Sylvia (2003)
Jared Harris: Al Alvarez
Photos
Quotes
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Al Alvarez : Look. One thing I do know about death is it is not a reunion or a homecoming. There's - there's no - your life doesn't flash before you and the missing piece of you clicks into place. It's just - there's just "fuck all"! There's nothing.
Sylvia : So, what do you do when your life get's as bad as it can and just keeps getting worse?
Al Alvarez : You just keep going.
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Al Alvarez : Sylvia, I know this must have been hard on you.
Sylvia : No. I've never been happier and I've never written more. Its as if, now he's gone, I'm free. I can finally write. I wake up between three and four, cause that's the worst time, and I write till dawn. I really feel like God is speaking through me.
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Al Alvarez : Extraordinary. And Lady Lazarus - the one about the failed suicides. The despair. The overpowering sense of foreboding and, yet, without a trace of anger or hysteria or any appeal for sympathy. The - the wealth of imagery. Such horrors; but, expressed with a coolness. Like a - a murderer's confession.
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Al Alvarez : Have you got a title for your novel yet?
Sylvia : The Bell Jar.
Al Alvarez : When is it coming out?
Sylvia : The new year.
Al Alvarez : Are you going to let me read it?
Sylvia : It's a pot boiler.
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Al Alvarez : They're all bloody civil servants moonlighting as journalists. It's their job to protect the status quo.
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Al Alvarez : That Daddy poem, the use of metaphor, the way it builds the end out blackness into an explosion of fury. But, it's just - stunning.
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Sylvia : Could you get me an ashtray?
Al Alvarez : Sure. I didn't know you smoked.
Sylvia : I don't. But, I'm starting. I'm thinking of trying some new things.
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Sylvia : I'm thinking of taking a lover.
Al Alvarez : Oh, how glamorous. Who is he?
Sylvia : [Sylvia stares at Al, half-smiling]
