I own the DVD, but since my player’s giving me grief, I can’t re-watch the movie to find out the answer to my question. Which is:
Exactly how does Machine kill Max California (Joaquin Phoenix)?
It all happens rather quickly-- too quickly, really, to see what happens (Or too quickly for me, at least 
). I think Machine slits his throat and Max bleeds to death… but that’s just my guess.
It’s one of those boring details, sure, but it’s been bugging me lately. So does anyone know?
You own a DVD of 8MM? :eek:
And here I was going to say there you didn’t need to put “spoilers” in the title since there is no way to spoil this movie.
I haven’t seen the film in a while, but I believe you’re right: Machine slashes his throat.
Well, this is a transcript from the First Draft script of 8mm.
Hope this helps…
-Waneman
Waneman, they made big changes in the script since that first draft, because Max never gets shot with arrows. I’m pretty sure about that. IIRC, only Longdale gets arrowed. Thanks, though.
Cap 'n Crude, thanks for the corroboration. Adding to my uncertainty was that the scene wasn’t the bloodiest throat-slashing scene I’ve ever seen. Not that 8MM was or purported to be a gore flick; I just anticipated something more graphic. In hindsight, I realize that anything more graphic than what was shown would have been distracting and unnecessary. Anyway, thanks again.
JeffB, I saw 8MM for the first time and re-watched Se7en on the same night. Intense stuff! :eek:
That figures. I could only find the first draft and I hoped that was something that didn’t change but I thought I’d post it anyway. I’ve seen the movie a couple of times and I can’t for the life of me remember exactly how he was killed.
-Waneman
Dino says “Machine, set him free.” and machine slits his throat, but I think he was already beat up and bloody looking when he is first show tied up.
I too own DVDs of *Se7en[/] and 8mm. Talk about a creepy pair of sequential movie titles for a double feature.
[innocent]
Really? What kind of DVD player do you have?
[/innocent]
Waneman, I’m just impressed that you found that first draft. When I did a search before starting this thread, all I could find was a message board frequented by Joaquin Phoenix devotees moaning and bitching about his character being killed. :rolleyes:
xizor- yeah, that’s how I remember it, too. I also remember that there was a table covered with knives and other sharp torture devices next to him, so I figured the slicing was the safe assumption.
Padeye, heh. I was going to top it off with The Last Broadcast, but by the time 8MM and Se7en were done, it was like 4am and I had school/work the next day.
Hmm… a triple feature presentation of The Sixth Sense, Se7en , and 8MM, anyone?
KKB, hon, you’re just askin’ for it, aren’t you? 
Triple feature? Sure, better Sixth Sense than The Exoricist. Personally, I’d go Se7en, 8MM, and either Pi, Tetsuo The Iron Man, or Requiem for a Dream, for the “Happiest movies ever” trilogy…
As for “it,” that all depends on what “it” is, doesn’t it?
Throw in American Psycho and the silence of the lambs, and it’s a marathon I’m up for any day.
No comment.
Could someone explain “Tetsuo The Iron Man” to me? that film really creeped the hell out of me.
jabe: What do you need explained? The internal logic of the movie (such as it was)? Or the combination of drugs the filmmaker (whose name eludes me, atm) was on?
It’s been a while since I’ve seen it, Audrey, but I remember the guy getting his throat sliced, too. It almost looks like he’s going to get released and then…well, the end for him.
Definitely Requiem for a Dream for that (Pi has a relatively happy ending by comparison). As for Tetsuo: The Iron Man…heh…I find it more fascinating than depressing. But I’m weird like that. 
Digital Bits had a good piece on Tetsuo and Shinya Tsukamoto’s other films. It includes discusion of the plots, the themes, and the films in general, and should help you out, jabe.
What on earth do you need explained? I mean, it all pretty much stands to reason. Clearly, if you’re driving along and run into some guy who just ran into the roadway because he’s freaking out because he jammed a length of rusty iron pipe into his thigh, and then end up having sex with your girlfriend by the ditch he lands in, you’re gonna end up with a hunk of metal embedded in your skull. Goes without saying, really.
What also goes without saying is that, once that happens, your body is going to start sprouting various lumps of scrap metal, and before you know it, a breakfast with the missus is going to be ruined by your new genital-drill popping up through the table. And as a lesson to the ladies, you might think your boyfriend’s new equipment is pretty alluring, but following through on that attraction is a bad idea. This part of the film was really just a public service announcement–Japan at the time was having a regular epidemic of coital genital-drill-related fatalities. The coroners were getting sick of it.
The problem with that isn’t so much the physical bloody mess, or the emotional trauma of having to simultaneously come to terms with now being a walking scrap-heap, but that the original metal fetishist you ran over is going to resurrect through the bathtub your dead girlfriend is in. In a post genital-drill mishap, people are stressed, and tend to forget that fact, and so that portion of the film serves to remind them–again, a PSA.
Now, there’s a nested theme here–while various kinds of metal transformations are going to take place when you get chunks of iron jammed into you, if you use a rusty piece, you’ve got this whole corrosion thing going on. So kids, be careful to use a fresh and stainless iron pipe before gashing your leg open and ramming it inside.
If you’ve got a rusted metal fetishist and a non-rusted inadvertent-iron man in the same quarters, a fight is going to ensue. And that fight’s inevitably going to move into your city’s very worst abandoned industrial district. This really is the most troublesome part of the film, seeming frankly a bit racist, which I guess one could tie to the xenophobic attitude Japan often gets blamed for–but it suggests that if two iron men, one being rusted and the other not, are to ever cohabitate, they will do so in such a way that they make a mutual pact to destroy the world. They’ll only do that once they fuse into an anthropomorphic tank-like vehicle, but still.
It’s really a quite straightforward film.
And if you think that’s odd, TM’s, have a look-see at “Tetsuo 2: Body Hammer” some time, which is a similarly cautionary tale about the long-run dangers of teaching your children to transform into guns.
What’s to explain?
I like the woman that raped him with the vacuum-cleaner hose. Sure to get the blood going.
Y’know, I don’t want to know what it says about me that Drastic’s review has made me really want to see the Tetsuo films.
This has so many potential sigs in it I don’t know where to start…