MovieChat Forums > The Incredible Shrinking Man (1957) Discussion > Interpretation....

Interpretation....

posted 19 years ago by commie_buster45
4 replies | jump to latest

I was just wondering what all of your interpretationg of the films ending line was...

Limecat will ride again....

[–] mikkyogden 19 years ago

i think the ending is about the large and the small- from the cossmos to the smallest man in the world killing a spider to the stars and the planets.

but i think the more important themae is the bringing down of a human to an origional level- driven by hunder- suvival using tools- everythig out to get you, hi is quite simmiler to the spider

[–] commie_buster45 19 years ago

Interesting...I think that too, that it's about how everything matters, and even though he was small he still existed and therefore still mattered.

Limecat will ride again....

[–] aimless-46 19 years ago

It is similiar to Plato's "Allegory of the Cave", becoming so small frees Scott from everything that constrained his human existance (by becoming less he is no longer trapped by the screen-he can climb through it). It is a process and consequence of Enlightenment.

In the allegory one has to awaken from the dream we call life (breaking the bonds); then we become aware of the webs that influence and move us (shadows on the wall); and finally we see the truth for what it truly is (the sun and world outside the cave).

[–] JonnNightwatcher 19 years ago

glad you asked the question. when I first saw it on the old Late Show, the movies that came on New York's Channel Two after the 11p.m. news in the fifties, sixties, etc. I saw the movie for the first time. my stepfather and I were the last ones awake and we enjoyed it immensely. I had no interpretation then, hey I was only thirteen and didn't think that way. I saw it again on TCM last evening. but here's my spin: it was another example of the ancient IndoEuropean myth of the tragic hero battling seemingly insurmountable odds and in the end triumphing over those odds. it is a story of loss, transformation, and realization. a story that has other parallels in such disparate figures as Luke Skywalker in the Star Wars series, and even Dorothy Gale in the Wizard of Oz. The Incredible Shrinking Man is one of my all time favorite movies, and I watch it with my own interpretation in mind.