…must have HEAT…’
‘Eat it? The fucker’s alive’
‘How can we make it die?’ [I have actually used this, in real life]
‘A coward you are, Withnail. An expert on bulls you are not!’
‘Hello? Hello? Hello? Hello? Fuck you!’ [slams down phone]
‘We want the finest wines available to man. We want them here, and we want them now’
‘Old suit? This suit was cut by Hawkes’ of Savile Row… just because the best tailoring you’ve ever seen’s above your fucking appendix doesn’t mean anything’
DANNY: ‘Street… the embalmer…’
WITHNAIL: ‘Balls, I’ll swallow it and run a mile’
Still think that the ‘holiday by mistake’ is the most ludicrously inspired line, one that Robinson could NOT have made up.
March 5th, 2008 at 10:24 am
‘My thumbs have gone weird’
‘Here. Hare. Here.’
‘Who says it’s a Camberwell Carrot?’
‘I do. I invented it in Camberwell, and it looks like a carrot’
We could go on. And probably will.
March 7th, 2008 at 4:15 pm
‘There’s nothing out there except a hurricane.’
‘If I see that silage heap hanging around up here I’ll take the bastard axe to him. BASTAAARDS! You’ll all suffer! I’m gonna be a star!’