Faccia a faccia

Professor Brett Fletcher:
In pain, eh. You must know that torture is important, Wallace, because it lifts the morale of the torturer. Were you not taught that at the university? You were trapped by your higher education. It leaves its own smell on you, I know it too well.

Wallace:
I know you do and I can't imagine how a man of your background could.

Professor Brett Fletcher:
On the contrary, what is surprising is that a man like me could remain all those years watching life as a spectator before he discovered the force that was in him, but... Do you have any idea what can be accomplished here if you're a man of intelligence. Where men who are morons have succeeded in usurping the power.

Wallace:
Yes, he'd certainly be in a position to improve things but not a weak man like Brad Fletcher. You change your spots. You're civilized among civilized people and violent among the violent. You're quite ready to adapt to any new background like a parasite.

Professor Brett Fletcher:
Pity you didn't pay attention at school, Wallace. The philosophy of violence, recall it? One violent soul is just an outlaw, a hundred are a gang but they're an army at a hundred thousand, that is the point. Beyond the confines that limit the outlaw and individual criminal, violence by masses of men is called history. I must say that I'm glad I've been able to speak with an equal who understands me. Those others are only able to understand the simplest things, such as the fact that a spy must suffer proper punishment.

[Fletcher has one of his thugs hand him a gun and then points it at Wallace's face]

Professor Brett Fletcher:
Reasons of state, Wallace. You studied history so you know what I mean. Not out of hate... but with compassion.

[He shoots Wallace point-blank]

Charley Siringo:
[confronts Fletcher and Bennet] Beauregard Bennet! Brad Fletcher! Throw down your arms! I arrest you... in the name of the law.

Professor Brett Fletcher:
[Fletcher shoots Siringo, wounding him. Bennet throws down his rifle and one of his gunbelts] What are you doing? You crazy?

Solomon 'Beauregard' Bennet:
I'm doing what I think is right.

Professor Brett Fletcher:
"Right"! What does that mean? How do you know what's right? Was it right for Siringo to kill the sheriff just to get into your gang? Maybe you think the vigilantes were right. Answer me! Is that it? Listen, Beau - there's only one kind of right in the world. The kind you make for yourself if you're big enough and strong enough! And we're both strong, Beau. You and I together, we can recruit the best men in the West! Bennet's Raiders, a hundred times stronger than before! I have some wonderful plans. There's no other kind of right, can't you understand that?

Solomon 'Beauregard' Bennet:
[punches Fletcher] There is, damn you, there is! There is! Know where? Right here in my heart! Go away and leave me, Brad. There's nothing more you can do.

Professor Brett Fletcher:
No. There's still one thing I can do...

[looks at Siringo]

Professor Brett Fletcher:
and I should have done it long before.

[Fletcher readies his rifle and prepares to kill Siringo. Suddenly, a shot rings out - Bennet has shot Fletcher with his revolver]

Professor Brett Fletcher:
But... Beau, what made you do it?

Solomon 'Beauregard' Bennet:
It was what I had to do.

Professor Brett Fletcher:
[staggers away] I had many ideas... so many... so many plans, Beau... great... great...

[Fletcher staggers behind a dune, and dies]

[first lines]

Professor Brett Fletcher:
I've an announcement to make, and I find it... very painful. I'm unable to... continue this history course. But as you perhaps know, it's not a matter of my own volition. However, the study of history can be suspended... and resumed at any point. Because, though all men must die in time, other men will make history live. And each man can choose his own part in history. We've been forced to choose: when the war between the States declared that we were either Union loyalists or Confederate rebels. You are twenty years old. You will have to choose many times between just and unjust, truth and untruth. And always, the answer is only to be found... within you. And if this small bit of knowledge can help you in the future, then I am truly privileged. For my part in history... will not have been useless. The class is dismissed. Thank you. [students leave]