MovieChat Forums > Opening Night (1978) Discussion > Dead Girl: Ghost or Imagnation?

Dead Girl: Ghost or Imagnation?

posted 16 years ago by kino66
6 replies | jump to latest

I've seen this movie twice. First time, thought the dead girl was in Gena's imagination due to stress, mid life crisis, angst & booze. On 2nd viewing, the stress, mid life crisis, angst & booze issues are present, but now I think Gena seeing the dead girl was like MacB (Scottish Play) being haunted by the ghost. So, it was not merely her imagination, but she was haunted by a ghost and it was the ghost of the dead girl, who also represented the ghost of Gena's youth. What do you think?

[–] thereddishcolor 15 years ago

I always thought she was witnessing her "First" woman passing right before her eyes, and as she has these conversations throughout with the playwright about age, she is being confronted with the titular "Second" woman who she has to be in order to perform the part.

The struggle for the character seems to be between wanting to remember what it was like to be young and enjoying that (she goes on about how free she felt and uninhibited when she was 17) and needing to understand the challenges of living as an older woman because only then could she perform her role adequatley.

But they never give you a clear straight definition of what had been happening at any time which I find incredibly delightful and helps all the more make this a fascinating movie more along the lines in my mind of a thriller than straight drama.

[–] Felonious-Punk 15 years ago

To nashby5,

I agree with your second viewing.

Nicely put,
except I want to add that the appearances of the ghost shows us that just like in the people around her, there is a part of Myrtle's own mind that believes youth is more valuable than seniority, that thinks she has passed her prime as a woman. So when Myrtle kills the ghost, she in effect gets clear on what it means to be a "woman". She doesn't see herself as an old woman, or past her prime, the "second woman". She doesn't think all her good days are behind her and that now the best she can hope for is to remember those times. She has fought and won the battle to not be second to younger women, and to not be second to men. She becomes a liberated woman, a woman in the present, the one and only woman.

[–] SampanMassacre 13 years ago

i wish that hot blonde would haunt me.

[–] 13 years ago

[deleted]

[–] chuck-526 8 years ago

Myrtle's imagination on Monday/Wednesday/Friday, a haunting ghost on Tuesday/Thursday/Saturday (and both on Sunday). 😁

[–] Bree_33 8 years ago

Her Muse: “the first woman in my own life.”

☁☀☁

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