Don't Make a Scene: Nebraska

The Story: Happy Mother's Day!

I love old people, probably because I'm becoming one (am one, actually). There can be an honesty that is brutal, brittle, and uncompromising, as if to set the record straight before it's lost forever. No time for bullshit...because one is made aware that time runs out and it becomes increasingly evident as the bodies start to pile up around you and you find yourself spending more time at funerals than at parties.

I've found out more things about my parents after they died from their survivors than I might have guessed while they were alive, and that knowledge only has increased my appreciation of them for what they went through—The Great Depression, World War II, Eisenhower Suburbia and their rare conflicts with each other—while giving me a greater understanding of their life's journey—and mine—and of the time they intersected.

It's an "old saw" to never speak ill of the dead. But, why? Nobody's perfect. The flaws bring a richness to the canvas, and the shadows only accentuate the bright, making them stand out. Plus, if you believe neuro-scientist David Eagleman, it might be for the good, pushing out his idea of a third death* which is when, sometime in the future, "your name is spoken for the last time." The truth will out, and the truth will outlast us.

Such thoughts did not occur to me when I saw this scene from Nebraska some years ago—for the reason that I was a fan and rare "nodding-at" acquaintance of its writer Bob Nelson—but it was laugh-out-loud funny, extraordinarily relatable, and had that unique quality of being more than merely the words on the page, or the images or performances (although all are excellent elements in themselves—the images having a particularly "John Ford" quality). It resonated, reaching out into the audience and making it that height of communication—art.

Highfalutin' words for a scene that is also something of a gut-buster.

"Mo-om...."


The Set-Up: Old Woody Grant (Bruce Dern) is on a million dollar mission. That's the prize he thinks he's won from a magazine solicitation. So, he's determined to get to Lincoln, Nebraska to collect his fortune. He cannot be dissuaded by his wife Kate (June Squibb) or his kids, David (Will Forte) and Ross (Bob Odenkirk) who think it's a scam and are trying to keep him from chasing a wild goose to Nebraska. Finally, David decides to take Woody to Nebraska, stopping on the way in Woody's hometown of Hawthorne, where they are met by Kate, who's taken a bus there, and their first stop is the last stop, the cemetery, to pay something like respect...and fill in some gaps in the family history...with cement.

Action.

47 EXT. HAWTHORNE CEMETERY - DAY 47

Flowers in hand, Kate offers a running commentary as she leads Woody and David slowly past the headstones.

KATE That’s Woody’s mother Sara. She hated me because she wanted him to marry someone who’d milk the cows, 

KATE ...but I said I ain’t fiddlin’ with no cow titties. I’m a city girl. 

KATE  The good lord did not do Sara any favors in the looks department. 

KATE More a man’s face than a woman’s, really. I was pretty, so she resented me. You knew your mother was ugly, right, Woody?

Woody looks at Kate, then stares at his mother’s grave.

DAVID How did she die?
KATE Saw herself in the mirror one day! 

KATE No, cancer. (moving on)

KATE And there’s the old Swede Tolf. A good man, your grandpa. Never said much. 

KATE That farm just ruined him. (to Woody)

KATE You’re lucky I took you away from there. 
Woody nods slightly as he looks at his father’s leaf-covered grave. 

KATE (CONT’D) That’s Woody’s brother David. You were named after him. 

KATE He died of scarlet fever when he was only two. 

KATE Woody slept in the same bed with him but never got it.

David contemplates the sight of his own name on a headstone.

KATE(CONT’D) Here’s Woody’s little sister Rose. 

KATE She was only nineteen when she got killed in a car wreck near Wausa.

Blue (10-12-2012) 42.

 

KATE What a whore. 

DAVID Mom...
KATE I liked Rose, but my God, she was a slut.

DAVID Mom, come on.
KATE I’m just telling the truth. 

KATE She was screwing guys in back of the Hawthorne Creamery when she was only... (a whisper) ...fifteen.
DAVID C'mon, Mom. Jeesus!

DAVID Where’s your family?
KATE They’re over at the Catholic cemetery. We’ll go there later. Catholics... 

 

KATE ...wouldn’t be caught dead around all these damn Lutherans. 

KATE Now there’s Delmer, Woody’s cousin. 

 

KATE He was a drunk. 

 

KATE One time we were wrastlin’ and he felt me up.

 

KATE Grabbed a handful of boob, and Woody was right there and didn’t have a clue, did you, Woody?

DAVID Jesus, Mom.

KATE My goodness, I didn’t know Keith White was here. When did he die? 

KATE Keith White. 

 

KATE He wanted in my pants too, but oh, he was so boring.

Hearing enough, Woody and David head toward the car.

Kate remains at Keith’s grave and pulls her dress up.

KATE (CONT’D) See what you could’ve had, Keith, if you hadn’t talked about wheat all the time?

(chuckles)

Nebraska

Words by Bob Nelson

Pictures by Phedon Papamichael and Alexander Payne

Nebraska is available on DVD and Blu-Ray from Paramount Home Video.

* The first two are more well-known—at the point when your body stops functioning and at the time when you are "consigned or put in the grave."

Nebraska's writer Bob Nelson performing an on-going character on television's "Almost Live!"—

a brilliant distillation of children's show hosts, mixed with an unhealthy dose of sardonic reality.

I wanted to show the segment he did on the "Bill Nye the Science Guy" episode on "The Food Web", 

but it doesn't allow embedding. This link will have to do.

https://www.dailymotion.com/video/x3vxhpf