Alphaville (1965)
Eddie Constantine: Lemmy Caution
Photos
Quotes
-
[English subtitled version]
Alpha 60 : What is your religion?
Lemmy Caution : I believe in the inspirations of conscience.
-
[English subtitled version]
Alpha 60 : I shall calculate so that failure is impossible.
Lemmy Caution : I shall fight so that failure is possible.
-
[English subtitled version]
Alpha 60 : What is the privilege of the dead?
Lemmy Caution : To die no more.
-
[English subtitled version]
Alpha 60 : What is your secret? Tell me, Mr. Caution.
Lemmy Caution : Something which never changes, day or night. The past represents its future. It advances in a straight line, yet it ends by coming full circle.
-
[English subtitled version]
Lemmy Caution : I refuse to become what you call normal.
-
[English subtitled version]
Lemmy Caution : This isn't a bible, this is a dictionary!
Natacha von Braun : Aren't they the same in the outlands?
-
[English subtitled version]
Natacha von Braun : Got a light?
Lemmy Caution : I've traveled 9,000 kilometers to give it to you.
-
[English subtitled version]
[last lines]
Natacha von Braun : You're looking at me oddly.
Lemmy Caution : Yes.
Natacha von Braun : It's as if you're waiting for me to say something.
Lemmy Caution : Yes.
Natacha von Braun : I don't know what to say. I don't know the words. I was never taught them. Help me.
Lemmy Caution : I can't, princess. You have to get there by yourself to be saved. If you can't, then you're as lost as the dead souls of Alphaville.
Natacha von Braun : I... love... you. I love you.
-
[English subtitled version]
Alpha 60 : Do you know what illuminates the night?
Lemmy Caution : Poetry.
-
[English subtitled version]
Lemmy Caution : Fuck yourself with your logic.
-
[English subtitled version]
Lemmy Caution : [voice over] It's always like that. You never understand anything. Yes, it's always like that. You never understand anything. And one night, you end it in death.
-
[English subtitled version]
Lemmy Caution : Don't budge.
[Caution shoots]
Lemmy Caution : That way I'm sure you'll keep your word.
-
[English subtitled version]
Lemmy Caution : Yes, I am afraid of death. But for a humble secret agent, it's an everyday thing, like whiskey. And I've been drinking all my life.
-
[English subtitled version]
Lemmy Caution : And what's Alpha 60?
Henri Dickson : A giant computer, like they used to have in big business.
Lemmy Caution : Nueva York... IBM...
Henri Dickson : Olivetti... General Electric... Tokyorama... Alpha 60 is one hundred and fifty light years more powerful.
Lemmy Caution : I see. People have become slaves of probabilities.
Henri Dickson : The ideal here, in Alphaville is a technocracy, like that of termites and ants.
Lemmy Caution : I don't understand.
Henri Dickson : Probably one hundred and fifty light years ago, one hundred and fifty two hundred, there were artist in the ant society. Yes, artists, novelists, musicians, painters. Today, no more.
-
[English subtitled version]
Natacha von Braun : In love? What's that?
Lemmy Caution : This.
Natacha von Braun : No. I know what that is: it's sensuality.
Lemmy Caution : No, sensuality is a consequence. It cannot exist without love.
Natacha von Braun : So what is love, then?
-
[English subtitled version]
Lemmy Caution : You never have love affairs?
Natacha von Braun : What?
Lemmy Caution : Has no one ever fallen in love with you?
Natacha von Braun : In love? What's that?
-
[English subtitled version]
Lemmy Caution : I left because I couldn't understand a word he was saying.
Natacha von Braun : But it's very simple. We learned this evening that death and life are found within the same circle.
-
Lemmy Caution : Anyway, it's my Journey to the End of the Night. It was my first night in Alphaville, but it seemed to me that centuries had passed.
-
Alpha 60 : Do you know what illuminates the night?
Lemmy Caution : Poetry.
Alpha 60 : What is your religion?
Lemmy Caution : I believe in the inspirations of conscience.
Alpha 60 : Do you make any distinction between the mystery of the laws of knowledge and the laws of love?
Lemmy Caution : In my opinion, there is no mystery of love.
-
Engineer : They flood us with spies. Perhaps you are a spy, Mister Johnson.
Lemmy Caution : You know I'm not, since I'm a free man.
Engineer : [blinks] A meaningless reply. We know nothing. We record, calculate, draw conclusions.
-
Lemmy Caution : Don't count on it; I have a secret, too.
Alpha 60 : What is your secret? Tell me, Mister Caution.
Lemmy Caution : Something which never changes, day or night. The past represents its future, it advances in a straight line, yet it ends by coming full circle.
Alpha 60 : I cannot trace what it is.
Lemmy Caution : I won't tell you.
Alpha 60 , Lemmy Caution : Several of my circuits are looking for the solution to your riddle. I will find it.
Lemmy Caution : If you find it, you will destroy yourself simultaneously, because you will become my kin, my brother.
Alpha 60 : Those who are not born, do not weep, and do not regret.
-
Lemmy Caution : Such people will serve as terrible examples to those who want to play the world when technical power is the only act in their repertoire.
-
[English subtitled version]
Lemmy Caution : Something's not in orbit in the capital of this Galaxy.
-
[English subtitled version]
Lemmy Caution : Her name was Beatrice. She said she was a seductress, third class. I was struck by the sadness and durability of her face.
-
[English subtitled version]
Lemmy Caution : Are you finished taking me for an ass? Or, are you beginning?
-
[English subtitled version]
Lemmy Caution : [voice over] Her smile and her small pointed teeth reminded me of the old vampire films - the sort they used to show at cinerama museums.
-
[English subtitled version]
Lemmy Caution : Dick Tracy, is he dead?
-
[English subtitled version]
Lemmy Caution : [voice over] Natasha spoke to me in her pretty sphinx voice, pretty sphinx, pretty sphinx, pretty sphinx, pretty sphinx.
-
[English subtitled version]
Lemmy Caution : Why does everyone look so sad, somber?
Natacha von Braun : You ask too many questions. Because they lack electricity.
-
[English subtitled version]
Alpha 60 : You have come from the Outlands. What were your feelings when you passed through galactic space?
Lemmy Caution : The silence of infinite space appalled me.
-
[English subtitled version]
Chief Engineer : Perhaps you are a spy, Mr. Johnson.
Lemmy Caution : You know I'm only a free man.
Chief Engineer : A meaningless reply.
-
[English subtitled version]
Lemmy Caution : What are you afraid of?
Natacha von Braun : I'm afraid because I know that word without ever having seen it or read it.
Lemmy Caution : Which word?
Natacha von Braun : Le conscience.
Lemmy Caution : La conscience.
Natacha von Braun : La conscience.
-
Lemmy Caution : I'm old-fashioned. Jeckel asked why I shot the man in my bathroom when the whole thing was just a psycho-test. I replied that I'm too old to argue, I shoot first. It's my only weapon against fatality.
-
Natacha von Braun : We live in the void of metamorphoses. But the echo that runs through the day, that echo beyond time, anguish, or caress. Are we near to our conscience, or far from it?... These are words I don't understand - "Conscience".
Lemmy Caution : And that - "Death in conversation". And that?
Natacha von Braun : Your eyes have returned from a despotic land where no one has known the meaning of a glance.
Lemmy Caution : You've really no idea what this is?
Natacha von Braun : It reminds me of something. I don't know what.
[the naked truth. I know it well. Despair is wingless, and so is love. I am as alive as my love and despair...]
Natacha von Braun : [Johnson grabs book from Natasha]
-
Natacha von Braun : In love? What's that?
Lemmy Caution : [Johnson walks around Natasha] Johnson: This.
Natacha von Braun : No, I know what that is - it's sensuality.
Lemmy Caution : No, sensuality flows from it. It cannot exist without love. Natasha: So what is love, then?
Natacha von Braun : o what is love, then? Your voice, your eyes, your hands, your lips. Our silences, our words. Light that goes, light that returns. A single smile between us. In quest of knowledge, I watched the night create day while we seemed unchanged. O beloved of all, beloved of one alone, your mouth silently promised to be happy. Away, away, says hate; closer, closer, says love. A caress leads us from our infancy. Increasingly I see the human form as a lover's dialogue. The heart has but one mouth. Everything by chance. All words without thought. Sentiments adrift. Men roam the city. A glance, a word. Because I love you. Everything moves. We must advance to live. Aim straight ahead toward those you love. I went toward you, endlessly toward the light. If you smile, it enfolds me all the better. The rays of your arms pierce the mist.
-
Lemmy Caution : I see. You oppose my moral, even supernatural, sense of vocation, with a simple physical and mental existence easily controllable by technicians.
[Lights flash on several control panels]
Prof. Jeckell : Your ideas are strange. Some years ago, in the Age of Ideas, yours would have been thought sublime. Look at yourself. Men of your type will soon be extinct. You'll be something worse than dead. You'll become a legend.
Prof. Jeckell : Yes, I'm afraid of death... but for a humble secret agent that's a fact of life, like whisky. And I've drunk that all my life.
[Caution reveals a gun]
Prof. Jeckell : You never want to see the Lands Without again?
Lemmy Caution : Good-bye, Mister Caution
[Shot]
