- Anne Goupil: [reading aloud from Shakespeare's The Tempest] Full fathom five thy father lies / Of his bones are coral made / Those are pearls that were his eyes / Nothing of him that doth fade / But doth suffer a sea-change / Into something rich and strange
- Bernard: You're the guilty ones, with bloodstained hands.
- Philip Kaufman: You go too far.
- Bernard: Too far? Too far?
- Philip Kaufman: What about Mayakovsky? He wasn't Spanish, but he killed himself.
- Bernard: Mayaskovsky who?
- Blonde à la party: Mayakovsky, wowsky!
- [laughs]
- Blonde à la party: But Juan had so many ideas, and his art. He was one of us, our musician, a new García Lorca.
- Pierre Goupil: [to Anne] If Lorca played guitar.
- Bernard: You drink too much, but that's not what I want to tell you. You must understand our problems. You're not in Greenwich Village now. I'm speaking as a friend, a comrade. I think a change of scenery would help. It may be that we're bad for you.
- Philip Kaufman: Where will I sleep?
- Bernard: You don't have to go tonight. I'm not throwing you out, a man of your caliber, but try to understand. I can't keep you here forever. What will people say?
- Philip Kaufman: Understood. I"ll go and pack my toothbrush.
- Jean-Marc: It's got nothing on Shakespeare.
- Anne Goupil: Oh, we'll talk about Shakespeare after my exams.
- Juan's Sister: Everything's threatened - the world. Everything! Everything! And nothing can be done.
- Jean-Marc: Do you know 'Pericles'?
- Anne Goupil: Yes.
- Jean-Marc: What do you think?
- Anne Goupil: It's very good.
- Jean-Marc: Really?
- Anne Goupil: Yes.
- Jean-Marc: Some good scenes, but it's hit-and-miss. It's wasn't Shakespeare's work. Anyway it'll be a flop.
- Bernard: Juan's suicide is your doing - all your bitterness, your despair. How could a good man live surrounded by nihilists like you? You still won't shake it off, though it's been going on for 20 years.
- Ida: Philip will be there.
- Pierre Goupil: Philip's coming?
- Ida: He's been staying at Bernard's.
- Anne Goupil: Who is Philip?
- Pierre Goupil: Kaufman.
- Ida: Philip Kaufman!
- Pierre Goupil: Famous journalist, Pulitzer Prize. Written a couple of novels. Thrown out of the U.S. You've heard of McCarthy?
- Anne Goupil: Isn't he dead?
- Pierre Goupil: Maybe, but I wasn't invited to the funeral.
- Anne Goupil: Always the skeptic.
- Gerard Lenz: I think he was wrong with the knife. I'd rather slash my wrists. I did it once.
- Terry Yordan: It always fails. That's why you chose it.
- Gerard Lenz: It fails until it succeeds. It calls for perseverance.
- Gerard Lenz: It's a scene on a a beach. You must make us feel that when you speak. Speak against the wind, the sound of the sea, the gulls. Go ahead.
- Gerard Lenz: I think this project is crazy. The odds are that we'll have a flop.
- Jean-Marc: Maybe not.
- Jean-Marc: When shall we meet?
- Anne Goupil: One fine day.
- Jean-Marc: Like today.
- Anne Goupil: Tomorrow or next year.
- Anne Goupil: You're wrong.
- Philip Kaufman: No, it figures. I'm right, as usual.
- Anne Goupil: If you insist.
- Anne Goupil: Why have you talked to me?
- Philip Kaufman: Why? Never seek to know why. Beware of Terry. Beware of me. Forget all I've said, if you can. If not, forgive me.
- Philip Kaufman: Don't try to understand. Some secrets few men can bear. Juan couldn't. I fear Gérard can't. Gérard's threatened. He doesn't know it, but I don't give him two months.
- Anne Goupil: That's not true.
- Philip Kaufman: All right, it's not true then.
- Philip Kaufman: I want to tell you that the world isn't what it seems. No, listen to me. Some people have guessed what I'm going to say, but I *know* it. It's the whole world that's threatened yet doesn't know it. It's all nothing but appearances. Those we think powerful are puppets. The real masters rule in secret.
- Anne Goupil: Who are they?
- Philip Kaufman: They have no names. I speak in riddles, but some things can only be told in riddles.
- Anne Goupil: Why don't you do something?
- Philip Kaufman: Damocles' friend warned him of the sword, but his reaction made it fall.
- Anne Goupil: Another riddle?
- Philip Kaufman: Yes.
- Philip Kaufman: You've made the rounds.
- Anne Goupil: What do you mean?
- Philip Kaufman: Don't act surprised. I don't believe in coincidences.
- Philip Kaufman: What do you talk about?
- Anne Goupil: About everything and nothing. We don't always agree, but that's natural.
- Gerard Lenz: I think you know more than you say.
- Terry Yordan: So?
- Gerard Lenz: That's why I like you.
- Laurence: Are you mad at Gérard? You are, don't deny it. I went through it too - being indispensable, then treated as a prop.
- Anne Goupil: What if I told you you were in danger?
- Gerard Lenz: In danger?
- Anne Goupil: ...Because of Terry.
- Gerard Lenz: It's jealousy. Hear that, Terry?
- Terry Yordan: Yes.
- Gerard Lenz: Doesn't it make you laugh?
- Terry Yordan: No, I may be a dangerous girl.
- Gerard Lenz: I always liked femme fatales.
- Gerard Lenz: Do you know 'Pericles'?
- Anne Goupil: Yes.
- Gerard Lenz: What do you think?
- Anne Goupil: Is this a test?
- Gerard Lenz: No, I'd like your opinion.
- Anne Goupil: Okay. It's rather disconnected.
- Gerard Lenz: Right. And?
- Anne Goupil: But that doesn't matter.
- Gerard Lenz: Why not?
- Anne Goupil: Because it's on another level. Is that the right answer?
- Gerard Lenz: A plus.
- [Anne laughs]
- Gerard Lenz: Everyone says I'm crazy, even Terry, but the reason I want to stage it is because it's "unplayable." But I don't care. It's shreds and patches, yet it hangs together overall. Pericles may traverse kingdoms, the heroes are dispersed, yet they can't escape. They're all reunited in Act V. I want to show that. Do you think I'm crazy?
- Anne Goupil: No. Not at all.
- Gerard Lenz: Thanks. But we must try to make people understand it. It shows a chaotic but not absurd world, rather like our own, flying off in all directions, but with a purpose. Only we don't know what. Am I boring you?
- Anne Goupil: No. I agree. The world is less absurd than it seems.
- Laurence: You're wasting your time with Terry. She'll never tell you anything.
- Anne Goupil: I know.
- Laurence: Terry acts mysterious. That's how she keeps Gérard.
- De Georges: I knew Juan well - a specimen of a vanishing race - rabid individualists who want everything to be destroyed. And who destroy themselves first. A sort of biological inevitability.
- De Georges: How's Gérard getting along?
- Anne Goupil: Not too well.
- De Georges: I admire the naïveté and enthusiasm of youth. Perhaps it will all work out.
- Gerard Lenz: Why stand like a post? Poetry is movement, moving forward. I want you to seem to be surging forward. Try again.
- Philip Kaufman: There's only one solution: don't think. I cling to people I meet: you, anyone. I look at them: they exist. They're still alive and free, their feet on the ground. If they can see me too, it means I'm still here, that they think of me as one of them.
- Anne Goupil: That's egotistical.
- Philip Kaufman: Perhaps. I don't give a damn.
- Gerard Lenz: You're an actor. Don't imagine things. You've got the whole stage. Use it. Or you will have. You are addressing the audience directly. Go ahead.
- Philip Kaufman: Plays work or they don't work. They're pastimes for intellectuals. Open your eyes. Look around. Everywhere. Even in this hotel. Have you noticed the people who live in this hotel? They work more than any little actor.
- Gerard Lenz: What do you envisage?
- Jean-Val - L'assistant de Gérard: Towers, ramparts, severed heads.
- Gerard Lenz: Why?
- Jean-Val - L'assistant de Gérard: To give the audience the illusion.
- Gerard Lenz: But theater is not illusion, it's reality.
- Gerard Lenz: You're all in exile. Do you feel at home? Doesn't this corruption disgust you? The time draws nigh. I don't want to stay to the end.
- Jean-Val - L'assistant de Gérard: One must always take one's bow.
- Gerard Lenz: To boos? No, thanks. I'd rather slip out before the tomatoes.
- Theater actor: Rotten ones.
- Gerard Lenz: And what are your thoughts?
- Jean-Val - L'assistant de Gérard: The usual: comfort, good whiskey.
- Theater actor: Beautiful girls.
- Jean-Val - L'assistant de Gérard: Obviously. Well, what more do you want?
- Jean-Val - L'assistant de Gérard: How about your thoughts?
- Gerard Lenz: I was thinking about Philip, for a change. How it felt to be exiled. It's very stupid. I feel more and more like an exile myself.
- Connaissance de Juan au café: Was this Juan talented?
- Anne Goupil: So they say.
- Connaissance de Juan au café: He didn't look it. More like the cursed type. the kind who use their genius to get by. His job lay in sitting for hours without saying a word. He'd watch passersby, especially girls. If he didn't like someone, he'd hit him. Once he got two weeks for hitting a man he said was a fascist spy.
- Connaissance de Juan au café: That's all I know and that's all I want to know.
- Pierre Goupil: What were you doing around here?
- Anne Goupil: Out for a walk?
- Pierre Goupil: With that floozy? Give me her address.
- Anne Goupil: I can't wait. I give up.
- Tania Fedin: Patience is difficult. Yes, child, waiting is difficult.