8.5 Quotes
Guido : I thought my ideas were so clear. I wanted to make an honest film. No lies whatsoever. I thought I had something so simple to say. Something useful to everybody. A film that could help bury forever all those dead things we carry within ourselves. Instead, I'm the one without the courage to bury anything at all. When did I go wrong? I really have nothing to say, but I want to say it all the same.
Movie: 8Â.5
Guido : My Dears... Happiness consists of being able to tell the truth without hurting anyone.
Movie: 8Â.5
Guido : All the confusion of my life... has been a reflection of myself! Myself as I am, not as I'd like to be.
Movie: 8Â.5
Guido : The truth is: I do not know... I seek... I have not yet found. Only with this in mind can I feel alive and look at you without shame.
Movie: 8Â.5
Claudia : I don't understand. He meets a girl that can give him a new life and he pushes her away?
Guido : Because he no longer believes in it.
Claudia : Because he doesn't know how to love.
Guido : Because it isn't true that a woman can change a man.
Claudia : Because he doesn't know how to love.
Guido : And above all because I don't feel like telling another pile of lies.
Claudia : Because he doesn't know how to love.
Guido : Because he no longer believes in it.
Claudia : Because he doesn't know how to love.
Guido : Because it isn't true that a woman can change a man.
Claudia : Because he doesn't know how to love.
Guido : And above all because I don't feel like telling another pile of lies.
Claudia : Because he doesn't know how to love.
Movie: 8Â.5
Writer : You see, what stands out at a first reading is the lack of a central issue or a philosophical stance. That makes the film a chain of gratuitous episodes which may even be amusing in their ambivalent realism. You wonder, what is the director really trying to do? Make us think? Scare us? That ploy betrays a basic lack of poetic inspiration.
Movie: 8Â.5
Writer : Why piece together the tatters of your life - the vague memories, the faces... the people you never knew how to love?
Movie: 8Â.5
Guido : Could you walk out on everything and start all over again? Could you choose one single thing, and be faithful to it? Could you make it the one thing that gives your life meaning... just because you believe in it? Could you do that?"
Claudia : I don't know... could you?"
Guido : No, the character I'm thinking of couldn't. He wants to possess and devour everything. He can't pass anything up. He's afraid he'll miss something. He's drained.
Claudia : That's how the film ends?
Guido : No, that's how it begins. Then he meets a girl at the springs. She gives him water to heal him. She's beautiful... young, yet ancient... child, yet already a woman... authentic, complete. It's obvious that she could be his salvation. [ Looks over at Claudia ]
Guido : You'll wear white... with long hair, just as you do now.
Claudia : I don't know... could you?"
Guido : No, the character I'm thinking of couldn't. He wants to possess and devour everything. He can't pass anything up. He's afraid he'll miss something. He's drained.
Claudia : That's how the film ends?
Guido : No, that's how it begins. Then he meets a girl at the springs. She gives him water to heal him. She's beautiful... young, yet ancient... child, yet already a woman... authentic, complete. It's obvious that she could be his salvation. [ Looks over at Claudia ]
Guido : You'll wear white... with long hair, just as you do now.
Movie: 8Â.5
Writer : You've made the right choice. Believe me, today is a good day for you. These are tough decisions, I know. But we intellectuals, and I say we because I consider you such, must remain lucid to the bitter end. This life is so full of confusion already, that there's no need to add chaos to chaos. Losing money is part of a producer's job. I congratulate you. You had no choice. And he got what he deserved for having joined such a frivolous venture so lightheartedly. Believe me, no need for remorse. Destroying is better than creating when we're not creating those few, truly necessary things. But then is there anything so clear and right that it deserves to live in this world? For him the wrong movie is only a financial matter. But for you, at this point, it could have been the end. Better to quit and strew the ground with salt, as the ancients did, to purify the battlefields. In the end what we need is some hygiene, some cleanliness, disinfection. We're smothered by images, words and sounds that have no right to exist, coming from, and bound for, nothingness. Of any artist truly worth the name we should ask nothing except this act of faith: to learn silence. Do you remember Mallarme's homage to the white page? And Rimbaud... a poet, my friend, not a movie director. What was his finest poetry?His refusal to continue writing and his departure for Africa. If we can't have everything, true perfection is nothingness. Forgive men for quoting all the time. But we critics... do what we can. Our true mission is... sweeping away the thousands of miscarriages that everyday... obscenely... try to come to the light. And you would actually dare leave behind you a whole film, like a cripple who leaves behind his crooked footprint. Such a monstrous presumption to think that others could benefit from the squalid catalogue of your mistakes! And how do you benefit from stringing together the tattered pieces of your life? Your vague memories, the faces of people that
Movie: 8Â.5