MTTH: Buying a watch

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Kiddo
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Re: MTTH: Buying a watch

Post by Kiddo »

carl,

Who is "Tom Rabbit"?

Btw, the woman climbing the stairs with the screwdriver is definitely Gruszka with her hair in a ponytail. She appears to be murdering the lover/wife of her own lover, the mustached Polish dude played by Peter Lucas.
Carl
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Re: MTTH: Buying a watch

Post by Carl »

Just an error: Jack Rabbit. :oops:
MichaelPW
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Re: MTTH: Buying a watch

Post by MichaelPW »

Carl wrote:One chooses whether to 'buy a watch.
Maybe it is fixed before one buys a watch whether one buys a watch and one tries to interpret fixed things one does. Maybe one thinks "I will not buy a watch" and then changes ones mind, but maybe it is fixed before that one buys the watch.
Kiddo
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Re: MTTH: Buying a watch

Post by Kiddo »

No, carl's clearly right: one chooses whether or not to buy a watch. More specifically, English-speaking Lost Girl made the choice and has only herself to blame. She wanted to buy some "good luck" (and for only $25.00!) from a shady character, and she got burned big time.
applesnoranges
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Re: MTTH: Buying a watch

Post by applesnoranges »

MichaelPW: Do you mean that although one can choose what one does, one cannot choose what one wants to do? I think that is true but I'm not sure that is the issue here. In this scene and in the movie I think it is about the action of her choosing and the consequences of it. That is, there may be all sorts of things that contributed to her being not strong enough to resist doing something she could see would lead to bad results, but it was still the choice she made that led to the results.
MichaelPW
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Re: MTTH: Buying a watch

Post by MichaelPW »

Kiddo wrote:No, carl's clearly right: one chooses whether or not to buy a watch.
You probably won`t be able to prove that.
MichaelPW
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Re: MTTH: Buying a watch

Post by MichaelPW »

applesnoranges wrote:Do you mean that although one can choose what one does, one cannot choose what one wants to do? I think that is true but I'm not sure that is the issue here. In this scene and in the movie I think it is about the action of her choosing and the consequences of it. That is, there may be all sorts of things that contributed to her being not strong enough to resist doing something she could see would lead to bad results, but it was still the choice she made that led to the results.
There is at least the possibility that one has no free will. Yes, David Lynch is probably of the opinion that one has a free will. So we probably have a corresponding scene here. But maybe - in the end - the content of movies evaluate itself in contrast to reality and maybe this will have an effect on the content. Or - maybe - this is a theme in the scene itself. Perhaps the Phantom assumes that it is not one`s own decision. Maybe the Phantom sees the reasons for actions in things "one hears". But when the Phantom is the absence of something maybe the opposite things of what the Phantom thinks are right.
Kiddo
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Re: MTTH: Buying a watch

Post by Kiddo »

You probably won`t be able to prove that.

Sure I will. In fact, I just did.

Now try to prove otherwise.
Carl
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Re: MTTH: Buying a watch

Post by Carl »

Without free will, guilt is meaningless. IE is a very 'guilt culture' movie, imo.
Without guilt, there can be no redemption.
Redemption seems to me to be one of the Big Themes in IE.

**I think, and have right along, that it is a mistake to paint The Phantom as a melodramatic villain. DL parodies these, like Bob, in TP, or Bobby Peru, in WAH. I don't think he really gets behind them as villains, just sees them as very banal facades for true evil, which might be how we mistreat each other or whatever.
He has acts, e.g. murder, for which to atone, as do most of the characters in this sordid fable. He is shown as trying to 'get in', to make things right. He is clearly shown, in his guise as Kremp, to be relieved and ecstatic when Nikki shoots him in the end. ( BTW, is that not merely the muzzle-blast to be expected when one shoots off an automatic pistol in a dimly-lit, enclosed space, rather than a 'gun that shoots light'? I'll be on the look-out next time around.)
He is ' filled with golden light' which is released upon his death.
We don't know that LG has bad luck, after buying the watch, do we?
She states that things are already going badly in her life. True, the others at the party seem apprehensive, but maybe they are as ignorant of the underlying motives as we.

***Someone has to be wearing the watch 'to see'. Seeing is , probably, supposed to help with the release of LG and the ending of the curse.
Where did Sue get the watch? We just see it laying there when she first uses it after her instructions as to how to do so.
I want this to be the same watch taken from the dead, mustachioed man. ( I want it to be a 'cursed object', like those in Friday the 13th, the Series or The Lost Room or The Robe. :wink: ) Perhaps, it's just a similar object.
It would fit in neatly if the gun were the same used in the murder of the mustachioed man. Here, it seems to be so.
Now, what is the origin of the silk object, the one through which you have to look? I have always seen it as a kerchef, but my better half thinks maybe a negligee or some other article of a woman's intimate apparel. Hunh.
Carl
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Re: MTTH: Buying a watch

Post by Carl »

I've thought some more on where Sue got the watch.
Her next door neighbor is Kremp. Perhaps it is Kremp who is the one selling the watches in MTTH. We see Visitor #2 wearing it when she admonishes Sue about the debt that needs paying.
Of course, we do not , any more than Sue, know what scene comes first, and what comes after.
**'Reductionism' in the sense of looking for tiny details that will , when summed up, explain everything, is possibly alien to the proper manner of watching
this movie, but it has gotten me a far piece toward understanding it.
I'd say that the gestalt of this movie is fairly effective, but that the 'jig-saw puzzle' aspect is more satisfying to me.
Kiddo
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Re: MTTH: Buying a watch

Post by Kiddo »

Carl, my feeling is also that the character who sells the watch to English-speaking Lost Girl in MTTH is Majchrzak's character in Susan Blue's world (Crimp). The twist is that he is alive in the MTTH scene and a ghost (Phantom) in the scene with the red bulb in his mouth.

Susan's world is teeming with other ghosts, including the Valley Girls and Lost Girl. Susan Blue and everyone in her world may be nothing more than ghosts, as well. Or something along the lines of ghosts.
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