Florence seems to think it's the vagina - where all life comes from.
Richard thinks it's a computer - which links the world together.
I think it's the human heart which can be the most comforting and the most dangerous central point in the human experience.
Good question. We live in a world where on the surface computers have become the center of the world - it is what links us all together - and can make us rich, in Richard's case.
Richard has become so consumed with connecting the the world through his IPO that he has lost the ability to connect on the emotional and human level. His life allows him to live and get by without ever leaving his computer area.
Florence connects through her body (stripping). Like Richard, its what makes he money. Florence can't find love living this way, because like she tells Richard "its what she's paid to do" and that blocks her true feelings from surfacing.
The human heart IS the center of the world.
The anus?
*apologizes in advance for this joke*
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As I took it, its another way of saying self-centered and thats what they were to a sad degree in this film, hence the title.
shareIn today's internet and sex club world, we've moved further away from connecting with people on a personal level. It's a less intimate form of communication. In the future, we will communicate even more on less intimate and personal ways (texting, chat, facebook). We can even walk into a strip club and become intimate with a woman without even ever speaking to her. The world is changing and so is our hearts and minds. Human interaction, love and compassion on honest and true levels will be lessened as we move into this future. This film is an inevitable cautionary tale about that.
shareI appreciate everyone's POVs, however, I see it a bit more simply. I think the title is more about how the two main characters were mostly "in their own world" and for them that was "the center of the world", just for a short time. I also think that once they left Vegas the "center of their world" was gone and to me it made the ending make more sense since they could never go back to that "center", that for both of them, did have some redeeming qualities.
(And actually, had they both not have been so set in their ways, if the "center" could have continued for them it may have made both of them happy).
I think that control is the center of the world. Richard controls with his money (which he gets from computer stuff) and Stripper girl controls with her body. Richard wants to control all women (the weird "fell my d!ck inside you thing) and is devastated when he can't control stripper girl, so resorts back to the one thing he can control - computer to money thing. Stripper girl just keeps on stripping (I didn't really pay attention to her character all that much... I found Richard to be much more interesting).
Academy Awards = the Creme de la Creme of Bull Sh*t
To me the whole movie is about a lack of connection between two people. Both see 'the center of the world' as different things and both are actually disconnected from people and unable to have meaningful relationships. Both probably yearn for some deeper level of intimacy but are ill-suited to find it. It's a very lonely movie.
I don't see Richard's fantasy scene as a desire to exert control over Florence. I think that's a very female point of view that men seek to control everything. He's merely acting out the typical male fantasy in that sort of situation as a customer of a sex business: the fantasy is not merely to have sex with the woman but to have her genuinely enjoy it and not simply act like she's enjoying it. He wants to win her over and that's not any more territorial than for a woman to want to tame a man and keep him to herself.
This is what happens with the sex business. The customers that become obsessed and spend everything are the ones who think that the women actually enjoy their company. That's the ultimate fantasy for a client: to actually win over a woman's affections and desire in spite of her job and the women are often trained to encourage customers to feel that way.
Richard is the archetype of the ideal customer as one who has plenty of money, is probably a genuinely nice guy and wants a real, monogamous relationship, but doesn't have any clue as to how to actually develop a real relationship.
The center of the world is the business of sex: sex without communication; intimacy without love; friendship at arm's length. For her, it's sex through stripping. For him, it's sex on the internet. For the two of them, it's a way to connect on an intimate level with a minimum of emotional risk.
What they don't see is their denial of self-worth.
Both of them had moments when they exceeded their emotional boundaries. Both had moments when they were callously rejected. They complained that they were not really known by the other.
They wanted to know each other better, but they decided not to risk their emotions in a relationship that would require real understanding. They retreated to their shells and regrouped.
They got along well enough that they could talk to each other, and they knew that if they took the next step there would be possibilities. They might become friends.
If only they could have really known each other. But this could never happen, because they limited themselves.
If they had been other people (and they had met in another venue), they could have had a connection like the two in Before Sunrise (http://www.imdb.com/title/tt0112471/), who were only limited by time and place, and who chose communication without sex.
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The characters in Before Sunrise have sex.
shareThe characters in Before Sunrise have sex.
The brain. The brain tells the heart what to do. Tells the genitals what to do. The heart is merely a metaphor. The brain is what really counts. It counts for everything.
share