It seems like very excellent storytelling, then, to do what you say--especially that last bit about "I was alone" not being a play for sympathy, just a statement of remembered pain.
It doesn't excuse attempted murder, but it's more complicated than mere cold-blooded predation. And it suits the film to be complicated. We never learn as much about Frank as we do about the man whose life he wanted to step into, but Mark isn't one-dimensional; his double shouldn't be, either.
and you were also in conversation with your own thoughts. And me, I was listening and nodding and thinking, and then you would add and deepen, and I had more to think about. It's cool.
Thank you! I always worry a little that it will be annoying.
should it really matter that much. Should it? Does it only start to matter if Mark/Frank actually can recall, or comes to recall?
I do think the film is asking those questions, because the protagonist is asking those questions. They were part of what made me think of science fiction: the implanted memories of the replicants in Blade Runner (1982), the death of personality in Babylon 5's "Passing Through Gethsemane" (1995). How much of who you are is who you think you are? What responsibility do you bear for things you might have done when you were someone else?
But I feel like there must have been something more to Frank that spoke to you--maybe his theatricality itself? His self-deprecation?
I don't know. I like his ambiguity. I like that we don't even know if his intentions toward Mark were always nefarious or if there was as much opportunism in the violence as there was careful study in the impersonation. And Jeff hates him, but so long as we don't know if he is the protagonist, we almost can't afford to, because the protagonist is someone we care about—and once we do know, there's no point in our hatred, because all that's left of that treacherous quicksilver is the "living corpse" of Number Fifteen. Mark has to face that: "The truth is that Number Fifteen is Welney. And I am responsible for him." The movie could have been so much simpler about its shadow sides.
no subject
It doesn't excuse attempted murder, but it's more complicated than mere cold-blooded predation. And it suits the film to be complicated. We never learn as much about Frank as we do about the man whose life he wanted to step into, but Mark isn't one-dimensional; his double shouldn't be, either.
and you were also in conversation with your own thoughts. And me, I was listening and nodding and thinking, and then you would add and deepen, and I had more to think about. It's cool.
Thank you! I always worry a little that it will be annoying.
should it really matter that much. Should it? Does it only start to matter if Mark/Frank actually can recall, or comes to recall?
I do think the film is asking those questions, because the protagonist is asking those questions. They were part of what made me think of science fiction: the implanted memories of the replicants in Blade Runner (1982), the death of personality in Babylon 5's "Passing Through Gethsemane" (1995). How much of who you are is who you think you are? What responsibility do you bear for things you might have done when you were someone else?
But I feel like there must have been something more to Frank that spoke to you--maybe his theatricality itself? His self-deprecation?
I don't know. I like his ambiguity. I like that we don't even know if his intentions toward Mark were always nefarious or if there was as much opportunism in the violence as there was careful study in the impersonation. And Jeff hates him, but so long as we don't know if he is the protagonist, we almost can't afford to, because the protagonist is someone we care about—and once we do know, there's no point in our hatred, because all that's left of that treacherous quicksilver is the "living corpse" of Number Fifteen. Mark has to face that: "The truth is that Number Fifteen is Welney. And I am responsible for him." The movie could have been so much simpler about its shadow sides.