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TheManInOil — 16 years ago(November 12, 2009 01:12 PM)
Sure, there's the element of contrast, as he's the face without eyes, but it's also an opportunity to show two aspects of the doctor's character in a context where he has nothing personal at stake. His compassion and his overconfidence. He seems to care about the boy's condition, and he assures the mother that he will correct the problem (although it seems to be suggested that this is impossible). He feels for the mother with her son (who are reflections of himself and his daughter) and believes that his genius is sufficient to overcome any obstacle.
"In Texas, only Texans can rob banks!" -
SanityLapse — 15 years ago(August 15, 2010 03:22 AM)
The movie never showed the doctor succeeding at anything. I took this as another way to show that the doctor acts more like a kid burning an ant with a magnifying glass, as if he's always eager to prod around in the troubles people have, but we never see him actually fix someone. That kid may have been a new patient, but I took it that he was someone who had already been worked on by the doctor, and like everything else, was a failure. I thought that scene added to his character, more than anything else we'd seen in the movie, by further enforcing him as an emotionally detached guy who is in the field for glory, without having anything to truly care about in his life. The daughter said it best, when she referred to herself as his lab experiment.
I know what gold does to men's souls.