The movie seemed to have completely forgotten about Bobby's dad after Bobby killed his wife and mother.
The red-letter note that Bobby typed just before he started the killing also didn't say he would kill his father, only his wife and mother.
Are these apparent oversights intentional?
P.S. A grown married man who still lives with his parents is likely to go crazy anyhow.
Some print discussion of the film that I read many years ago, probably in one of Danny Peary's three Cult Movies books, it was said that Bobby probably waited until his father was elsewhere deliberately (it also touched on your last point). I forget what was suggested as the motive behind this decision, but come to think of it, the fact that his father doesn't show up again is strange in any event. Perhaps this is corroboration for my theory laid out in the thread "The film's origins" also on this board. I feel that it was the footage of "Bobby" and his family that Peter Bogdanovich was handed and told to build a picture around (rather than the few clips of Karloff from The Terror as often claimed), and Tim O'Kelly was luckily still available to play his role in Peter B.'s new climax, but James Brown was not.
The GREEN HORNET Strikes Again!
Indeed.
I think this is the tension behind the second ammo purchase. Bobby asks to charge the bullets to his father's account and the store clerk says he'll have to call it in. Bobby's look of fear is due to whether they'll reach his father who may have discovered the massacre by that point.
He doesn't kill his father, because he can't kill his father. Not to say he didn't want to, but he's a too overbearing a figure for him to actually build the courage to do so. Not-uncommon nuclear family psychology.
sharebstephens21 wrote:
"He doesn't kill his father, because he can't kill his father."
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I agree. It should be remembered that Bobby was within a half inch of gunning down his father while they were out shooting, but didn't have the guts to pull the trigger. One could argue that this was the first moment in which Bobby seriously considered murdering his family, and that not shooting his father just reflected his initial uncertainty about crossing this line. However, I think Bogdanovich was indicating that Bobby didn't have the will to gun down his own father. Was it a lack of courage or some other biological instinct? Who knows.
Peter Bogdonovich...or whatever his name is was a goof....this movie was a copycat/takeoff on the Austin Tower shootings....real life, in 66'...the shooter killed his wife and mother.......typed on a typewriter....all the details of the real life tragedy......this director later was a big reason the Playboy bunny got murdered back in 80'.....he even took up with the Playmates teenage sister after the murder......amazing...these Hollywood directors
shareAside from the fact that Bogdonovich himself states that the character was based on the real Tower shooter..... so what?
What's wrong with basing a fictional character on a real person?
www.brucekahn.net
Be there or be.... not there.
[b]
He doesn't kill his father, because he can't kill his father. Not to say he didn't want to, but he's a too overbearing a figure for him to actually build the courage to do so. Not-uncommon nuclear family psychology
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...spoilers below...
That explains why he coward in the corner when the old man with the cane confronted him.
How does getting smacked in the face make one a coward, especially after he gunned down about 14 people? Mental illness and being a coward are two very different things.
"Listen, do you smell something? -Ray Stantz"
The previous poster meant to say "cowered", not "coward". Probably good ol' spellcheck again.
As for Bobby's father, it's another detail inspired by the Whitman incident - in that case, Whitman accused his father of being abusive toward his family, especially his mother. His notes referred to not wanting his mother to suffer any more; underneath that was the intent of getting back at his father by publicly calling him abusive and assuming his father would be held up for shame, plus guilt by association. The father in the movie doesn't seem abusive, but he does have a temper - we aren't explicitly told anything more about him but it seems possible (especially to Bobby).