Zardoz (1974)

John Alderton: Friend

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Quotes 

• Arthur Frayn : You see, our death-wish was devious, and deep. As Zardoz, Zed, I was able to choose your forefathers! It was careful genetic breeding that produced this mutant - this slave who could free his masters! And Friend was my accomplice! Don't you remember the man in the library, Zed?

  [a chime is heard] 

  Arthur Frayn : It was I who led you to the 'Wizard of Oz' book! Ha-hah, it was I who gave you access to the Stone! It was I!

  [a chime is heard] 

  Arthur Frayn : I bred you! I led you!

  Zed : And I have looked into the face of the force that put the idea in your mind. You are bred, and led, yourself.

  [He strides away, and Friend advances to join Arthur] 

  Friend : Arthur! We've all been used!

  Arthur Frayn : And re-used.

  Friend : And abused!

  Arthur Frayn : And amused!

• Friend : I will not go to second level with you!

• Tabernacle : You are asked to vote at the termination of the trial of George Saden. Final statement from the accused begins.

  George Saden : I confess to the charges, but plead mitigation. These thoughts are constructive criticisms. Pyramidical. I try to suppress these thoughts, but they leak out in Second Level through the head-wound of my third death. I was imperfectly repaired. No. That is not true. I think what I think!

  Friend : [murmuring]  That's more like it! I'm with you, George.

  George Saden : I hate you all. I hate you all. I hate you all. Especially me.

  [the Tabernacle chimes] 

  Tabernacle : Vote, please. Vote, please.

  Friend : [to Zed]  I'm voting for him, Monster. It won't do any good. Nothing ever does.

  [Friend speaks into his ring] 

  Friend : Absolute acquittal!

• May : Friend, I cannot sanction this violence and destruction.

  Friend : It's too late, May. There's no going back.

  May : Don't destroy the Vortex! Let us renew it. A better breed could prosper here. Given time...

  Friend : Time? Wasn't eternity enough?

  Zed : [enters suddenly; May wheels to face him]  This place is against life. It must die.

  [Zed gently grasps May's pistol hand and raises it so that the weapon points right between his eyes] 

  May : I have my followers. Inseminate us all, and we'll teach you all we know, give you all we have. Perhaps you can break the Tabernacle. Or be broken.

  [Friend advances to place his hand on the others', in a triple pact] 

  Friend : An end to eternity.

  May : A higher form.

  Zed : Revenge.

• Zed : What is it you want?

  Friend : Sweet death. Oblivion.

  Zed : For yourself, or for the whole Vortex?

  Friend : For Everybody. An end to the human race. It has plagued this pretty planet for far too long.

  Zed : You stink of despair. Fight back! Fight for death, if that's what you want.

  Friend : I thought at first you were the one to help. But it's hopeless. All my powers have gone.

  Zed : Where is it? The Tabernacle?

  Friend : The Tabernacle... is... I can't remember!

  Zed : Who made it? Someone must know how to break it.

  Friend : Yes, but you can meet him for yourself! One of our founders, one of the geniuses who discovered immortality.

  [Friend goes to the bed of the Old Scientist and, rousing him noisily, shouts] 

  Friend : We want to die! Hm? What - what's the trick?

  Old Scientist : [feebly]  Death... death... Talk to May!

  Zed : May? May!

• Consuella : Look at it, it knows its life is at stake. Otherwise, it would rape and kill as it always has. You can see the disrupting effect.

  Friend : Let's keep it! Anything to relieve the boredom.

• Friend : Ever hear the expression "if looks could kill"? Well, here they can.

• Friend : I hate all women. Birth, fertility, superstition.

• Zed : Is this your God's house?

  Friend : Ah, it's God you're seeking, is it? Well, here we are. Gods, Goddesses, kings and queens. Take your pick. But they're all dead.

• Friend : We have eternal life and yet we sentence ourselves to drudgery. I tell you, I'm sick of 200 years of washing-up. And I'm sick of pitting my bare hands against the blind, brute stupidity of nature!

• Friend : This man has the gift of death.

• Friend : The Vortex is an obscenity!

• Zed : What happens to him then?

  Friend : He'll get six months at least.

  Zed : Prison?

  Friend : Ageing.

  Zed : Ageing?

  Friend : Yes! I'm getting old myself. Three months here, a year there. These sentences add up.

  Zed : So if you're bad often enough, you'll die.

  Friend : They make you old, but they don't let you die.

  Zed : So what's to stop you killing yourself?

  Friend : I do now and again. But the eternal tabernacle simply rebuilds me.

• Friend : Didn't Zardoz tell you about the apathetics? It's a disease. And it's slowly creeping through all the Vortexes.

• Friend : We applied ourselves to the unsolved mysteries of the universe but even with infinite time and the help of the tabernacle our minds were not up to it. We failed.