James Mason: Hendrick van der Zee
Photos
Quotes
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Pandora Reynolds : [looking at Hendrik's painting of her] It's not me as I am at all. But it's what I'd like to be.
[looking at Hendrik]
Pandora Reynolds : Why am I not like that?
Hendrik : Perhaps because you're unfulfilled. Perhaps you've not found what you want. Perhaps you do not even know what you want, perhaps you're discontented. Discontent appeases itself by fury and destruction.
Pandora Reynolds : [suddenly angry] Fury and destruction! Is that your opinion? Well perhaps I can find something here to destroy.
Hendrik : I have no doubt you will.
Pandora Reynolds : Your painting of me, for example. Would you like me to destroy your painting?
Hendrik : [calmly] If it would help to quiet your soul.
Pandora Reynolds : How long have you worked at it?
Hendrik : [still perfectly calm] Does it matter?
Pandora Reynolds : Is there any reason why I shouldn't remove my face from your painting, if I wish to?
Hendrik : None at all.
Pandora Reynolds : [picks up a palette knife] Shall I do it then?
Hendrik : By all means.
Pandora Reynolds : [Pandora uses the knife to deface the painting. Hendrik watches then calmly and wordlessly comes over to inspect the damage]
[stunned by his calmness]
Pandora Reynolds : Aren't you angry?
Hendrik : I was angry once long ago. I can never be angry again.
Pandora Reynolds : [pause, then quietly] You've made me feel quite ashamed. It's a new sensation, I'm not sure I like.
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Hendrik : Let mortal fools live in a wicked world. Faith is a lie and God himself is chaos!
Judge : Silence!
Hendrik : Faith is a lie and heaven a deception!
Judge : Silence, I said. Silence!
Hendrik : A man might have immortal life and wander for all the generations of man, over all the oceans of the world. Let him sail to the end of doomsday! He will find no woman faithful and fair. If this be folly, and upon me proved, then let the Divinity that I reject, make what sport He *will* - of my immortal soul!
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Hendrik : What would you give up?
Pandora Reynolds : I've asked myself that question.
Hendrik : Your life, for instance? Would you give up your life?
Pandora Reynolds : Yes, I would. I'd die for you without the least hesitation. I know that sounds extravagant. But, I thought about it and I mean it. I'd give up my life for you. That's the measure of my love. And you? What would you give up?
Hendrik : My salvation.
Pandora Reynolds : But, that's even more than life.
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Pandora Reynolds : You seem to have been expecting me.
Hendrik : Perhaps I have been. Listen to this, "The Moving Finger writes; and, having writ, Moves on: nor all thy Piety nor Wit, Shall lure it back to cancel half a Line, Nor all thy Tears wash out a Word of it."
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Hendrik : What is coincidence? I don't believe in coincidences.
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Hendrik : Pandora, darling of the Gods who gave her the precious box which she was forbidden to open.
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Hendrik : No work of art is complete, until the element of chance has entered into it. The unexpected and the surprising are indispensable.
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Hendrik : Pandora was the first woman, the Eve of Greek legend, who's curiosity cost us our earthly paradise.
[referring to his painting]
Hendrik : I was wrong to portray her as a particular woman - no matter how beautiful. Pandora should appear as woman in the abstract. Bride and mother. The original, generic, egghead, from which we can imagine the whole human race to have been hatched.
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Hendrik : Pandora Reynolds - the secret goddess whom all men in their hearts desire.
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Hendrik : It was her face. It was her face still. Though, now, white and cold as marble.
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Hendrik : How I adored her pleasuring my gifts.
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Hendrik : My mind was a hive of swarming gadflies, whose stings were my remorseless thoughts. Visions of her unchastity. Mad. Shameful. Bestial imaginings.
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Hendrik : The evil is done and cannot be undone!
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Hendrik : I would long for death; but, death would deny me.
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Hendrik : My imagination was overwrought with the events of the past days. I would rest and the dream would be forgotten in the morning as vapors vanish in the rising sun.
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Hendrik : This was not a dream. I was alone, unspeakably alone. Was I alone?
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Hendrik : "The Sea of Faith, Was once, too, at the full - The world, which seems, To lie before us like a land of dreams - Has really neither joy, nor love, nor light, Nor certitude, nor peace, nor help for pain; But we are here as on a darkling plain, Swept with confused alarms of struggle and flight, Where ignorant armies clash by night."
Pandora Reynolds : I know that poem. It's an English poem.
Hendrik : Yes.
Pandora Reynolds : Not that a Dutchman should be able to quote an English poem. But, I got over big surprises at you a long time ago.
Hendrik : It's a poem about the sea. I know a great deal about the sea.
Pandora Reynolds : You love the sea.
Hendrik : Love the sea?
[kiss]
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Hendrik : What strange dream have you had to bring you here at this time of night?
Pandora Reynolds : A dreadful dream.
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Hendrik : I can command the sails; but, not the wind. I thought then that I might see you again.
Pandora Reynolds : And I was so afraid you wouldn't.
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Hendrik : How long do you think it's been since you came in here?
Pandora Reynolds : Oh, I don't know. Not very long. It seems - timeless.
Hendrik : Yes. Timeless. As if we were enchanted.
Pandora Reynolds : Yes.
Hendrik : All my centuries of solitude, when my despair was so great, I prayed to die. It's as if they'd never been.
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Pandora Reynolds : I can hardly think back, even to yesterday.
Hendrik : Because yesterday and all that went before was imperfect, unfulfilled, unreal. But, our love is real. It has not sense of time.
Pandora Reynolds : Darling, I think I understand what you're trying to tell me. I've no need to ask for a week, a month, a year.
Hendrik : No need.
Pandora Reynolds : It's as if - we're under a spell. Outside of time. Unending.
Hendrik : Unending.
