Lost in translation, directed by Sophia Coppola, 2003

People have often asked me what the Zone is, and what it symbolizes, and have put forward wild conjectures on the subject. I’m reduced to a state of fury and despair by such questions. The Zone doesn’t symbolize anything, any more than anything else does in my films: the zone is a zone, it’s life, and as he makes his way across it a man may break down or he may come through. Whether he comes through or not depends on his own self-respect, and his capacity to distinguish between what matters and what is merely passing.

Andrej Tarkovskij
Сталкер
STALKER, 1979

Mugshot of  Edvard Aspeqvist, 1899, Sweden. He was arrested for theft and forgery. 

During his sentencing, the judge reportedly said “Take this as a warning and become an honest person from now on!” to which Edvard responded “I will try, but it’s not easy, once you’re on the slippery slope...”

Off-topic

Perfect purity is possible if you turn your life into a line of poetry written with a splash of blood. 

Yukio Mishima - Runaway Horses 

The Italian poet Salvatore Quasimodo’s hands resting on a sheet of poetry, Milan, 1964 -by Federico Patellani

Rust

Detroit Free Press, Michigan, July 21, 1940

Journey through the Capital of Electronic Music.

Herbert Marshall

All your sorrow, Louise, and hatred of me
Sprang from your delusion that it was wantonness
Of spirit and contempt of your soul's rights
Which made me turn to Annabelle and forsake you.
You really grew to hate me for love of me,
Because I was your soul's happiness,
Formed and tempered to solve your life for you, and would not.
But you were my misery.  If you had been my happiness would I not have clung to you?
This is life's sorrow:
That one can be happy only where two are;
And that our hearts are drawn to stars
Which want us not.

 

Edgar Lee Masters

France

Josef Koudelka, 1987

Woshibai

A Croat fighter poses in front of a wall mural that roughly translates to “God, if I die young send me to heaven, I have already been to hell”.

"P.P.S. Don't you drink? I notice you speak slightingly of the bottle. I have drunk since I was fifteen and few things have given me more pleasure. When you work hard all day with your head and know you must work again the next day what else can change your ideas and make them run on a different plane like whisky? When you are cold and wet what else can warm you? Before an attack who can say anything that gives you the momentary well being that rum does? I would as soon not eat at night as not to have red wine and water. The only time it isn't good for you is when you write or when you fight. You have to do that cold. But it always helps my shooting. Modern life, too, is often a mechanical oppression and liquor is the only mechanical relief. Let me know if my books make any money and will come to Moscow and we will find somebody that drinks and drink my royalties up to end the mechanical oppression."

E. Hemingway, a letter to Ivan Kashkin, a Russian translator and critic, in 1935.

Ian Berry - Prague Spring, distributing newspapers, 1968