How can you all feel sorry for Robert? - The Dying Gaul Discussion

[–] sha84h 18 years ago

I most definitely agree. I don't think she did anything another scorned wife would have done had she found out she was fooling with another man. I think that was really silly very SELFISH, and inoonsiderate on his part.

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[–] sgammans 18 years ago

I think you both totally missed the point of the movie. Oh well. I enjoyed it.

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[–] dizzymissus_26 18 years ago

By what do you mean missed the point? The point is that he was a twat, who liked to go about humping men that were taken in the first place, then when someone decided to screw with his head FOR A CHANGE, he acted like a little pansy and couldn't hack it.

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[–] dathaler 17 years ago

hold it HOLD IT HOOOOOOOOOOLD IT!!!!!

ROBERT'S the selfish one? Who listened in on private conversations? Who used Robert's own words to gaslight him into thinking his lover was speaking from beyond the grave? Who decided to not only take the cowardly way out by committing suicide, but also decide that the kids AND the nanny/maid had to die too to make a point?

Should Robert have become involved with Jeff? In a perfect world, absolutely not. Doesn't make what Elaine did any more excusable.

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[–] 17 years ago

[deleted]

[–] henryf1 17 years ago

Robert didn't know that the wife would be driving. I don't think him poisoning her was aimed at the kids, too.

Plus, as for Robert's getting involved with the husband, and the brother of his wife, it's clear throughout the film that Robert is disturbed. He saw a shrink, and you could see in his face when Elaine tells him 'ArckAngel is dead,' he's loosing it.

Robert was never balanced, and he was looking for security, of any kind.

Does that excuse Robert's actions? No. But it does show that he's probably not the most rational guy in the world to begin with. Beyond that, he's also human. Many good people have terrible habits. Many good people have cheated on their loved ones, and some people never learn. Does that make them bad people? No. It makes them good people with terrible flaws.

As for the ending, and the children: What I found chilling about it was Robert's reaction when his boss got the call. He just calmly closed the door and sat down.

Now we know he's tilted.

Plus, now he's got his boss right about where he is: Everything in his world that matters to him has been taken away. Now he can connect. Whether or not that's important now, who knows? But now he'll know just how important the script Robert was to him -- It was his legacy to his lover. To change that must be heart-breaking.

Again, I don't condone any of these actions. But still, I don't think it's as simple as Robert's an A$$hole. You know? I think that's what makes the ending so creepy.

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[–] dathaler 17 years ago

ROBERT'S tilted?

HELLOOOOOO...remember the two-faced, privacy-invading, Internet-lying, suicide- AND homicide-committing wife?

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[–] silversusi 17 years ago

the ending suggests that he could have poisoned her, it was then hardly a suicide.

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[–] Ithilfaen 9 years ago

Who decided to not only take the cowardly way out by committing suicide, but also decide that the kids AND the nanny/maid had to die too to make a point?

I think you missed key scenes because she didn't kill herself. Why the hell would she do that driving and with the kids and the damn nanny??
Robert poisoned her and that's what kinda puts him over the top of the pile in terms of being abject.

For every lie I unlearn I learn something new - Ani Difranco

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[–] mjw79 17 years ago

I have to agree with sgammans. To me, anyway, the point seemed to be that hardly any of us have the luxury of escaping through life with completely clean hands. We are all hurt; we all hurt others; one does not pardon or even necessarily explain the other. Life is ambiguous, and those we would most like to love often do the things that are most hurtful to us, just as we in turn seem incapable at times of refraining from doing hurtful things to those who offer us love. We could call it the problem of emotional solipsism. That is why I found the film moving, personally.

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[–] Malchik81 17 years ago

I smell a homophobe!

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[–] dizzymissus_26 16 years ago

'I smell a homophobe'. Pathetic response! I'm not a homophobe, I would have the exact same response if this was a hetrosexual relationship. It's a morality issue.

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[–] Malchik81 16 years ago

Ok, I apologize.

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[–] gm52 17 years ago

Didn't anybody notice how aggressively Jeffrey came on to Robert? Almost immediately he started making graphic sexual overtures? How is Robert the bad guy here? He wasn't married. He wasn't hitting on someone with his own wife in the room! He wasn't abusing his clout (boss of high-price project!) by hitting on the poor, grieving writer.
As far as murder/suicide, who eats a salad while driving? It's not one-handed food. You can't even open those plasic containers with one hand. I don't think she ever ate it. I think she was so distraught that she got into an accident. Fluke.

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[–] bc_ashley 16 years ago

"Didn't anybody notice how aggressively Jeffrey came on to Robert?"

Exactly!

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[–] Doctor-T- 16 years ago

This movie made me sick and this board is making me even sicker, in that it is nauseating that anyone would have any sympathy for the insidiously evil sociopathic character of Robert. Before you call me homophobic, I think this movie was homophobic - and anti-buddhist on top of that! In a perfect world it would be cool to see a movie about an evil gay guy or evil buddhist, but with the few films that get made about gays or buddhists, to see an evil-gay-Buddhist film get made with this kind of technical skill is truly disgusting.

I have to think the filmmaker was trying to make some morality IQ test and boy a lot of people here get a low score. This is clear from the 2 films referenced. First Robert complains about how gays were represented in Silence of the Lambs, when he himself is the worst of gay stereotypes, an immoral sexually needy game-player who is an expert at rationalizing his selfish actions as he calmly destroys other people's lives. Also referenced is Crimes and Misdemeanors, which also has a selfish murderer who feels absolutely no remorse, but unlike that excellent film where it was clearly meant to be a moral horror story, here you have people buying into the murderer's self-pitying BS. Blech.

I am gay and I have had this experience several times: someone is cheating [or wants to cheat with me] on their wife, and when I tell them I don't like cheaters, they say "what? but you're gay!" As if being gay is the moral equivalent of lying to someone you say you love. The movie accepts this stupid anti-gay cliche completely and manipulates the viewer to accept it too.

The stereotypes insidiously put forth in this film are really sickening - the people above seem to think since Jeffrey came on to Robert, then Robert had no choice in deciding to screw over Jeffrey's wife who he pretended was a friend. Well of course because everyone knows gay men are so sex obsessed they can't turn down any offer of sex right? Uhg. It's ridiculous, Robert lived in weho, a gay man can get laid there anytime, he doesn't need to screw over someone's wife to do it.

I guess since so many Hollywood "romances" involve infidelity. I shouldn't be surprised how so many people here dismiss the cheating as no big deal, and have no sympathy for the wife. Ah well I'm sure karma will take care of that someday, I'd like to hear who they have sympathy with after they've been cheated on and crapped on by someone they love. Yes, she was charmed by Robert's dishonesty and had a crush on him, and went to the chatroom as an adventurous lark, but it's amazing how so few here seems to see how devastating it would be to not only find out your husband is cheating on you, but to have the other guy be someone who is pretending to be your friend. She then sees what a sociopath Robert is and does the world a favor trying to force him into some responsibility for his actions. She doesn't murder ANYone, that is another of Robert's pathetic rationalizations. It is Robert that murders her and her children, and writes it all off as he enjoys the money from selling out his dead lover and rationalizes it all with his sick selfish Hollywood-style perversion of Buddhism. It would have been a great ending if it was clear to show that anyone can be evil, despite political correctness over being gay or claims of enlightenment. Instead the director has made a piece of pro-sociopath propaganda. Way to go genius! You're soooooo soooo clever.

I could go on, but I going to try to be enlightened enough not to waste any more of my time being disgusted by this very well made but ultimately very ugly film. I'm glad hardly anyone saw it - gotta think positive!

*
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[–] wmacer1980 16 years ago

It really is an ugly film. And each of the three main characters is ugly in his and her own way. They each play betrayed so well, it's hard to forget the parts each play in screwing each other over.

At least it doesn't play heterosexuals as having better ethics/morals than homosexuals.

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[–] TheLurkingFox 13 years ago

The point is none of the three characters is innocent. They're all atrociously selfish.

The one that kinds of get a pass however is Robert because he's still grieving and what has happened has turned him inside out.

Those who DON'T get a pass however are the slimy couple, with the cheating husband who uses his influence to get on with the script writer who's recently lost the love of his life, that HE employs (then offers to fire him when he gets found out!!) and the manipulating wife, who doesn't care that her husband cheats on her, and instead uses it to her advantage but then throws Robert under the bus when she gets in a bit too deep and gets scared (because she fears her husband wants to kill her).

They're ALL ugly people. They all betray each other's trust, and are all willing to kill the other (figuratively or not) thrive themselves.

*****
With the newspaper strike on, I wouldn't consider dying! /Bette Davis/

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[–] crissttigaldames 11 years ago

Uhm, none of the characters are perfect, but Robert isn't any worse than the others. Cheating or getting involved with a married person doesn't make you evil. What was rather evil was what she did I thought, and then what he did in retaliation by trying to kill her, whether he ended up doing it or not.

"The Love you take is equal to the Love you make" The Beatles.

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[–] dave10011 16 years ago

I think you have missed the point. We have three main characters and none of their actions are excusable. Yes, the affair was wrong. But the wife had no business messing with someone like that. Pretending to be the guy's dead lover knowing he believes in reincarnation? One person's wrong doesn't justify another's. I think about this movie a lot over a year since I saw it. Our actions have consequences no matter how much we rationalize our behavior. Nothing works out the way they intended. Wrongs almost never do. But some people pay a higher price than others and there is no logic in that.

Excellent film. Great script. First rate cast.

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[–] 16 years ago

[deleted]

[–] plazbo 10 years ago

Amusingly you place the blame of the affair on the other party rather than the person actually INVOLVED IN THE COMMITMENT. Add in to that that he felt his career/job/million dollars was on the line if he didn't go along with Jeffery's advances....seems a little misplaced.

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[–] crissttigaldames 9 years ago

Hmmm... so now sleeping with a married man makes you evil?. What he did was wrong (what the husband did was worse mind you), but what Elaine did was in well another level of manipulation and it was downright cruel. ANOTHER level. He then escaleted his own behavious by trying to kill her, which might well have gone way further than he intended.

All complex and ambiguous characters. Going down in a spiral of revenge.

BTW, to the person calling the movie homophobic because the gay character isn't good. There's no kind of rule whatsoever that a movie has to present good gay characters or it's homophobic. Just like a movie with a negatice female character isn't sexist, nor a negative portrayal of a black person make a movie racist.
It's completely absurd to demand a political agenda from cinema.

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[–] Ithilfaen 9 years ago

Hmmm... so now sleeping with a married man makes you evil?

It doesn't make you a saint either. You can't deny that sleeping with a married man, while socializing with his wife, and his family, is objectionable, can you?

(what the husband did was worse mind you)

I definitely agree there and that's the reason I didn't like the ending. With the thread of buddhism throughout the movie, the news about his family coming in the middle of his pathetic monologue, trying to justify his actions, kinda feels like karma came back and bit him in the ass... at the expense of the lives of his kids.

what Elaine did was in well another level of manipulation and it was downright cruel. ANOTHER level

I don't believe she meant to be cruel, or manipulative. I think the fact she's a writer is relevant because at the beginning, she is trying to connect with him.
Once she learns about Jeffrey, she feels jealous and hurt and maybe she wants some indirect revenge, but as things go further with Robert, she's trying to bring him closure. She's not being cruel or manipulative. She's not telling him he should kill himself, it would have been easy, her reaction is dismay that he would even ask, and she tells him to live his life to the fullest.
She could have told him to stop seeing Jeffrey but she didn't.

My point is she might have started with less than good intentions (I'm not even sure of that) but she ends up trying to help him through his pain. She only tells him it was her at the end because she's hurt.

BTW, to the person calling the movie homophobic because the gay character isn't good. There's no kind of rule whatsoever that a movie has to present good gay characters or it's homophobic. Just like a movie with a negatice female character isn't sexist, nor a negative portrayal of a black person make a movie racist.
It's completely absurd to demand a political agenda from cinema.

True. It would be really nice though, to have gay characters who are not there to be bashed, to be promiscuous, sleep with married men, get HIV etc. Just like straight characters are not only there to get married, have kids, blah blah.
I'm not even getting into the portrayal of bisexuality because it's not about to change either.

For every lie I unlearn I learn something new - Ani Difranco

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