"Chilly Scenes of Winter" is a much better title than "Head Over Heels".
Ten thousand times better. Plus, that was the name of the novel it was based on. And
IMdB has inocrrect information - - "Chilly Scenes of Winter" was the title used when it was first released theatrically. "Head Over Heels" was used for a subsequent theatrical release.
I heard it talked about on the orginal "Sneak Previews" with Gene Siskell, and Roger Ebert as "Chilly Scenes Of Winter" and went out and saw it immediately. It quickly become one of
my favorite movies of all time, and I think it is about as close to a perfect movie as one could ever get.
The novel is great too.
I re-read it about once a year.
BRAVO I COULDNT AGREE WITH YOU MORE ON THE TITLE WHAT A SPLENDID MOVIE I WAS MESMORIZED BY IT
share"Chilly Scenes of Winter" is extremely evocative and fits this film perfectly. "Head Over Heels" is a cliche and sounds like a slapstick comedy. To me, this will always be "Chilly Scenes of Winter."
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Just coming back here to read any new comments.
I wonder what you think the title means if you had to explain it.
Thinking about it, it means to be "Chilly Scenes" meaning scenes
what chill you to do the bone when you look at how much time
we waste in life and how hard it is to connect with another, and
how depression of obsession can take so much of our energy,
but we have nothing to say about it ... until somehow, we magically
thaw from our winters ... the winter Charles was in for so long,
The other chilling thing is that there is no guarantee we ever
thaw. It is chilling that we can die like Charles was dead and
might have remained dead if he had gotten back with Laura
or kept his delusion alive.
Maybe the thawing is when he realized he had no intention
of going crazy ... he wanted to live again, and knew what he
had to do to move in that direction.
NICE essay Bruce.
He certainly would have wasted his life if he got stuck in the obsession, but
I think we can argue that if she did come around to realizing he loved her so much and she was worthy of his love, both could have evolved into something more. That was the "Head over Heals" story, the new title does fit the new ending.
I think .... just my opinion that none of us live our lives in this way ... we come to a final realization about something ... most people follow their guts or make decisions for economic or social gain, and then sugar coat it with romantic love ideas. What made this movie so special to me is that this laid bare all of that stuff, it exposed that we all can be really crazy, obsessive, self-destructive, dangerous or just fools ... and still be nice productive human being just trying to get along in life. Love is not what we think it is. We well know even from literary expositions that it does not last, and it changes its nature ... if we are lucky, but we never merge with another person the way we see in movies and TV. I like anything that subverts the standard idiotic way we are trained to look at things ... at some point the human race has to grow up, and this is a good movie for that metaphor.
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