There is a line in this movie that makes absolutely no sence what so ever. It was completely ridiculous it made me and m
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andreas-schmidt-pabst — 18 years ago(July 20, 2007 11:46 AM)
It could also mean, that everything is bearable to a human, in the sense, that he survives even the strongest psychological pain without dieing of it. (Only if he gets a heart attack or a stroke by too much stress.)
Just think about it: The normal human body keeps living, no matter, how worse the person is feeling emotionally. Only if he decides not to bear it any longer he can end his life, but it doesnt end by itself.
"Hooters, hooters, yum yum yum
Hooters, hooters, on a girl thats dumb!"
The Bundy credo -
gundicus — 19 years ago(December 08, 2006 10:50 PM)
It's true though - if you've ever been so far down that you just don't think you can physically or mentally go ON to take your next breath - and yet, you do - despite the agony. As someone who has lived with a debilitating, excruciatingly painful, incurable & progressive disease (CFIDS) for the last 6 years - I can attest to the fact that sometimes it really ticks me off that my body keeps GOINGwhen it really shouldn't - that's how I read the line. It's just agonizing to know that any human being is capable of comprehending it - let alone so many of us. Off topic, I know - but I had to jump in - I just watched that scene & had to speak my mind.
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normlgirl-1 — 19 years ago(January 08, 2007 01:55 PM)
I also love this line. It makes total sense to me. It reminds me of the thought that you can get used to anything (no matter how unbearable). Someone above mentioned that it conveys a feeling of apathy it's perfect.
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Ode-to-a-Loner — 19 years ago(January 13, 2007 05:34 PM)
I like this line as well. As another poster said, I don't know how the OP could have found the line to be so funny as in something to be mocked. That's what makes no sense to me.
What are you rebelling against? -
sarahjoyfitz — 19 years ago(February 01, 2007 07:05 AM)
I think that the poster several posts up got it. Rimbaud is so caught up in what is going on in his head that sometimes he can't acknowledge what is right in front of him. As for the stabbing of Verlaine's hand.don't forget that just moments before in that scene he tells Verlaine that if he (meaning Verlaine) is going to be violent he must be violent and not apoligze after he commits his violent acts. Rimbaud shows no remorse for stabbing Verlaine's hand, he is teaching Verlaine a lesson. Verlaine is a very weak man, and Rimbaud trys to teach him to live his life as he wishes with no regrets and with meaning. You see this in the scene where Verlaine shoots Rimbaud's hand. Verlaine has yet to learn how to be strong and needs Rimbaud to be his strength. Sorry I got off topic but I just saw the film and am still processing it.
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zu20 — 19 years ago(February 24, 2007 05:05 PM)
To me InsectKin has it - the line is about the terror of apathy, the despair at feeling nothing. The only thing that he feels is a sense of his utter lack of feeling.
He can stab his lover in the hand and still feel nothing and feels a mourning for those feelings that would keep him from doin such things
I think he is saying that despite himself (and his evident prior digust for Verlaine's contradictory behaviour) that he envies Verlaine for all his apologies. Because he himself is too cold to the world to ever feel the kind of guilt that would make him say sorry.
"And if all this seems to be eccentric
Be aware be sure I meant it"
I
Johnny Marr -
Aulic Exclusiva — 19 years ago(February 25, 2007 07:59 AM)
People who wound up in concentration camps during the Nazi era probably never imagined they could endure such misery, but they did. There seems to be no limit to the suffering that human beings can endurebecause there seems to be no limit to the suffering that human beings can inflict.
We take this in and accept it. We endure the unedurable that we ourselves have made. And we cover it up with social constructs, as so many masks. Masks that mask horrible pain we ourselves make.
This haunted Arthur Rimbaud. He had an almost mystical intuition of what was behind those masks. He sought to remove them.
But in his quest to experience "all that man can experience", up to the purifying limits, he found no limits. He only found an ever deeper mess. In his attempt to devise a new language, one that would leave behind all ties and sentimentalities, that would speak "to the soul on behalf of the soul, subsuming all things" having experienced them all, he never expected to find human putrefaction the one infinite quality in man.
That man will put up with anything, without rebelling, he found unbearable, and he bitterly renounced literature as he bitterly renounced Verlaine's friendship, because it had become symbolic of man's cosmic masochism, one more lid over the sewer.
If the Kingdom of Heaven is like a grain of mustard, It can also be like a chicken-pox mark. -
Aulic Exclusiva — 19 years ago(February 25, 2007 08:17 AM)
Paul Verlaine, who was himself a very great poet, is traditionally seen as a weak, bourgeois namby-pamby in this scene. But he risked and lost everything, everything, for the love of his friend. Perhaps people now-a-days do not realise what it was for a married man and a father to be incarcerated for sodomy and attempted murder of his male lover in the Nineteenth century. Verlaine was like a dead man, when he came out of prison.
But he survived, proving the truth of Rimbaud's dictum. That Verlaine, his lust intact, could have survived his own destruction, like an undrownable cockroach, disgusted Rimbaud. Yet that's what men do. It's their filthy immortality.
Cosmic irony, Verlaine survived to make his lover's reputation, out of his precious cache of Rimbaud manuscripts.
But let no one call Verlaine a coward. This was the man who set his wife on fire, as a gift to his lover.
If the Kingdom of Heaven is like a grain of mustard, It can also be like a chicken-pox mark. -
johnnyx_xcat — 18 years ago(December 29, 2007 11:02 PM)
the line is a bit goofy, but it makes perfect sense. some things are unbearable: a bullet to the head, a Mack truck, cancer, etc. however, it's bizarre that we are able to inflict death/pain to others without dying. Aside from our physical limitations, there are no limits to our mental experiences. he seemed to lack a conscience like many sociopaths. without a conscience how does one know there is a god. he was searching for significance through pain and guilt. he was searching for Pandoras box by indulging. after indulging he felt empty. there was no divine hand limiting what a man could mentally experience. Its as though God lets us experience any thought, perform any act, and we never cross a line of any consequence, at least not in this life. Its dependent on your religious beliefs if judgment comes after life and if death is a reflection of sin in the world. Its as though Rimbaud wanted to know that there was some form of mental anguish that could lead to a person's demise. the existence of un-crossable lines would have gave him a sense of purpose. he appears to be an atheist that is proactively searching for God's judgment. most passively seek God's existence through signs of his mercy. since he can find no consequence to anything he does, he concludes god doesn't exist or like us feels numb to most everything. Rimbaud didn't believe in hell or heaven. he was searching for his judgment and pleasure on earth. he found neither. if nothing could mentally kill him he figured his mental state was incapable of life. He felt that was unbearable, and suicide was redundant. You cant kill what is already dead. He looked at the mind as inanimate clockwork. Committing suicide would do as much good as trying to kill a watch. that's a hard pill to swallow for someone so cerebral.
these thoughts have been presented more eloquently, but i thought the search for god's existence was left out.
Porker Face!