Bills daughter is the key to this movie
-
christomacin — 9 years ago(May 19, 2016 11:01 PM)
- Phony sacrifice. What phony sacrifice? The chick died.
She's says "take me" and "I will redeem him". Later, Ziegler specifically using the words "sacrifice". He says something like "that whole phony 'take me' sacrifice thing" to Bill in the billiards room. - How is that the sacrifice of Helena, metaphorically.
Some people have said Helena was "sacrificed" or physically abducted in the toy store. I don't see that either, however, I do think it's possible Kubrick was hinting that Helena is metaphorically abducted or stolen away from her parents and may end up like Alice or Ziegler's wife Ilena, who shares the same name (more or less) as Helena. This would parallel with Helen of Troy's (sort of) abduction by Paris in Homer's the Iliad, and also with Alice's story about running of with the naval officer. The Helena abduction thing is similar to the "Jack raped Danny" thing on The Shining boards. I take a similar position on that one as well = weird, creepy metaphor for deep societal issues. - How does that translate to selling his daughter to the elite?
I think Kubrick's point is that one way or other we are all "selling ourselves to the elite", even if we aren't consciously aware of it. Kubrick hints at the kind of life she is being groomed for when we see Alice tutoring her daughter in a school math problem involving which of two men has more money. - He never told her his name, but she never told him her's either.
That's weird, but then this whole problematically movie blurs the lines of reality. This movie is too realistic to be dreamlike, but too dreamlike to be realistic. - What makes you think the Asian guys were wealthy? It doesn't matter
.
What makes you think they weren't. Milich seems like too smart a wheeler-dealer to risk jail time unless he was selling his daughter for a pretty penny. Besides, his shop was rather expensive from what we see from his transactions with Bill, plus he was in the heart of a fashionable district of Manhattan. He could afford to be choosy which of his clients he talked up for some fun time with his daughter. - Where is the final scene that Alice talks to Helena about wealthy boys or the scene where "sex" is written above the girls' wall? I have seen this movie several times and never seen either one of these.
I didn't believe that either until I actually saw a screen cap of it. Not only is the word "sex" on the painting above Helena's bed (of all places), but a purple flaccid penis can also be discerned. I didn't believe it, but there it waser, big as life (well, bigger, actually).
I'm sure someone will repost that screen cap in this discussion.
For the other posters, where do you folks get that some of this stuff is happening in his mind? There is nothing to suggest this.
The problem is this film has too many logically impossibilities and improbabilities to be straight up reality, and yet it is too down-to-earth and realistic to be dismissed as a dream. Kubrick intended this to be so for various reasons.
- Phony sacrifice. What phony sacrifice? The chick died.
-
christomacin — 9 years ago(May 20, 2016 05:35 AM)
Uh you don't answer a question with a question.
I just did.
You made the assertion, therefore you are expected to support it. I have no evidence either way, thus I wanted to know your's.
I did support it, after asking the offending question, by giving reasons why the Asians are probably well off. There is no logical reason to believe they are poor. Why would two middle income men be hanging around a high end costume shop in Manhattan for kiddie sex when the local playground would do? How did they come to be in this particular shop in the first place? There I go again with questions. Then there's the possible link between Milich and the Somerton maskers, but that's a whole other subject. -
christomacin — 9 years ago(May 20, 2016 06:29 AM)
Uh you don't answer a question with a question.
"I just did. "Just because you are a smart ass, doesn't make you very smart, as duly noted.
Some of the best answers are questions. You'll discover that when you get a bit older.
You made the assertion, therefore you are expected to support it. I have no evidence either way, thus I wanted to know yours.
This is a work of art we're talking about, not a mathematical equation. What sort of "evidence" (other than circumstantial) do you want, or expect from an artist, especially one of the stature of Kubrick?
I did support itNo you didn't. So they were in some costume shop, big deal. What the heck is a high end costume shop? He paid more money for the costumes because of the inconvenience of waking the guy at 1:00am for Pete's sake.
Yes, and Milich wasn't shy about reminding Bill about agreeing to pay more money "for his trouble" the day later. Much like Milich, we see Bill wheeling and dealing to get what he wants by flashing cash and showing his status symbol (the doctor certificate). The difference between Bill and Milich is that Bill still has some limits.
Just because some guy is wearing a tie, does not equate to being rich or well off, that tells me that you are young or poor and uneducated (or perhaps both).
The following day Bill finds out Milich not only didn't call the police on the two guys but actually allowed them to have their way with his daughter, because "we came to some other arrangement". What sort of arrangement would that be, do you suppose, if not financial? Must have been a pretty decent amount, seeing as he seemed to be doing fairly well and considering what he was selling. Milich, if anything, seemed to be a guy who had a pretty good idea of the value of money, and how to extract it from people. You're making Milich out to be some foolhardy idiot. He certainly would work up the market price of his daughter, knowing full well the premium he could command from some Japanese perverts for a fresh, blonde, blue-eyed white girl. Besides, the race of the two gents was very deliberately chosen by Kubrick, I believe, as Japanese do have culturally seem to have a fascination with pre-pubescent girls.
Oh well. This conversation now bores me.
And your denseness amuses me. Must you have everything spelled out for you in a movie? Is there no reading between the lines for you? -
Xav6101 — 9 years ago(May 22, 2016 02:27 AM)
- Ladies, where exactly are we going?
Exactly?
Where the rainbow ends. - Where the rainbow ends?
Don't you want to go where the rainbow ends? - Now that depends where that is.
Well, let's find out.
[At Rainbow Fashions]
So what color cloak?
Red, brown, red? - Black.
The good doctor wouldn't like something more colorful?
-I don't think so.
Clowns,
officers
, pirates?
-No, just the tux, the black cloak
With a hood and a mask.
May I take your coat?
https://merovee.files.wordpress.com/2014/05/rainbow2.jpg
The amount of coincidences conveys a feeling of dealing with a mental construction rather than experiencing reality, doesn't it?
Credo quia absurdum
- Ladies, where exactly are we going?
-
Barbed_Wire_Strawberry — 9 years ago(May 22, 2016 07:13 AM)
Reality is a mental construction - that is the horrifying nature of 'reality' as human beings - we will never know for sure and we have only our little comforts to console us.
Buy The Ticket, Take The Ride -
keykeyx100000 — 9 years ago(May 28, 2016 10:46 PM)
- Helena was checking with her parents every minute or so when they entered the store. In the final scene, there almost seems to be strain to emphasize how much time goes by between the 5minute conversation/credits and no Helena saying "Look, mommy!"
In fact, that was THE MOST disturbing and telling point for me.
I was half expecting Nicole to turn and say "Helena?" jut to check with her, but we weren't even granted that. Scary!
- Helena was checking with her parents every minute or so when they entered the store. In the final scene, there almost seems to be strain to emphasize how much time goes by between the 5minute conversation/credits and no Helena saying "Look, mommy!"
-
demenu — 9 years ago(May 22, 2016 03:16 AM)
http://jabajabba.com/jabajabba/wp-content/uploads/2014/08/pic81.jpg
Helena in a long black cloak standing next to the "Magic Circle" board game. -
Barbed_Wire_Strawberry — 9 years ago(May 23, 2016 05:57 AM)
Bill already made the decision to involve his wife and daughter in potential harm - all for his silly ego. They are on the knife's edge at the end of the film, and from then on (too many secrets/too far under thumb).
Buy The Ticket, Take The Ride -
tieman64 — 9 years ago(May 23, 2016 05:25 PM)
Regarding Helena and her possible abduction, I'm re-pasting this from elsewhere:
We see similar scenes and themes in "Spartacus" (young women captured and forced into sex) and "Lolita" (a girl literally stollen twice by older men).
Allusions to psychosexual violence toward children are all over "The Shining" and "Full Metal Jacket" as well, the allusions ranging from subtle to overt (eg - "The Shining's" "Summer of 42" segment, a film aobut a woman's sexual relationship with an underage boy, or "Full Metal Jacket's" climax, in which the Marines suggestively rock their crotches over the dying corpse of a girl)
Here's every scene with Bill and Alice's daughter, Helena:- Helena's first seen wearing angel wings and drawing on a sketchpad. On this sketchpad is a large red figure and a small figure beside it. During this scene, Alice says that she will "leave the number on the fridge.
- Helena mentions wanting to stay up to watch the Nutcracker. In the original Nutcracker story, a young girl is whisked away by a Nutcracker, who eventually transforms into a Prince. This Prince takes the girl to the Magical Kingdom of Dolls. In Greek mythology, a ten year old Helen of Troy is likewise abducted by a prince.
- Seconds before this moment, Bill walks beside a tennis racket with the word Prince boldly displayed. In the next scene, Ziegler informs us of his tennis injuries.
- Ziegler also informs us that his wife's name is Illona, a variant of Helen or Helena.
- Helena is next seen sitting in the family kitchen. The Fright Before Christmas is playing on Tv, a cartoon about a Tazmanian Devil who masquerades as Santa. How the Grinch Stole Christmas is at Helena's side. A sketch of a creepy red figure is above the TV.
- Scenes of Helena having her hair brushed, and brushing her teeth, are intercut with Bill examining patients. Framed by red curtains, these scenes recall Alice disrobing at the start of the film, which itself recalls the images of disrobing women at the Somerton Mansion. Scenes of Helena brushing her teeth, intercut with Bill's sterile workplace, evoke the Doctor's visit in The Shining, which occurred after Danny brushed his teeth. In that scene, in which Danny and his mother evade their father's violent history of abuse, Danny talks about a boy who lives in his mouth.
- Helena is seen wrapping presents. That's a good choice, her mother says. They're wrapping a Van Gogh themed gift. In the previous kitchen scene, Van Gogh's sunflowers were pinned to a wall.
- Helena's reading in her bedroom, beside a lamp adorned with clowns juggling balls. She's reading a poem called The Shadow:
I have a little shadow that goes in and out with me,
And what can be the use of him is more than I can see.
He is very, very like me, from the heels up to the head;
And I see him jump before me, when I jump into my bed.
The funniest thing about him is the way he likes to grow-
Not at all like proper children, which is always very slow;
For he sometimes shoots up taller like an india-rubber ball,
And he sometimes gets so little that there's none of him at all.
He hasn't got a notion of how children ought to play,
And can only make a fool of me in every sort of way.
He stays so close beside me, he's a coward you can see;
I'd think shame to stick to nursie as that shadow sticks to me!
The poem offer's a myriad of readings: a literal shadow, The Shadow (in the Freudian sense) or perhaps A Shadow (a stalker or monster). - Helena's next seen asleep, a giant white teddy bear overlooking her bed. Two surreal paintings are over her head, one seemingly displaying the word sex, the other with phallic looking imagery. ( http://postimg.org/image/uw5gmxi91/ )
- Bill watches as Helena does math homework in the family kitchen. She tells her father that she wants a puppy. This cute request acquires threatening overtones when Helena states that this puppy can also double as a watch dog.
- Whilst doing her math, Helena speaks of Joe and Mike, the former having 2 dollars 50, the latter 1 dollar 75. Echoing the that's a good choice scene earlier, Helena wonders how much more money Joe has than Mike. Whilst Helena ponders this, Bill recalls his wife talking about everyone beep one another, the scene playing like a fusion of mate selection and economics. On the fridge behind Bill is a sketch of Red Cloak a mysterious character seen earlier below which the word FISHY is spelt phonetically with fridge magnets.
- Whilst doing her math homework, Helena is beside a math book called CARLOS (the aspect ratios of all new dvds cut this off). Carl was the name of the math professor we saw earlier in the film. Bill will make a telephone call in the very next scene, which Carl answers. Later Helena is seen beside toy dolls called Carlotta Junior.
- Helena is at a toy store. A figure in red makes hand gestures. Enchanting onlookers, this figure's actions resemble Red Cloak's at the Somerton Mansion. The store layout itself r
-
tieman64 — 9 years ago(May 23, 2016 05:58 PM)
17 points is nothing. I wrote a 400 point United Nations presentation on how cyanobacteria cells, properly implemented, outperform perovskite photovoltaics. The EU Commissioner for Energy ridiculed me for omitting comparative lifespan data with bioengineered algae biogels, so I referred him to page 18 and called his mother a whore.
mic drop
