Children of Paradise (1945)

Jean-Louis Barrault: Baptiste Debureau

Photos 

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Quotes 

• Frederick : Words and phrases leave you cold. You tell your story without speaking. And you do it so well. You really astonished me. Your legs speak, your hands answer. A glance, a shrug, a step forward, back and they understand up in the Gods.

  Baptiste : They understand, though they are poor. I'm like them. I love them, I know them. Their lives are small, but their dreams are vast.

• Baptiste : I still love you. I always have. And you, Garance? No, don't answer. I won't ask for anything. You're here. That's all that matters. Here, alive in my arms, like the first time. No, I ask for nothing. Only - the warmth of your body against my body, this mouth of yours. These eyes of yours.

• Garance : You're shaking. Are you cold?

  Baptiste : I'm shaking because I'm happy. Happy because you're here, near me. I love you. Garance, do you love me?

  Garance : You talk like a child. People love that way in books, in dreams. Not in real life.

  Baptiste : Dreams, life - they're the same. Else life's not worth living.

• Baptiste : If all couples living together were in love, the earth would glow like the sun.

• Baptiste : Your heart beating against my hand.

  Garance : Baptiste.

  Baptiste : You were right, Garance. Love is so simple.

• Garance : It's not bad here, though it's a bit sad.

  Baptiste : Why sad?

  Garance : It's always sad when you sleep alone.

• Baptiste : You're so beautiful. But I must let you sleep.

  Garance : I'm not very sleepy.

  [Sits on her bed] 

  Baptiste : Remember: You could work at the Funambules.

  Garance : But I can't do anything.

  Baptiste : I'll help you. You need work.

  Garance : Why not? I could show my legs.

  [Lifts her leg out from under her wrap] 

  Garance : The audience doesn't ask for much.

  [Wiggles her toes] 

  Baptiste : But I love you, Garance.

  Garance : Please don't be so solemn. It chills me. Don't be angry, but I'm not the way you dreamed. You must understand me. I'm simple, so simple. I am what I am. I want to please those I like. And when I want to say yes, I can't say no.

  [Gets up and blows out the lantern] 

  Garance : I prefer moonlight, don't you?

• Baptiste : Baptiste? Who's this Baptiste? Since the one he loves doesn't love him, he's a zero, a will-o'-the-wisp, an automaton, a bogeyman. No more Baptiste!

  [Draws an X over his face in the mirror and points at it] 

  Baptiste : Here lies Baptiste. Life gave him a red flower, a good beating, a pinewood overcoat.

• Mme Hermine : You're being unreasonable.

  Baptiste : True, I'm unreasonable.

  Mme Hermine : Shutting yourself up like a monk!

  Baptiste : No, monks pray. I sleep, I dream.

• Baptiste : "Othello" would make a nice pantomime. A man kills his beloved and it kills him, poor man! A sad, absurd tale, like so many others. Like mine and yours, Madame Hermine. You spend your empty days in your empty rooms with your poor empty heart.

• Baptiste : It's all so sad and absurd. Like me. Years ago, I stood here by this bed, in this very room. And she stood there, smiling, happy, so lovely in the fresh night air. And she said, "Love is so simple." And I didn't listen! I didn't take her in my arms! I set conditions: "Love me as I love you." And I shut the door, forever, between my love and me.

• Jéricho : The game's up! Time to go home.

  Baptiste : Let me go!

  Jéricho : For shame! As sure as I'm called Old Maid, Wise Counsel, Prim and Proper, for my sense of morality.