Quotes
 [from trailer]
Bill Sullivan: You understand that whatever we discuss here doesn`t leave this room?
Edward Wilson: Of course.
Bill Sullivan: The president has asked me to look into creating a foreign intelligence agency. [from trailer]
Edward Wilson: My orders came through. I`ll be going overseas.
Clover Wilson: What are you going to do, Edward? Save the world?
Edward Wilson: I`ll do what I can.
Joseph Palmi: You`re the guys that scare me. You`re the people that make big wars.
Edward Wilson: No, we make sure the wars are small ones.
[from trailer]
Edward Wilson: You are never to tell anyone what it is that I do!
Clover Wilson: What you do? I don`t know what you do! You leave at five, you`re home at ten, seven days a week! I live with a ghost! I don`t know anything about you!
[from trailer]
Edward Wilson: It isn`t about dedication and loyalty, it`s about belief in what we do.
Bill Sullivan: I`m sorry for not standing, my fucking feet are killing me.
Clover Wilson: Bonesmen first, God second.
Joseph Palmi: Let me ask you something... we Italians, we got our families, and we got the church; the Irish, they have the homeland, Jews their tradition; even the niggers, they got their music. What about you people, Mr. Wilson, what do you have?
Edward Wilson: The United States of America. The rest of you are just visiting.
[Richard Hayes and Ed Wilson walking into the new CIA building]
Richard Hayes: The President`s asked me to become director and do a complete housecleaning at my discretion. I need someone I can trust. After all, we`re still brothers. This building doesn`t get built without you. You`re CIA`s heart and soul. Who knows, you might have a secret about me in that safe of yours.
[pointing down the hall]
Richard Hayes: This whole wing will be your part of the world: Counterintelligence. Take a look around. I`ve got an oversight meeting. Can you imagine? They think they can look into our closet, as if we`d let them.
[Hayes Starts to walk away, stops and begins talking as he turns]
Richard Hayes: I remember a senator once asked me. When we talk about "CIA" why we never use the word "the" in front of it. And I asked him, do you put the word "the" in front of "God"?
[Bill Sullivan visits Ed at home to let him know that they`re forming the CIA as a peacetime OSS]
Bill Sullivan: I have to tell you, I have some real problems with this whole thing despite how much we need it. I`m concerned that too much power will end up in the hands of too few. It`s always in somebody`s best interest to promote enemies real or imagined. I see this as America`s eyes and ears; I don`t want it to become its heart and soul. So I told the president for this to work there is going to have to be some kind of civilian oversight.
Edward Wilson: Oversight? How can you have a covert organization if you have people looking over your shoulder?
Bill Sullivan: You know who gave Hitler his power? The clerks and the bookkeepers, the civil servants. I have this one weakness: I believe in a just God. I always seem to err on the side of democracy.
[Bill Sullivan is getting into his car to leave]
Bill Sullivan: No matter what anyone tells you there`ll be no one you can really trust.
[pause, looks away]
Bill Sullivan: I`m afraid when all is said and done we`re all just clerks too.
Ulysses: Friends can be enemies and enemies, friends.
[At the Christmas party after the coup vs Dr. Ibañes]
Bill Sullivan: Bill Sullivan: Gentlemen, you can all be very proud of what you started. Merry Christmas.
[Ed Jr`s mishap on Santa`s lap]
Bill Sullivan: [to Ed] Did you know that Phillip is going to be on the Mayan Coffee Board of Directors? Remember what I said to you about friends.
[Ed Wilson at his desk in his office, Phillip Allen opens the door]
Philip Allen: May I come in?
[Allen walks in, signals around, Ed starts bug countermeasures]
Philip Allen: You know I`ve never been in your office.
Edward Wilson: How was the fishing?
Philip Allen: It was a bad year. The water`s too high.
[walks closer]
Philip Allen: I understand you wanted to give me the Operation Zapata list yourself. There isn`t one, is there?
Edward Wilson: You know it was a silent operation.
Philip Allen: It wasn`t silent enough.
[pause]
Philip Allen: I`ve been asked by the President to suggest who we no longer need with us.
[pause]
Philip Allen: Who would you recommend, Edward?
Edward Wilson: I serve at the pleasure of the director, Sir.
[Allen exhales loudly]
Edward Wilson: I`m just the gatekeeper.
Philip Allen: Why is it that people like us choose to serve for nickels a day in a profession that makes us constantly look over our shoulder to see who is watching us?
Edward Wilson: When will you make a decision?
Philip Allen: I serve at the discretion of the President of the United States. I will do what I think is best for the country.
[Turns around. Walks towards the door]
Philip Allen: It`s important we find out who`s responsible. Good night.
Edward Wilson: Good night.
[on tape]
Edward Bell Wilson Jr.: Everything is a secret.
Miriam: You were brought up on secrets. What was such a big secret that his own son couldn`t know?
Edward Bell Wilson Jr.: He was standing outside talking. I heard something I wasn`t supposed to, and he knew I listened to his conversation. I heard them say something in Spanish: Bahia de Cochinos.
Miriam: Bahia de Cochinos.
Edward Bell Wilson Jr.: I`m afraid of him.
Miriam: You`re safe here with me. People who really love each other don`t have secrets. I have something to tell you.
[Tape mutes down]
Edward Bell Wilson Jr.: I love you so much, I love you so much.
Miriam: You are safe here with me.
Edward Wilson: [reading] They are right what they say about me. I was weak. A coward. I compromised myself. My honor. My family. My country. I am ashamed of myself. To my wife, I am sorry I`ve done this to you. To my son, I hope you will grow to be a courageous man. A good husband. A good father. I hope whatever you decide to do, you lead a good, full life. I hope whatever your dreams may be come true. Your loving husband and father.
Arch Cummings: How did the Irish poet say it, hmm? "E`er friend for today, is tomorrow`s heartbreak."
Edward Wilson: How do you know I am the right person?
Ray Brocco: I was told you were a serious son of a bitch with no sense of humor, there can`t be two of you
Ray Brocco: [from trailer] What is your name?
Ulysses: Hello, I believe you know me as Ulysses. Do you know what our code name is for you... it`s "Mother". Yes, they said you were the quiet type. But your silence speaks volumes, what is the saying? "Your silence is deafening," yes that is it. You will be a great advesary Mother, hopefully for many years.
Valentin Mironov #2: Soviet power is a myth. Great show. There are no spare parts. Nothing is working, nothing, it`s nothing but painted rust. But you, you need to keep the Russian myth alive to maintain your military industrial complex. Your system depends on Russian being perceived as a mortal threat. It`s not a threat. It was never a threat. It will never be a threat. It`s a rotted, bloated cow.
Edward Wilson: And, yet, a certain word, a glance, a guise, will mirror, never show, reflecting not my gaze, but my uncertain question caught inside a shadow of our shifting eyes.
Dr. Fredericks: That really is quite elegant, Mr. Wilson. Good order, very precise, feeling of the unknown. Fine poetry is the music of mathematics, numbers, singing. You have to look behind the words to understand their meaning.
Sam Murach: You`re asking me to give you FBI files of an American citizen? You know I can`t do that, it`s against the law to spy on citizens.
Edward Wilson: Keep it. Maybe someday you`ll change your mind.
Edward Wilson: If we continue down this road, there will be a third world war. I dont think either of us wants a real war.
Ulysses: What would you do for a living then ?
Philip Allen: You are going to have to learn, and as quickly and thoroughly as possible, the English system of intelligence, the black arts, particularly counterintelligence - the uses of information, disinformation, and how their use is ultimately... power. They have agreed to open up their operations to us - they can`t win the war without us - but they don`t really want us here... Intelligence is their mother`s milk, and they don`t like sharing the royal tit with people that don`t have titles.
Bill Sullivan: My feet, they`re cutting off pieces of them. It’s not dignified for a man to have to die from the feet up.
Ray Brocco: Tell me your fucking name!
Bill Sullivan: Did you know that Philip Allen was going to be on the Mayan Coffee Company`s board of directors?
Trivia
Leonardo DiCaprio was originally cast as the younger Edward Wilson but dropped out.
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# Matt Damon`s character, Edward Wilson, is partly based upon the founder of the CIA`s counterintelligence operations, James Jesus Angelton.
Robert De Niro, had been working on this film for ten years as his "pet project."
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* The violinist providing the solo soundtrack near the end of the movie was Lindsay Deutsch, from Los Angeles.
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# Robert De Niro`s character, General Bill Sullivan, is partly based on General William "Wild Bill" Donovan. Donovan was head of the Office of Strategic Services (OSS) during the Second World War.
Lee Pace`s character Richard Hayes shares some similarities, including a similar name, to Allen Dulles` (CIA director from 1953-1961) eventual successor Richard Helms (CIA director from 1966-1973).
The character Yuri Modin is loosely based on supposed Soviet defector Anatoliy Golitsyn.
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# Dr. Ibanez (played by Marcos Cohen) bears some similarities, and is probably a reference to Jacobo Arbenz (president of Guatemala from 1951-1954).
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# Joe Pesci appears in one scene as a Mafia boss ("Joseph Palmi") whom, it is implied in the film, is a fictionalized version of Sam Giancana (in one scene it is mentioned that Castro has seized "three of [Palmi`s] casinos and thrown him out of [Cuba]", and, in fact, Castro did "nationalize" several Giancana-controlled casinos) whom the CIA recruited for several assassination attempts against Fidel Castro.
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# Robert DeNiro had a deal with Leonardo DiCaprio who was interested in playing the film`s protagonist Edward Wilson. De Niro planned to shoot the movie in the fall of 2004 but DiCaprio couldn`t do it then because he was making The Departed for Martin Scorsese. The role ultimately went to Matt Damon, who played DiCaprio`s antagonist in The Departed. Both movies were nominated for Oscars in 2007.
The name Bay of Pigs comes from Bahia de Cochinos, where in all probability "Cochino" refers to a species of Triggerfish, rather than pigs.
Eric Roth penned the screenplay in 1994 for Francis Ford Coppola and Columbia Pictures. Coppola left the project because, he said, he could not relate to the characters finding them "unemotional", (although he retained a credit as co-executive producer).
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# Wayne Wang was set to direct but management changes at Columbia ended Wang`s involvement and Philip Kaufman was the next person set to direct but he eventually left the project. When it moved to MGM, John Frankenheimer signed on to make the movie and wanted Robert De Niro to star. Unfortunately, Frankenheimer died in 2002 and at the same time De Niro was developing his own spy story.
William Hurt`s character, Phillip Allen, is partly based on Allen Dulles, as OSS operative and later CIA director during the Bay of Pigs invasion. He left the CIA shortly afterward, though not for any reason of financial impropriety.
Two references to "Cardinal" are made in the movie, once in the beginning when the comment that "Cardinal is interested" is made by Ray Brocco and once at the end when Edward Wilson says that "it`s a cardinal rule to be generous in a democracy". "Cardinal" was the code name of a high level American spy in the Soviet Union in Tom Clancy`s novel The Cardinal in the Kremlin.
Joe Pesci`s first movie in 8 years.
Michael Gambon`s character, Dr. Fredricks, is partly inspired by Alan Turing, a British mathematician who helped to crack the German "Enigma" code during World War II, and who is considered one of the founders of modern computer science. In 1952, Turing was expelled from the British secret service after being prosecuted for his homosexual affairs. In 1954, he died after eating a cyanide-laced apple, but it is unknown if he was murdered or committed suicide.
SPOILER: Billy Crudup`s character, Archy Cummings, is partly based on real life British traitor Kim Philby, who attended Cambridge University, rose through the ranks of British Intelligence, and subsequently was discovered to be a Soviet spy. He later fled to Moscow, where he lived out the rest of his life. The movie reflects this, having Wilson speaking by phone to Cummings who is in the Soviet Union.
SPOILER: They give the "real" Valentin liquid LSD which causes him to go crazy ultimately restating that he is, indeed, Valentin Mironov, before committing suicide by jumping through the glass window. This is a reference to an actual event wherein (Frank Olson), a US Army scientist died in a similar way, allegedly as a result of his unwitting participation in CIA conducted LSD experiments called `MKULTRA`.
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Angelina Jolie
(as Margaret 'Clover' Russell)
with Matt Damon
(as Edward Wilson)
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