For those who have seen 'The Sweet Hereafter' (SPOILERS)
Michael Silvera
Just saw The Sweet Hereafter, and IMHO it is easily one of the best
films
I've seen this year. Definatley Atom Egoyan's best film.
If you've seen the movie you know that the story pivots on one scene at
the end, when Nicole lies about Delores speeding. Much of the movie is
left to the viewer to interpret, so there no clear explanations given
although much is implied. My interpretation was that Nicole was
"getting back" at her father for having sex with her (even though it
looked consensual; I think the references to the Pied Piper can be
applied to her Nicole's father, as well as Stephens)... Any thoughts?
Luis Canau
Michael Silvera <msil...@globalserve.net> wrote:
[...]
>My interpretation was that Nicole was
>"getting back" at her father for having sex with her (even though it
>looked consensual; I think the references to the Pied Piper can be
>applied to her Nicole's father, as well as Stephens)... Any thoughts?
I saw the reference to Pied Piper as something more abstract. Like the
punishment for amorality. You got incest, but you also got unfaithfullness,
and a lot of broke up families. So the Piper came to get their children as
some sort of Biblical punishment. The scene in question was meant to look
"unreal", at least it was what Egoyan said, answering to the lack of logic of
a lot of candles in a place full of hay. Maybe it was meant to be dreamlike,
or the girl's vision in the future. After all it was full of flashbacks. Did
you notice a date that appears near the end? November 29th 1997, if I'm not
wrong. So, we might consider it science fiction? : )
In fact, I didn't like much of the movie. It was alright.
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Jay Prychidny
David Nusair wrote:
>
> Did I miss something? I just saw the flick, and I don't remember any
> incest sub-plot...
Sarah Polley (Nicole) had a rather passionate kiss with her father in
the barn surrounded by candles. Granted, it was a short scene and you
could've easily missed it if you had gone to the bathroom, but it was
rather integral to the plot line.
Why did you think Sarah Polley told the court people about the bus
speeding and crashing all at the fault of the driver? I'm not saying
what you thought was wrong, just curious.
Jay Prychidny
JPry...@Netcom.CA
---------------------------------------------
Remove nospam from my e-mail address to reply
David Nusair
Did I miss something? I just saw the flick, and I don't remember any
incest sub-plot...
Dave "Loopy" Nusair dnu...@chat.carleton.ca
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David Nusair
Jay Prychidny (nospamJ...@netcom.ca) wrote:
> Sarah Polley (Nicole) had a rather passionate kiss with her father in
> the barn surrounded by candles. Granted, it was a short scene and you
> could've easily missed it if you had gone to the bathroom, but it was
> rather integral to the plot line.
Ohhhh! Well, during the first little bit of the flick, I actually didn't
know that he was her father. They didn't mention it, and they seemed a
little too cozy. Imagine my shock when her mother said "your FATHER and
I".... Did they even mention he was her father? Or am I just a complete
idiot? :)
> Why did you think Sarah Polley told the court people about the bus
> speeding and crashing all at the fault of the driver? I'm not saying
> what you thought was wrong, just curious.
Actually, I had no idea why she lied. Now it's all coming together.
Matthew Butcher
David Nusair wrote:
>Jay Prychidny wrote:
>> Sarah Polley (Nicole) had a rather passionate kiss with her father in
>> the barn surrounded by candles. Granted, it was a short scene and you
>> could've easily missed it if you had gone to the bathroom, but it was
>> rather integral to the plot line.
>Ohhhh! Well, during the first little bit of the flick, I actually didn't
>know that he was her father. They didn't mention it, and they seemed a
>little too cozy. Imagine my shock when her mother said "your FATHER and
>I".... Did they even mention he was her father? Or am I just a complete
>idiot? :)
She called him "Dad" or "Daddy" during the opening fairground scenes,
as I recall. But a couple of other people I've talked to missed this
detail, so you're not alone.
>> Why did you think Sarah Polley told the court people about the bus
>> speeding and crashing all at the fault of the driver? I'm not saying
>> what you thought was wrong, just curious.
>Actually, I had no idea why she lied. Now it's all coming together.
Well, she does have a couple of other motives -- she's trying to keep
Bruce Greenwood's character out of the courtroom, and the town from
being torn apart by litigation. But the incest is a large factor, and
it explains much of her other behaviour after the accident as well.
--
Matthew Butcher | Gonna send out to the drugstore, buy myself
but...@math.ubc.ca | a goat. -- Randy Newman
Mike D'Angelo
Matthew Butcher (but...@math.ubc.ca) wrote:
: David Nusair wrote:
:
: >Ohhhh! Well, during the first little bit of the flick, I actually
: >didn't know that he was her father. They didn't mention it, and they
: >seemed a little too cozy. Imagine my shock when her mother said "your
: >FATHER and I".... Did they even mention he was her father? Or am I
: >just a complete idiot? :)
:
: She called him "Dad" or "Daddy" during the opening fairground scenes,
: as I recall. But a couple of other people I've talked to missed this
: detail, so you're not alone.
According to a piece Egoyan wrote for a recent issue of _Sight and
Sound_, Mr. Nusair's reaction to the film is a very common one: he saw
the sex scene between Polley (I forget the character name) and her
father, and he did later recognize that the two are father and daughter,
but he failed to actually combine these two nuggets of information in his
mind to produce the word "incest." Egoyan theorizes that the candlelight
scene is so brief, and is so at odds with what the characters'
relationship turns out to be (it's easy to miss her references to him as
"Daddy" early on...or to assume, as I did, that that's what she calls her
older boyfriend -- they behave exactly like young lovers), that a
significant number of people simply choose (unconsciously) to forget that
they ever saw it. If I remember correctly, he deliberately structured it
that way, as a means of suggesting how the participants endeavored not to
remember that they're father and daughter when they're acting as lovers,
and vice versa.
Said piece, by the way, is the only one I've ever seen in which a
director analyzes his latest film as if he were a critic and somebody
else were responsible for the object of his criticism. Kinda weird, but
kinda cool, too.
Mike "like Egoyan himself" D'Angelo
--
-The Man Who Viewed Too Much-
http://www.panix.com/~dangelo
"Would you like to know more?"
Luis Canau
dan...@panix.com (Mike D'Angelo) wrote:
>: David Nusair wrote:
[...]
>: She called him "Dad" or "Daddy" during the opening fairground scenes,
>: as I recall. But a couple of other people I've talked to missed this
>: detail, so you're not alone.
>According to a piece Egoyan wrote for a recent issue of _Sight and
>Sound_, Mr. Nusair's reaction to the film is a very common one:[...]
> If I remember correctly, he deliberately structured it
>that way, as a means of suggesting how the participants endeavored not to
>remember that they're father and daughter when they're acting as lovers,
>and vice versa.
In the article on the October issue of Sight and Sound, Egoyan states: "[...]
half way through the film - it would be quite possible to believe Sam is an
older boyfriend of Nicole's.
The idea of withholding this information was not intended to tease the viewer,
but to define the relationship from Nicole's point of view [...] I wished to
despict her experience has she might have 'had' to imagine it at the time
[...] The challenge was to film the scene in a manner that would situate the
film's viewer to see what Nicole would _need_ to have imagined to explain her
father's actions to herself _at that time_"
This means - and them Egoyan says it explicitly - that, in spite the act seems
consensual, there was some "feelings of surrender and confusion".
Egoyan talks longly about the scene, and there is another, more or less
subtle, reference to it, near the end of the film, i.e., after, or by the
time, she lies about what happened. She remembers him of a promise he made to
her, of building a stage "with nothing but candles to light it". This might
have contributed to the image she created on how the abuse happened, and
states clearly that it was the main reason for her lie.
>Said piece, by the way, is the only one I've ever seen in which a
>director analyzes his latest film as if he were a critic and somebody
>else were responsible for the object of his criticism. Kinda weird, but
>kinda cool, too.
I agree.
Luis Canau
Jay Prychidny <nospamJ...@netcom.ca> wrote:
>Sarah Polley (Nicole) had a rather passionate kiss with her father in
>the barn surrounded by candles. Granted, it was a short scene and you
>could've easily missed it if you had gone to the bathroom, but it was
>rather integral to the plot line.
And when two people kiss in a movie, and then it cuts, you will conclude, by
default, that they had sex.
P Pype
Jay Prychidny <nospamJ...@netcom.ca> wrote:
: David Nusair wrote:
: Sarah Polley (Nicole) had a rather passionate kiss with her father in
: the barn surrounded by candles. Granted, it was a short scene and you
: could've easily missed it if you had gone to the bathroom, but it was
: rather integral to the plot line.
: Why did you think Sarah Polley told the court people about the bus
: speeding and crashing all at the fault of the driver? I'm not saying
: what you thought was wrong, just curious.
Because she was the lame child who could not carry on (in reference to the poem).
She was the one who felt it was better that the town dealt with their grief on
their own and refused to be whisked away in emotions they already had trouble
capacitating initially. She decided to break the cycle. Because "the game wasn't
fun anymore"
kind of a bygons thing.
Dirk...
Lorne
P Pype wrote:
I believe that the reason she lied was to get back at her father for
molesting (raping?) her. During the scene in which the mechanic came to
the house and pleaded with her parents to drop the case, Polley's character
realized that her father was only doing it for the money, therefore, lying
was her way to hurt him. This is what I found to be the heartbreaking
irony of this film: in getting back at her father for what he did to her,
she took away the chance for everyone else in the town to have some sort of
closure regarding the accident.
--
Lorne
Last five movies seen, rated out of (****) :
One Night Stand (**)
The Sweet Hereafter (****)
Boogie Nights (**1/2)
Mad City (*)
Starship Troopers (*1/2)
* To reply, remove the second "o" from my address (between "d" and "g").
Charles B. Francois
Lorne wrote:
> P Pype wrote:
> > Jay Prychidny wrote:
> > : David Nusair wrote:
> >
> > : Sarah Polley (Nicole) had a rather passionate kiss with her father in
> > :
> > : Why did you think Sarah Polley told the court people about the bus
> > : speeding and crashing all at the fault of the driver?
> >
> > She was the one who felt it was better that the town dealt with their grief on
> > their own and refused to be whisked away in emotions they already had trouble
> > capacitating initially. She decided to break the cycle. Because "the game wasn't
> > fun anymore"
> >
> > kind of a bygons thing.
>
> molesting (raping?) her. During the scene in which the mechanic came to
> the house and pleaded with her parents to drop the case, Polley's character
> realized that her father was only doing it for the money, therefore, lying
> was her way to hurt him.
While elements of the two suppositions above undoubtedly inform
Nicole's fateful decision, I do want to take this opportunity to take a
closer look at the widely held assumption that she's getting back at
her dad simply "because he molested her".
I believe Egoyan means for Nicole's position to be somewhat more finely
shaded than that. It might be more accurate to say that what pushes
Nicole over the edge is not so much the incest itself (or the
recollection thereof) as her father's failure to acknowledge that
something "special" did in fact take place between the two of them the
night before the accident.
She clearly gives him the opportunity to do so when she pointedly
reminds him of his promise to build her a stage lit with candles, a
promise he presumably made that night. But he only looks down and
refuses to reach out to her.
One aspect of the incestuous relationship which most people
understandably resist accepting (as exemplified by the suggestion above
that it might in fact have been "rape") but which is at the heart of
Egoyan's particular preoccupations here is the extent to which the
encounter was consensual. Or more precisely the extent to which both
participants thought it was consensual *at the time*.
I understand that the dynamic of that encounter was relatively
unambiguous (if not downright violent) in Banks' novel, but Nicole
*must* be a willing participant in Egoyan's version in order for her to
be genuinely sorrowful when she's left stranded at the cave's entrance
as per the poem.
In a terrific interview with the French magazine Telerama, Egoyan
explains that his take on the incest was inspired by an apparently
well-known real-life story which touched his youth. A respected artist
had an incestuous relationship with his daughter. Egoyan was friends
with the daughter during the time this was going on, but he could never
figure out what the wall was that he somehow sensed existed between him
and the family. Not, that is, until the story got out.
One insight he gleaned from that experience which he brought to bear on
his adaptation of Banks' novel is that it took the daughter *many*
years after the story became known before she could bring herself to
realize that regardless of how she actually behaved at the time, she
had *not* in fact been a willing participant in her abuse.
[One incredible irony I found in this revelation is that the very same
insight lay at the foundation of a well-received Off-Broadway play I
saw several months ago, Paula Vogel's _How I Learned to Drive_. And
guess what my first reaction to it was (and this, well before I knew
much about THE SWEET HEREAFTER's plot)? "Gee, this could have been an
Atom Egoyan movie." Complete with a fractured, puzzle-like narrative
with a "key" scene at the very end.]
Beyond the eerie gentleness of the encounter itself, a couple of other
details in the movie underscore the complexities of Nicole's feelings
about the relationship. For one, we are given more than a few glimpses
of Nicole the morning after the encounter (i.e. the morning of the
accident) wherein she appears anything but traumatized. She seems in
fact quite composed and shows a nice touch of kindness when she offers
to keep Sean (the slow boy) company when he refuses to part with his
mother and board the bus. Later on the bus during the moments before
the accident, she looks quite serene in the pink sweater Billy gave her
the night before.
Which brings us to the other major clue that is Nicole's clothing.
When you see the movie again (you will, won't you?) pay extra close
attention to *what* Nicole is wearing and *when*. The first time I saw
the movie, I was left with the nagging feeling that Egoyan was making
some important point or other by including some brief footage of Nicole
apparently getting dressed in Billy's house after she had put his kids
to bed. I had no idea why it bugged me that much. So I carefully
monitored her clothes during my second viewing, and sure enough I
noticed something:
Even though we're in midwinter, Nicole makes a point of taking off the
jeans she had been wearing while babysitting in order to change into a
short, form-fitting dress worn over tight white leggings. If you keep
an eye out for it, you'll notice that she's wearing that sexy outfit
during the barn scene with her father (thus placing that scene later
that night) while she's clearly wearing jeans during the movie's
closing shot as she walks out of the children's room toward the front
window and those devastating oncoming headlights. Since this is an
Egoyan movie, we can be pretty damn sure this isn't a continuity
error.
So the question now is: why does Nicole change into that sexy outfit?
Or rather, for whose benefit? One possibility (and one I very vaguely
suspected on my first viewing) is Billy Ansel. But while the Sight &
Sound reviewer read some kind of crush into Nicole's feelings about
Billy and his kids, I'm not convinced that it's all that clearly
established. Just as, if not more, likely a target for Nicole's
"primping" is her father. After all, she must have known that he would
be coming to pick up her up at Billy's house after her babysitting
duties. And we know he did since there's an establishing shot at some
point showing both his and Billy's car outside the house.
So whether or not Nicole knew the exact program for the remainder of
the evening, I think a case can be made that, even beyond being a
non-resisting participant in her seduction, she might in fact have been
complicitous in it. At least until the moment the night before she
testifies when she implicitly asks her father to (explain? validate?)
what happened that night, only to see him revealed as the coward he
truly is.
> This is what I found to be the heartbreaking
> irony of this film: in getting back at her father for what he did to her,
> she took away the chance for everyone else in the town to have some sort of
> closure regarding the accident.
Except that it's highly debatable that the town *would* have had a
sense of closure, even from a favorable verdict. *Someone* would
have had to pay the piper.
Looking at the consequences of Nicole's testimony, I found them much
more provocative as an instantiation of how she herself became a pied
piper (to her dad, to Ian Holm's character and most hauntingly to
Dolores the bus driver), which got me to think about the multiple
permutations of who's a piper to whom in the movie. This of course
clued me in to Egoyan's overarching idea that in the right (wrong?)
circumstances we all stand to be pied pipers to one another.
I found his final manufactured verses to the poem a small enough price
to pay.
--
Charles B. Francois c...@akula.com
Charles B. Francois
Mike D'Angelo wrote:
>
> Charles B. Francois (c...@akula.com) wrote:
>
> : So the question now is: why does Nicole change into that sexy outfit?
> : Or rather, for whose benefit? One possibility (and one I very vaguely
> : suspected on my first viewing) is Billy Ansel. But while the Sight &
> : Sound reviewer read some kind of crush into Nicole's feelings about
> : Billy and his kids, I'm not convinced that it's all that clearly
> : established. Just as, if not more, likely a target for Nicole's
> : "primping" is her father. After all, she must have known that he would
> : be coming to pick up her up at Billy's house after her babysitting
> : duties. And we know he did since there's an establishing shot at some
> : point showing both his and Billy's car outside the house.
>
> that's been plaguing me since I saw THE SWEET HEREAFTER (which, short of
> trips abroad, I can't see again until Friday): namely, what's the meaning
> of the brief exchange between Billy and Nicole when Billy gives her some
> of his late wife's clothing? If memory serves, Billy tells her that his
> wife would have wanted Nicole to have them after she (his wife) outgrew
> them. Nicole is puzzled by the word "outgrew," and so, in retrospect,
> is Billy. And so am I. Did your second viewing shed any light on this
> conundrum?
Actually, I'm more or less as puzzled by that scene's significance as I
was the first time we saw the movie. But I did find myself formulating
some thoughts about it the second time around. While I think someone
needs to write a comprehensive close analysis of Nicole's clothing
throughout the entire movie, I certainly don't feel qualified. But
bear with me anyway while I reach.
To the extent that Egoyan's movie is partly about Nicole's (successful,
unlike that of Holm's daughter) coming of age, I found it useful to
reconstruct not just the sequence of events in the movie but an actual
chronology of Nicole's emotional evolution between the moment we hear
her asking "Daddy" to buy her some ice cream, and her final courtroom
deposition.
By the time we get to the night before the accident, she's only gotten
as far as a chaste, asexual boyfriend/girlfriend relationship with her
dad (Sam), hence her decision to change into something "nice" (reach:
I'd *love* to know what she was wearing when she arrived at Billy's
house but I'm willing to wager that she was in jeans) before she goes
out with Sam. Reach: they thus had a "date", even if she had no idea
beforehand how the night would end. (Another -- key -- reach: neither
did Sam at that point.) As for Billy, my feeling is that he was just
not on her romantic radar. Not at that point anyway.
The significance I'm attaching to that scene with Billy is the very
word you (and Egoyan) highlighted: outgrew. Reach: what that
particular word triggered in Nicole is a sudden, seismic awareness of
her own possibility to "grow". To grow from one style of clothes to
another. To grow from one phase of life to another. To grow from
girlhood into womanhood. Reach: Billy looks puzzled in turn because
he somehow senses that the word has just touched her in a deep,
unexpected way. Looking into her eyes, he sees the first tremors of
her sexuality, and he suddenly feels awkward, uncomfortable. So he
immediately shrugs off the moment as quickly as possible: "I guess I
don't know what I mean." But Nicole is *not* capable of shrugging off
the turmoil Billy has just set off. So to get symbolic, by giving his
wife's clothes to Nicole, Billy also bestows his wife's womanhood on
her. She is thus perfectly set up for the fall when she meets up with
Sam soon after.
Major reach: I'm willing to go as far as to suggest that Nicole was
likely sending unwitting signals to her dad that somehow let him feel
that she was suddenly sexually curious/open/vulnerable that night. So
while Sam hadn't been planning on taking their relationship to a new
"level" on that particular night, the predator (think jackal) he is
sensed his opening and he pounced.
Pointedly, Nicole is wearing Billy's wife's sweater on the bus the next
morning. She has now "grown" into it.
Now allow me to get messy for a while. Strawman reach: I might be
willing to allow that she might have been thinking about Billy and a
possible role for her in his life as she wore his wife's sweater with
that faraway look in her eyes. While that theory is not completely
inconsistent with my reading so far, it certainly weakens it. However
it just doesn't make emotional sense that on that particular morning,
Nicole would be thinking about another man. Why should she be thinking
about the man who only *symbolically* conferred her womanhood upon her
instead of the one who did it all too physically? And if Egoyan really
did want us to make a yearning Nicole->Billy connection, he would have
in fact had her sitting with Billy's kids on the bus *as she said she
normally did*. Excessive reach: she's no longer a kid herself, and
rather than just babysit/hang out with kids, she assumes the custody of
Sean as caregiver, mother, woman.
Do feel free to give the above a road test when you see the movie
again (but don't slam me too hard for that last leap there).
You can also help me out with the one thing left that's still nagging
me (as it once did you): the final shot's oncoming headlights. Beyond
the shot's sheer power as a purely cinematic gesture (i.e. Nicole
walking away from her childhood towards the light of the piper's cave),
are we supposed to read any more into those lights' source? While it's
conceivable they might have belonged to some randomly passing car, I
don't think the road would hit the house at that particular angle.
Also I had the distinct impression that the car made a "slowing down"
or "pulling up" sound, not a "whooshing by" sound.
It'd be neater if those lights came indeed from Sam's car (he is after
all Nicole's piper at this stage). But it doesn't make sense that he
would have gotten to the house before Billy unless we assume he knew
what time Billy would be home. Another possibility is that Billy was
already downstairs when Nicole puts the kids to bed and it is indeed
Sam's car whose lights we see. But both permutations leave a couple of
questions unanswered. To wit, when and where exactly did Nicole
change? In other words, was Billy already home when she changed? In
which case it could be argued that at that point she was still enough
of a child to feel comfortable changing clothes around a grown man.
Also what about Sam's whereabouts during the "outgrew" scene? Was he
perhaps waiting for Nicole in his car as she changed and had the
"outgrew" conversation with Billy? We do get to see the two cars
outside the house *very* briefly. But I wasn't quick enough to make
out their topology and deduct from that the order in which they got
to the house. Let me know if you can.
Or maybe I'll just go see for myself. As you put it so vividly:
> "six more days?!?"
Mike D'Angelo
Charles B. Francois (c...@akula.com) wrote:
: The significance I'm attaching to that scene with Billy is the very
: word you (and Egoyan) highlighted: outgrew. Reach: what that
: particular word triggered in Nicole is a sudden, seismic awareness of
: her own possibility to "grow". To grow from one style of clothes to
: another. To grow from one phase of life to another. To grow from
: girlhood into womanhood. Reach: Billy looks puzzled in turn because
: he somehow senses that the word has just touched her in a deep,
: unexpected way.
Again, not bad, but while this incisive interpretation makes sense of
both Nicole and Billy's reaction to what he said, it doesn't make sense
of why he said it in the first place. His wife, presumably, was a grown
woman -- how exactly was she going to "outgrow" her clothes, either
physically or (reach) emotionally? Maybe Nicole's affected by hearing
that particular word in this particular context, but it seems equally
likely to me that she looks baffled because she'd just heard something
really bizarre.
Another potential problem with the notion that the dead wife's clothes
are a symbol of womanhood is that they are, according to Billy, clothes
that his late wife would have wanted Nicole to have *after she, his late
wife, had outgrown them*...which, ignoring for the moment that there's no
apparent rational explanation for that phrase, rather suggests that they
symbolize girlhood rather than womanhood.
There's something else going on here, and it's driving me crazy that a) I
can't figure out what it is, and b) I still have to wait five days to see
the damn movie again.
Any other Egoyan fans want to chime in with theories?
Mike "like the Butcher boy, f'r'instance?" D'Angelo
Matthew Butcher
Mike D'Angelo wrote:
>Any other Egoyan fans want to chime in with theories?
>Mike "like the Butcher boy, f'r'instance?" D'Angelo
You rang? I'm a bit leery about putting forward my wild, off-the-
cuff theorising; but since it seems that's all any of us have, here
goes.
Billy seems to realise that the "outgrew" phrase is strange the
moment it leaves his mouth, and trails off in midsentence, with a
cut to the reaction shot of Nicole looking puzzled. My
interpretation is that it's part of his growing realisation that
his wife, in death, is still much more real to him than the people
in his day-to-day existence. When he breaks up with Risa soon
after, he tells her curtly that he prefers the days when she
doesn't show up in the motel room and he's left alone with his
memories. Maybe (and here's that wild, off-the-cuff stuff I was
talking about) the "outgrew" line shows him looking forward to his
*own* death, seeing it as a barrier he wants to get over rather
than the unthinkable end of his reality. This wouldn't necessarily
mean that he has any belief in an afterlife; only that he's
stranded in an unreal half-world, shut out of the "cave," and wants
to rejoin his wife.
This leads back to the question of whether the townspeople will
ever have a sense of closure about the accident. I'm firmly with
Charles Francois here: no matter what, they'd never have one. In
fact, the film takes a rather disapproving view of the people who
*want* a sense of closure in the conventional way, as with Sam and
his comment that Billy should get on with his life. (Part of
Nicole's anger toward her father seems to come from his refusal to
acknowledge that his feelings for her have changed now that she's
crippled.) The movie's sympathies are more with those like Billy,
Nicole, and Dolores, who realise that a drastic and irrevocable
event has transformed their world entirely. While they might
gradually come to deal with their new environment, they'll never
see it as normal.
I haven't mentioned the actual transfer of clothing yet, or Risa's
superstitious unease at the thought of Nicole wearing a dead
woman's sweater; mainly because I'm still not sure what to make of
it. Charles's thoughts are interesting, though, and I'd like to
see his take on Risa's reaction. A few comments on the ideas he's
put forward already:
Nicole *was* sitting with Billy's son Mason on the morning of the
crash, although Mason normally sat at the back (and moves back
there again when Sean boards). On the day before the crash, I
think Nicole is shown sitting with Bear. This needn't ruin the
theory that she's being painted as a caregiver-cum-mother, since I
think she's in pretty much the same authority position with both
Mason and Sean anyhow.
As for trying to explain the lighting in the final shot -- I didn't
notice, or don't remember, the sounds the vehicle made (Danna's
score was pretty loud at that point). If you're looking for a
simple, mundane explanation for the source, then Billy's truck is
the best bet. It's ahead of Sam's in the driveway as Nicole leaves
the house, and it has roof-mounted lights. But I'm not sure if
we're really meant to look for any meaning in it beyond the
symbolic. Egoyan clearly wants us to draw a parallel with the
*other* scene in which a character slowly moves toward a blinding
light through a window: the very first (after the titles), with
Mitchell in the carwash. And in that scene, there's no possible
explanation for the light. Carwashes just don't *do* that.
(This brings up another question: Why was the gas station
abandoned, with Mitchell in mid-wash and Billy's amp still blaring
feedback? The scene's also odd because it implies that Mitchell
might have had some sort of brief contact with Billy when he
arranged for the wash, although when they meet in the film it seems
to be for the first time.)
Charles B. Francois
Matthew Butcher <but...@math.ubc.ca> wrote:
> [...] Maybe (and here's that wild, off-the-cuff stuff I was
> talking about) the "outgrew" line shows him looking forward to his
> *own* death, seeing it as a barrier he wants to get over rather
> than the unthinkable end of his reality. This wouldn't necessarily
> mean that he has any belief in an afterlife; only that he's
> stranded in an unreal half-world, shut out of the "cave," and wants
> to rejoin his wife.
Ding! I believe we have a winner.
> I haven't mentioned the actual transfer of clothing yet, or Risa's
> superstitious unease at the thought of Nicole wearing a dead
> woman's sweater; mainly because I'm still not sure what to make of
> it. Charles's thoughts are interesting, though, and I'd like to
> see his take on Risa's reaction.
Nothing as penetrating as what you set forth above, I'm afraid. Even on
second viewing, Risa's comment about the sweater didn't really trigger
any strong reaction from me. Thinking back on it now, I'm finding that
I have to settle for a merely psychological explanation instead of a
symbolic one. It's possible her comments stem from simple jealousy.
While it might make a bit more sense for her to be pleased that Billy was
"letting go" of his wife's clothing, I'm guessing she would have preferred
that he burn them or give them to charity. Watching them go instead to
Nicole (to whom they were always destined, as Mike pointed out) might have
somehow positioned Nicole in Risa's subconscious/mind as Billy's wife's
(and her own) eventual replacement. Hence her "tranferred" superstition.
I find it fascinating how so many folks (myself after the first viewing,
the Sight & Sound critic, Risa) want to establish a romantic bond between
Billy and Nicole. It's as if Egoyan wanted us to embrace the possibility,
only to have to realize later on (after another screening or two, and
much thought) that they could never be each other's pied pipers.
> [...] But I'm not sure if
> we're really meant to look for any meaning in it beyond the
> symbolic. Egoyan clearly wants us to draw a parallel with the
> *other* scene in which a character slowly moves toward a blinding
> light through a window: the very first (after the titles), with
> Mitchell in the carwash. And in that scene, there's no possible
> explanation for the light. Carwashes just don't *do* that.
Another cigar. During the New York filmfest Q&A, someone brought
up the carwash. [Here, I must interject that I wasn't thinking too
clearly the first time I sat through that scene: the combination of my
long-throttled nervous anticipation, Danna's fifey dirge and Ian Holm's
extraordinarily weary face had me sobbing more or less convulsively.]
Anyway, Egoyan perked up at the question, and explained that he'd always
loved the experience of going through one of those things, likening it
to a form of birth. In his comments, he didn't close the loop to the
last scene as you just did, but the word birth would certainly apply to
the transformation which Nicole is about to undergo.
> (This brings up another question: Why was the gas station
> abandoned, with Mitchell in mid-wash and Billy's amp still blaring
> feedback? The scene's also odd because it implies that Mitchell
> might have had some sort of brief contact with Billy when he
> arranged for the wash, although when they meet in the film it seems
> to be for the first time.)
I only vaguely remember Egoyan talking about the interrupted birth.
I can't recall however if he actually explained *why* it stopped.
Over to you, Mike.
--
Charles B. Francois http://www.akula.com/~cbf/ c...@akula.com
Rodrick Su
On 10 Nov 1997 19:22:01 GMT, but...@math.ubc.ca (Matthew Butcher)
wrote:
>David Nusair wrote:
>Well, she does have a couple of other motives -- she's trying to keep
>Bruce Greenwood's character out of the courtroom, and the town from
>being torn apart by litigation. But the incest is a large factor, and
>it explains much of her other behaviour after the accident as well.
The key scene here is Billy Ansel's visit to the Burnells just
prior to her appearance. Here she realize that Sam's interest in the
lawsuit is not of anger or grief, but greed. Furthermore Sam's
refusal to acknowledge their relationship in her room is the final
push she need to stop the lawsuit.
Rodrick Su
On 15 Nov 1997 09:37:59 GMT, "Lorne" <lorn...@hotmail.com> wrote:
>P Pype wrote:
>This is what I found to be the heartbreaking
>irony of this film: in getting back at her father for what he did to her,
>she took away the chance for everyone else in the town to have some sort of
>closure regarding the accident.
That's one opinion. But that can be explained by the chance
meeting of Mitchel & Dolores at the airport 2 years later. People are
given a chance to recover on their own, and in her case, it was
strongly suggested that she did indeed recovered. She is not doing
this only to get back at her father, but to basically take upon
herself the direction of the healing process the town will go thru.
Billy Ansel will most certainly agree to this.
Rodrick Su
On 18 Nov 1997 09:10:06 GMT, but...@math.ubc.ca (Matthew Butcher)
wrote:
>As for trying to explain the lighting in the final shot -- I didn't
>notice, or don't remember, the sounds the vehicle made (Danna's
>score was pretty loud at that point). If you're looking for a
>simple, mundane explanation for the source, then Billy's truck is
>the best bet. It's ahead of Sam's in the driveway as Nicole leaves
>we're really meant to look for any meaning in it beyond the
>symbolic. Egoyan clearly wants us to draw a parallel with the
>*other* scene in which a character slowly moves toward a blinding
>light through a window: the very first (after the titles), with
>Mitchell in the carwash. And in that scene, there's no possible
>explanation for the light. Carwashes just don't *do* that.
>
>abandoned, with Mitchell in mid-wash and Billy's amp still blaring
>feedback? The scene's also odd because it implies that Mitchell
>might have had some sort of brief contact with Billy when he
>arranged for the wash, although when they meet in the film it seems
>to be for the first time.)
Depends on when Mitchell went to Sam Dent, it could have been
the night after the accident. Billy might have left it to go to the
motel. Though that doesn't make sense either. Since the final
encounter between Risa and Billy appears to be their first since the
accident, and Risa have already retain Mitchell's service at that
junction.