Brideshead Revisited (TV Mini Series)

Brideshead Revisited (1981)

Jeremy Irons: Charles Ryder

Photos 

Quotes 

• [at Brideshead Hall during the army's occupation of it in World War II] 

  Lieutenant Hooper : Did you say you knew this place before?

  Charles Ryder : Yes. Very well. It belongs to friends of mine.

  Lieutenant Hooper : It doesn't make any sense. One family in a place this size - what's the use of it?

  Charles Ryder : I suppose Brigade find it useful.

  Lieutenant Hooper : That's not what it's built for, though, is it?

  Charles Ryder : No, it's *not* what it was built for. Maybe that's one of the pleasures of building. Like having a son. Wondering how he'll grow up. I don't know. I've never built anything. And I've forfeited the right to watch my son grow up. I'm homeless, childless, middle-aged and loveless.

• [in the Chapel at Brideshead Hall - final voiceover] 

  Charles Ryder : The chapel showed no ill effects of its long neglect. The paint was as fresh and bright as ever. And the lamp burned once more before the altar. I knelt and said a prayer - an ancient, newly-learned form of words. I thought that the builders did not know the uses to which their work would descend. They made a new house with the stones of the old castle. Year by year the great harvest of timber in the park grew to ripeness, until, in sudden frost, came the Age of Hooper. The place was desolate and the work all brought to nothing. Quomodo sedet sola civitas - vanity of vanities, all is vanity. And yet, I thought, that is not the last word. It is not even an apt word - it is a dead word from ten years back. Something quite remote from anything the builders intended had come out of their work and out of the fierce little human tragedy in which I played. Something none of us thought about at the time. A small red flame, a beaten copper lamp of deplorable design, re-lit before the beaten copper doors of a tabernacle. This flame, which the old knights saw from their tombs, which they saw put out: the flame burns again for *other* soldiers far from home - farther, in heart, than Acre or Jerusalem. It could not have been lit but for the builders and the tragedians. And there I found it that morning, burning anew among the old stones.

• [Lord Marchmain is dying. The priest has called to adminster the Last Rites but Cordelia has sent him away for now, saying "Papa doesn't want him yet"] 

  Julia Mottram : Charles, I see great church trouble ahead.

  Charles Ryder : Can't they even let him *die* in peace?

  Julia Mottram : They mean something so different by "peace".

  Charles Ryder : It would be an outrage. No-one could have made it plainer, in his life, what he thought of religion. If they come to him now when his mind's wandering and he hasn't the strength to resist, and claim him as a death-bed penitent... I've had some respect for their religion up to now, but if they do *that*, then I'll know that what stupid people say is true: that it *is* all superstition and trickery.

• [Lord Marchmain is now very close to death. Doctor Grant has said that the least little shock will kill him. Julia has sent for Father McKay to administer the Last Rites] 

  Charles Ryder : You said just now that the least shock would kill him. What could be worst for a man who fears death, as he does, than to have a priest brought to him? A priest he turned out when he had the strength.

  Doctor Grant : I think it may kill him.

  Charles Ryder : Then you will forbid it?

  Doctor Grant : I have no authority to forbid anything. I can only give an opinion.

  [Doctor Grant is called away to attend to Lord Marchmain] 

  Charles Ryder : Cara, what do you think?

  Cara : I don't want him made unhappy. That is all there is to hope for now: that he will die without knowing it. But I should like the priest there, all the same.

  Charles Ryder : But will you try and persuade Julia to keep him away until the end? Then he can do no harm.

  Cara : I will ask her to leave Alex happy, yes.

• [Father McKay is administering the Last Rites to Lord Marchmain] 

  Charles Ryder : [voiceover]  I recognised the words of Absolution and saw the priest make the sign of the cross. Then I knelt too and prayed: "Oh God, if there is a God, forgive him his sins, if there *is* such a thing as sin." I suddenly felt the longing for a sign, if only of courtesy, if only for the sake of the woman I loved who knelt, I knew, praying for a sign. It seemed such a small thing that was asked - the bare acknowledgement of a present. A nod in a crowd. I prayed more simply: "God forgive him his sins and please, God, make him accept your forgiveness." So small a thing to ask.

  [Lord Marchmain stirs briefly, makes the sign of the cross, and lapses back into unconsciousness] 

  Charles Ryder : [voiceover]  Then I knew the sign I had asked for was *not* a little thing, not a passing nod of recognition. And a phrase came back to me from my childhood, of the veil of the temple being rent from top to bottom.

• [Lord Marchmain has just died] 

  Charles Ryder : [voiceover]  Thus I come to the broken sentences which were the last words spoken between Julia and me - the last memories. When at last we met alone, it was by stealth, like young lovers.

  [Charles and Julia hug] 

  Julia Mottram : Here on the stairs, a minute to say goodbye.

  Charles Ryder : [wistfully]  So long to say so little.

  Julia Mottram : You knew?

  Charles Ryder : Since this morning. Since before this morning. All this year.

  Julia Mottram : I didn't know till today. Oh, my dear, if you could only understand, then I could bear to part - or bear it better. I'd say my heart were breaking, if I believed in broken hearts. I can't marry you, Charles. I can't be with you ever again.

  Charles Ryder : [flatly]  I know.

  Julia Mottram : How can you know?

  [long pause] 

  Charles Ryder : What will you do?

  Julia Mottram : Just go on. Alone. How can I tell what I shall do? You know the whole of me. You know I'm not one for a life of mourning. I've always been bad. Probably I'll be bad again - punished again. But the worse I am, the more I need God. I can't shut myself out from His mercy. That *is* what it would mean, starting a life with you - without Him. One can only see one step ahead. But I saw today there's one thing unforgivable, like things in the school-room, so bad they're unpunishable, that only Mummy could deal with. The bad thing I was on the point of doing that I'm not quite bad enough to do - to set up a rival God to God. It may be because of Mummy, Nanny, Sebastian, Cordelia, perhaps Bridey and Mrs Muspratt - keeping my name in their prayers. Or it may be a private bargain between me and God. That if I give up this one thing I want so much, how ever bad I am He won't quite despair of me in the end. Now we shall both be alone. And I shall have no way of making you understand.

  Charles Ryder : I don't want to make it easy for you. I hope your heart may break. But I *do* understand.

  [Julia gets up and walks away, leaving Charles staring blankly into empty space]