Weird? No, he was a man who felt his honor was worth more to him than his life. And he couldn’t consider himself an honorable man if saving himself would have meant that a woman or child would have been lost.
I probably shouldn’t have posted it (sorry!) but dayum, the acting in that movie was top notch. A bit more (this won’t give you nightmares):
The setup to that moment is masterful. The story is told in flashbacks and as it goes along, I was thinking Sophie’s “choice” was between the two men and this blindsided me. If you analyze it, she had other choices to make as well…the youtube choice was the most difficult, of course. That it can make such an impact without the setup validates it even more IMO.
The way Guggenheim put it, he seemed to be placing greater value on deportment and social status than on life itself. Although it was, I suppose, implicit in his decision, there was no mention of him selflessly letting someone else go in a lifeboat in his stead. That may have been the motivation for his decision, but from the character’s brief appearance in the movie, not necessarily.
I just saw District 9 today. I wasn’t so much affected by the ending, sad as it was.
But the first 20 minutes or so really got to me. Overwhelmingly emotionally intense. I only teared up a tiny bit, but I was not expecting anything like that. Even though I’d read an interview with the director about how he grew up with apartheid, knew they’d filmed in Soweto, etc.
That’s what being a gentleman means, dear boy. One may do the correct thing without being maudlin.
I nearly, but not quite, teared up at the opening credits of the Watchmen. I found it devastating. I think it’s the best intro I’ve ever seen to a movie.
Exactly. Supposedly a gentleman is one would would prefer to be a dead lion than a live jackal.
I’ll admit, I often cry during movies. I like a good cry. There is only one time I can think of that it definitely wasn’t expected: Frankenstein — the 1994 version with Robert DeNiro. I had read the book for a college class and was assigned to watch a movie version (not sure if it was that one specifically). I sobbed.
He just wanted friends! sniff