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Dialouge in Focus

Dialogue in Focus is a semi weekly highlight of scene and dialogue that is particularly notable. This installment comes from "Outlaw Josey Wales" (1976) starring Clint Eastwood and directed by him as well.

In this dialogue, Wales rides into the camp of Comanche war chief Ten Bears (Will Sampson) and makes his bid for peace. This scene contained some of the best dialogue script int he whole movie. "There is iron in your words of death for all Comanche to see. So there is iron in your words of life."

Set in the immediate aftermath of the Civil War, Outlaw Josey Wales spoke to a larger theme at the time...reconciliation between the opposing parties on both sides of the Vietnam War issue. It remains an outstanding example of cinematography, screenwriting and use of genre to address a larger, more contemporary theme.

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Documentary work, photoJ and being where history is being made. 14 years of wars and disasters and other interesting events from Rainbow Family Gatherings to re-enactments. Stay tuned...

"Here without you," is the The Three Doors Down song THAT SHOULD BE playing. But, when I switched to a filmaker profile, it went away.

I heard for the first time on the roof of the Mauritanian Embassy in Baghdad, which my guys from the 101st Airborne had occupied. We were sitting up on the roof, as dusk fell into a blazing, Purple Haze sunset.

The town was quiet, no shooting, no traffic, just stillness bathed in liquid orange and purple. The day before, resistance had petered out and we'd moved into the neighborhood to occupy the area. My buds had rigged up a CD player with speakers torn out of a destroyed vehicle nearby. We passed small talk and smoked the last of our cigarettes, breaking out the night vision goggles and flares, getting ready for the night watch.

This song came on and all of a sudden it got real quiet. Everybody just sort of stopped what they were doing in mid movement. That's when we noticed the silence, the sunset. We looked at each other, just us, a bunch of kids up on this roof in the middle of freaking Iraq. That's when it hit. The war was over and we had lived through it.

Things would change in the coming months, but for that brief three minutes, we were together, we were safe and the city was at peace. It's something I'll carry to my grave. I miss that moment dearly.