Orpheus (1950)

Jean Marais: Orphée

Photos 

Quotes 

• Orphée : What does marble think when it's being sculpted? It thinks, "I am struck, insulted, ruined, lost." Life is sculpting me. Let it finish its work.

• Orphée : Your café amuses me. It thinks it's the center of the universe.

  L'éditeur : It is.

• Judge : What do you mean by "poet"?

  Orphée : To write, without being a writer.

• L'éditeur : The princess is very beautiful and very elegant. She's not from here, but she needs to be among us. Here is her review.

  Orphée : Every page is blank?

  L'éditeur : It's called "Nudism".

  Orphée : It's absurd.

  L'éditeur : Less absurd than if it were full of absurd writing. No excess is absurd.

• Heurtebise : I admire you, Orphée. I could have listened a thousand times and not paid the slightest attention.

  Orphée : Where could they be coming from, Heurtebise? They're on no other station. I'm certain they're meant for me.

  Eurydice : Orphée, nothing matters but this car. I could die and you wouldn't even notice.

  Orphée : We were dead and we didn't notice.

• Orphée : My life had begun to pass its peak. It was rotting, stinking of success and of death. The least of these phrases is much more than any of my poems. I'd given all that I've written for even one of those little phrases. I'm on the trail of the unknown.

  Eurydice : Orphée, little phrases won't feed our child.

  Orphée : There's a woman for you, Heurtebise. You discover a world and she speaks to you of baby clothes and bills.

• Orphée : This is part of the same dream, the same nightmare. But, I'll wake up. Somebody wake me up!

• The Princess - Death : My love.

  Orphée : I loved you even before we met.

• The Princess - Death : Will you obey me?

  Orphée : I will obey you.

  The Princess - Death : Whatever I ask?

  Orphée : Whatever you ask.

  The Princess - Death : Even if I condemned you? If I tortured you?

  Orphée : I belong to you and I will never leave you.

  The Princess - Death : Never again.

• The Princess - Death : Are you sleepwalking?

  Orphée : I must be.

• Heurtebise : Beware of the Sirens!

  Orphée : It is *I* who charm *them*.

• Orphée : Who can say what's poetry and what isn't?

• Orphée : Forgive my bad temper. I've been resting on my laurels. I've got to wake up.

• Orphée : You are all-powerful.

  The Princess - Death : In your eyes. Here Death takes on innumerable forms. Young and old, they receive orders.

  Orphée : And if you disobeyed those orders? They can't kill you. It is you who kill.

  The Princess - Death : What they do is worse.

  Orphée : Where do the orders come from?

  The Princess - Death : They are sent back and forth by so many sentinels - like the tom-toms of your African tribes, the echoes of your mountains, the wind whispering through your trees.

  Orphée : I will go to he who gives those orders.

  The Princess - Death : My poor love, he exists nowhere. Some say he thinks of us. Others, that we are his thoughts. Others say he sleeps and that we are his dream - his bad dream.

• Heurtebise : Orphée, you know Death.

  Orphée : I've spoken to her. I've dreamt of her. I've sung about her. I thought I knew her. But, I didn't know her.

• Heurtebise : You think she doesn't suffer?

  Orphée : You're wrong. Women adore complications.

• Orphée : A miracle will happen.

  The Princess - Death : Miracles only happen in your world.

  Orphée : All worlds are moved by lovers.

  The Princess - Death : In our world no one is moved.