The Little Soldier (1963)

Michel Subor: Bruno Forestier

Photos 

5 more photos

Quotes 

• Bruno Forestier : Photography is truth...and cinema is truth 24 times a second.

• Bruno Forestier : There's a very beautiful quote. Who said it? I think it was Lenin. "Ethics are the aesthetics of the future." I think that's very beautiful and very moving. It reconciles the right and the left.

• Bruno Forestier : Maybe men talk incessantly, as if searching for gold in their quest for the truth. But instead of digging in riverbeds, they dig deep in their thoughts. They cast aside all the worthless words and they end up with just one, one single golden word: silence.

• Bruno Forestier : I'm very proud to be French. But I'm also against nationalism. One defends ideas, not territories. I love France because I love Joachim du Bellay and Louis Aragon. I love Germany because I love Beethoven. I con't love Barcelona because of Spain. I love Spain because a city like Barcelona exists and America because I love American cars.

• Bruno Forestier : Got any records?

  Veronica Dreyer : Yes. What would you like? Bach?

  Bruno Forestier : No, it's too late. Bach's for 8:00 in the morning. A Brandenburg Concerto at 8:00 am is wonderful.

  Veronica Dreyer : Mozart? Beethoven?

  Bruno Forestier : Too early. Mozart's for 8:00 at night. Beethoven's music is very deep. Beethoven's for midnight. No, what we need is some Haydn. Good old Joseph Haydn.

• Bruno Forestier : What do people on the Right and Left think? What's the point of revolution today? The Right wins and then applies Leftist policies and vice versa. I win or lose, but I fight alone.

• Bruno Forestier : I don't know. Life says women are right. But gives death to men. Death is what's important. Van Gogh once said that death would take us to another star.

• [first lines] 

  Bruno Forestier : For me, the time for action is past. I'm older now. The time for reflection begins.

• Bruno Forestier : "O month of flowers and metamorphosis, I'll never forget the lilacs or the rose." Why was I obsessed with that poem?

• Bruno Forestier : Even a soldier can't be forced to kill.

• Bruno Forestier : I felt the important thing in life was not to be defeated.

• Bruno Forestier : The Danish girl with Michel yesterday?

  Bruno's Friend : You know her?

  Bruno Forestier : No, he told me about her.

  Bruno's Friend : I bet you'll want to lay her. She has a mouth like Leslie Caron.

  Bruno Forestier : No, I only sleep with girls I'm in love with.

  Bruno's Friend : Then I bet you'll fall in love in five minutes.

• Bruno Forestier : I drove around. The city silhouetted against the starry night sky is always very moving, both hard-edged and mysterious, in the image of mankind and what lies beyond mankind.

• Bruno Forestier : A foreign woman speaking French is always lovely.

• Bruno Forestier : Maybe remorse is the beginning of freedom.

• Bruno Forestier : I wondered if I was happy to feel free or free to feel happy.

• [last lines] 

  Bruno Forestier : I had no choice but to learn not to be bitter. I was just glad I still had so much time ahead of me.

• Bruno Forestier : The dark-blue sky reminded me of that Klee painting. "Where did you come from? Where are you? Where are you going?"

• Bruno Forestier : The first time I met her she looked right out of a play by Jean Giraudoux.

• Jacques : You're a pain in the ass, my friend. We've been looking for you since Saturday. What were you doing in Annecy?

  Bruno Forestier : I was hoping to take Veronica to Brazil. I'm opening an art gallery. I went there to buy three small Modiglianis.

• Bruno Forestier : I'd like to die like that.

  Chauffeur : Don't worry. You may get the chance soon.

• Veronica Dreyer : Is this all you brought?

  Bruno Forestier : Yes.

  Veronica Dreyer : I thought you'd need lights and...

  Bruno Forestier : No, no, no, no. This is very fast film. It's Agfa Record. When you photograph a face - look at me - you photograph the soul behind it.

• Bruno Forestier : Veronica's charm was all her own: the curve of her shoulders, the worry in her eyes, the secret in her smile.

• Bruno Forestier : [taking photographs of Veronica]  Move around. Don't just stand there.

  Veronica Dreyer : What do you want me to do?

  Bruno Forestier : Whatever you want. Light a cigarette. Take a shower.

  Veronica Dreyer : Yeah, right.

  Bruno Forestier : Why not?

• Bruno Forestier : I'd like to get pictures of you showering. You really don't want to?

  Veronica Dreyer : No.

  Bruno Forestier : Why?

  Veronica Dreyer : Because I think it's stupid.

  Bruno Forestier : Afraid of me seeing your body? - - What were you going to say? What are you thinking right now?

• Bruno Forestier : I think actors are stupid. I despise them. Tell them to laugh and they laugh. Tell them to cry, they cry. Tell them to crawl, they do it. To me, that's grotesque.

  Veronica Dreyer : I don't see why.

  Bruno Forestier : I don't know. They're not free.

• Bruno Forestier : What's important isn't how others see you, but how you see yourself.

• Bruno Forestier : I used this often with women. They love it when you call them "little girl" and suggest children's games.

• Bruno Forestier : Veronica and I talked about art. She said Van Gogh was a lesser painter than Gauguin, which isn't true, of course.

• Bruno Forestier : Are you staying with me or not?

  Veronica Dreyer : I don't know. I don't know, Bruno. I don't know.

  Bruno Forestier : Coming out of Club 58 - you remember? You took my arm.

  Veronica Dreyer : Shouldn't I have?

  Bruno Forestier : No.

  Veronica Dreyer : Why?

  Bruno Forestier : Because it made me want to sleep with you. Now you seem to be saying that's impossible. You shouldn't give your arm to men you don't want to be with.

• Bruno Forestier : I've become a coward. It's strange. When I look at my own face, it's like it doesn't match who I feel I am from inside.

• Bruno Forestier : A woman's shoulders are very pretty and noble.

• Bruno Forestier : A great feeling of loneliness flooded over me.

• Veronica Dreyer : Where'd you go?

  Bruno Forestier : To get cigarettes. Did you take a bath?

  Veronica Dreyer : I didn't feel like it.

• Bruno Forestier : Veronica, why don't you say something?

  Veronica Dreyer : I don't know what to say.

  Bruno Forestier : Lie to me. Say you're not sad I'm leaving.

  Veronica Dreyer : I'm not sad your leaving. I'm not in love with you. I won't join you in Brazil. I won't kiss you tenderly.

• Bruno Forestier : I watched her sit down. I love the way she lights a cigarette.

• Bruno Forestier : It's terrible today. If you just calmly do nothing, you get hell precisely for doing nothing. So, we do things without conviction. And it's a pity to wage war without conviction.

• Bruno Forestier : Why is the Vatican anticommunist? Funny guy, the Pope. They believe in the same thing. All men are brothers.

• Bruno Forestier : She looked at me. In my opinion, women should never pass 25.

• Bruno Forestier : Men grow more attractive as they age, but not women. I think it's extraordinarily unfair for a woman to age.

• Bruno Forestier : I'm lost unless I pretend to be lost.

• Bruno Forestier : Maybe that's the important thing: to come to recognize the sound of your own voice and the shape of your own face.

• Bruno Forestier : People look at me but don't know what I'm thinking and they'll never know. Right this moment: a forest in Germany. A bicycle ride. That's gone now. Now - the terrace of a cafe in Barcelona. Now - that's gone. I try to trap my own thoughts.

• Bruno Forestier : Where does speech come from? Maybe people talk on and on like gold prospectors - to find the truth. But instead of dredging in a river, they dredge among their own thoughts. They eliminate all the words of no value - and end up finding just one. But a single word by itself - is already silence.

• Bruno Forestier : Sometimes I feel Iike I've wasted my time. Veronica - were her eyes Velázquez-gray or Renoir-gray?