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RE: The 50 Greatest 'Haunted by the Past' Characters - 25/2/2013 3:21:08 PM

Beetlejuice!

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24. Jason Bourne (Matt Damon) - The Bourne Identity (2002) / The Bourne Supremacy (2004) / The Bourne Ultimatum (2007)

"Everything I found out, I want to forget."

Jason Bourne was part of a project called Treadstone, where agents were turned into ultimate assassins. He was shot while on a mission and lost his memory, which sets up the background to the first movie.
Jason Bourne's memory loss is a form of amnesia, where he forgets his name and much of his past, but retains his kinetic reflexes, which lets him keep using his fighting and other skills that he acquired during his previous life. His difficulties regaining memory are magnified by the fact that prior to the incident when he was shot, his training program and his job had seriously altered his mental state and essentially made him a different person. Memory loss theme persists through each movie with Jason trying, and having difficulty, to remember certain mysterious episodes of his life as an assassin. With Jason being out in the open, many loose ends of things he worked on are left unprotected, and that touches some of the highest circles of power including secret government agencies and criminal organizations who perceive Jason to be a threat to themselves. Jason, therefore, himself becomes a target of attempted assassinations.

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RE: The 50 Greatest 'Haunted by the Past' Characters - 26/2/2013 3:58:03 PM

Beetlejuice!

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23. Salvatore 'Toto' Da Vita (Jacques Perrin) - Cinema Paradiso (1988)

"Thank you. For everything you've done for me."

A famous film director remembers his childhood at the Cinema Paradiso where Alfredo, the projectionist, first brought about his love of films. He returns home to his Sicilian village for the first time after almost 30 years and is reminded of his first love, Elena, who disappeared from his life before he left for Rome.

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Post #: 32

RE: The 50 Greatest 'Haunted by the Past' Characters - 26/2/2013 4:03:44 PM

Beetlejuice!

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22. Clarice Starling (Jodie Foster) - The Silence of the Lambs (1991)

"First I tried to free them. I... I opened the gate to their pen, but they wouldn't run. They just stood there, confused. They wouldn't run."

Young FBI agent Clarice Starling is assigned to help find a missing woman to save her from a psychopathic serial killer who skins his victims. Clarice attempts to gain a better insight into the twisted mind of the killer by talking to another psychopath Hannibal Lecter, who used to be a respected psychiatrist. FBI agent Jack Crawford believes that Lecter, who is also a very powerful and clever mind manipulator, has the answers to their questions and can help locate the killer. However, Clarice must first gain Lecter's confidence before the inmate will give away any information.

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Post #: 33

RE: The 50 Greatest 'Haunted by the Past' Characters - 5/3/2013 4:34:52 PM

Beetlejuice!

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21. Mark Lewis (Karlheinz Bohm) - Peeping Tom (1960)

"Good night Daddy. Hold my hand."

Mark Lewis, works as a focus puller in a British film studio. On his off hours, he supplies a local porno shop with cheesecake photos and also dabbles in filmmaking. A lonely, unfriendly, sexually repressed fellow, Mark is obsessed with the effects of fear and how they are registered on the face and behavior of the frightened. This obsession dates from the time when, as a child, he served as the subject of some cold-blooded experiments in the psychology of terror conducted by his own scientist father. As a grown man, Mark becomes a compulsive murderer who kills women and records their contorted features and dying gasps on film. His ongoing project is a documentary on fear.

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RE: The 50 Greatest 'Haunted by the Past' Characters - 5/3/2013 4:41:02 PM

Beetlejuice!

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20. Fergus (Stephen Rea) - The Crying Game (1992)

"Your soldier knew, didn't he?"

An unlikely kind of friendship develops between Fergus, an Irish Republican Army volunteer, and Jody, a kidnapped British soldier lured into an IRA trap by Jude, another IRA member. When the hostage-taking ends up going horribly wrong, Fergus escapes and heads to London, where he seeks out Jody's lover, a hairdresser named Dil. Fergus adopts the name "Jimmy" and gets a job as a day laborer. He also starts seeing Dil, who knows nothing about Fergus' IRA background. But there are some things about Dil that Fergus doesn't know, either...

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RE: The 50 Greatest 'Haunted by the Past' Characters - 5/3/2013 4:45:01 PM

Beetlejuice!

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19. Richard (Paddy Considine) - Dead Man's Shoes (2004)

"God will forgive them. He'll forgive them and allow them into Heaven. I can't live with that."

Richard returns home from military service to a small town in the Midlands. He has one thing on his mind: revenge. Payback for the local bullies who did some very bad things to his brother. At first his campaign employs guerrilla tactics, designed to frighten the men and put them ill at ease. But then he steps up his operation, and one by one these local tough guys are picked off by the terrifying angel of vengeance that Richard has become.

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Post #: 36

RE: The 50 Greatest 'Haunted by the Past' Characters - 12/3/2013 3:59:44 PM

Beetlejuice!

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18. J.J. Gittes (Jack Nicholson) - Chinatown (1974)

"That's what the District Attorney used to tell me in Chinatown."

JJ Gittes, aka, "Jake", is a Los Angeles private detective. Though most of Jake's business involves spying on disloyal spouses, he is actually an honest man trying to earn a living in a crooked world. Jake used to be a police officer working in LA's Chinatown but presumably he quit when he realized he was essentially powerless to stop the rampant corruption on his beat. Jake becomes involved in an intricate plot of deception and murder when LA's water control commissioner is found dead during a persistent drought. Jake discovers through his sleuthing that the dead man's estranged wife, Evelyn Mulwray and her father, a corrupt and sleazy businessman, Noah Cross, are involved in the plot as well. All the events of the story end with a spectacular finale in Jake's old neighborhood, Chinatown.

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RE: The 50 Greatest 'Haunted by the Past' Characters - 16/3/2013 10:40:27 AM

Beetlejuice!

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17. David 'Noodles' Aaronson (Robert De Niro) - Once Upon a Time in America (1984)

"There were two things I couldn't get out of my mind. One was Dominic, the way he said, "I slipped," just before he died. The other was you. How you used to read me your Song of Songs, remember? "How beautiful are your feet / In sandals, O prince's daughter." I used to read the Bible every night. Every night I used to think about you. "Your navel is a bowl / Well-rounded with no lack of wine / Your belly, a heap of wheat / Surrounded with lilies / Your breasts / Clusters of grapes / Your breath, sweet-scented as apples." Nobody's gonna love you the way I loved you. At times I couldn't stand it. I used to think of you. I'd think, "Deborah lives. She's out there. She exists." And that would get me through it all. You know how important that was to me?"

Epic tale of a group of Jewish gangsters in New York, from childhood, through their glory years during prohibition, and their meeting again 35 years later.

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RE: The 50 Greatest 'Haunted by the Past' Characters - 16/3/2013 4:05:19 PM

Beetlejuice!

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16. Marcello Clerici (Jean-Louis Trintignant) - The Conformist (1970)

"I've already repented. I want to be excused by society. Yes. I want to confess today the sin I'll commit tomorrow. One sin atones for another. It is the price I must pay society. And I shall pay it."

This story opens in 1938 in Rome, where Marcello has just taken a job working for Mussollini and is courting a beautiful young woman who will make him even more of a conformist. Marcello is going to Paris on his honeymoon and his bosses have an assignment for him there. Look up an old professor who fled Italy when the fascists came into power. At the border of Italy and France, where Marcello and his bride have to change trains, his bosses give him a gun with a silencer. In a flashback to 1917, we learn why sex and violence are linked in Marcello's mind.

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Post #: 39

RE: The 50 Greatest 'Haunted by the Past' Characters - 16/3/2013 4:09:21 PM

Beetlejuice!

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15. James Whale (Ian McKellen) - Gods and Monsters (1998)

"Making movies is the most wonderful thing in the world. Working with friends - entertaining people - yes, I suppose I miss it."

The story of James Whale, the director of Frankenstein and The Bride of Frankenstein, in the time period following the Korean War. Whale is homosexual and develops a friendship with his gardener, an ex-Marine.

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RE: The 50 Greatest 'Haunted by the Past' Characters - 18/3/2013 6:13:03 PM

Beetlejuice!

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14. 'Maxim' de Winter (Laurence Olivier) - Rebecca (1940)

"You thought I loved Rebecca? You thought that? I hated her!"

A shy ladies' companion, staying in Monte Carlo with her stuffy employer, meets the wealthy Maxim de Winter. She and Max fall in love, marry and return to Manderley, his large country estate in Cornwall. Max is still troubled by the death of his first wife, Rebecca, in a boating accident the year before. The second Mrs. de Winter clashes with the housekeeper, Mrs. Danvers, and discovers that Rebecca still has a strange hold on everyone at Manderley.

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Post #: 41

RE: The 50 Greatest 'Haunted by the Past' Characters - 18/3/2013 9:43:06 PM

Beetlejuice!

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13. Miss Havisham (Martita Hunt) - Great Expectations (1946)

"Come nearer. Let me look at you. Come close. Look at me. You aren't afraid of a woman who has never seen the sun since before you were born?"

Miss Havisham's mother died when her daughter was a baby. Her father, a wealthy brewer, spoiled their daughter as a result. When he died, he left most of his money as inheritance for her. As an adult, she fell in love with a man named Compeyson, who was only out to swindle her of her riches. Her cousin Matthew Pocket warned her to be careful, but she was too much in love to listen. At twenty minutes to nine on their wedding day, while she was dressing, Havisham received a letter from Copeyson and realized he had defrauded her and she had been left at the altar.
Humiliated and heartbroken, from that day on, she remained alone in Satis House, her decaying mansion�never removing her wedding dress and wearing only one shoe, leaving the wedding cake uneaten on the table and allowing only a few people to see her.

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RE: The 50 Greatest 'Haunted by the Past' Characters - 18/3/2013 10:10:34 PM

Beetlejuice!

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12. George Smiley (Gary Oldman) - Tinker Tailor Soldier Spy (2011)

"We are not so very different, you and I. We've both spent our lives looking for the weaknesses in one another."

Smiley is an intelligence officer working for MI6 (often referred to as "the Circus" in the novels and films), the British overseas intelligence agency. In 1943, he was recalled to England to work at MI6 headquarters, and in 1945 successfully proposed marriage to Lady Ann Sercombe, a beautiful, aristocratic, and libidinous young lady working as a secretary there. Ann would prove a most unfaithful and rather condescending wife. In the same year, Smiley left the Service and returned to Oxford. However, in 1947, with the onset of the Cold War, Smiley was asked to return to the Service, and in early 1951 moved into counter-intelligence work, where he would remain for the next decade. During that period, Smiley first met his Soviet nemesis, Karla, in a Delhi prison. Karla proved impossible to crack, and he took Smiley's lighter, a gift to Smiley from his wife.

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RE: The 50 Greatest 'Haunted by the Past' Characters - 22/3/2013 9:58:17 AM

Beetlejuice!

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11. Cynthia Rose Purley (Brenda Blethyn) - Secrets & Lies (1996)

"I wouldn't know him if he stood up in my soup!"

Cynthia lives in London with her sullen street-sweeper daughter. Her brother has been successful with his photographer's business and now lives nearby in a more upmarket house. But Cynthia hasn't even been invited round there after a year. So, all round, she feels rather lonely and isolated. Meanwhile, in another part of town, Hortense, adopted at birth but now grown up, starts to try and trace her mother.

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Post #: 44

RE: The 50 Greatest 'Haunted by the Past' Characters - 22/3/2013 10:02:02 AM

Beetlejuice!

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10. El Chivo (Emilio Echevarria) - Amores Perros (2000)

"At the time, I thought there were more important things than being with you and your mom. I wanted to set the world right, and then share it with you. I failed, as you can see."

Three interconnected stories about the different strata of life in Mexico City all resolve with a fatal car accident. Octavio is trying to raise enough money to run away with his sister-in-law, and decides to enter his dog Cofi into the world of dogfighting. After a dogfight goes bad, Octavio flees in his car, running a red light and causing the accident. Daniel and Valeria's new-found bliss is prematurely ended when she loses her leg in the accident. El Chivo is a homeless man who cares for stray dogs and is there to witness the collision.

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Post #: 45

RE: The 50 Greatest 'Haunted by the Past' Characters - 23/3/2013 3:25:42 PM

Beetlejuice!

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9. Julie Vignon de Courcy (Juliette Binoche) - Three Colours: Blue (1993)

"Now I have only one thing left to do: nothing. I don't want any belongings, any memories. No friends, no love. Those are all traps."

Three Colors: Blue is the first part of Kieslowski's trilogy on France's national motto: Liberty, Equality, and Fraternity. Blue is the story of Julie who loses her husband, an acclaimed European composer and her young daughter in a car accident. The film's theme of liberty is manifested in Julie's attempt to start life anew free of personal commitments, belongings grief and love. She intends to spiritually commit suicide by withdrawing from the world and live completely independently, anonymously and in solitude in the Parisian metropolis. Despite her intentions, people from her former and present life intrude with their own needs. However, the reality created by the people who need and care about her, a surprising discovery and the music around which the film revolves heals Julie and irresistably draws her back to the land of the living.

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RE: The 50 Greatest 'Haunted by the Past' Characters - 23/3/2013 3:29:53 PM

Beetlejuice!

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8. John 'Scottie' Ferguson (James Stewart) - Vertigo (1958)

"Anyone could become obsessed with the past with a background like that!"

John "Scottie" Ferguson is a retired San Francisco police detective who suffers from acrophobia and Madeleine is the lady who leads him to high places. A wealthy shipbuilder who is an acquaintance from college days approaches Scottie and asks him to follow his beautiful wife, Madeleine. He fears she is going insane, maybe even contemplating suicide, because she believes she is possessed by a dead ancestor. Scottie is skeptical, but agrees after he sees the beautiful Madeleine.

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RE: The 50 Greatest 'Haunted by the Past' Characters - 23/3/2013 3:36:45 PM

Beetlejuice!

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7. Ransom Stoddard (James Stewart) - The Man Who Shot Liberty Valance (1962)

"You're not going to use the story, Mr. Scott?"

When Senator Ransom Stoddard returns home to Shinbone for the funeral of Tom Doniphon, he recounts to a local newspaper editor the story behind it all. He had come to town many years before, a lawyer by profession. The stage was robbed on its way in by the local ruffian, Liberty Valance, and Stoddard has nothing to his name left save a few law books. He gets a job in the kitchen at the Ericson's restaurant and there meets his future wife, Hallie. The territory is vying for Statehood and Stoddard is selected as a representative over Valance, who continues terrorizing the town. When he destroys the local newspaper office and attacks the editor, Stoddard calls him out, though the conclusion is not quite as straightforward as legend would have it

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Post #: 48

RE: The 50 Greatest 'Haunted by the Past' Characters - 23/3/2013 3:40:00 PM

Mr Gittes

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You can guess what my number one is

I hope William Munny and Harry Caul make it in there too. Cracking list so far.

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Post #: 49

RE: The 50 Greatest 'Haunted by the Past' Characters - 23/3/2013 7:09:34 PM

Beetlejuice!

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6. Woo-jin Lee (Ji-tae Yu) - Oldboy (2003)

"Remember this: "Be it a rock or a grain of sand, in water they sink as the same.""

An average man is kidnapped and imprisoned in a shabby cell for 15 years without explanation. He then is released, equipped with money, a cellphone and expensive clothes. As he strives to explain his imprisonment and get his revenge, Oh Dae-Su soon finds out that his kidnapper, Woo-jin Lee, has a greater plan for him and is set onto a path of pain and suffering in an attempt to uncover the motive of his mysterious tormentor.

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Post #: 50

RE: The 50 Greatest 'Haunted by the Past' Characters - 23/3/2013 7:13:26 PM

Beetlejuice!

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5. Leonard Shelby (Guy Pearce) - Memento (2000)

"I don't even know how long she's been gone. It's like I've woken up in bed and she's not here... because she's gone to the bathroom or something. But somehow, I know she's never gonna come back to bed. If I could just... reach over and touch... her side of the bed, I would know that it was cold, but I can't. I know I can't have her back... but I don't want to wake up in the morning, thinking she's still here. I lie here not knowing... how long I've been alone. So how... how can I heal? How am I supposed to heal if I can't... feel time?"

Memento chronicles two separate stories of Leonard, an ex-insurance investigator who can no longer build new memories, as he attempts to find the murderer of his wife, which is the last thing he remembers. One story line moves forward in time while the other tells the story backwards revealing more each time.

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RE: The 50 Greatest 'Haunted by the Past' Characters - 23/3/2013 8:53:13 PM

Beetlejuice!

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4. Charles Foster Kane (Orson Welles) - Citizen Kane (1941)

"Rosebud..."

A group of reporters who are trying to decipher the last word ever spoke by Charles Foster Kane, the millionaire newspaper tycoon: "Rosebud." The film begins with a news reel detailing Kane's life for the masses, and then from there, we are shown flashbacks from Kane's life. As the reporters investigate further, the viewers see a display of a fascinating man's rise to fame, and how he eventually fell off the "top of the world."

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Post #: 52

RE: The 50 Greatest 'Haunted by the Past' Characters - 23/3/2013 11:58:43 PM

Beetlejuice!

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3. Jeff (Robert Mitchum) - Out of the Past (1947)

"I sell gasoline, I make a small profit. With that I buy groceries. The grocer makes a profit. We call it earning a living. You may have heard of it somewhere."

Jeff Bailey, small-town gas pumper, has his mysterious past catch up with him one day when he's ordered to meet with gambler Whit Sterling. En route to the meeting, he tells girlfriend Ann his story. Flashback: Once, Jeff was a private eye hired by Sterling to find his mistress Kathie who shot Whit and absconded with $40,000. He traces her to Acapulco...where the delectable Kathie makes Jeff forget all about Sterling... Back in the present, Whit's new job for Jeff is clearly a trap, but Jeff's precautions only leave him more tightly enmeshed...

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Post #: 53

RE: The 50 Greatest 'Haunted by the Past' Characters - 24/3/2013 12:05:53 AM

Beetlejuice!

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2. Harmonica (Charles Bronson) - Once Upon a Time in the West (1968)

"Which deal Frank? We've got more than one to settle you and me."

Story of a young woman, Mrs. McBain, who moves from New Orleans to frontier Utah, on the very edge of the American West. She arrives to find her new husband and family slaughtered, but by who? The prime suspect, coffee-lover Cheyenne, befriends her and offers to go after the real killer, assassin gang leader Frank, in her honor. He is accompanied by Harmonica on his quest to get even. Get-rich-quick subplots and intricate character histories intertwine with such artistic flair that this could in fact be the movie-to-end-all-movies

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RE: The 50 Greatest 'Haunted by the Past' Characters - 24/3/2013 12:11:52 AM

Beetlejuice!

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1. Young Ho (Sol Kyung-Gu) - Peppermint Candy (1999)

"It's leaking, in a new place. Last night, the rain fell on my forehead, as I lay in bed. You, sit down! Fucker! This isn't a game, sit! Isn't the way I live pathetic? Wonder why I live this way? Although I don't know who sent you, I want to talk with you."

The film tracks the life path of how Yong-ho goes from youthful innocence, beauty and love to being a nasty, cruel and hateful man, and most especially self-hate, and this all depicted in reverse.