Fanny and Alexander (TV Mini Series)

Uppbrottet (1983)

Ewa Fröling: Emilie Ekdahl

Quotes 

• Emilie Ekdahl : My husband died a year ago today. He wanted us to go on as usual, and we have gone on as usual, though everything has been different. We draw the theater over our heads like a security blanket. Our dressing rooms are bright and warm. The stage enfolds us in friendly shadows. Playwrights tell us what to say and think. We laugh, cry and rage. People sit there in the dark, kindly disposed towards us. They're remarkably loyal, though we often give them stones instead of bread. Most of the time we're simply playing. Almost always. We play because we enjoy it. And if we don't enjoy it, we sulk and blame the circumstances - never ourselves. That's how it is. So I pass my life in wonderful self-deception, with a keen eye for others' faults while glossing over my own. I don't know what I really am, as I never cared to find out the truth about myself. But I do care about myself, which is something different. And I don't care about reality, either. It's drab and uninteresting. It doesn't concern me, unless, in one way or another, it concerns the part I'm playing.

• Emilie Ekdahl : Don't play Hamlet, my son. I'm not Queen Gertrude, you kind stepfather isn't the King of Denmark, and this is not Elsinore Castle, even if it does look rather gloomy.

• Bishop Edvard Vergérus : I have a wish. A single wish, but an important one. You may change your mind if you find it impossible.

  Emilie Ekdahl : Tell me your wish.

  Bishop Edvard Vergérus : I want you to come to my house without possessions.

  Emilie Ekdahl : What do you mean?

  Bishop Edvard Vergérus : I want you to leave your home, your clothes, jewels, furniture, your valuables, your friends, habits and thoughts. I want you to leave your former life entirely.

  Emilie Ekdahl : Am I to come naked?

  Bishop Edvard Vergérus : I'm serous, my dear. I want you to come to your new life as if newly born.

• Emilie Ekdahl : You're angry. Kiss me.

• Emilie Ekdahl : I've never cared for anything very seriously. I've sometimes wondered there wasn't something very wrong with my feelings. I couldn't understand why nothing really hurt, why I never felt really happy. I know now that the crucial moment has come. I know that we'll hurt each other, but I'm not afraid. I also know that we will make each other happy. And I sometimes weep from fear, because time is so short, the days pass so quickly, and nothing lasts forever.

• Emilie Ekdahl : You say your God is the God of love. It sounds so beautiful - and I wish I could believe as you do. Perhaps one day I will. My God is so different, Edvard. He's like myself, amorphous and intangible. I'm an actress. I'm used to wearing masks. My God wears a thousand masks. He's never shown me his real face, Just as I can't show you or him my real face. Through you I'll come to know God's true nature.