At that point, did she really fall in love with him and would she have settled down with him. The rose in wall seemed like a wound for Tod. And Tod, did he go crazy or die, or just moved on? And what about his leg? Do you think he lost it?
Thanks.
I think he moved away after the riot.
I don't know that Faye had changed at all.
Here is my interpretation as a film student (MAY CONTAIN SPOILERS):
"The rose in the wall, like Faye, represents the glamour of Hollywood. No matter how many scandals and what it goes through, Hollywood will always endure and come through in the end and be the same as it always was. Faye uses men the way Hollywood does - Todd as a confident, the cowboy as a business connection, the impotent Homer as a replacement for her father, the cockfighter as a quick lay. Faye will just move on to another man and Hollywood will just move on to another art director."
That's kind of a grim interpretation, but the book was a scathing indictment of Hollywood, so I think it's on track.
The rose, if u remember, was placed by todd at the start of the film. the significance for this is to cover up the ugliness with something glamorous, something beautiful (ie hollywood). however, when she visits his apartment at the end, she leaves it there. not sure what this means. i think it wouldve made more sense if she took it, because then it would expose the ugliness of hollywood, which is what we've just seen throughout the film. also, it would be a kind of romantic gesture, without todd knowing it, to show that she does have feelings for him after all, she just doesnt know it. i dont think she knew that todd placed the rose there. what do you guys think?
shareSince this didn't even happen in the book, it's all open to speculation, but perhaps the most important aspect of this scene is its appeal to a sense of romanticism, something that was -- to the filmmakers, or the studio -- evidently necessary at the time.
I prefer to read Todd's placing the flower in the wall crack as his way of accessorizing the defect, not to "hide" it per se, but to deliberately draw attention to it, as though he's fascinated by the world around him, corrupt and decadent as it is -- the nature of a true artist -- but feels he has something to contribute to it. A way of making his mark on the entertainment industry. As we see by the end of the film, he hasn't, his dreams are shattered (turned into hideous nightmares), and he has vacated his dwelling.
I believe, by the way, Todd convalesced with his associate for a while, but likely "went home" to wherever it was he came from, unable to hack it in Tinseltown, the way so many people come to and depart from Hollywood. Incidentally, I happen to live in this area and it really IS a snake pit of decadence and backstabbing, and the Boulevard of Broken Dreams continues to sparkle, attracting countless tourists and dreamers every day.
I think Faye's visit to Todd's dwelling at the end of the film is meant to prove some important points to the audience: 1) Faye wasn't killed in the mob; that she survived it, and was even able to walk away from it... 2) to show that Todd moved-on from where he was at during the film -- that his life in Hollywood, as it was, is over (what happens to Todd is somewhat left open to interpretation, but it's pretty clear that he's had a complete breakdown during the mob scene, so do the math -- in essence, he's dead in the water)...and 3) that Todd left the flower as his only remaining mark on Hollywood. This last gesture by the filmmakers is a romantic one, not necessarily towards Faye personally at all, imho. Todd leaving the flower is a way he is able to leave one, remaining mark on the world he tried to make a dent in and couldn't. Todd's dreams were shattered; he packed up his stuff and left, but left behind the flower as his one, remaining, perhaps most powerful mark on the cracked, disfigured world around him. It's as though he were leaving a flower on his own grave, in fact. The grave of his shattered dreams and his life in Hollywood.
Todd may (or may not) be literally "dead" -- but for all means and purposes by the end of the mob scene he might as well be -- but in a figurative sense, regarding his place in the Hollywood machine, he is a goner. The flower in the crack -- at first his simple flourish (artistic touch) on the seamy world around him, is at last his own melancholy tribute; a flower on his own professional and personal grave.
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The enigmatic little smile from Faye when she realizes he's moved seems to say "out of sight, out of mind." Faye wasn't very deep, and I don't think she would spend much time mourning the loss of Todd. Instead, she will move on to another chapter in her pathetic life.
shareIn the book at least, Todd survived the riot with a broken leg and was well enough to go to Claude Estee's house afterwards rather than straight to the hospital.
I think that the implication in both the movie and the book is that Todd left Hollywood in disgust and probably went on to pursue a career as a serious artist (perhaps using motifs inspired by the riot). He came to realize that Hollywood and the people it attracted (be it the rioters, Faye, or Hollywood executives) were a corrupt and destructive lot that he wanted to have no part of.
Also, in the book Todd describes Faye as like some cork bobbing in the ocean, pushed under but never crushed by anything life threw at her. This wasn't a testament to her strength, but to her vacuity. Her shallowness protected her from any true pain in life, whether she was working as a prostitute, lost her father, or took advantage of Homer and Todd. I doubt that Faye is capable of sincere feelings towards anyone or anything but her own vanity. She's the very epitome of the entertainment culture and its hangers-on that Nathan West was attacking in his book.
The book just ends with Tod wigging out in the mob.
Faye coming back to see Tod is a screenwriter's device, probably to lend a little more depth to Faye's character, and to convey a sense of Tod's moving on.
It also may have come at the request of KAREN BLACK.
In an interview with John Schlesinger and other stars of the movie in the magazine AFTER DARK, she explains that, in the scene where she yells at Homer and throws the ice cream in the sink after finding about Romula Martin (some dancer explained well in the book but not in the movie), she fought hard to have the scene end with Homer and her hugging each other crying. She felt her character needed to show more sensitivity, thereby inducing more empathy in the audience.
"Don't call me 'honey', mac."
"Don't call me 'mac'... HONEY!"
That's one weak point of the movie. They try too hard to make Faye seem sympathetic rather than the shallow, manipulative creature of West's novel. The reason this weakens the movie is that it attempts to show the sleaze and inhuman corruption under the Hollywood glamour, and then shoots itself in the foot by making the character most closely linked to the Hollywood glamour-set (if only as a wanna-be) more human.
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This tends to happen with every book to move adaptation. They teach actors these days to sympathize with their characters and find something relatable about them and put that on the screen. This softens everything.
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