Dustin Hoffman credited as playing...
Giuseppe Baldini
- Giuseppe Baldini: Now pay attention to what I tell you. Just like a musical chord, a perfume chord contains four essences, or notes, carefully selected for their harmonic affinity. Each perfume contains three chords: the head, the heart and the base, necessitating 12 notes in all. The head chord contains the first impression, lasting a few minutes before giving way to the heart chord, the theme of the perfume, lasting several hours. Finally, the base chord, the trail of the perfume lasting several days.
- Giuseppe Baldini: Mind you, the Egyptians believed that one can only create a truly original perfume by adding an extra note, one final essence that will ring out and dominate the others. Legend had it that an amphora was once found in a pharaoh's tomb, and when it was opened, a perfume was released, after all those thousands of years, a perfume of such subtle beauty, and yet such power, that for one single moment every person on earth believed they were in paradise. 12 essences could be identified, but the 13th, the vital one, could never be determined.
- Giuseppe Baldini: Talent means next to nothing, while experience acquired in humility and hard work means everything.
- Jean-Baptiste Grenouille: You want to make this leather smell good, don't you?
- Giuseppe Baldini: Why of course, and so it shall.
- Jean-Baptiste Grenouille: With Amor and Psyche by Pelissier?
- Giuseppe Baldini: What ever gave you the absurd idea I would use someone else's perfume?
- Jean-Baptiste Grenouille: It's all over you.
- Jean-Baptiste Grenouille: That's a really good perfume.
- [he holds the bottle out to Baldini, who turns away]
- Jean-Baptiste Grenouille: Don't you want to smell it, Master?
- Giuseppe Baldini: I'm not in the mood to test it now. I have other things on my mind.
- Jean-Baptiste Grenouille: But Master...
- Giuseppe Baldini: Go! Now!
- Jean-Baptiste Grenouille: Can I come to work for you, Master, can I?
- Giuseppe Baldini: Let me think about it.
- Jean-Baptiste Grenouille: Master! I have to learn how to keep smell.
- Jean-Baptiste Grenouille: I can make Amour and Psyche for you. Now.
- Giuseppe Baldini: And you think I'd just let you sop around in my laboratory? With essential oils that are worth are fortune?
- Jean-Baptiste Grenouille: Yes.
- Giuseppe Baldini: Pay attention! What's your name, anyway?
- Jean-Baptiste Grenouille: Jean-Baptiste Grenouille.
- Giuseppe Baldini: Well, Jean-Baptiste Grenouille, you will have the opportunity now to prove yourself. And your grandiose failure will also be a lesson in humility.
- Jean-Baptiste Grenouille: How much do you want me to make?
- Giuseppe Baldini: How much of what?
- Jean-Baptiste Grenouille: How much Amour and Psyche do you want me to make? Shall I fill this flask?
- [He picks up a large jar]
- Giuseppe Baldini: No, you shall not! You may fill this one.
- [He hands Grenouille a small bottle]
- Jean-Baptiste Grenouille: Yes, Master.