Wild Strawberries (1957)
Victor Sjöström: Dr. Eberhard Isak Borg
Photos
Quotes
-
Professor Isak Borg : If I have been feeling worried or sad during the day, I have a habit of recalling scenes from childhood to calm me. So it was this evening.
-
Marianne Borg : I saw you with your mother, and I was panic-stricken.
Professor Isak Borg : I don't understand.
Marianne Borg : I thought: That's his mother. An old woman, cold as ice, more forbidding than death. And this is her son, and there are light years between them. He himself says he's a living corpse. And Evald is growing just as lonely, cold and dead. And I thought of the baby inside me. All along the line, there's nothing but cold and death and loneliness. It must end somewhere.
-
Marianne Borg : Sleep well?
Professor Isak Borg : Yes, but recently I've had the weirdest dreams, as if I must tell myself something I won't listen to when I'm awake.
Marianne Borg : What's that?
Professor Isak Borg : That I'm dead. Although I'm alive.
-
Professor Isak Borg : [First lines] In our relations with other people, we mainly discuss and evaluate their character and behavior. That is why I have withdrawn from nearly all so-called relations. This has made my old age rather lonely. My life has been full of hard work and I am grateful. It began as toil for bread and butter and ended in a love of science.
-
Professor Isak Borg : [In Professor Borg's dream] And the punishment?
The Examiner : I don't know. The usual, I suppose.
Professor Isak Borg : The usual?
The Examiner : Loneliness.
Professor Isak Borg : Loneliness?
The Examiner : Precisely.
Professor Isak Borg : Is there no mercy?
-
Professor Isak Borg : The place where wild strawberries grow!
[Inner voice]
Professor Isak Borg : Perhaps I got a little sentimental. Perhaps I got tired and felt a bit sad. It's not impossible that I began to think of this and that, associated with places where I played as a child. I don't know how it happened, but the day's clear reality dissolved into the even clearer images of memory that appeared before my eyes with the strength of a true stream of events.
-
Professor Isak Borg : I dozed off, but was haunted by vivid and humiliating dreams. There was something overpowering in these dream images that bored relentlessly into my mind.
-
Professor Isak Borg : I like you, Marianne.
Marianne Borg : I like you too, uncle Isak.
-
Professor Isak Borg : Give me a cigar, anytime. That's stimulating and relaxing. That's a vice for men.
Marianne Borg : And what vices may a woman have?
Professor Isak Borg : Weeping, giving birth and speaking ill of her neighbors.
-
Professor Isak Borg : I have liked having you about the house.
Marianne Borg : Like a cat.
Professor Isak Borg : A cat, or a human being.
-
The Examiner : [In Professor Borg's dream] You have been accused of guilt.
Professor Isak Borg : Accused of guilt?
The Examiner : I'll make a note that you haven't understood the charge.
Professor Isak Borg : Is it serious?
The Examiner : Unfortunately, Professor.
-
Professor Isak Borg : [In Professor Borg's dream] What are you writing in my book?
The Examiner : My verdict.
Professor Isak Borg : And that is?
The Examiner : That you are incompetent.
Professor Isak Borg : Incompetent?
The Examiner : You are also accused of some minor but still serious offenses. Callousness, selfishness, ruthlessness. Your wife has made the charge.
-
Professor Isak Borg : We're not married, Miss Agda.
Agda : I thank God for that every night. I've used my common sense for 74 years, and it won't let me down now.
Professor Isak Borg : Is that your last word?
Agda : Yes. But I shall say plenty to myself about selfish, crabby old men who never think of those who have served them faithfully for 40 years.
Professor Isak Borg : Incredible that I have put up with your bossing for so long.
-
The Examiner : [In Professor Borg's dream] Please read this text.
Professor Isak Borg : Inke tan magrov stak farsin los kret fajne kaserte mjotron presete.
The Examiner : What does it mean?
Professor Isak Borg : I don't know.
The Examiner : Really?
Professor Isak Borg : I'm a doctor, not a linguist.
The Examiner : What you see on the blackboard is a doctor's first duty. Don't you know what that is?
Professor Isak Borg : Let me think.
The Examiner : Take your time.
Professor Isak Borg : A doctor's first duty - A doctor's - I've forgotten.
The Examiner : A doctor's first duty is to ask for forgiveness.
-
Professor Isak Borg : Miss Agda, as we have known each other for so many years, don't you think we could call each other Agda and Isak?
Agda : No, I don't.
Professor Isak Borg : Why not?
Agda : Have you brushed your teeth, Professor? No intimacies for me, thank you. It's all right between us as it is.
Professor Isak Borg : But we are old now.
Agda : Speak for yourself. A woman is jealous of her reputation. What would people think if we suddenly began to say Agda and Isak? They would make fun of us.
Professor Isak Borg : Are you always right?
Agda : Almost always. At our age we should know how to behave. Good night, Professor. I'll leave the door ajar. You know where I am if you need anything.
-
Professor Isak Borg : My name is Isak Borg and I am 78. Tomorrow I shall receive an honorary degree in Lund Cathedral.
-
Professor Isak Borg : In the early hours of June 1st, I had a weird and very unpleasant dream. I dreamt that during my morning walk I lost my way among empty streets with ruined houses.
-
Professor Isak Borg : I lived here once. Two hundred years ago.
Hitch Hiking Sara : Oh, yeah?
Professor Isak Borg : Is that your car up at the gate?
Hitch Hiking Sara : Yes, that's my car.
Professor Isak Borg : Looks antique.
Hitch Hiking Sara : Yes, it's antique, like its owner.
Hitch Hiking Sara : So you have self-irony too. That's fantastic.
-
Hitch Hiking Sara : My name's Sara. Silly name, isn't it?
Professor Isak Borg : My name's Isak. It's silly too.
Hitch Hiking Sara : Weren't they married?
Professor Isak Borg : No, unfortunately. That was Abraham and Sara.
-
Professor Isak Borg : And how's your father these days?
Henrik Åkerman : Oh, Dad's getting a bit decrepit. But Mom's as lively as a cricket.
-
Professor Isak Borg : If I have been worried or sad during the day, it often calms me to recall childhood memories.
-
Professor Isak Borg : Why should you pay for my gasoline?
Henrik Åkerman : There are things that *can't* be paid back...
Eva Åkerman : We haven't forgotten
Henrik Åkerman : Ask anyone around here. They all remember your kindness.
Professor Isak Borg : Maybe I should have stayed around here.
-
Professor Isak Borg : Which one do you like best?
Hitch Hiking Sara : I don't know. Anders is going to be a minister - He's a darling.
[sighs]
Hitch Hiking Sara : But, a minister's wife - Viktor's nice too. In a different way. Viktor will go far, of course.
Professor Isak Borg : What do you mean?
Hitch Hiking Sara : A doctor earns more money. And ministers are out of date. Though he has got nice legs and a sweet neck. But how *can* anyone believe in God?
-
Cousin Sara : [Last lines] Isak, there are no wild strawberries left. Auntie wants you to look for your Papa. We'll sail around and meet you at the other side of the island.
Professor Isak Borg : I can't find either Papa or Mama.
Cousin Sara : Come, I'll help you.
-
Cousin Sara : Have you looked in the mirror, Isak? Then I'll show you what you look like.
[She holds up a mirror]
Cousin Sara : You're a worried old man who's soon going to die, but I have all my life before me. That hurt your feelings, after all.
Professor Isak Borg : No, it didn't hurt.
Cousin Sara : Yes, it hurt because you can't bear the truth. The truth is that I've been too considerate. And so became unintentionally cruel.
Professor Isak Borg : I... understand.
Cousin Sara : No, you don't understand. We don't speak the same language. Look in the mirror again. No, don't turn away.
Professor Isak Borg : I see.
-
Professor Isak Borg : Old sourpuss.
-
Professor Isak Borg : There should be a law forbidding women to smoke.