The floating nuns?
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LarryBrownHouston — 14 years ago(June 17, 2011 10:53 PM)
It doesn't necessarily have to have a point or mean anything. It can just be a special effect thrown in. The script in this movie is weak, there's not a lot of detail or subtlety. It's not meticulously crafted like some movies where every line or camera shot might play into the story. Mostly this movie is about the special effects, so that can be the point. Since Meryl was dead, the nuns were called in to deliver the last rites. They finished and then left the morgue and went on their way. The floating adds an air of mysticism to them as Willis passes them in the hall. I didn't notice them crying, but if they were it can be assume that they were saddened by the tragic death of a 50 year old celebrity.
That said, consider this:
Director Robert Zemeckis has shown that he can and does put incredible and subtle detail into the "Back to the Future" movies. In "Back to the Future," anything that seems odd will usually turn out to have some underlying meaning. An example is when Marty is preparing to go back to 1985 with the lightning bolt, the engine dies on the Delorean. As he is trying to start it the headlights blink on and off and make an odd clicking sound. It turns out that the headlights are blinking Morse code for S.O.S. and the clicking sound is like a telegraph machine. Another example is after Marty crashes the Delorean into Mr. Peabody's barn, he drives the DeLorean away and Mr. Peabody fires his shotgun after him, hitting a pine tree and he yells "My Pine!" When Marty gets back to 1985, Twin Pines mall has now become Lone Pine Mall.
A priest would normally deliver last rites, not a team of nuns.
The floating was done before in The Blues Brothers when Jake and Elwood are thrown out of the nuns office near the start of the movie. -
Blahaha_87 — 13 years ago(December 27, 2012 11:13 PM)
I disagree, I think the script was very well written as a comedy.
The only real comparisons I can make are the English series Absolutely Fabulous and Lucille Bluth on Arrested Development. The absurdity of these wealthy, self-obsessed women and their petty problems. Death Becomes Her just takes this absurdity to extremes.
Regarding the Nuns, if you look close, they're not actually crying, even though there's sobbing on the soundtrack. -
ryoko_the_spacepirate1 — 13 years ago(November 22, 2012 06:04 AM)
they could have been an incarnation of the norns, or fates who spin the threads of life, sorts out the trials and tribulations of a persons life then cuts the thread whenthey die.
they can represent divine and natural law
and because madeline sidestepped or spit in the face of that law they were seen crying for her because shes condemned herself to a fate worse than death which is living forever.
"I think I liked it better when I thought Sylar ate brains." -
moysant — 13 years ago(November 23, 2012 10:07 PM)
No idea. There are a few things in those scenes when Willis runs around the hospital looking for a doctor (while Streep has fainted but is thought dead by staff) and sees hurt and ill people that I don't understand. Like when he runs into the emergency waiting room and stops dead and looks at the hurt tennis player. Then he runs and sees the heart attack victim in the ward. I was waiting for a 'reason' for these scenes. It is part of the movie that seems to be trying to say something and I don't get it.
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bess654 — 13 years ago(December 08, 2012 09:02 AM)
I don't know about the tennis player,but the heart attack victim was the doctor who had just been treating Meryl Streep. Presumably his heart attack was caused when he realized that his patient was technically dead.
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jen-963-30749 — 11 years ago(May 14, 2014 08:05 AM)
Bess is correct, and that scene was important for one big reason: the doctor had learned that Madelyn was conscious and alert but without any vital signs. He obviously would have brought a ton of attention down of Madelyn had he lived. His death meant her condition could stay a secret.
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DisturbedPixie — 12 years ago(May 18, 2013 10:19 PM)
I thought they showed them to show people who really needed a doctor, whereas she really didn't. Someone else pointed out that the doctor was the one having the heart attack after seeing her dead and talking. I didn't notice that.
I don't know why the nuns were floating though. I guess the best explanation thus far is that it was a spiritual representation regarding their knowledge that she is damned to be a zombie forever. I mean she did say she was screaming and nobody would help her. I would presume the nuns heard her and were disturbed to their core.
Maybe it is a metaphor for how the nuns are above us, so much they don't even touch the same ground as we do. They see how we damn ourselves, and look down on us with pity and sorrow.
But I don't know for sure who has the director's commentary on dvd? -
hanson-allison — 12 years ago(October 16, 2013 10:47 AM)
The doctor having the heart attack is one of my favorite things in this movie. If you notice, while he's examining her, he keeps popping Nitroglycerin tablets and putting them under his tongue (treatment for chest pain in heart patients) and then asks for a swig out of Bruce Willis's flask. A few minutes later they are coding him on the table when Bruce Willis walks by.
I've also thought that the bloody tennis player was weirdand the nuns, well I've written it off as just adding to the "campy" vibe of the movie, but who knows. -
finndian — 4 years ago(November 03, 2021 02:45 AM)
I just googled 'bloody tennis player Death becomes her" for the hell of it and got a few hits. Its hilarious. I'm the actor that did that bit. I didn't think I was on screen long enough for anyone to register my outfit or my twisted tennis racket.
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TimBur77 — 13 years ago(January 05, 2013 09:48 AM)
I was a patient at Rancho Los Amigos, the Hospital they filmed this at. I got the chance to be an extra and saw them filming this scene. That was amazing to see the finished product with them floating, They were just walking casually by Bruce. The next scene I saw filmed was not in the movie. It was Bruce's character attacking an ER Doctor, I am certain it was Matt Frewer playing that role. Maybe someday, we'll get a special edition release with all the deleted scenes.
http://bat115.hubpages.com/ -
Two-HeadedBoy — 12 years ago(October 08, 2013 01:48 PM)
All I know is that those nuns TERRIFIED me when I was a youngster watching this (must've been 8 or 9 the first time I saw it?).
Just watched it again for the first time in almost two decades and it STILL made me a bit uneasy! I like that analogy of them being the "Fates" though, good one that. -
richard.fuller1 — 12 years ago(November 02, 2013 04:32 AM)
As someone else mentioned, the nuns were creepy to be seen. this was to give an idea as to where he had gone to find her. Nuns are summoned to give the last rites and comfort to the dead and dying.
It was either nuns or it could have been a priest. Heavy Catholic joke, which I am not, but I've seen this symbolism overused in movies and on tv, perhaps in American film.
It's all but become a joke unto itself if you ask me for people to see a nun or a priest and automatically think of death.
The scene was supposed to confirm where he had gone to look for her, but I guess if you aren't Catholic, it wasn't so obvious.