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Post by mllemass on Dec 1, 2021 12:43:05 GMT
Yes, I agree about Louis Wain - but only when I saw it at TIFF. The music near the end was screaming, but I guess that was deliberate. I didn’t find that when I watched it on tv or in a different theatre, though. Maybe it’s those fancy TIFF speakers that are to blame!
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Post by queenzod on Dec 1, 2021 12:51:21 GMT
I can’t sleep, lol. So I’m thinking about it. My insides feel all crackly. I have a TON of things to say and a million questions!
My first question has to do with that poor horse that Phil was beating up. I couldn’t watch it I felt so bad for that horse! Do you think Ben really had to hit and abuse that animal or did they splice it together in some way? I was so afraid it was going to fall and break its leg and they cut away so quickly. Horrible. And I feel for Ben if he had to do that because he’s got such a gentle heart and that must have been difficult for him. 🥺
Mllemass, you will be relieved to hear I think Jesse did George proud, and I’ve forgiven him a little. Not completely, but his character sits a little better with me now.
I started thinking about a friend I had years ago who was raised in the hill country of Tennessee among the crackers and moonshiners there, and he was abused in all sorts of ways when he was young, sexual and violence and you name it. The poor guy was so messed up. Anyway, he was talking one day about what trauma like that does to a person, and it’s like your reactor valve just gets shut off. You can witness the most awful stuff and you just sort of go, “huh. Look at that.” It doesn’t register how awful and terrible it is because you’ve shut down emotionally because of the trauma. I wondered if a tiny bit of that was going on with George. The situation didn’t seem to register with him in the way it should have, even when he found the bottle in her bed. He was just like “that’s all right,” and went on. So he was unable to do what he should have done to rescue his wife from that situation. He was subject to Phil’s verbal abuse for at least 2 decades since Bronco Henry died and that might have worn on him a bit.
More later.
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Post by prudence on Dec 1, 2021 13:08:02 GMT
I can’t sleep, lol. So I’m thinking about it. My insides feel all crackly. I have a TON of things to say and a million questions! My first question has to do with that poor horse that Phil was beating up. I couldn’t watch it I felt so bad for that horse! Do you think Ben really had to hit and abuse that animal or did they splice it together in some way? I was so afraid it was going to fall and break its leg and they cut away so quickly. Horrible. And I feel for Ben if he had to do that because he’s got such a gentle heart and that must have been difficult for him. 🥺 Mllemass, you will be relieved to hear I think Jesse did George proud, and I’ve forgiven him a little. Not completely, but his character sits a little better with me now. I started thinking about a friend I had years ago who was raised in the hill country of Tennessee among the crackers and moonshiners there, and he was abused in all sorts of ways when he was young, sexual and violence and you name it. The poor guy was so messed up. Anyway, he was talking one day about what trauma like that does to a person, and it’s like your reactor valve just gets shut off. You can witness the most awful stuff and you just sort of go, “huh. Look at that.” It doesn’t register how awful and terrible it is because you’ve shut down emotionally because of the trauma. I wondered if a tiny bit of that was going on with George. The situation didn’t seem to register with him in the way it should have, even when he found the bottle in her bed. He was just like “that’s all right,” and went on. So he was unable to do what he should have done to rescue his wife from that situation. He was subject to Phil’s verbal abuse for at least 2 decades since Bronco Henry died and that might have worn on him a bit. More later. I imagine it would be illegal to abuse a horse on set.
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Post by mllemass on Dec 1, 2021 14:02:45 GMT
Ah yes, the horse scene! It was by far the hardest thing to watch in the movie, and yet I didn’t mention it when I was asked about the treatment of animals. I just figured that most people would be squeamish about blood and guts stuff, so I focussed on those scenes.
The horse scene was shocking, and I’ve had lots of time to think about it and re-watch the movie. There’s no way they’d ever actually harm an animal in a movie - never mind a beautiful horse! So I had to remind myself that it was all make-believe and didn’t really happen. When I watched it again, I noticed that they never actually show him striking the animal. It was all visual effects, sound effects and scary angry music.
But the question is - why? Why have that scene at all, when we know that everything in the movie is there for a reason? I think they wanted us to be scared for Rose. They wanted us to think “If that’s what he does to his beloved innocent horse, what will he do to Rose?” They had already shown us that Phil was awful to people, but he was kind to animals. Look at that scene with Peter holding the injured bunny. Phil saw that a teaching moment and gently started to tell Peter not to let the rabbit suffer, but then we hear that crack! Thank goodness it was off-camera! But the flicker of shock on Phil’s face said a lot about Peter and a lot about Phil, too. He wouldn’t deliberately hurt an animal.
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Post by prudence on Dec 1, 2021 14:43:26 GMT
I did appreciate the coffin scene. Phil looking so different when they washed all the muck off of him and cleaned him up and put him in a suit. Back to the way he was brought up.
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Post by queenzod on Dec 1, 2021 15:02:14 GMT
But the question is - why? Why have that scene at all, when we know that everything in the movie is there for a reason? I think they wanted us to be scared for Rose. They wanted us to think “If that’s what he does to his beloved innocent horse when he’s angry, what will he do to Rose?” I thought that scene was to show us exactly how shook Phil was when George got married. He was furious that his baby brother had left him; it was the jealousy coming out. Also, it showed how little regulation Phil has over his own emotions. For all that he thinks he has control over his external world, he sure doesn’t have any over himself.
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Post by gingerale on Dec 1, 2021 15:34:41 GMT
Something that has lingered with me even though it seems nonsensical - the cook's story about how they found that the dead woman's blonde hair had kept growing after death, except for the gray hairs at the end. Was that just to show the kind of ridiculous conversation Rose has to put up with? Or were we supposed to find more meaning in that?
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Post by mllemass on Dec 1, 2021 15:49:07 GMT
Something that has lingered with me even though it seems nonsensical - the cook's story about how they found that the dead woman's blonde hair had kept growing after death, except for the gray hairs at the end. Was that just to show the kind of ridiculous conversation Rose has to put up with? Or were we supposed to find more meaning in that? Ha! Maybe! They were talking about having to move a cemetery, weren’t they? And that little anecdote popped into her head, I guess. What happened right after that? The only other cemetery reference was when Peter visited his father’s grave. Was that the same cemetery? And I suppose Bronco Henry must be buried somewhere, although if he wasn’t from there he was probably buried elsewhere. And of course poor Phil has to be buried (I hope they buried him beside Bronco Henry!).
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Post by mllemass on Dec 1, 2021 15:58:14 GMT
Back to the question I’ve had since September: didn’t you find it incredibly sad that Phil couldn’t go to bed without George?
That night at the rooming house, Phil searched all over for George because couldn’t sleep without his brother beside him. He then fell asleep on George’s side of the bed so that he didn’t have to look at the empty space where George should have been. Aww!
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Post by gingerale on Dec 1, 2021 16:00:16 GMT
Yes omg! BC played Phil like he’d been reduced to a child. Something that keeps coming back to me actually is near the end when George tries to take off his boots and Phil just very weakly pushes him away. Something about that motion just broke my heart.
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