Hawaii (1966)

Max von Sydow: Rev. Abner Hale

Photos 

Quotes 

• Abner Hale : I have been thinking lately, that our church is ready for a board of deacons. I'm willing to make you their head, Keoki. You would move among the Hawaiians, find out who is smoking, who has alcohol on his breath, who is sleeping with another man's wife - that sort of thing. Then each week, you will hand me a list, to be admonished from the pulpit.

  Keoki : I sought a way to serve my people... not to spy upon them.

  [turns and walks away] 

• Abner Hale : Your mother will not be pleased that you have refused the deaconship.

  Keoki : My mother is dying.

  Abner Hale : Your mother is not dying, Keoki. I just talked with her. There is nothing wrong with her.

  Keoki : She will die... and then will come the whistling wind.

• Rev. Immanuel Quigley : I wish you would reconsider Brother Hale. You'll be alone here, no church, no support... no friends.

  Abner Hale : In this place I have known God, Jerusha Bromley and Ruth Malama Kanakoa. Beyond that, a man needs no friends.

• Charles Bromley : And this is my daughter, Miss Jerusha.

  Jerusha Bromley Hale : I'm pleased to make your acquaintance, Reverend Hale.

  [She extends her hand to greet him; he sneezes violently] 

  Abner Hale : Oh dear. Did I spray?

  Charles Bromley : No, no, no, not at all.

• Abner Hale : We are taking the land of the people whose souls we came to save, while they are dying... The whole race is dying before our eyes!

  Rev. Immanuel Quigley : I'm afraid that is true. But the Lord's ways are not our ways. And the only answer that I can find is that perhaps, the Lord intends for these islands gradually to pass into other hands.

  Abner Hale : May God forgive you.

• Abner Hale : Must I commit murder to judge a sin?

• Abner Hale : Everyday I repeat the Biblical injunction against pride. Proverbs 16:5.

• Abner Hale : I have always admired the character of Jerusha as set forth in holy scripture. I think, particularly on second Kings, 15:33. "Five and twenty years old was Jotham when he began to reign. And he reigned 16 years in Jerusalem. And his mother's name was Jerusha, the daughter of Zadok." It's a lovely verse.

  Jerusha Bromley Hale : Yes. It's beautiful.

• Abner Hale : You wouldn't think of going to Hawaii with a man like me - or, would you?

  Jerusha Bromley Hale : Not if he wasn't my husband.

  Abner Hale : Oh! Goodness! I certainly didn't mean to imply that!

• Abner Hale : Skin is but flesh. Flesh is corruption incarnate!

  Jerusha Bromley Hale : The flesh was given to us by God, too.

  Abner Hale : As a burden. As a temptation. A temptation that you are to me, at this very moment.

  Jerusha Bromley Hale : That's one of the purposes of marriage, isn't it?

• Abner Hale : I'm utterly depraved! I think of nothing but your loveliness, Jerusha.

  Jerusha Bromley Hale : Is it possible for anything to seem lovely without God having wanted it so?

• Jerusha Bromley Hale : I felt so good after my bath, I brushed my skin with oil of lilac.

  Abner Hale : I smell it. Moses forbade the use of perfume!

  Jerusha Bromley Hale : Proverbs say that ointment and perfume rejoice the heart.

  Abner Hale : Isiah cursed the woman who used perfume...

• Queen Malama : [to Jerusha]  I like you here. You stay Lahaina. She teach me write.

  Abner Hale : Ali'i nui, I'm not assigned to your island. My Mission is in Honolulu.

  Queen Malama : Where you go, I not care. *Her* stay here.

  Abner Hale : But, Mrs. Hale is my wife!

  Queen Malama : She your wife?

  Abner Hale : Yes.

  Queen Malama : I let you stay too.

• Queen Malama : Tell me, this god, how he look?

  Abner Hale : God is a spirit... He cannot be seen with the eyes. He is seen only in the heart of those that have found a state of grace.

  Queen Malama : In one month time, I find grace!

  Abner Hale : No, it cannot be done that way. To be saved, you must first confess that you are *evil*, corrupt and sinful.

  Queen Malama : I evil, corrupt, sinful. What is sinful? What it mean?

  Abner Hale : It means *bad*.

  Queen Malama : I bad? No! They're bad, not me. I am Ali'i nui. I cannot be bad.

• Abner Hale : If you don't give him up, he will *burn* throughout all eternity - in the blazing fires of everlasting hell.

  Queen Malama : How hot - dis hell?

  Abner Hale : Hotter than the fires of a thousand volcanos. It burns incessantly. It's pain is horrible, beyond imagining.

• Abner Hale : You have the sin of pride, Ali'i nui. To find grace, you must become humble.

  Queen Malama : Humble?

  Abner Hale : Humble...

  Queen Malama : Are you - humble? I think maybe you proud too.

• Abner Hale : God doesn't think. He knows.

• Abner Hale : You bear the responsibility for the degradations of your men.

  Capt. Rafer Hoxworth : I do.

• Abner Hale : As God's instrument on earth, I order you to take your sailors back to your ship!

  Capt. Rafer Hoxworth : My men are *not* sailors, Reverend. They're whalers. And for over three years they've been on this voyage and they haven't touched land in eight months. Now, the females of Lahaina have got the warmest blood in the Pacific and my men have neither the strength, nor the inclination to fight them off. Neither, might I add, have I.

• Kelolo : What kind adultery you not like too much?

  Abner Hale : What kind? There's only one kind of adultery - and it is a mortal sin.

  Kelolo : Got 23 kind of adultery go on in this place all the time. Marry man sleep with another marry wahini. That one kind. Marry man, he sleep with wife, his brother. That two kind. Marry man sleep with wife, his son. That's three kind...

• Abner Hale : If only I'd had a chance to save it.

  Jerusha Bromley Hale : You had that chance.

  Abner Hale : I mean it's soul!

  Jerusha Bromley Hale : I mean the child.

• Abner Hale : Backslider! Heretics! Blasphemers! Heathens!

• Abner Hale : God, bring them low! Punish them! Send the earthquakes, plagues, floods, pestilences! Destroy them. Destroy them, utterly!

• Abner Hale : My ministry here is at an end.

  Jerusha Bromley Hale : Your ministry here is not ended. We'll stay here in Lahaina and shelter and protect these people. We will win them to a merciful God - with bonds a charity so strong, they will belong to Him forever.

  Abner Hale : How?

  Jerusha Bromley Hale : By offering what you've always valued most and found it hardest to give - to them and to me: your love.

• Jerusha Bromley Hale : Abner, do you believe every word in the Bible literally?

  Abner Hale : Believe? the Bible is God's holy word written exactly as He commanded. And I believe all. I believe in heaven and in hell and original sin and God's terrible all-consuming wrath!

• Abner Hale : Sugar is a curse on these people.

• [last lines] 

  Abner Hale : Do you remember?

• [repeated line] 

  Abner Hale : I will pray on the matter.