MovieChat Forums > The Delicate Art of the Rifle (1996) Discussion > my interpretation of Jay

my interpretation of Jay

posted 15 years ago by rick-1341
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Here's my interpretation of the Jay character (and the movie).

Many of Jay's thought processes are typical of Asperger Syndrome, a mild form of autism that causes difficulty in understanding social situations but does not affect overall intelligence.

Jay being unable to tell whether girls are just being polite or flirting with him... his pausing to contemplate the literal meaning of idioms that others take for granted... the fact that his classmates often try to trick him into believing absurdities... his assumption that when Walt calls down from the rooftop, Walt must be trying to help people... these are all Aspie thought processes, and the lack of visible emotion -- the "flat affect"" as shrinks call it -- is typical of some subtypes of AS.

I have an Aspie friend whose personality is identical to Jay's, except that Jay didn't talk about anime for an hour. Like Jay, my friend has resigned himself to doing a boring job on the fringes of show business because he doesn't have the boldness or social skills to claw his way up the ladder.

I think Jay is just an ordinary Aspie who got a chance to witness some extraordinary events. Such a calm personality would be necessary for the narrator of this movie, because any other personality type would be freaking out or trying to interfere with Walt's rampage.

The virus that erases people from history represents the sadness that underlies college life; the knowledge that the friends you're having fun with now will eventually go their seaparate ways and disappear from your personal universe forever.

I need to watch this movie again, though. There is a lot of symbolism and I don't think we will ever know how much of it was deeply planned and how much was just thrown in for the adolescent joy of making the movie as weird as possible.

I wonder what the Jay character is up to now. Maybe he will have another adventure someday.

[–] activista 15 years ago

@rick-1431

Just caught this film on IFC last week--I'd never heard of it and naturally came here to look up some info about it.

Your interpretation of the film actually makes sense given the fact that the Jay character dosen't react to the situation the way a normal person would---in fact, the impression I got was that he just acted way too laid back and passive, given the extreme situation he was dealing with. I mean,if somebody's shooting other people in front of you, it seems to me that you'd trying your damndest to get the hell away from that person--but even though he seemed to have a good grasp on the situation at first, he just seemed to drift in and out of reality after a while. Another thing, who the hell in their right mind would go up to the rooftop and try to talk a shooter out of shooting, except a law enforcement officer? There was no guarantee this guy he called his friend wouldn't shoot him. Interesting film though---the last 10 minutes when he walked through the dark stage could have been cut down--I felt it too long and really didn't much else to the film. Also, you get the impression from Jay's narration that he hadn't really learned anything from what happened---he talks as if it really didn't affect him one way or another,which I found strange. So, your interpretation sounds very much on-point.

[–] rick-1341 15 years ago

Thanks for your comments kgreene. I saw the movie a second time on December 24th.

I noticed that Jay was extra spacey during the final 10 minutes, and he repeated himself a couple of times, which he had never done earlier in the movie.

* SPOILERS *

Early in the movie, when Jay was coming down the ladder and bumped into Samantha, she mentioned that Walt had been "so spacey" for the past couple of weeks.

And when Jay entered the lobby of Foucault Tower, he said in his voice-over: "I'm trying to run two Walt simulations in my head. One is to get some advice on what to say to Sally, and the other is to try to figure out why Walt's up on the roof. It's probably that there are some hurt people there, or people in danger there, and he's trying to help them because he's this Eagle Scout and everything, but, he's been so spacey lately, that I'm worried he's gonna ignore his own safety or something..."

So, maybe being spaced-out is a symptom of this highly contagious virus that erases people from history, and maybe Jay caught it, which would explain why he sounded extra spacey at the end and seemed to be getting disconnected from the world.

PS I laughed when Jay talked about running simulations of people in his head. I do the same thing sometimes. (We all do, when we dream.)