Al.Anderson
Senior HTF Member
- Joined
- Jul 2, 2002
- Messages
- 2,736
- Real Name
- Al
I’m looking for some help understanding two scenes that have driven me crazy for years. They’re separate areas of confusion, tied together only by the fact that I don’t understand them.
The first is in American Beauty. I enjoyed the movie on a couple levels – good performances by the princples and the more traditional look at mid-life crisis following a life of hypocrasy and mis-placed focus. But that’s not the problem – it’s the dang in-movie documentary with the floating bag. I’ve read at least one review that called this a ‘movie within a movie’ (with the implication of this being a wonderful thing). Other reviews echod it’s cleverness and artistic merit. For my part it meant zip. I couldn’t draw one blasted point from the image. Can anyone fill in what that was all about?
The second goes back a bit to Mister Roberts. Mid-way into the movie Mr. Robert’s complains that the men are not appreciating what he’s done for them. His friend the doctor replies with something along the lines of “Do these men owe you anything?”. While Mr Robert’s actions up to this point have been unknown to his fellow crewmen, the doctor’s response seemed to imply that the doctor *did* understand, and that even if the men had been aware they indeed don’t owe him anything. I was in my early teens when I first saw the movie and thought – okay, I’ll get this when I’m older. Well I’m as mature as I’m going to get and my response is still that yeah, the men owe him something. So what gives, did I over emphasize that exchange – is it simply the fact that the men are as yet unaware of his actions - or is there some part of the relationship that I’m not getting?
The first is in American Beauty. I enjoyed the movie on a couple levels – good performances by the princples and the more traditional look at mid-life crisis following a life of hypocrasy and mis-placed focus. But that’s not the problem – it’s the dang in-movie documentary with the floating bag. I’ve read at least one review that called this a ‘movie within a movie’ (with the implication of this being a wonderful thing). Other reviews echod it’s cleverness and artistic merit. For my part it meant zip. I couldn’t draw one blasted point from the image. Can anyone fill in what that was all about?
The second goes back a bit to Mister Roberts. Mid-way into the movie Mr. Robert’s complains that the men are not appreciating what he’s done for them. His friend the doctor replies with something along the lines of “Do these men owe you anything?”. While Mr Robert’s actions up to this point have been unknown to his fellow crewmen, the doctor’s response seemed to imply that the doctor *did* understand, and that even if the men had been aware they indeed don’t owe him anything. I was in my early teens when I first saw the movie and thought – okay, I’ll get this when I’m older. Well I’m as mature as I’m going to get and my response is still that yeah, the men owe him something. So what gives, did I over emphasize that exchange – is it simply the fact that the men are as yet unaware of his actions - or is there some part of the relationship that I’m not getting?