A Month in the Country (1987)

Kenneth Branagh: James Moon

Quotes 

• James Moon : "Oh, most loving and delightful wife." I can never make out if that's grief or relief.

• Birkin : Judgements always got the plum spots where the whole parish could see the... God-awful things that would happen to them if they... if they didn't fork out their tithes and... marry the girls they got with child.

  James Moon : Saint Michael weighing souls, eh? Christ in majesty, refereeing. And down below the fire that flameth evermore, eh?

• James Moon : You were over there too. That's where you developed your twitch and stammer. Well... I developed a great affection for holes. They make me feel safe.

• James Moon : Yes, well, he isn't out of the usual catalogue, is he? He is a real wintery hardliner, your Christ, all justice and no mercy. I wouldn't fancy to be in the dock if he was the beak. "And he shall come with the woundes red to damn the quick and the dead."

• James Moon : So you're married too?

  Birkin : Sort of. She went off with another chap. Not for the first time. Can't say I blame her really. Her name is Vinny.

  James Moon : Yes, I thought it might be something like that. As for me, never really met the right woman. Luckily for her.

• Birkin : Look at this. Have you ever seen a detail like this in a medieval painting? Anticipates the Bruegels by 100 years. And that face... meant something to him. It's a portrait, it must be. And he was covered over years before the rest.

  James Moon : It's the crescent. One could swear he was almost meant to be identifiable. Would he have dared, your painter?

• James Moon : I half wanted it to happen. There were time when I'd just had enough. Well... you know that. So many had gone. Chap's I cared for. Sometimes it seemed like they were the lucky ones.