Andrei Rublev (1966)

Anatoliy Solonitsyn: Andrey Rublev

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Quotes 

• Andrei Rublyov : You just spoke of Jesus. Perhaps he was born and crucified to reconcile God and man. Jesus came from God, so he is all-powerful. And if He died on the cross it was predetermined and His crucifixion and death were God's will. That would have aroused hatred not in those that crucified him but in those that loved him if they had been near him at that moment, because they loved him as a man only. But if He, of His own will, left them, He displayed injustice, or even cruelty. Maybe those who crucified him loved him because they helped in this divine plan.

• Andrei Rublyov : I am what I am. You couldn't teach me integrity.

• Andrei Rublyov : I see the world with your eyes. I listen to it with your ears. With your heart...

• Andrei Rublyov : What you said was true. The truth.

  Feofan Grek : So what if I said it then? You are wrong now. I was wrong then.

• Andrei Rublyov : Didn't you go to heaven?

  Feofan Grek : Lord! I can only say it is not as you imagine it on earth. Russia. Russia.

  Andrei Rublyov : Our mother country suffers all. She will endure all. But how long will this go on?

  Feofan Grek : I don't know. Forever, most likely.

  [looking at an icon] 

  Feofan Grek : Yet how beautiful all this is.

• Andrei Rublyov : Though I speak with the tongues of men and of angels and have not charity, I am become as sounding brass or a tinkling cymbal. And though I have the gift of prophecy and understand all mysteries and knowledge, and though I have all faith so that I could remove mountains and have not charity, I am nothing. And though I bestow all my goods to feed the poor and though I give my body to be burned, and have not charity, it profiteer me nothing. Charity sufferers long, and is kind; charity envieth not; charity vaunteth not itself, is not puffed up, doth not behave itself unseemly, seeketh not her own, is not easily provoked, thinketh no evil; rejoiceth not in iniquity, but rejoiceth in the truth; bearers all things; believeth all things, hopeth all things, endureth all things. Charity never faileth: but whether there be prophecies, they shall fail; whether there be tongues, they shall cease; whether there be knowledge, it shall vanish away.

• Andrei Rublyov : The women of Moscow gave their hair to the Tatars.

  Feofan Grek : What else could the poor creatures do? Better to lose their hair than be tortured. Is that heroic?

  Andrei Rublyov : It is. It is true that Russian women are humiliated and unhappy.

• Feofan Grek : Tell me honestly. Are the people ignorant or not? Well, are they?

  Andrei Rublyov : They're ignorant, but whose fault is that?

  Feofan Grek : It's their own stupidity. Have you never sinned through ignorance?

  Andrei Rublyov : Everyone has.

  Feofan Grek : And I have too. God forgive us and make us better.

• Marfa, yazychintsa : Do you think it's easy to live in fear?

  Andrei Rublyov : You live in fear because you know no love but bestial love. Carnality without soul. But love should be brotherly.

  Marfa, yazychintsa : Isn't all love the same? It's just love.

  Andrei Rublyov : What are you --

  [Marfa exposes her naked body and kisses Andrei] 

  Andrei Rublyov : Untie me.

• Marfa, yazychintsa : Why did you threaten us with fire from heaven?

  Andrei Rublyov : It is a sin to go naked and do what you do.

  Marfa, yazychintsa : What sin? Tonight is for lovemaking. Is love a sin?

  Andrei Rublyov : Is it love to tie a man up like this?

• Andrei Rublyov : We must remind people more often that they are people - Russians, of the same blood, of the same land. Evil is everywhere. Someone will always sell you for 30 pieces of silver. New misfortunes constantly befall the peasant - either Tatars three times in the autumn, or famine or plague - and he still keeps on working, working, working, meekly bearing his cross. He does not despair. He is silent and patient. He only prays to God for enough strength.

• Andrei Rublyov : Read the Scriptures.

  Aleksey, monakh : From where?

  Andrei Rublyov : From wherever you like.

  Aleksey, monakh : "Now I praise you, brethren, that ye remember me in all things and keep the ordinances as I delivered them to you. But I would have you know, that the head of every man is Christ and the head of every woman is the man and the head of Christ is God. Every man praying or prophesying, having his head covered, dishonored his head. But every woman that prayeth or prohesieth with her head uncovered dishonored her head, for that is even all one as if she were shaven. For if the woman be not covered, let her also be shorn; but if it be shame for a woman to be shorn or shaven, let her be covered. For a man ought not to cover his head forasmuch as he is the image and glory of God, but the woman is the glory of the man. For the man is not of the woman, but the woman of the man. Neither was the man created for the woman, but the woman for the man. For this cause ought the woman to have power on her head because of the angels. Nevertheless neither is the man without the woman, neither is the woman without the man, in the Lord."

  Skomorokh : Go on reading.

  Aleksey, monakh : "For as woman is of man, so also man is of woman, but all things are of God. Judge in yourselves: Is it comely that a woman pray unto God uncovered? Doth not even nature itself teach you that, if a man have long hair, it is a shame unto him? But if a woman have long hair, it is a glory to her, for her hair is given her..."

• Andrei Rublyov : I shall offer the Lord a vow of silence. I have nothing more to say to people. Is this a good idea?

• Andrei Rublyov : It must be a disease when a man tells lies and can't stop.

• Andrei Rublyov : If you only remember evil things, you will never be happy before God. Maybe you should forget some things, not all.

• Andrei Rublyov : The locals don't mind. They are used to it. People live by habits. I guess old folk don't even use their brains. Their lives pass in the same old rut. I suppose they like it when time drags on from dawn till dusk without end.

• Andrei Rublyov : There is nothing more terrible than snow in a temple, is there?

• Andrei Rublyov : You eat too much. How can you paint with a bloated stomach? When your stomach's rumbling, how can your mind work?