Frank Black quotes from Millennium

Catherine

I can handle imposition, Frank. What I can't handle is secrecy.

Frank

I don't keep secrets, Catherine. I'll tell you anything you want.

Catherine

You think you're protecting me but you make it worse, Frank. You can't shut the world out for me. You can't ask me to pretend that I don't know what you do.

Frank

Everyone pretends. We all make believe. These men I help catch... make us.

Catherine

We're raising a daughter, Frank. The real world starts to seep in. You can't stop it.

Frank

It seems that the old biblical concept of the devil's influence has lost any currency.

Catherine

I just think the language has changed. I think science and psychology have given us a clearer idea of why people commit evil acts. I see it everyday, abused kids become abusive adults.

Frank

So the true source of evil is us.

Catherine

You mean, are we all capable of it?

Frank

Or is there something out there - a force or a presence - waiting until it can create another murder, another rape, another holocaust.

Catherine

I think it's something that everyone who looks deeply at life wonders.

Frank

What would you tell a child? What would I tell Jordan?

Catherine

Maybe you should just tell her good-night.

Mike

What you described in there last night... the face of the beast...

Frank

I saw it, the day I arrived.

Mike

I've seen the face of evil, Frank. I've looked into its eyes, seen it staring back at me. The face has always been a man's face... a human face. I've always believed that evil is born in a cold heart and a weak mind.

Frank

I have too.

Mike

He sends the photos to you, Frank. The envelope has your name on it. What's the object of terrorism?

Frank

Terror.

Mike

That's all he wants at this point.

Frank

Then he's a success...

Frank

He needed one lens replaced -- the left lens?

Well, that I don't remember. But what I do remember is that he was getting all weirded out.

Weirded how?

I guess his glasses got a little lost in the shuffle, so I asked him for a service slip number and he gets all sweaty, and his eyes got real weird. So I went back, I asked the technicians, maybe they had seen them. And I guess they were in the tray right behind me but all the trays are marked with the customer's name on it. And he starts going: 'I have a name! I have a name!'

I thought it was the guy. We all did.

Frank

What if it was, James? Is bouncing the subject's head off the hood of the car going to do anything to change all the other murders that will occur today?

Come on, Frank! Some guy cuts your wife and your daughter into eight pieces and you just stand there and you read him his rights?!

Frank

He hasn't killed our wives or our families and he's not going to. If you make every one of these personal, you'll go insane and that's from having been there, James.

I get so far into the heads of the killers and the victims.

Frank

You haven't got there at all.

Don't you tell me where I am!

Frank

You put them in your head.

I keep reliving... what it's like to be cut in half... or four... or eight.

Frank

This isn't about you, James! The whole thing... what's going on out here... it's about us! Me, you... the killer and the victim.

I can't help but take this personally. Another person is going to die, horribly. Because I s-... we screwed up. I-... we did all this for nothing.

Frank

No, we didn't. We handed out 30 pins from the hospital charity to be placed here. There's 31. We wanted one taken, but one was left. He was here.

Catherine

They play well together.

Yeah. It's great to watch them, huh? They have no idea. Things we see... things we know are out there. I hope I'm not screwing him up... I never ever dreamed at that perfect moment that... my time with him would be regulated by petitions, attorney retainers, orders of the court... that mother, father and son would become nothing more than a case number... that as a father, I risk adding nothing to his life. I could become nothing but... face covered in gray tape.

Frank

When I read Dostoevsky there was a passage, something like: 'There's nothing more sad than a life that ends and no one knows or cares.' Hair today, gone tomorrow. The subject is angry that his life will go unnoticed... that he will have left nothing. The hatred of himself is directed toward the world which has held him back because it objectified him... reduced him, reduced us all to universal bar codes. We are animals in a caged shelter, controlled by dog catchers. The gray tape makes the victims look like how he feels -- faceless -- a dead letter lost at the post office. He's killed before... when he was young... most likely a female prostitute, after an early setback... a girlfriend, a job. He sought out a woman that wouldn't turn him away. The solicitation increased his feelings of nothingness and so he killed her before sex. My guess? He was never caught. He got away with it. Subject has felt guilt ever since, angered at a world that should have punished him but didn't. The murder, however, was the most significant event in his life. He's returned to this place, to the event. He wants nothing more than to be stopped. But he will do everything in his control to remain significant.

Frank

What's the matter, honey?

I had a bad dream.

Frank

Oh... come on... Everybody has bad dreams.

Why?

Frank

A controller. Someone calling the shots. Out of caution or distaste, he's chosen to avoid direct action. Now he's found himself a new surrogate.

Someone to carry on the killing.

Frank

Someone predisposed to an alternative theory of justice. Disillusioned, credulous, naïve...

Bletcher

You mean we're looking for two guys now?

Frank

The killer's capable of a high level of violence, probably someone who's been in the justice system once or twice, done time.

Ex-con, moves in similar circles outside. Limited number of places these people go. Limited ways they socialize.

Bletcher

I think I know the kind of places you mean.

Frank

Sit down. What should I call you?

'Judge' is fine. Or the name on the report. My name is 'Legion.'

Frank

'Legion?'

When Jesus of Nazareth expelled demons from a herd of enchanted hogs, story has it that the demons told him their name was 'Legion.' How would you like to work for me?

Frank

Work? You mean killing.

Every man finds his own path to justice. You needn't commit yourself now. The offer's open. A month, a year... Many benefits. I know you're sometimes scared for your family, your wife. There's a child now too, yes?

Frank

When you spoke to Bardale, what did you say to him when he called you from the bar?

Bardale... who can speak to Bardale? A slave of echoes. I can talk to you. We're after the same thing.

Frank

How's that?

I can show you an absolute justice, an unconstrained justice. You'd have freedom to act without fear. Bardale and his kindred... they fear me, they obey me. Your family would be safe from such threats.

Frank

Uh-huh.

The police are about to release me. You and your group of associates have never been as close to me as I've allowed this time. I wanted you to hear my offer, feel its truth, see my strength.

Frank

We're going to find Bardale.

Oh, yes. My congratulations in advance. Well, it's time to go. And remember, the offer's open. And if I'm hard to reach, well, don't make the conventional assumptions.

Bletcher

What'd he say?

Frank

He offered me a job.

Frank

The man I had Bletcher pick up has filed a half a dozen law suits. City's attorney's ordered the police to stay away from him. [Offers his sandwich to Catherine.] Want this?

Catherine

No, thanks. There's nothing to be done, to bring this man to justice?

Frank

He flaunts the system and gets away with it, as if his private justice was a higher, purer form.

Catherine

Then he uses conventional law to protect himself.

Frank

When you believe in nothing, everything is acceptable. It's a game to him. He sits at home a free man. He's taunting us.

Wherein where previous findings indicate the other body parts were all sundered while the victims where alive, but I believe this tongue was removed after death. Also the instrument wasn't as sharp or as skillfully used as in previous excisions.

Bletcher

Would that point to, uh, rage, loss of control?

Doubtful. The cuts aren't unusually forceful, just imprecise. A few false starts, repetitive blade strokes.

Bletcher

Frank?

Frank

We do have a pattern change.

Unlikely to be intentional deviation from the established method.

Bletcher

So how do we account for it?

The victim died prematurely or the killer was interrupted.

The perpetrator may be getting lazy, becoming more casual as his activities lose their novelty.

Bletcher

So it really doesn't tell us much then.

Frank

Well, it tells us that he's less concerned about being discovered but no less dangerous... possibly more so. There's nothing here to indicate that this is going to stop.

Raymond Dees

Frank?

Frank

What?

Raymond Dees

I've seen it. The moment before. Their faces. They're terrified because they don't understand... unlike you, Frank. They don't understand what it is to give yourself over to chaos. But you understand. You've seen it too. I can tell.

Raymond Dees

I touch people in a deep, lasting way. A life-altering way.

Frank

You're really a very important man.

Raymond Dees

Well, thank you, sirrah. I'm glad you see that. Do you know precisely what happens at the moment of detonation? Shock waves moving faster than the speed of sound, pressure of over 500 pounds per square inch and this is all unleashed by me, Frank. It moves so fast that a vacuum is formed behind it, sucking back all the air that's been forced out by the blast. So, you see, Frank, a glass splinter will literally turn itself around, go back and penetrate anything that's in its path. I just don't know anything that has the power to stop that. My art brings out the truth. People are either vic-TORS or vic-TIMS. My explosion strips every hypocrisy, every pretension sheltered in the human heart and exposes the naked soul.

Frank

I feel your work is about waiting, anticipating the moment, the terror created. Playing so long on the mind, the fantasy becomes dull. The only moment worth a damn... the only arousal, is the moment of fire. Feel the heat upon your face. The impact upon your chest. The screams. The sirens. It is the moment of creation.

Raymond Dees

What I do is not work, Frank. It's art. My palette is fire, glass and blood. It's a fleeting art. It lasts only a fraction of a second, but the effect is profound, permanent... and if you're lucky, you happen to look in the right direction at the right time, you might get to see my creation.

Frank

When?

Raymond Dees

Later. Today.