MovieChat Forums > The Final Cut (2004) Discussion > Alan never saw the molestation!

Alan never saw the molestation!


SPOILER ALERT!! Please correct me, but I don't recall Alan actually viewing the molestation. He deleted the moments right after the father locked to door to his study. He spliced that scene with the scene of the father tucking the girl into her bed, to make it seem like the doting dad.
So if Alan never viewed the molestation, and deleted it, then it can't be in his memory chip. Fletcher should not be able to find it since Alan never watched it. Agree or disagree?

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...but how much more of his memory did Alan watch? Molestation usually isn't a one-time thing. So it could be Alan skipped it, knowing already what it was and not wanting to see it again.

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I haven't seen this movie in a while, but my recallection tells me Alan does infact watch the molestation, however the camera angle switches from his screen to Alan's face. So we only see his reaction to the scene.
or am i thinking of something else?

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Thats what happens. WE, the audience don't see it; but, we do watch him see it. It's implied that he at least starts to watch it before he destroys it.

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AND - arguably - as a seasoned cutter - been there, done that. Delete.

Bruce Campbell:[When asked what he would want with him if stuck on a deserted island] A continent.

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I agree with Grephyn.
Alan did watch at least part of it. The camera shows his face (not the actual molestation).

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You are correct, he never saw the molestation.

I actually brought this up in a thread here "Cinematic Aspects of the Film," in which I mention this fact and how it could have been used to make the end of the film that much better.

With Alan not having seen the molestation, his death would have been worthless because it wasn't in his chip. So when Fletcher says that he will make Alan's life "count," it would have been said in remorse for realizing he just committed a fruitless murder.

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Just because the audience does not see Alan witness the molestation while editing the footage does not mean he did not see it. Yes, we know his job was to edit the 800,000+ hours of Bannister's data that is categorized by the Guillotine as it is downloaded from the implant. We see him edit something out. But remember these points:

1) It is clear that Thelma took "one look at the footage" before passing it off to Alan and it is clear that she saw enough to know it was creepy enough for Alan, most likely by looking into the "dirty" categories. So even though we don't see her look at the footage at all, we know she saw something. Just what she saw is open to as much interpretation as what Alan saw.

2) We do know that Alan's history is to view the darker subject matter, i.e., Monroe's domestic violence footage and all the macabre dirt he had on Ollie.
Stephanie sued to get the footage to protect her reputation because she knew what was going on with Isabel and it was not positive child-rearing. So there is no reason he would not look at it.

3) Listen to the Director's commentary on the DVD, especially over the scene of the private consult between Alan and Isabel. Naim reinforces the concept that Alan has beared witness to Isabel's plight, that he knows her secret and he reassures her it will be okay to remember her daddy in any way she wants to. Watch her reaction as she learns her father's implant is destroyed and as she watches Alan, the only other witness to the indiscretion, leave.

4) Yes, the film is from Alan's POV but that does not mean we are shown everything that Alan experiences (ex. the red paint). You can not definitively say that he never saw the molestation because it was absent from the mise-en-scene. Using your logic, no serial killer in a tasteful horror movie is truly a murderous monster because we do not see the knife plunging into screaming off-screen coeds.

5) Alan would not have run from Fletcher at the end of the movie when Fletcher says, "You have seen his life. It is encrypted on your implant." unless Alan saw something substantial. They could have always gone back to Hasan for another five minutes of live download and showed Fletcher what he saw while viewing Bannister's memories.

The movie ends on an open highly-subjective note, but the better ending would have been if there was no molestation whatsoever and it was revealed as a major red herring as Fletcher views Alan's footage of him editing Bannister's data. That Alan cut it because it was nothing. That Isabel was just a shy, weird little girl. That Jennifer was just a greedy, shrewish widow. That Bannister's implant was defective and the molestation was only his disturbed fantasy and never really happened. That Fletcher was completely misinformed and that it was a senseless killing from the beginning. But then that would have been a David Mamet film.

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i think he saw the molestation but the director did not want to explicitly show that robin saw it. the grey area allows some descretion.

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I agree. What's wrong with subtleness? Since the cutter watches most of the footage, he would see it. But I think too much of a daughter getting molested by the dad and the film would creep me out more than be an interesting story.

But that's the sign of a good director. Knowing what NOT to show.

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Agree. Alan never watches it and he deletes when something fishy starts to happen. That's exactly what Fletcher saw in the end. We can assume that Fletcher will never get that hard evidence he was looking for from Alan's memory.
However, The little girl has a zoe chip in her head. That's why she reacts in a sad way after she hears "Somethings are best forgotten". We are left with a sense of impending doom in the end.


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I agree mostly with your final summary; I did get the sense Alan/Robin saw ENUF of a molestation to hit the delete button. We cant really infer HOW MUCH he watched as time isnt necessarily linear/paced like we experience it. But Mr. HAcKMAN (obvious name - Like Cast Away/Tom Hanks as C. Noland - See No Land) - also being a sin cutter, because of his own mis-remembered past - is the go to guy to "clean up" a "Remember Ceremony - Reception After" .

They play this very late on Sundance - so i dont get a consistent read. The first time I saw this (3-4 chunks now) - it took me over half an hour to get used to Robin in a movie that IS NOT going to be a bunch of laughs.

"They" were looking for biz malfeasance - and ended up with a child's trauma.

Bruce Campbell:[When asked what he would want with him if stuck on a deserted island] A continent.

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