I don't think she was a holocaust survivor. Vera: "Baruch ha shem we got out before it." Lucy:"Yeah. With your money...". There is one distinction between emigration and holocaust-survival. The latter saved their lives, but never could save their money. However Lucy's mother appeared much more german to me than Greta did (vocabulary and pronounciation). Germans wouldn't say fanity instead of vanity (ouuups, my mother did say fox instead of vox), because the english v sounds exactly like the german w, so no problems with correct pronounciation. But few germans would use unfamiliar words like sycophant so easily...
The role of Vera/Lucy-Interaction for the plot?
I'd say Lucy's mother gives a clue for Lucy's suicide at the end of the film:
"You are passive. You always were. Gifted and passive!"
Meanwhile I got to see the Region 1 version, which provides the directors comment on the film. Lisa Cholodenko says, it probably was an unintended suicide. "Unintended" refers to "unconscious", which is though quite full of meaning, if you believe in Freud.
I only now noticed that in the second scene with her mother, Lucy tries to take her hand, when she starts to tell her about her problems. It is heartbreaking, how a few moments later, when the camera already has moved up to the faces, she has her right hand free again to take the cigarette, which she changed to the left hand before, because Vera probably pulled back hers. When she spends the ritual morning-meetings with her Ma, Lucy always looks more sophisticated than in her own environment, wearing necklaces etc. She seems to be yearning so much to be entirely accepted/understood by her mother, who is - maybe due to her life-experience in Nazi-times - distanced and unable to be tender. Not surprisingly she turns into an ice-block, when she learns about the love- and drug-issues/problems and utters her "I can't help you with that" like pressing the words through a tight outlet. When she walks away, Lucy is sighing sadly.
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Jonathan_Shields
16 years ago
the cause of Lucy's death was ambiguous and iirc, Cholodenko implies that on the dvd commentary track.
whats significant is Lucy's relationship w/ the 3 women.
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Ruthbasilisk-1
16 years ago
Sure, ambiguity leaves room for interpretation, every piece of art does. I just felt that the trait of passivity Lucy's mother saw in her daughter was not helpful in Lucy's solving the triangulation of the 3 women...
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Jonathan_Shields
16 years ago
i wasnt criticizing your post. in fact, you seem exceptionally smart/perceptive. my point is Lucy couldve intentionally/accidentally overdosed.
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16 years ago
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Ruthbasilisk-1
16 years ago
I saw an interview with Ally Sheedy/Charlie Rose. Sheedy said, the director and her had different opinions on the overdose-thing. Sheedy's point was that there was a decision between the first line and the second line she sniffed - exactly like you expressed it: "so what?"
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16 years ago
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Ruthbasilisk-1
16 years ago
The director said it was an "unintended suicide". But even in a director's brain Freud does his wicked work with unconscious intentions. In the interview and especially reading Sheedy's own poems you see, how much she was like Lucy once. Maybe she has an elaborated approach to her way of thinking and feeling. Anyway it is not so important. I am glad I can rewind and let her rise from the dead from time to time.
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ocarol7
14 years ago
Hello:
I just saw High Art for the second time yesterday and think that her dying was not a suicide..... Since she had been clean for a week - she indicates to Greta that she had been away that long in their last conversation before sharing the drugs - doing the number of lines she was previously used to would have been an overdose for her now.
Of course, it's possible that she was opting out of tackling the life changes ahead of her, but i don't think so- At least I'd rather not see it that way.
We see the world, not as it is, but as we are.....
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ocarol7
14 years ago
Hello:
I just saw High Art for the second time yesterday and think that her dying was not a suicide..... Since she had been clean for a week - she indicates to Greta that she had been away that long in their last conversation before sharing the drugs - doing the number of lines she was previously used to would have been an overdose for her now.
Of course, it's possible that she was opting out of tackling the life changes ahead of her, but i don't think so- At least I'd rather not see it that way.
We see the world, not as it is, but as we are.....
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