Henry Fonda in his death row cell in You Only Live Once (1937, dir. Fritz Lang)

“You Only Live Once is the story of a man who tries to live an honest life. He is pursued, fighting alone against the menacing power of a society he must fight.

To fight, that is what counts. If we think there is the smallest chance to succeed, we must continue to do what we believe is good. Perhaps this is a sort of martyrdom, even if I don’t believe it, but it is the essence of life, fighting for the causes we believe to be right.

That is truly the problem that has always interested me—not obsessed or possessed me, because I was possessed only once—that’s all, in one way or another, it is inevitable. You get caught in the works, and you can’t escape. But aside from that, what I always wanted to show and define is the attitude of struggle that must be adopted in the face of destiny. Whether or not the individual wins this fight, what counts is the fight itself, because it is vital.”

-Fritz Lang, quoted in Fritz Lang: Interviews

On the set of Notorious,

Alfred Hitchcock sets up the shot that goes from a high angle of the party to an extreme close-up of the key hidden in Ingrid Bergman’s hand.

Photo by the great photojournalist Robert Capa, who was romantically involved with Bergman at the time.

Jean Cocteau

Appreciation of art is a moral erection; otherwise mere dilettantism. I believe sexuality is the basis of all friendship.

You’ve never seen death? look in the mirror every day and you will see it like bees working in a glass hive.

We must believe in luck, for how else can we explain the success of those we don’t like?

Life is a horizontal fall.

I love cats because I enjoy my home; and little by little, they become its visible soul

All good music resembles something. Good music stirs by its mysterious resemblance to the objects and feelings which motivated it.

Jean Cocteau and Enrique Rivero on the set of The Blood of the Poet