MovieChat Forums > Orphée (1950) Discussion > A meditation on life and death

A meditation on life and death


Where life is preoccupied and death ever present. There were some great lines in the film; really poetic, in delivery as well as content. I'm including some below for posterity - my way of staving off death :D ...

Your problem is knowing just how far to go too far

The role of the dreamer is to accept their dreams {perhaps my favourite line}

Jupiter enlightens those he would destroy

Look a lifetime in a mirror and you see Death at work

You still have human warmth

Life takes a long time to die. It's the zone made of memories and the ruins of human habit

Keep silent unless what you are going to say is more important than silence.

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Thanks for the lines. I also really liked the way that The Princess/Death tried to explain to Orpheus the mystery of where her orders came from and who issued them. Their dialog goes like this:

She says, "Here death takes innumerable forms. Young and old, they receive their orders . . . ."
He says, "Where do the orders come from?"
She says, "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."
He says, "I will go to he who gives those orders."
She replies, "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."

Such hauntingly beautiful dialog. It sort of reminds me of the line from Shakespeare's The Tempest: "We are such stuff as dreams are made on, and our little life is rounded with a sleep. "

It is better to be kind than to be clever or good looking. -- Derek

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Some great lines in your post too about the pervasive and non-existent being of God.

A bird sings and the mountain's silence deepens.

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