About the Title

The title No Brief Candle refers to a quote from George Bernard Shaw that one of our characters, Dee, reads aloud at one point during the film. 

Shaw's quote is itself a response of sorts to Shakespeare's Macbeth, who speaks of life as pointless, "signifying nothing:"

Tomorrow, and tomorrow, and tomorrow,
Creeps in this petty pace from day to day,
To the last syllable of recorded time;
And all our yesterdays have lighted fools
The way to dusty death.
Out, out, brief candle!
Life's but a walking shadow, a poor player,
That struts and frets his hour upon the stage,
And then is heard no more.
It is a tale
Told by an idiot, full of sound and fury
Signifying nothing. __- Shakespeare: Macbeth

Shaw once wrote that "the problem with these people is that they're committed to nothing outside themselves and their own ambitions, and their lives are indeed tragic and pathetic." He also alluded to Shakespeare's metaphor of life as a "brief candle" in a speech that offered inspiration for the film's title, its spirit reflected in the lives of our three characters:

I am of the opinion that my life belongs to the whole community, and as long as I live it is my privilege to do for it whatsoever I can. I want to be thoroughly used up when I die, for the harder I work, the more I live. I rejoice in life for its own sake. Life is no 'brief candle' for me. It is a sort of splendid torch, which I have got hold of for the moment; and I want to make it burn as brightly as possible before handing it on to future generations.___- George Bernard Shaw