24 Hour Party People
2002
Tony Wilson: Factory Records are not actually a company. We are an experiment in human nature. You're labouring under the misapprehension that we actually have a deal with, er, with our, our bands. That we have any kind of a contract, er, at all, and I'm afraid we, er, we don't because that's, er, that's the sum total of the paperwork to do with Factory Records, deal with, er, their various bands.
Tony Wilson: I'm a minor player in my own life story.
Tony Wilson: This scene didn't actually make it to the final cut. I'm sure it'll be on the DVD.
Tony Wilson: And tonight something equally epoch-making is taking place. See? They're applauding the DJ. Not the music, not the musician, not the creator, but the medium. This is it. The birth of rave culture. The beatification of the beat. The dance age. This is the moment when even the white man starts dancing. Welcome to Manchester.
Tony Wilson: It was like being on a fantastic fairground ride, centrifugal forces throwing us wider and wider. But it's all right, because there's this brilliant machine at the center that's going to bring us back down to earth. That was Manchester. That is the Hacienda. Now imagine the machine breaks. For a while, it's even better, because you're really flying. but then, you fall, because nobody beats gravity.
Tony Wilson: Most of all, I love Manchester. The crumbling warehouses, the railway arches, the cheap abundant drugs. That's what did it in the end. Not the money, not the music, not even the guns. That is my heroic flaw: my excess of civic pride.
Tony Wilson: Can I buy you half a lager, mate? Rob Grettin: You can buy me a pint.
Tony Wilson: I'm being postmodern, before it's fashionable.
Martin Hannett: Well, this is goodbye. I mean, we obviously have nothing in common. I'm a genius, you're all fucking wankers. You'll never see me again. You don't deserve to see me again.
Tony Wilson: You can't threaten me, Martin. You're a big man, but you're out of shape. Although you could sit on me.
Tony Wilson: Every band needs it's own special chemistry. And Bez was a very good chemist.
Tony Wilson: Energy, energy? Energy is, is, it's nothing more than a lot of new age hokum masquerading as religion.
Bez: Can I offer anybody like the best drug experience they ever had?
Tony Wilson: I am not a piece of hash. I'm in charge of Factory Records. I think.
Tony Wilson: What's wrong with London Records? Rob Gretton: The name, for a start.
Roger Ames: Tony, you're fucking mad. Tony Wilson: Well, that is a point of view.
Tony Wilson: Is it a bird? Is it a plane? No, it's the latest craze sweeping the Pennines. I've got to be honest with you... right now I'd rather be SWEEPING the Pennines.
(Tony Wilson has just had a vision of God - who looked exactly like Tony Wilson) Tony Wilson: It's says so in the Bible, though, doesn't it? 'God made man in His own image'. Rob Grettin: Yeah, but not a specific man.
(after Shaun Ryder fires a gun in his general direction) Tony Wilson: You want to be careful with that, Shaun. You could take somebody's eye out.
God: It's a pity you didn't sign the Smiths, but you were right about Mick Hucknell. His music's rubbish, and he's a ginger.
Tony Wilson: You know, I think Shaun Ryder is on a par with W.B. Yeats as a poet. Yvette: Really? Tony Wilson: Absolutely. Yvette: Well, that is amazing, because everybody else thinks he's a fucking idiot.
Tony Wilson: Jazz is the last refuge of the untalented. Jazz musicians enjoy themselves more than anyone listening to them does.
Rob Grettin: You know your trouble, Tony? You don't know what you are. You see, I fucking know what you are, but you don't know what you are. Tony Wilson: My curiosity's got the better of me, Rob, tell me, what am I? Rob Grettin: You're a cunt. Tony Wilson: Well, that was something I *did* know, you see, I actually did know that.