This Ain’t Bebop
Writer: Ralph Bakshi
Director: Ralph Bakshi
Release: 1989
Stars/Actors: Harvey Keitel, Rick Singer, Craig Stark, Ron Thompson, Sean Heyman, Dean Hill, Rober Liguori, Kara ‘Chavez’ Sachs
Production Company: PBS
ID: tt0456175
Rating: n/a
Runtime: 30 minutes
Based On: A poem by Ralph Bakshi
Synopsis: One man tries to reclaim the life he once had.
Declassified by Agent Palmer: Rotospective: This Ain’t Bebop is about Reflection Inspired by Jazz, Beatniks, Kerouac, and Brooklyn
Quotes and Lines
It’s part of my disgrace to offer my race something to think about
About minds being blown away by the roofs of white houses on green lawns
While those that claim to know
Know what you don’t know
And they run you through with it
You raise your arms in disbelief
You’re bleeding to death without any help from your mother
Or those that believe that bird is a nigger
You die without ever coming
Your pants unstained
“stalling my young life staring at the girl across the way.”
“What’s wrong with thinking? Separates us from the animals”
I got Brooklyn married, fathered out, jobbed out…
“Now, I finally drive the night looking for relief, but the women always stay in the shadows.”
“I remember when Kerouac rode the highways and wild nights, radios… while Pollock was painting, while I stared at Diane Arbus… Coltrane played for himself. People listened. PEOPLE LISTENED!”
“Dig this truth baby, all those guys, you know who they were … you know Kerouac, you know Jackson Pollock. Well, dig this truth baby, they’re all dead, they’ve been replaced by shopping centers…”
“Well dig this truth baby… do you have any money?”
“Not a question of art for art’s sake, it never was. It’s a question of believing that freedom from community is why we were born, to be, to see, to burn in the only way that we know how. To dream that dream… you die another American disaster…”
“It’s part of my disgrace to offer my race something to think about,”
“it could be any street, any town, USA. Wherever you are, you’re probably part of a certain old fashioned home-bred spirit of, well, do you mind an old fashion word? … ”