The Sea Gull (1968)

Denholm Elliott: Dorn, a Doctor

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Quotes 

• Dr. Yevgeny Dorn : You've chosen a subject from the field of abstract ideas. That was the right thing to do, because a work of art has got to express a great idea. Only serious things can be really beautiful. But you're so pale!

  Konstantin Treplev : So, *you* think I should go on?

  Dr. Yevgeny Dorn : I do. But only write about the really important, the eternal things. You know, I've lived a very varied sort of life. Enjoyed every minute of it. I've been happy, I suppose. But if I'd ever experienced the kind of... spiritual exultation that artists experience, when they're creating something, I think I would've abandoned my material shell with contempt... saw it up to heaven... and left the world behind.

• Dr. Yevgeny Dorn : It's ungenerous to express discontent with life at the age of 67.

  Pjotr Nikolayevich Sorin : What a stubborn fellow you are. Can't you understand that one may *want* to live?

  Dr. Yevgeny Dorn : That's just frivolous! It's one of the laws of nature that life has to have an end.

  Pjotr Nikolayevich Sorin : You're arguing like a man who's had his fill. You've been satisfied. Therefore, you're indifferent to life, and you don't care. But you, too, will be afraid of dying!

  Dr. Yevgeny Dorn : The fear of death is an animal fear. Why don't you try to suppress it?

  Dr. Yevgeny Dorn : [pauses, then continues]  Only those who are afraid of their sins, believe in the life hereafter, can be consciously frightened of death. Now, you, in the first place, are an atheist. And what sins can you boast of, hmm? You served for 30 years in the Ministry of Justice, that's all.

  Pjotr Nikolayevich Sorin : [loudly correcting him]  For THIRTY THREE!

• Dr. Yevgeny Dorn : In society, It's quite normal to like artist and to treat them differently from the way one treats merchants, for example. It's what is called idealism.

  Polina : Women were always falling in love with you and chasing after you with that idealism, too.

  Dr. Yevgeny Dorn : All I can say is women have always been very kind to me. What they liked most about me is that I was a good doctor.

• Masha : Help me. Help me. Or, I shall do something foolish. I'll make a mockery of my life. I'll destroy myself. I can't go on.

  Dr. Yevgeny Dorn : What can I do? How can I help?

  Masha : I'm so unhappy. No one, no one knows how much I suffer. I - I love - love Constantine.

• Semyon Medvedenko : May I ask you, doctor, what town did you like most - when you went abroad?

  Dr. Yevgeny Dorn : Genoa.

  Konstantin Treplev : Why Genoa?

  Dr. Yevgeny Dorn : I loved the crowds in the streets there. When you walk out of your hotel in the evening, you find the whole street bustling and alive with people. You join the crowd and you wander aimlessly, here and there, along a broken line. You become part of it. Your mind merges with everyone elses. And you begin to believe, in fact, in the existence of one Universal Soul.