MovieChat Forums > The Stunt Man (1980) Discussion > Can anyone explain this movie?

Can anyone explain this movie?

posted 17 years ago by shaggy61
56 replies | jump to latest

I want to like this film but it seems to have a whole lotta logical lapses. It's good when a movie has too much on its mind rather than too little, but a number of things don't make sense. (Spoiler warning: don't read this unless you've seen the movie.)
1) In the beginning Cameron wanders onto the set. There are no cameras visible, no one yells cut, Burt doesn't tell him what's going on and then nearly runs him over, though supposedly not on purpose. All that stretches plausibility a bit much.
2) Burt's body is never found, leading you to think that he might still be alive, but nothing comes of it. Was there a plot twist that ended up on the cutting room floor?
3) Cameron drags Nina up to the high balconey over her protests and tries to get her to jump. What does she see in this psycho?
4) Nina is humiliated that her parents see a clip of her in a nude scene. They would have seen the whole movie anyway eventually, so what'd she expect?
5) Nina's character in the WWI movie is a young woman. By the time of Nazi Germany she's an old lady. That's more or less a 20-year span, so she would have just been middle-aged.
6) Why do they need to film the car going off the bridge again when they already have perfectly good footage in the clips they show to the cops?
7) When Cameron is in the sinking car he grabs the air hose under the seat and finds it disconnected, which suggests Eli really is out to kill him. But at the very end we're supposed to believe that all of Cameron's fears about Eli were wrong.
8) Actors playing German soldiers corner Cameron on the river shore, so apparently they changed the ending in which the hero drowns. Yet their decision to change it is never discussed. If the hero lives that would seem to negate the scenes of Nina's character as a heartbroken old lady.
9) Why does the hero in a WWI movie have a bad 1970's haircut?

[–] NostalgiaDrag 16 years ago

This thread is why I hate the imdb message boards (most message boards, actually). Not a fan of pi$$ing contests. I was just barely born before 1990 (1987 to be exact) and I dug this movie. Didn't understand most of it but I enjoyed it a lot.

[–] unclemeat-2 16 years ago

Eli "ranting" at the end sums it up pretty well (I thought).

That a film and reality are often confused by large amount of viewing audience, and that a director can completely change anything and everything he wants. (However, if you are reading this, disregard)
Ex:
"King Kong was only 3 feet tall"
"you ought to see the version where Burt was directing and I (Eli) drove the car"

The idea is that MOST people don't even SEE edit/cuts. They cant tell WHAT happened, ever.

I don't think that this film was ever supposed to fit neatly into any category. Same with the book.

I did enjoy it.
The confusing start reminded me of "Wait Until Dark" with the utter confusion: Here is reality, deal with it! (Thereby trying to put you into the hero (or heroines mind). Sympathetic effect.

Hope this is of help/interest to those who read it.

[–] Billy_McAvoy 15 years ago

What was confusing about the beginning? it was a simple chain-of-events sort of thing that connected Eli with Cameron though The bird, and the apple, etc. entirely before they ever met eachother. It was a "display of fate" kind of thing.

...Guess What S1m0ne! We have now entered an age where we can manufacture fraud faster than our ability to detect it

[–] sparker1 15 years ago

Exactly. And it clues you into the main theme of the film when the pilot dodges the crow and complains "D--- bird tried to kill us" to which Eli replies "Did you ever think of it from the bird's point of view?"

[–] redbarren 15 years ago

Warning, I'm going deep!
The movie is great because it works as a philosophical and religious allegory or meditation on the plight of the common man (?) (Cameron/Lucky) in relation to the "Higher Power" (Eli Cross). Or maybe a version of a "temptation of Christ"?

There are so many religious allusions or comments that it would be exhausting to type them all out. Here are some of the most striking from my perspective:

Check out the first time we meet Cross in person, he steps down from on high, with dramatic music, and the helicopter wings behind him, the way the shot is framed, look like angelic wings or a halo. Ace:"Jesus Christ." Cross:"Jesus Christ indeed."
Or after the first time the police chief confronts them, with Cameron on the pier on high, Cross beckons him to come down, and he even poses like he has been crucified.

Now, the question of whether Cross is God or Satan seems to be a theme throughout. I lean towards the latter.

He certainly seems omniscient/omnipresent, and "pops in" at various times, again with the framing of shot often confusing or reversing perspective (like when he "catches" Cameron and Nina on the tower with spotlights, and he is large and above them, calling them "children," and they can hear his booming voice over that distance/height, or in the screening room when he chastises Nina).

Cross is also portrayed as pretty powerful too, but seemingly bored of the power. Check out his response to scenes being cut from "his child" (the movie): "I'll kill them, and then eat them" with a chilling straight face. When the helicopter flies into the crow (nice symbol), Cross is idly biting out of an apple--da da DA!-- and tosses out that symbol from the tree of knowledge, unfinished, without a care, onto people who are ignorant of its identity.

Cameron seems like a fish out of water almost the whole movie, like he is awkward in his own skin. I disagree that he was miscast, his awkwardness is palpable and, I believe, intentional. He is mesmerized by Cross even as he is abused and manipulated by him, which one would expect as a reaction to meeting Lucifer, especially after being stripped and humiliated in front of the crew after the first extended stunt scene.

Furthermore, the inner tension and conflict that Cameron projects is also dead on. The bridge seems to demarcate the boundary between "Earth" and "Hell? Limbo?" Did Cameron encounter his "double" the first time in the car? Was that a warning to stay away lest he become like Burt? After Burt "disappears," and Cameron is unsure whether the whole thing was a hallucination (posttraumatic?), he runs back and forth, unsure which side of the bridge to go. He chooses the set. But then alternates between trying to escape and playing his role.

Viewed this way, the ending is perhaps pretty dark: He gives up trying to escape "the set" and resigns himself to its pleasures and temptations.

Anyways, I would definitely be curious about other people's opinions on this.

[–] thrak61 14 years ago

I really like this interpretation. You make some very compelling points. Eli does have that Mehistopholes aura, and I think that was deliberate.

[–] dra4 15 years ago

sharp criticism.

[–] practicepiano 14 years ago

Just watched this film again last night.

I agree with the basic explanation that a lot needs to be written off to the theme of the film and willing suspension of disbelief. In fact, I've noticed lots of stuff that wasn't mentioned here.

But I also found that a few of the problems cited don't really exist at all!

>>3) Cameron drags Nina up to the high balconey over her protests and tries to get her to jump. What does she see in this psycho?<<

It was clearly shown as a giggly, flirtatious thing, when he proposed it on the ground, and as they finished going up the stairs. He is holding her hand and pulling her, but not dragging her, and she is not resisting. There is no feeling at all that she is really being dragged up there unwillingly or thinks she is in any danger.

Once she looks down, she gets genuinely unnerved, but he's not really asking her to do the jump, or threatening her in any way.

>>5) Nina's character in the WWI movie is a young woman. By the time of Nazi Germany she's an old lady. That's more or less a 20-year span, so she would have just been middle-aged.<

The "shame" scene with the swastika and her getting the medal has her in makeup that does not make her look quite as old, and her hair is dark.

The full old-age makeup, and the gray wig, are used in the scene at the unmarked grave. We don't know the time, it is hard to see the styles of clothing on the people that gather to stare at her, and the guard is wearing a uniform. But her dress could be something worn by an elderly woman in the 1960s or 70s.

>>9) Why does the hero in a WWI movie have a bad 1970's haircut?<<

I actually like this, and I think it goes with the themes of the film.

I think it's a nod to the fact that this is often a problem in historical film -- especially in years past, they could be a mish-mash of accurate items and whatever a director, costumer or set dresser thought would look good.

And the last frontier seems to be hair -- films were made with period costumes and sets, but heaven forfend the leads had anything other than a current look framing their faces.

I think of it as happening more with women than men -- the 1940s bangs in front of an otherwise 19th century do, for example.

[–] Hancock_the_Superb 14 years ago

I think 5, 8 and 9 aren't necessarily a problem with the film so much as the film within the film. It's not like actual, real-life movies are bereft of plotholes as you deftly point out. Have you never seen a period film with modern haircuts? If not, I suggest you check out pretty much any historical epic/war film from the '50s and '60s.

"I don't want to blow your handsome head to pieces."

[–] pedemano 14 years ago

Great film, you're just too stupid to appreciate it.

[–] 14 years ago

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[–] ericcoleman 13 years ago

5 - If you look closer at that scene, it's a middle aged makeup, not the same as the old age makeup. Perfectly reasonable for the 20-25 years in between.

[–] 13 years ago

[deleted]

[–] Rick-34 12 years ago

I know this is many years later...

1) Burt was a little deranged?
2) At least Burt didn't show up to turn out to be The Real Killer. An awful plot twist from a certain Bruce Willis film from the 90s.
3) His hair? She liked nutty guys? It was the 70s.
4) So your problem isn't with the film, but rather that a female character had mixed feelings. I suspect that people don't necessarily think "What would my parents think of this?" when they do everything they do in life.
5) Let's say 25 years. People used to age faster. Esp. in Nazi Germany.
6) Eli wanted better shots.
7) Eli wanted a better shot. Namely, he disconnected the hose to get the stuntman to look like he was really panicking.
8) Whatever
9) I always wondered why all the soldiers in Saving Private Ryan had 90s haircuts. But even better - why does Spartacus have a 50s era flattop?