After Julie gets dumped she is crying then looks forward and swears acting like she'd forgotten something, or something. What was that all about?
"baby you can drive my car, and baby I love you, *beep* *beep* *beep* *beep* *beep* yeah!"
Because the gig is up. Her "fantasy" has ended (running off with a biker "gang", not having to listen to parents, etc.). She's home, and Mom and Dad are up and waiting for her to get back in the house...
shareIt's because her dad is a violent jerk. Just before she left home her mother had a black eye. When he was drunk in the opening scenes he says "i'm gonna kick that kid's face...called me a fat, slob, jerk"
The dude was a psychopath, evil wifebeater and probably would've kicked the crap out of Julie for leaving the way she did.
Watching it last night, I noticed she curses when the light comes on inside the house behind her. I figured it meant her parents knew she was out there and were coming to get her.
shareThat scene always gets to me. Everything involving Julie's family is just so sad. I guess if Alan represents Lancelot, then Julie represents Elaine and is doomed to be cast off (or die, depending on the version). But, damn, returning her to that environment was about the least knightly thing Alan ever did. I would have liked to see her hook up with somebody else in the troupe.
"The truth 24 times a second."
I disagree in part. Alan has come to realize by this point that you can't run away from your problems. You must confront them. Julie was running away to 'join the circus' and looking for the boys in the pictures on her walls without confronting her own problems. Before she leaves, she talks with her mother but doesn't confront her father.
The movie is all about confronting your own inner demons or inner self. Morgan has to look at what he really wants to be as King and has to confront a world of his own creation with his rules. Billy is trying to 'fight the dragon' and keep the ideals of his society while under pressure to cave into the everyday norm and he has to look inside himself to see if he can maintain the battle. Even Alan has to confront his inner conflict about trying to protect everyone and be the 'guardian'. What Alan does isn't nice, but he needs to let Julie fight her own battles just like he had to let Billy fight 'Black Bird'. He can't protect everyone.
Upon reading what I have written I have realized that I have watched this movie way too many times.:)
Interesting perspective; I hadn't thought of it that way. I had thought of Julie's family life as something irredeemably wrecked, that she had to walk away from. But you make the point that Julie can't grow up by running away, but needs to confront her problems.
I think my feeling about it is influenced by knowing that Iva Jean Saraceni, who plays Julie's mother, in real life lost her daughter when a bomb blew up a Pan Am jetliner over Lockerbie, Scotland in 1988.
I've also seen this movie a number of times, and seem to get something different from it each time.
"The truth 24 times a second."
That was a pretty inconsistent scene if you think about it. If it were for real there is no way Alan would take her back to an abusive father. I don't think the whole facing your fears thing really holds up here considering most of the people in the troupe probably ran away from home like most people who travel with circuses and renaisannce festivals do.
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After seeing a few more answers, I am inclined to add another:
Alan's own "inner struggle" is that he loves Linet. What is Julie? A younger, more "permissive" and more "malleable" Linet. A little taller, a little less busty, hair a little bit darker shad of red, but a younger version of Linet nonetheless. And we see the "rivalry" between the two--although Julie is wholly unaware--near the beginning when Alan takes Julie with him when he has to find Billy.
Is that bad? Not for some quick nookie and mindless sex. But for Alan (who we know is "educated" and "deeper" than just being a "biker knight"), it isn't enough.
Thus, he "must" go back for Linet, not "settle" for a substitute in the form (the very shapely form, admittedly!) of Julie.
Interesting discussion. Seems like every time I watch that movie, I get something different from it.
"The truth 24 times a second."
Alan's own "inner struggle" is that he loves Linet.I agree, but this is one of my few/only serious complaints about the film. This plot point, crucial to the emotional dynamics of the overall story, replicates Lancelot's affair with Guinevere -- but it's terribly underdeveloped, hardly even hinted at onscreen. Given the amount of time his film devotes to dusty bike combat and comical reaction shots, you'd think Romero could have spared a few minutes to flesh this out a bit. Would have given Amy Ingersoll's Linet a real narrative function and made the ending a bit more resonant, too.
I agree with your assessment, but one thing I dislike about the way this was handled in the film is that Linet runs to Alan before Billy has even left--as though to say to him "I only stayed with you because of loyalty--I really love him!"
I would have preferred that she say goodbye to Billy, wait for him to leave, THEN go to Alan.
conedust, I'm not sure how "crucial" it "has" to be. We basically "see" it when Linet look at at Julie riding with Alan within the first five minutes of the movie. At THAT point, Linet is the ONLY one who "knows" it. Alan is lost, Julie is clueless and Billy is absorbed in The Code.
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