Cobra Verde (1987)

Klaus Kinski: Francisco Manoel da Silva 'Cobra Verde'

Photos 

Quotes 

• Taparica : Aren't you afraid? Aren't you afraid of dying?

  Francisco Manoel da Silva : I haven't tried it yet.

• Captain Fraternidade : [final lines] 

  [Da Silva pours some champagne into their glasses] 

  Captain Fraternidade : To slavery. The greatest misunderstanding in the history of mankind!

  Francisco Manoel da Silva : It was no misunderstanding. It was a crime.

  Captain Fraternidade : [drinks the champagne, refills the glass]  Slavery is an element of the human heart. To our ruin.

• [wakes up a man in the middle of the night] 

  Francisco Manoel da Silva : I want you awake when you die.

• Francisco Manoel da Silva : I cannot begin to describe this cretinous existence of mine. Nor how lonely it is to be without family or friends. The only white man in this country, perhaps on this whole continent. Meanwhile I have become the father of 62 children; but, this gives me no satisfaction. Perhaps next year I shall come back and marry. I would live in the lands of the ice and snow, anywhere to be away from here. The heat here is mean and inescapable. It courses through the bodies of people like a fever, and yet, my heart grows colder and colder.

• Young Black Woman : Every day, you walk forty miles through the thorns. And why are you barefoot? Don't you have any shoes?

  Francisco Manoel da Silva : I don't trust shoes.

• Captain Pedro Vincente : The English have put a prize on your head.

  Francisco Manoel da Silva : Finally something is happening!

• Euclides : My name is Euclides. Euclides Alves da Silva Pernambucano Wandereley.

  Francisco Manoel da Silva : I'm a da Silva too.

  Euclides : It's only my chest and shoulders that are crooked - at night, I always dream I have to carry a whole mountain range on my back.

  Francisco Manoel da Silva : You stand straighter than the whole town!

• Francisco Manoel da Silva : Where does the snow come from?

  Euclides : You'll see it out there! It comes from the moon. There's always snow on the moon! That's why it's always white! White and cold. You have to look very carefully.

  Francisco Manoel da Silva : Why is that?

  Euclides : It's because the moon takes the water out of the ocean. And when night falls, the tips of the mountains attract the snowflakes. The snow has salt in it, but only as much salt as we have in our tears.

  Francisco Manoel da Silva : And here on earth?

  Euclides : It's very far away - you must keep going west. Four years on horseback and ten on foot. And after that, there are high mountains. They rise higher and higher - right over the clouds. And then above the clouds, then you find the snow. It only falls in the nighttime. Just like feathers. But it only falls from above the clouds. And then, the whole world turns light, as a feather, and snow white! Even the lions turn white, and the eagles. The rabbits get a snowy coat, and all the animals in the world turn white! And when you're walking through the snow, your feet don't weigh anything at all. And the little snowflakes go flying up in the air, just like feathers.

• Francisco Manoel da Silva : Your money or your life!

  Young Black Woman : My life.

• [has been captured; to The King] 

  Francisco Manoel da Silva : I can not hear what you are saying, for the thunder that you are.

• Francisco Manoel da Silva : [storming into the royal hut]  The dead Kings have deposed you!

• Francisco Manoel da Silva : Where's my money? Where's my money? Where are my partners? Where's my money?

• Young Black Woman : Why don't you have a horse?

  Francisco Manoel da Silva : I'd never trust a horse. And I don't trust people either.

• Francisco Manoel da Silva : I long to go forth from here to another world.

• Don Octavio Coutinho : Hey, you with the bare feet. What's your name?

  Francisco Manoel da Silva : Da Silva. Francisco Manoel da Silva.

• Don Octavio Coutinho : I'll kill the lot of you! My daughter are all whores. Rutting with a barefoot cowherd! Bonita you whore! Bonita! You filthy little bitch! Bonita pregnant! Bonita pregnant! And you, Wanderleide! Only fifteen and already pregnant! Valkyria! Valkyria! Valkyria! Valkyria, look me in the eye and tell me the truth! Are you pregnant, too? Well!

  Valkyria : No, I mean yes. Daddy, I don't know!

  Don Octavio Coutinho : Oh, God. Cowherd! Bastard! You! What have you got to say for yourself!

  Francisco Manoel da Silva : Sugarcane planter. I am the bandit Cobra Verde.

• Francisco Manoel da Silva : I wish I had your skin. Black people believe the Devil is white.

• Francisco Manoel da Silva : In this place, the dead are more alive than the living.

• Taparica : I've got four hundred new recruits.

  Francisco Manoel da Silva : I've got too many here. Take them down to the shore.

  Taparica : But they all want to start fighting straight away! They want to kill all the men.

  Francisco Manoel da Silva : Don't bother me now! I've got to get this herd of women organized first.