Autumn Sonata Movie Quotes
Viktor
[reading]
One must learn to live. I practice every day. My biggest obstacle is I don't know who I am. I grope blindly. If anyone loves me as I am I may dare at last to look at myself. For me, that possibility is fairly remote.
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Charlotte Andergast
Sometimes, when I lie awake at night, I wonder whether I've lived at all. Is it the same for everybody? Do some people have a greater talent for living than others or do some people never live, but just exist?
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Eva
The mother's injuries are to be handed down to the daughter. The mother's failures are to be paid for by the daughter. The mother's unhappiness is to be the daughter's unhappiness. It's as if the umbilical cord had never been cut.
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Charlotte Andergast
I feel so shut out, I'm always homesick. But when I get home. I find it's something else I'm longing for.
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Eva
There's no dividing line, no insurmountable wall. I know it can't be described. It's a world of liberated feelings. Do you know what I mean? To me, man is a tremendous creation, an inconceivable thought. In man is everything, from the highest to lowest. Everything exists side by side. Realities, not only the reality we perceive with our dull senses, but a tumult of realities arching above each other inside and outside. It's just fear and priggishness to believe in limits. There are no limits, neither to thoughts nor feelings. It's anxiety that sets limits.
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Charlotte Andergast
Chopin was emotional, but not mawkish. Feeling is very far from sentimentality, The prelude tells of pain, not reverie. It hurts, but he doesn't show it.
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Eva
Are the daughter's miseries the mother's triumphs?
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Eva
A mother and a daughter, what a terrible combination.
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Eva
You said my hair was too long and you had it cut short, it was hideous! Then you thought that I had crooked teeth, and you got me braces, I looked so grotesque! You would buy me books and I would read them and not understand them, and you would make me talk about them, and I would always be afraid that you would show up my stupidity.
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Charlotte Andergast
A sense of reality is a matter of talent. Most people lack that talent and maybe it's just as well.
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Charlotte Andergast
I'm seized by fear and see a horrible picture of myself. I have never grown up. My face and my body have aged. I acquire memories and experiences but inside all that I haven't even been born. I can't remember any faces not even my own.
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Charlotte Andergast
Only through music I did have a chance to show my feelings.
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Eva
Look at me, mama. Look at Helena.
Charlotte Andergast
You can't blame me entirely.
Eva
You expect an exception for you. You've set up a sort of discount system with life but one day you'll see that your agreement is one-sided.
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Eva
You managed to injure me for life, just as you are injured.
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Eva
You talk of my hatred. Your hatred was no less.
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Eva
But one thing I did understand: not a shred of the real me could be loved or accepted. I didn't dare to be myself even when I was alone because I hated what was my own.
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Eva
I will never let you vanish out of my life again. I'm going to persist. I won't give up, even if it is too late. I don't think it is too late. It must not be too late.
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Eva
People like you are a menace. You should be locked away and rendered harmless.
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Charlotte Andergast
It's disgraceful how lazy I've been of life.
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Eva
Maybe everything is already too late.
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Eva
You're shut up inside yourself and always standing your own light.
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Viktor
I'd like to tell her just for once that she is loved whole-heartedly but I can't say it in such a way that she'd believe me. I can't find the right words.
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Eva
Is it so? Is the daughter's misfortune the mother's triumph? Is my grief your secret pleasure?
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Eva
All that was sensitive and delicate, you attacked. All that was alive, you tried to smother.
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Charlotte Andergast
It was all done in the name of love. Everything is possible and is done in the name of love and solicitude.
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Eva
There can be no forgiveness.
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Charlotte Andergast
Eva, you do like me, don't you?
Eva
You're my mother.
Charlotte Andergast
That's one way of answering.
Eva
Do you like me?
Charlotte Andergast
I love you.
Eva
Do you?
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Charlotte Andergast
[to Eva, while Charlotte plays Chopin's Prelude 2]
Your technique wasn't bad at all, though you might have taken more interest in Cortot's fingering, but let's just talk about the conception. Chopin was emotional, but not sentimental. Feeling is very far from sentimentality. The prelude tells of pain, not reverie. You have to be calm, clear, and harsh. Take the first bars now. It hurts, but he doesn't show it. Then a short relief. But it evaporates immediately, and the pain is the same. Total restraint the whole time. Chopin was proud, passionate, tormented and very manly. He wasn't a sentimental old woman. This prelude must sound almost ugly. It is never ingratiating. It should sound wrong. You have to battle your way through it and emerge triumphant. Like this.
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Eva
I didn't realize I hated you. I was so sure we loved each other. I couldn't hate you, so my hatred turned into an insane fear. I had nightmares. I bit my nails. I pulled out tufts of hair. I wanted to cry, but I couldn't. I couldn't make a sound. I tried to scream, but I could only make stifled grunts. That frightened me even more. I thought I was going out of my mind.
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Eva
I couldn't say anything. I had no words. You had taken charge of all the words in our home.
Charlotte Andergast
You're exaggerating.
Eva
I must finish speaking. I know I'm tipsy, but otherwise I wouldn't have said what I have. When I'm too ashamed to say any more, you can explain, and I'll listen and understand, just as I've always done.
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Eva
Look at me, Mama. Look at Helena. There are no excuses. There is only one truth and one lie. There can be no forgiveness.
Charlotte Andergast
You can't blame me entirely.
Eva
You expect an exception to be made for you. You've set up a sort of discount system with life... but one day you'll see that your agreement is one-sided. You'll discover you're carrying guilt, just like everyone else.
Charlotte Andergast
What guilt?
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Eva
Is that all?
Charlotte Andergast
I was just so moved.
Eva
Did you like it?
Charlotte Andergast
I liked you.
Eva
I don't understand.
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Charlotte Andergast
I broke off my career to stay at home with you and Papa.
Eva
Your back prevented you from practicing six hours a day. Your playing got worse and so did your reviews. Have you forgotten that?
Charlotte Andergast
No, but Eva...
Eva
I don't know which I hated more, when you were at home or when you were on tour.
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Eva
Wait, Mama. Just feel how nice it is in here. Erik drowned the day before his fourth birthday. But you know that. It was too much for Viktor. I grieved a lot, outwardly. Deep inside, I felt like he was still alive, that we were living close to each other. All I have to do is concentrate, and he's there. Sometimes, as I'm falling asleep I can feel him breathing on my face and touching me with his hand. He's living another life, but we can reach one another.
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Charlotte Andergast
Eva, darling. Won't you forgive me for all the wrong I've done? I'll try to mend my ways. You've got to teach me. We'll talk to each other. But help me. I can't go on. Your hatred is so terrible. I never realized. I've been selfish and childish. Can't you put your arms around me? Touch me, at least. Help me.
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Charlotte Andergast
Play something else.
Eva
What was wrong with it?
Charlotte Andergast
Nothing.
Eva
You didn't like my interpretation.
Charlotte Andergast
We each have our own.
Eva
Exactly. I want to know yours.
Charlotte Andergast
You're annoyed.
Eva
No, I'm upset. You won't tell me your interpretation of this prelude.
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Eva
When you play the slow movement of the Hammerklavier sonata, you must feel like you're living in a world without limitations, in a movement you can never see through or explore.
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Eva
Why on earth did she come here? What did she expect would happen after seven years? What did she expect?
Viktor
I wonder.
Eva
And what did I expect? We never give up hope, do we?
Viktor
I don't think so.
Eva
Don't we ever stop being mother and daughter?
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Eva
For you, I was just a doll you played with when you had time. If I was sick or naughty, you handed me over to the nanny. You shut yourself in and worked, and no one was allowed to disturb you. I used to stand outside, listening. When you stopped for coffee, I'd go in to see if you really existed. You were always kind, but your mind was elsewhere. If I spoke, you barely answered.
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Eva
I loved you, Mama. As a matter of life and death. But I distrusted your words. They didn't match the expression in your eyes. You have a beautiful voice. When I was little, I could feel it all over my body. But I knew instinctively you didn't mean what you said. I couldn't understand your words. The most horrible thing was, you'd smile when you were mad. When you hated Papa, you'd call him, "my dearest." When you were tired of me, you'd say, "darling little girl."
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Eva
A writer whose name I've forgotten said, "It's like a ghost falling on top of you when you open the door to the nursery having long since forgotten it is the nursery." Do you think I'm an adult?
Viktor
I guess being an adult is being able to handle your dreams and hopes, not longing for things.
Eva
Do you think so?
Viktor
Maybe you stop being surprised.
Eva
You look so sensible with your old pipe. You're very adult.
Viktor
I don't know. I'm surprised every day.
Eva
At what?
Viktor
At you.
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Charlotte Andergast
I think Eva is terribly unhappy. I'm appalled when I hear her rambling on. It's so neurotic.
Viktor
Just a moment, Charlotte, and I'll try to explain how I see my wife. When I asked Eva to marry me, she said she didn't love me.
Charlotte Andergast
What do you mean?
Viktor
I asked if she loved someone else. She said she had never loved anyone, that she was incapable of loving. Eva and I lived here for several years. Then Erik was born. We'd given up hope of a child of our own and had talked about adopting one. With her pregnancy, Eva underwent a complete change. She became cheerful, gentle and outgoing. She got lazy. She lost interest in her parish work and her piano playing. She would sit by that window, gazing at the play of light over the mountains and fjords. We were suddenly very happy. I'm much older than Eva. I felt as if a gray film were settling over life. I felt as if I could look back and say, "Well, well, so that was my life. That's how it all turned out." But suddenly things were different.
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Eva
I've often wondered why she sleeps badly. Now I know. If that woman slept normally, her vitality would crush everyone. Her insomnia is nature's way of using up the surplus energy.
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Eva
It'll be dark soon, and it's getting cold. I have to go home and make dinner for Viktor and Helena. I can't die now. I'm afraid to commit suicide... and one day maybe God will have a use for me. Then he'll set me free from my prison.
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Eva
It's gotten quiet in here.
Charlotte Andergast
What can I say?
Eva
Defend yourself.
Charlotte Andergast
Is it worth the effort?
Eva
How would I know?
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Viktor
When Erik drowned, that gray film got even grayer. For Eva, it was different.
Charlotte Andergast
Different?
Viktor
Her feeling lives on, uncorroded. Or so it seems anyway. If she feels that her son is alive and near her... well, perhaps that's how it is. She seldom speaks of it. I guess she's afraid it might upset me, as indeed it would. But what she says sounds true enough. I believe her.
Charlotte Andergast
Yes, you're a minister.
Viktor
The little faith I have lives on her terms.
Charlotte Andergast
I'm sorry if I hurt you.
Viktor
It doesn't matter. Unlike you and Eva, I'm confused and uncertain. It's my own fault.
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