Hour of the Wolf (1968)

Max von Sydow: Johan Borg

Photos 

Quotes 

• Johan Borg : The old ones called it "the hour of the wolf". It is the hour when most people die, when most children are born. Now is when nightmares come to us. And if we are awake -...

  Alma Borg : We're afraid.

  Johan Borg : We're afraid.

• Johan Borg : A minute can seem like an eternity. It's beginning now... ten seconds... Oh, those seconds... how long they last... the minute isn't up yet... Now it has gone.

• Johan Borg : There was a time when the nights were for sleeping. Deep, dreamless sleep. To sleep and wake unafraid.

• Johan Borg : I thank you. The limit has at last been reached. The glass is shattered, but what do the splinters reflect? Can you tell me that?

• Baron von Merkens : Does our artist not agree?

  Johan Borg : Forgive me. I call myself an artist for lack of a better name. In my creative work there is nothing implicit except compulsion. Through no fault of mine, I've been pointed out as something quite extraordinary, a calf with five legs, a monster. I have never fought to attain that position and I shall not fight to keep it. Megalomania? Yes I've felt it waft about my brow at times, but I think I'm immune . I have only to think of the utter unimportance of art in the world we live in to bring it down to earth , although the compulsion is there all the same.

  Corinne von Merkens : There speaks an artist!

• Johan Borg : Do you hear the quiet?

  Alma Borg : Yes, it's quiet.

• Johan Borg : I know!

  Alma Borg : What?

  Johan Borg : I shall draw you.

  Alma Borg : No!

  Johan Borg : Oh, let me,

  Alma Borg : No.

  Johan Borg : Come on.

  Alma Borg : No.

  Johan Borg : Go and sit over there.

  Alma Borg : No.

  Johan Borg : Up you get, fatty.

  Alma Borg : Here?

  Johan Borg : No, a little bit further back. There. Are you chilly?

  Alma Borg : No.

  Johan Borg : Now sit - the way you always do. Don't straighten up. And bare your shoulders. That's it. Hold your hair up a little so I can see your neck better. There. Just like that.

• Johan Borg : In an hour or so it will be daylight - and then I can sleep.