Evita (1996)
Antonio Banderas: Ché
Photos
Quotes
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Ché : Sing, you fools, but you got it wrong! Enjoy your prayers because you haven't got long. Your queen is dead. Your king is through. She's not coming back to you. Show business kept us all alive since 17 October 1945 but the star has gone, the glamour's worn thin. That's a pretty bad state for a state to be in. Instead of government we had a stage. Instead of ideas, a prima donna's rage! Instead of help, we were given a crowd. She didn't say much but she said it loud.
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Ché : One always picks the easy fight. One praises fools, one smothers light. One shifts from left to right. Politics - the art of the possible.
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Ché : High flying, adored. Did you believe in your wildest moments all this would be yours, that you'd become the lady of them all? Were there stars in your eyes when you crawled in at night - from the bars, from the sidewalks, from the gutter theatrical? Don't look down, it's a long, long way to fall.
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Ché : And the money kept rolling out in all directions. To the poor, to the weak, to the destitute of all complexions. Now, cynics claim a little of the cash has gone astray. But that's not the point, my friend. When the money keeps rolling out you don't keep books! You can tell you've done well by the happy grateful looks. Accountants only slow things down, figures get in the way. Never been a lady loved as much as Eva Perón!
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Ché : [to Eva] Tell me, before I waltz out of your life, before turning my back on the past - forgive my impertinent behavior, but how long do you think this pantomime can last? Tell me, before I ride off in the sunset, there's one thing I never got clear: How can you claim you're our savior when those who oppose you are stepped on or cut up or simply disappear?
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Ché : Tell me before I seek worthier pastures and thereby restore self-esteem, how can you be so short-sighted to look never further than this week or next week to have no impossible dream?
Eva Perón : Allow me to help you slink off to the sidelines and mark your adieu with three cheers! But first, tell me who'd be delighted if I said I'd take on the world's greatest problems - from war to pollution, no hope of solution, even if I lived for one hundred years?
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Ché : Oh, what a circus, oh, what a show! Argentina has gone to town over the death of an actress called Eva Peron. We've all gone crazy, mourning all day and mourning all night, falling over ourselves to get all of the misery right. Oh, what an exit! That's how to go. When they're ringing your curtain down, demand to be buried like Eva Peron. It's quite a sunset, and good for the country in a roundabout way. We've made the front page of all the world's papers today.
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Ché : Now Eva Perón had every disadvantage you need if you're going to succeed. No money, no cash, no father, no bright lights. There was nowhere she'd been at the age of fifteen, as this tango singer found out. Agustin Magaldi - who has the distinction of being the first man to be of use to Eva Duarte.
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Ché : Yeah, just one shell, and governments fall like flies! Kapow! Die! They stumble and fall! Bye-bye - backs to the wall! Aim high - we're having a ball! The tank and bullet rule as democracy dies!
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Ché : Hang your head, because she is no longer there, to shine, to dazzle or betray.
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Ché : The greatest social climber since Cinderella!
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Ché : Who did you sleep... dine with yesterday?
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Ché : Forgive my intrusion, but fine as those sentiments sound... little has changed for us peasants down here on the ground. I hate to sound childish, ungrateful, I don't like to moan. But do you know represent anyone's cause but your own?
Eva Perón : Everything done will be justified by my foundation.
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Ché : And now she wants to be vice-president.
Perón's Generals : That was the over-the-top unacceptable suggestion. We didn't approve, but we couldn't prevent the games of the wife of the president. But to give her intentions encouragement - she's out of her depth and out of the question.
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Ché : Okay, she couldn't act but she had the right friends, and we all know a career depends on knowing the right fella to be stellar!
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Ché : You let down your people, Evita! You were supposed to have been immortal. That's all they wanted. Not much to ask for. But in the end you could not deliver.
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Ché : How she lived. How she shone. But how soon the lights were gone.
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Ché : She had her moments. She had some style.
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Ché : So famous, so easily, so soon is not the wisest thing to be.
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Ché : [to one of Eva's lovers] We'd love you to stay, but you'd be in the way, so do up your trousers and go!
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Ché : She filled a bull-ring - 45,000 seater; but if you're prettier than General Franco, that's not hard.
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Juan Bramuglia : More bad news from Rome, she met with the Pope. She only got a rosary and a kindly word.
Ché : I wouldn't say the holy father gave her the bird. But papal decorations, never a hope.
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Peron Advisers : Let's hear it for the Rainbow Tour! It's been an incredible success. We weren't quite sure; we had a few doubts...
Juan Perón : Will Evita win through? And the answer is...
Ché : A qualified yes.
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Ché : Turn a blind eye, Evita, turn a blind eye...
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Ché : [last lines]
Ché : [as he moves through the crowd while Eva's body lies in state] The choice was yours and no one else's./ You can cry for a body in despair./ Hang your head because she is no longer there/ To shine, or dazzle, or betray. How she lived, how she shone/ But how soon the lights were gone.
Eva's Dressers : Eyes, hair, face, image/ All must be preserved/ Still life displayed forever/ No less than she deserved.
[Ché makes his way back into the crowd, but not before he and Perón make one brief, wordless moment of eye contact]
