Anyone care to speculate? Seriously, the way he is sent off, it does seem that he is going off to die. But that would be pretty absurd and unlikely. His departure parallels the break-up of the SFRP, though. It's a kind of death. I guess that's it. Any thoughts?
God, I love this film.
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Hehe, I think that is very unlikely. But it really doesn't matter for the rest of the movie. I thinkt he way he is sent off can best be understand with the knowledge that this is really a conservative movie. Nick, the guy who knows it all, I think can be seen to represent a tradition lost, or perhaps a tradition to which Tom and Charlie can look for advice. They now have to figure things out on themselves and sometimes ask the question: what would Nick have done?
shareNope. Several years later he manages a disco.
shareHa....no I'm sure he managed to marry some weathy young deb.
shareand before that he gets his eye shot out in Spain
shareI heard that a few years back he was teaching a hellaciously difficult class for gifted junior high students.
shareIn a deleted scene, on the train a crazy homeless Negro with a McGovern button pinned to his raggedy overcoat whips out a machete, yells "Power to the People!" and starts slashing at random Caucasians. Nick gets his throat slashed while protecting a woman from the attack. Whit Stillman is a Republican, and I think the scene was supposed to be symbolic.
shareYou're hilarious. I haven't watched the deleted scenes yet, so I don't know if you're kidding.
It doesn't really matter if Nick is really 'dead' or not in the physical sense. The important thing is that Tom learns from him. This is a story telling device. You have one "perfect" or veteran character (nick) and one "rookie" character (in this case it's Tom). In every movie of this kind, the veteran dies, or goes away...or what have you..and it's up to the rookie to fill his shoes...to become a man...to triumph over the same villains (Von Sloneker)
"Destroy what is Evil... So that what is Good can Flourish"
Then you're in for a treat, fps. One of the special features, the alternate ending, fully illustrates your point about Nick as mentor and Tom as student. When Nick and Charlie come to rescue the girl from Von Sloneker in the alternate ending, he mocks them both and tells the girl, "Look who your knights in shining armor are! These two wimps. Now, Nick might have given me problems. He was a right-wing gun nut who knew karate and believed in physical force. Too bad for you he's dead!"
And you hear Nick's disembodied voice say, "Use the gun, Tom. Use the gun!" You can't tell if everyone can hear it, or just Tom, but Tom says:
And Tom says, "Nick isn't really dead, Rick."
VS, puzzled, asks, "What do you mean?"
"That's not important now," Tom replies. "What's important is you're a disease. And I'm the cure."
And with that he pulls the gun and shoots Von Sloneker in the belly. VS falls to the floor and Tom stands over him.
Still puzzled, Vs clasps his belly wound and looks uncomprehendingly at Tom. "Wha--? Why--?"
Tom says, "As Fourier told Marx: 'Figure it out in Hell, ----sucker." And he shoots Von Sloneker right between the eyes.
The girl says, "Oh, Tom--you didn't have to kill him?!"
And Tom says, "I didn't do it for you, you Jane Austen-loving b-tch." And he looks out the window where you see the spirit of Nick, grinning and giving Tom the thumb's up sign. He and Charlie walk off hand-in-hand.
Apparently this ending didn't test well in sneak previews
lol...well now I KNOW you're kidding. Your first faux deleted scene was slightly more subtle. I have to hand it to you though...especially the "As Fourier told Marx: 'Figure it out in Hell, ----sucker" part...you quite literally had me LOLing.
It's interesting to note that in both scenes you referenced the Republican Party...do you feel that Metropolitan has a partisan swing to it? Certainly one could argue that it actually presents the upper class as human...which might be offensive to some socialists who think that the wealthy are soulless husks of human matter.
"Destroy what is Evil... So that what is Good can Flourish"
Stillman is interesting and unusual in that (at least according to what I've read about him on the Internet), he's a moderately conservative Republican. Or was, anyway. I think that may underlie the philosophy of his movies but not in any partisan, Oliver-Stone-of-the=Right kind of way that you'd have to agree with it to like the movie. Chris Eigemann seems to play Stillman's "mouthpiece" in the "trilogy," but not, I think, to an intrusive degree. It's interesting that at the end of BARCELONA there's a kind of reconciliation scene where everyone learns to get along. Liberals and conservatives seem to be able to enjoy his movies, although I agree that hard-line leftists would probably dislike his movies.
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I haven't seen the other movies!! But honestly, it is refreshing to see the minority "republican" viewpoint come from movies. I don't necessarily disagree but it is a welcome change especially in the indy scene.
"Destroy what is Evil... So that what is Good can Flourish"
I didn't find it Republican in the least. It's just the story of a wealthy lifestyle, which can be any party. Plus the hero Tom (who represents Stillman) is obviously a socialist.
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Plus the hero Tom (who represents Stillman) is obviously a socialist.
For most of the movie, the hero is indeed a socialist. Certainly the hero has the reverse of Republican values.
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Yes I agree, but my point is this: You can see the premise of any film/novel in how the characters GROW. Tom begins a socialist, but sees the error in socialism by the end of the film; just as he sees the error in his attitude toward Audrey, toward the debs, etc.
I'm not saying the entire movie is political or anything, but other people have pointed out that Stillman's values are definitely right of center because of Tom's character Arc.
I was drunk when I made the last post...that's why it appears twice.
"Destroy what is Evil... So that what is Good can Flourish"
That may well be, but that is not the subject of this bit of the thread nor the point of my post.
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Bilwick1 Called Stillman a conservative republican if I'm not mistaken. Sorry If I misunderstood you. It sounded like you were inferring that Stillman was a socialist. I was merely refuting the notion that Stillman is anything like a socialist.
"Destroy what is Evil... So that what is Good can Flourish"
Actually, Whitman has always said that he was Tom in the film -- that the film represents him at that age and in those circumstances. I have looked seen no interview that says Whitman is a Republican, much less a "moderately conservative" one (which is what Bilwick claimed), or a "conservative" one, which is what you said just now.
There is no "Republican agenda" in the film. It's a comedy of manners, poking as much fun at the clueless drunken debutants as anything.
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I'm not a socialist, but most times, when the wealthy do deign to donate money or help a charitable or humanitarian cause, it's out of guilt rather than a genuine feeling of wanting to do something good. That or there's kick-back or back-end where they gain something from it aside from the warm fuzzy feeling of being a decent person. This isn't a broad attack on the wealthy or upper-class, it's a general observation of those in the spotlight.
The short one's gawking at me and the tall one's being very droll.
Bilwick1, that was the funniest...post...ever!
Om Mani Padme Hum
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This would make a nice opening seen to the sequel-Metropolitan at 50. Then, Nick wakes up from the nightmare and realizes that he is safe in bed next to his wife Jane.
shareNick is to a certain extent a caracature - the very sophisticated, East Coast upper class type who knows or has an opinion on everything, is very engaged, and is a total drama queen. He is constantly portraying himself as highly involved in very important events, so he has to overdramatize them and make them out to be more serious or significant than they are. Hence, a bit of exaggeration (to say the least) can be seen in all he talks about. There are not conspiracies around every corner. So his departure, when he warns them they he may be killed (what was it, by his step-mother) can be seen as just a continuation of his imaginary, high drama world. I didn't such danger seriously in the least.
share"it's out of guilt"
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Fitzgerald said "the rich are different." Guilt isn't any more common in them as it would be in the working class.
The characters were anxious about a number of things but guilty? I don't think so.
I didn't have time to read all the more recent posts on this subject, so someone may have already noted this; but in Whit Stillman's novel THE LAST DAYS OF DISCO, based on his own screenplay (and which I highly recommend to Stillman fans), Nick makes a cameo appearance with fellow METROPOLITAN alumna Audrey Rouget at the disco where most of the story takes place. "Disco" is set in the early Eighties, so Nick survived.
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Why are you posting this twice?
My reply is above.
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yes.
stepmom kills him as he predicted.