“My God. What have I done.”

11 Comments

1. Tony Layne says:

   7 February 2012 at 12:14 AM

   One of Sir Alec’s best screen moments. And a classic example of not seeing the forest for the trees.
2. Supertradmum says:

   7 February 2012 at 6:25 AM

   Ever Catholic boy should be raised on this type of movie. We need to create heroes, and thank God for last minute conversions….
3. John V says:

   7 February 2012 at 8:10 AM

   And still there are those who continue to assume the position and say “Thank you sir. May I have another.”
4. ContraMundum says:

   7 February 2012 at 9:33 AM

   Good luck at seeing Kmiec really change sides.
5. Mary Jane says:

   7 February 2012 at 9:41 AM

   Oh wow, I *love* this movie. Just watched it a couple months ago. Great film.
6. John Nolan says:

   7 February 2012 at 10:29 AM

   Although not based on an actual historical incident, and indeed criticized when it came out by those who had survived the Burma railway, the film deals not so much with collaboration as with the idea that if you can maintain discipline and unit cohesion you can increase your chances of survival and even secure a moral victory over your captors (had the colonel simply continued in his initial defiance, he would have died).

   During the Korean War the death rate among American POWs was proportionally higher than for Commonwealth soldiers; in captivity the former tended to revert to becoming individuals, whereas the latter, with a stronger regimental tradition, were better able to sustain a unit identity. This was much studied by the US authorities afterwards and in Vietnam men had been trained in the art of survival under captivity. I remember a teach-in given by two US airmen who had been shot down over North Vietnam and taken prisoner; their testimony showed that this training had paid off.
7. bernadette says:

   7 February 2012 at 10:35 AM

   Didn’t Cardinal Wolsey lament at the end of his life that he had been too much concerned with serving King Henry VIII and too little with serving the Lord?
8. Supertradmum says:

   7 February 2012 at 11:05 AM

   bernadette, in Shakespeare’s Henry VIII, Wolsey states to Cromwell,
   O Cromwell, Cromwell!
   Had I but served my God with half the zeal
   I served my King, he would not in mine age
   Have left me naked to mine enemies.

   Also, the same plea is stated in A Man for All Seasons when Wolsey is dying.
9. cl00bie says:

   7 February 2012 at 12:14 PM

   I like this one:

   The Farmer and the Snake
   Aesop’s Fables Translated by George Fyler Townsend

   One winter a Farmer found a Snake stiff and frozen with cold. He had compassion on it, and taking it up, placed it in his bosom. The Snake was quickly revived by the warmth, and resuming its natural instincts, bit its benefactor, inflicting on him a mortal wound. “Oh,” cried the Farmer with his last breath, “I am rightly served for pitying a scoundrel.”

   The greatest kindness will not bind the ungrateful.

   Another version is the farmer takes the snake home to warm itself by the fire, but when it threatens his wife and children the farmer cuts it’s head off with an an axe.

   November, 2012
10. boko fittleworth says:

    7 February 2012 at 9:16 PM

    You may ask yourself, what is that beautiful house?
    You may ask yourself, where does that highway lead to?
    You may ask yourself, am I right, am I wrong?
    You may say to yourself, my god, what have I done?

    Talking Heads, Once in a Lifetime
11. jaykay says:

    8 February 2012 at 4:32 AM

    It’s said that even Lenin seems to have had deathbed regrets – if not actual repentance (but who can know?) when he is supposed to have admitted: “I committed a great error. My nightmare is to have the feeling that I’m lost in an ocean of blood from the innumerable victims. It is too late to return. To save our country, Russia, we would have needed men like Francis of Assisi. With ten men like him we would have saved Russia.”

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