Death in Venice (1971)

Mark Burns: Alfred

Quotes 

• Alfred : Do you know what lies at the bottom of the mainstream? Mediocrity.

• Gustav von Aschenbach : You know sometimes I think that artists are rather like hunters aiming in the dark. They don't know what their target is, and they don't know if they've hit it. But you can't expect life to illuminate the target and steady your aim. The creation of beauty and purity is a spiritual act.

  Alfred : No Gustav, no. Beauty belongs to the senses. Only to the senses.

• Alfred : In all the world, there is no impurity so impure as old age.

• Alfred : Wisdom. Truth. Human Dignity. All finished! Now there is no reason why you cannot go to your grave with your music.

• Alfred : You have achieved perfect balance: the man and the artist are one. They have touched bottom together.

• Alfred : You never possessed chastity. Chastity is the gift of purity not the painful result of old age and you are *old* Gustav.

• Alfred : Truth? Justice? Human dignity? What good are they?