MovieChat Forums > Before the Devil Knows You're Dead (2007) Discussion > Significance of clearing bed, table, etc...

Significance of clearing bed, table, etc.

posted 16 years ago by twojarslave
21 replies | jump to latest

The scene after Gina leaves Andy and he takes the sheets off the bed, clears table tops, and pours the rocks out on the coffee table. Any ideas as to what that was all about? Maybe he was going to set up a sh*t ton of rails to blow. More seriously, I was thinking that maybe he was getting rid of her "stuff". He's obviously the bread winner and she sits home and decorates. Maybe he was just symbolically destroying her influence on the home. Any thoughts?

Wha' happened?

[–] MovieAlien 16 years ago

It didn't seem obvious enough that was a mental breakdown?

[–] 16 years ago

[deleted]

[–] bluestocking-7 15 years ago

The production crew sure made the moment stands out in terms of furniture too.

That is the iconic Isamu Noguchi glass coffee table.

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[–] flern 15 years ago

This post reminds me of an old comedy sketch (I forget where it was from) where a movie reviewer comments on a movie from a limited perspective based on their own obscure area of expertise.... in this case one of an extremely small group of people who would even know what an Isamu Noguchi glass coffee table was, and actually consider it to be "iconic". I suppose that it's iconic within certain interior decorating circles, but I'm sure that its notoriety was lost on 99.999% of the people who saw the supposedly iconic table in the movie.

[–] 15 years ago

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[–] guysmiley00 14 years ago

I've never understood why some people think that the importance of a piece of knowledge is dependent upon its popularity. I had no idea about Isamu Noguchi or furniture, so I looked it up. I guess some people react to the unknown with curiosity, and others with disdain. I can say with certainty that my membership in the former group has enriched my life no end.

[–] PenelopeTree 15 years ago

yeah, exactly....

I wanna be sedated....

[–] uk_jb 15 years ago

That reminded me of the Ikea scene in fight club, everything set-up 'just so', a kind of bland consumerist playground. Its petty order became an affront when things went wrong definitively, and it had to be messed up.

I enjoyed the pouring stones bit. No real process can occur without increasing disorder, that is the second law of thermodynamics. It is an explanation for irreversibility in nature (heat disperses but does not come back together, an egg breaks but does not unbreak). And that scene was the point at which he broke irrevocably.

[–] aeon_static 15 years ago

uk_jb:
"No real process can occur without increasing disorder, that is the second law of thermodynamics. It is an explanation for irreversibility in nature (heat disperses but does not come back together, an egg breaks but does not unbreak)."

The Second Law of Thermodynamics is only about heat decay within a closed system. Anything otherwise is anti-evolutionist propaganda.

That being said, this scene was pretty obviously portraying a mental breakdown in an "artistic" way. I don't really get how you could miss it.

[–] katey525 15 years ago

I looked at it as if things need to be *beep* up in this *beep* up world he's suddenly found himself in. So all the furniture that use to seem so perfectly placed and clean are no longer just as his life now is at that moment.

[–] lobotomyboy63 15 years ago

[Spoilers below]

As I recall, he started with the stuff related to the bed, tearing off the sheets and throwing her perfume bottles on the floor etc. It symbolized "She's gone." Just like his father not showing emotions, he's not going to show emotion while she's breaking up with him but after she leaves he lets it out. He acts like it's all cool when he meets with Hank, and then he points the gun at him. Father acts like it's all good, then snuffs him at the hospital.

I'll have to watch it again; lots of echoes in there.

[–] slimfandango 15 years ago

The life he was striving for, the need for which fuelled the whole set of radical actions that made the film, was now over. Ironically it ended because he was trying to better it

[–] guysmiley00 14 years ago

I think slimfandango has it right. Andy seems to have spent his whole life striving for the approval of both his father and his wife (whether he picked a disapproving spouse because of his disapproving father is for the psychologists among us to decide). He pursued those goals even at the cost of his integrity and his mental stability (hence the embezzlement and the heroin addiction). When it became clear that both of those goals were now completely beyond his reach, he began to dismantle the world he had worked so hard to assemble in their pursuit. It was then he decided to chuck the whole thing and head for Rio, stopping only to attempt to protect the baby brother he had tried so hard to help.

Does anyone else think this scene sort of parallels Charles' deliberate crash into the cop car, in that both use physical actions to symbolize the character's decisions (i.e., Charles abandoning the police for his own investigation, and Andy abandoning his attempts to please his father and wife for pursuing his own interests)?

[–] guysmiley00 14 years ago

I thought he pointed the gun at Hank only when it became clear that Hank wouldn't allow himself to be saved. Andy seems to go through the movie with a prioritized list of goals, and shifts his actions as each goal is shown to be unattainable. He tries to please his father with a successful career and marriage. Then, he tries to please his wife with cash and returning to Rio, where they were last happy. Then, he tries to protect Hank by eliminating everyone who can tie Hank to the robbery before fleeing the country. Finally, he tries to gain some measure of satisfaction for himself by considering killing the baby brother who he tried to help and who had betrayed him. Whether he would actually have shot Hank is an open question.

In the end, Andy seems trapped by his own demons, and his rational attempts to achieve his irrational goals lead him from dead-end to dead-end. Maybe he can be taken as a symbol of the limits of human reason, given the power exerted by our irrational emotions.

[–] koffeenkreame41-1 11 years ago

[Spoilers below]

As I recall, he started with the stuff related to the bed, tearing off the sheets and throwing her perfume bottles on the floor etc. It symbolized "She's gone." Just like his father not showing emotions, he's not going to show emotion while she's breaking up with him but after she leaves he lets it out. He acts like it's all cool when he meets with Hank, and then he points the gun at him. Father acts like it's all good, then snuffs him at the hospital.

I'll have to watch it again; lots of echoes in there.

^^This. I was gonna say the same thing. He didn't want to show any emotion in front of her and as soon as she left, he broke down & lost it.

"I am the ultimate badass, you do not wanna `*beep*` wit me!"- Hudson in Aliens.

[–] fletch37 13 years ago

Actually, I interpreted it as a send-up to Citizen Kane, where Charles Foster Kane similarly destroys the bedroom of his wife after she leaves him.

[–] infinity8 12 years ago

This scene reminded me a lot of the Citizen Kane scene, too. It also provides an excuse for the camera to linger on the furnishings, which helps with characterization of Andy and Gina. Their apartment is somewhat tastefully and somewhat expensiely decorated, as befits social climbers like Andy and Gina. However, there are some very odd elements to the decoration. One of these is the kitchen table. On the table stands a centerpiece of three very tall candles. The centerpiece looks nice, but if you imagine trying to eat at that table, you realize that no one who sits at the table could see anyone else at the table because the candles are too tall. What is symbolically true is true in real life, too. Neither Gina or Andy really knows who the other person is or what they want.

[–] sami-18 12 years ago

I think Hoffman just has a mandatory contract rule that demands a scene be written in where he gets to do some kind of oblique and mystifying moment of vanity drama.

[–] joanna164 12 years ago

i thought that was the best scene in the movie....hoffman has been quite distubingly numb through this all he cant even get a breakdown right

[–] 11 years ago

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[–] denham 10 years ago

Andy had finally realized that all his problems were caused by bad feng shui.

I beseech ye in the bowels of Christ, think that ye may be mistaken.