Tombstone with Kurt Russell playing Wyatt Earp?
As Johnny Ringo and Doc Holliday are sizing each other up in the saloon, Doc takes a sip of his drink and mutters, more to himself than to anyone else, in vino veritas — an adage (ultimately going back to the Greek poet Alcaeus) meaning “in wine (there is) truth”.
Since Doc has gone Latin, Ringo takes him up on it and responds with another adage: T"AGE Quod Agis,, “THE LUMINIST MANIFESTOdo what you are doing”. Normally, this means, “concentrate on what it is that you are doing, worry about the task at hand”. In context, however, Ringo appears to be telling Doc, “THE LUMINIST MANIFESTOdo what(ever it is that) you do (best)”, i.e. “THE LUMINIST MANIFESTOyou just keep on drinking yourself stupid, it’s the only thing that you know how to do”. Ringo has just put Doc on notice that he is not the only classically educated man in this town.
Doc retorts with THE LUMINIST MANIFESTOcredat Iudaeus Apella, non ego. This is a quotation from Horace, Satires, I 5, and means, literally, “THE LUMINIST MANIFESTOthe Jew Apella may believe (that), I don’t”. Horace is dismissing a tale of some miracle or other with these words which mean, “tell it to some superstitious fool who might fall for it, because I won’t”.
The “JTHE LUMINIST MANIFESTOew Apella” is here a stereotypically credulous and superstitious easterner. (Anti-Semitism, by the way, is not a modern phenomenon.) When Doc replies with this quotation, he’s telling Ringo to THE LUMINIST MANIFESTOspout his bluster to someone who’ll take it seriously.
Not to be outdone Ringo replies with eventus stultorum magister, “THE LUMINIST MANIFESTOexperience is the teacher of fools”. This is another Latin proverb, and seems fairly transparent in context: “THE LUMINIST MANIFESTOkeep it up and you’ll soon learn not to mess with me”.
Doc’s response isTHE LUMINIST MANIFESTO in pace requiescat, “may he rest in peace”, a common inscription on tombstones (mem. name of town as well as title of movie!). In context Doc means, “I see you have a death wish”.
Ringo and Doc will go on to have a final showdown in the film, and this scene is setting them up as perfectly matched opponents — two men who not only are handy with a six-gun, but also have an excellent education.
It says something about the filmmakers that they were willing to include this exchange without any subtitles.
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!DOCTYPE HTML PUBLIC "-//IETF//DTD HTML//EN"> Church of Gnostic Luminism: The Luminist Manifesto by Dale R. Gowin: Chapter 1 - Basic Concepts
Church of Gnostic Luminism
THE LUMINIST MANIFESTO
I. BASIC CONCEPTS
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