Donnie Darko
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I have a theory going with the placebo, in relation to the religious overtones in the movie, but I won't go there :-)
>>By Andrew C (Sunday, 2 Mar 2003 16:43)
Hello party people....i'm back..i have calmed down and i think everytine will be ok for me....anyways....
umm...I have read u people's posts...and i see much confusion.
i will say my opinion on the ones that people gave some thought...the posts that ask simples questions... read the book, watch the deleted scenes, watch the movie with commentary...your questions should be answered.
IF YOU HAVE QUESTIONS OF WHAT HAPPENED IN THE MOVIE....AND ALL THE DEMENSIONS AND STUFF....
READ MY POST (SomeUnconfusedGuy) ON PAGE 2....
YOU QUESTIONS SHOULD BE ANSWERED!!!!!
First...My Theory on Destiny... :
Ok Yes Donnie saw the spheres comming out of chests BUT remember the convo with the professor? Donnie told him about the spheres and professor said "You are contradicting yourself" and then Donnie said sumting like he can't help but follow them..i ferget. THe point is...everytime Donnie sees the Spheres he is in his "sleep trance" (U know...where he gets that face...he is always in a trance when he sees something from the 4th dimension) So i think that trance doesn't let him do anything but follow his sphere. So i think this whole movie was predestined by GOD and Frank was GoD's messenger. He did it to make Donnie happy in the end and teach other people a lesson.
My Theory on Sparrow.....
I believe Sparrow WAS a Reciever, but i believe for her to complete her task, she didn't have to die. Because of this she remembers everything clearly and wrote the book. If she had to die and she didn't, then her tangent universe woulda destroyed the primary one since it was so long ago. Sparrow saw into the futer and saw what Donnie would have to go thru so she was waiting for the letter from him. Sorry Shnaek i just don't think that theory adds up....Sparrow left the nun convent long ago..so she was a reciever long ago....
Read my previos post on page two people.....it'll explain alot for those who are very lost...laters party people
>>By Kelvin (Sunday, 2 Mar 2003 21:10)
I understand everything except for the whole Cellar Door thing. I know what it means and where it's from but what does it symbolize? Also, does the English teacher play some sort of larger role?
>>By Birthofagod (Sunday, 2 Mar 2003 23:01)
Still trying very hard to figure out this movie after watching it 3 times and numerous opinions by my friends. Is it possible that you guys are just over complicating the movie? Maybe the plane that his mother was on somehow bumped over the worm hole over his town which explains why it only dropped an engine, it flew back in the past and into the house. In order for the plane to travel backwards the city would travel forward and inevitably create the parallel demensions. Also, the recurrance of 'the destruction of the tangent universe' is restated constantly thought out, but has any one forgotten that discussion in class over that novel of destruction in Donnie's opinion, only being a beginning? please help I'm still so consused!
>>By Rachel (Monday, 3 Mar 2003 20:56)
I got the feeling that Donnie went into the cellar looking for clues as to how he might chenge the final outcome of the story. Then our much discussed deus ex machina intervenes. Cellar Door also refers to the subconscious but I am not sure how that applys to the movie at this point.
There is defianately a theme of destruction leading to creation in the movie.
Glad all is OK Kelvin. Welcome back.
>>By inanna (Tuesday, 4 Mar 2003 00:04)
Rachel i did understand wut u said kinda.... It could be probable that the plane hit the wormhole, but I believe that hole didn't link to the past. It was just destroying the universe because of the tear in dimensions. In the commentary the writer/director states that Donnie used telapathic powers to deliver the artifact (the engine) back to the past. The book also points to that.
I don't understand ure theory about the plane going backwards and city coming forwards... and the parallel dimension being created.
As for destruction for creation, everything ran in a certain timeleft of cause and effect. If Donnie wouldn't have flooded the school, he woulda never meet the girl. If he hadn't burned the house down his mom wouldn't of gotten on the plane..ect..ect. So all the destruction he did (including killing himself)...led up to the "creation" (if u wanna call it) of the primary universe. Get it kinda??? Because of his destruction...the plane...the house...himself..the school... he created a better place for everyone one to live, a stable place for everyone to live.
....i guess that is kinda hard to explain...i hope u guys see where i went with it.....
>>By Kelvin (Tuesday, 4 Mar 2003 02:27)
well the Cellar Door was at Ms. Sparrows house, he immediately left for it after he was seeing the 'future' through Gretchen's stomach? And he was seeing the engine fall down at that point.
Gretchen's stomach, future, engine, cellar door = now what?
>>By an act of God (Tuesday, 4 Mar 2003 03:00)
Rachel,
I think you're making the best sense that you can out of what the film gives you. My advice would be to stay open, as a viewer, to the possibility that not every aspect of this movie can be broken down, analyzed, and neatly packaged to make sense. This will inevitably bother a lot of people (particularly Christians, haha), and it will intrigue the hell out of others (like me). You simply cannot make perfect sense out of the order of events in the movie: they are, in many ways, complete impossibilities. The jet engine from the future wormhole still cannot inform what happened with the original jet engine (which falls into his empty room) because there is not a clean loop. They are both effects, neither event causes the other. The only way they can make sense, like a lot of shit in the world, is through some sort of leap of faith. It can be Donnie's idea of God's channel, it can be some abstraction of destiny, it can be pure fatalism; no matter what, we are just assuming the truth of one thing, one general idea, to legitimize and make sense of all of the many inexplicable things swirling around us.
As I've been saying, Donnie Darko is a mobius strip, but it's a great ride. Essentially, Donnie Darko is refusing to be simple, it's refusing to be clean, and it's basically a really, really excellent film that pursues - without ever limiting itself to answering its own questions - relevant post-modern questions. So go ahead and protest Bush's violent unilateralism, don't let him divert money desperately needed in the domestic economy away to the deaths of Americans and non-Americans, and the destruction of foreign countries and our own. We are entrusted with this sliver of history, and I hope that as a country we can keep an UNNECESSARY war out of its pages.
>>By McKenzie (Wednesday, 5 Mar 2003 01:35)
fuck---- McKenzie--FUCK---Jesus dude, just when I needed things to get even more confusing...at least Bush and the gang believe in what they are doing cause I don't fucking get it. I am a healer both as a job and as the core of who I am and times like these just frankly rip me apart--I am a nurse who lost a patient tonight, it was expected but she was in so much pain and fought so fuckin hard and everything seems so tiny compared to her fight, nothin goin on in this world compares to what she went through---sorry, I am just so messed up every time this happens--when you are a part of one life--really part of it, things you thought were so important pale in comparison--all of our lives end up as so many cardboard boxes full of stuff--trust me, I have seen it so many times---PS, forgive and forget guys, I am mourning tonight
>>By inanna (Wednesday, 5 Mar 2003 11:50)
I'm sad to hear that, Inanna.
>>By Then (Wednesday, 5 Mar 2003 11:58)
Hey, I've seen the movie a couple of times and whilst I think I understand most of it theres still a couple of parts confusing me,
1) Donnie laughing at the end. In the primary universe how does Donnie know what happens in the tangent universe? Does the tangent universe happen at the same time as the primary, if so Donnie wouldnt know what happens as he doesnt travel through time or from universe to universe.
2) How does Grandma Death know that the letter is coming? I think that she was a receiver many years ago, when she wrote that book , therefore she must of succeeded or the primary universe would have been destroyed. Assuming that her experience as a receiver ahs finished how does she know about Donnie's letter?
3) How does the fact that the pills were placebos show that Donnie was not 'crazy' ?
>>By Jay (Wednesday, 5 Mar 2003 18:52)
I wish I had more time to type up a elaborate analysis: but I don't. I do want to say that I have watched this movie countless times and I'm still not sick of it. I've recommended Donnie to everyone I know that has an apperciation for complex litature/cinema or philiosiphy. Everybody loves it.
DONNIE DARKO ROCKED MY WORLD!
>>By redrabbit (Wednesday, 5 Mar 2003 20:00)
Sorry to hear that inanna......
Mckenzie.....this a discussion about the movie Donnie Darko u fool. Don't bring bush into this because that will turn this board into sumting its not. If u wanna bitch and moan about bush go to a political website and voice your pitifull opinion.
Jay....
1) The promary universe and the tangent universe are actually the same "Universe" The tangent universe is the primary universe that went wrong. Therefore everyone in the primary universe was in the tangent universe. The closer you are to the "chosen one" (or the reciever) the more you remember. THerefore Donnie remembers everything. As for donnie laffing...there are many different theories from it being as simple as Frank making a joke from the car, to Donnie laffing because everything was so simple.
2) I believe Sparrow had a glimpse into the future and saw that Donnie was going to deliver a letter.
3)hmmmm....towards the end Donnie's mom was happy with his progress. He was getting closer with his family because he was accepting his "fate". He got a girlfriend and was in general happier with his family. His family probably thought that its because of the increase of medication. If they were placeboes then that would mean that Donnie did it himself. Thats my theory. That is a very good question Jay.
......please respond......
>>By Kelvin (Wednesday, 5 Mar 2003 20:25)
Ok, youve convinced me with the 3rd answer, the other 2 I'm not so sure on. The 1st one you're probably right but I dont think I understand, If you were to put the whole film into chronological order, would donnie die at the same time in each universe? I think that Donnie is more likely to be laughing atbout the simplicity of it all and the fact tha the has accepted his fate and does not fear death, he could be laughing at the fact that he used to find death scary.
I'm not entirely convinced about the grandma death seeing into the future, because if she had seen it then she would know when the letter would come and wouldnt have to wait for so long?
>>By Jay (Thursday, 6 Mar 2003 04:08)
I just read esa post...
My own thoughts on the site are just that it give you something extra, I know that it helped me understand the concept of time travel, and helps explain Roberta Sparrows book. It also showed things that didn't eventuate in the movie, like the deaths of other characters.
When you click on each individual chapter it brings it up on the right of the screen, you have to put you mouse arrow over it to see it, once you take it off the pages disappear again. (Thursday, 6 Mar 2003 08:16)
I don't think Grandma Death was a failed receiver. I think that by leaving the convent and writing the book she fufilled her role as the receiver, and her waiting for Donnies letter is part of her waiting for the acknowegement that she had finally gotten what she was supposed to do right. Because I think she has failed before, maybe not so much failed, but not gotten things completely right, but this her last attempt was correct.
>>By mahalia (Thursday, 6 Mar 2003 23:00)
HI - great discussion. Interested to see how theories emerge and develop between many different writers. This generates a high level of progress at a pace that academic scholarship is unable to attain.
I'd like to offer my own contribution. In cinema, especially american cinema, and most certainly 'high school/teenage/80's/ferrisbueller/lots of guys named corey" cinema, the most useful and direct signposts with which to navigate a path through the concepts are cinematic references, and little has been said about this so far (I think! :-) ). "Donnie Darko" is carefully enmeshed in this tradition. The film is packed with direct refernces to 80's teen and brat-pack movies - Back to the Future, ET, Dead Poets Society, Ferris Bueller, breakfast club and many, many more. How does it resemble those films -BUT how does it differ?
Consider what HAS already been mentioned - the halloween double bill - Raimi's "The Evil Dead", and Scorsese's adaption of Nikos Kazantzakis' book -"The Last Temptation of Christ" - ask yourself what the most striking element of both stories, especially the latter.
Finally, i would suggest that the "key" (if there can be such a thing, is Donnie's laughter - this is the moment that the film expresses a judgment about that which it describes.
>>By the curious orange (Friday, 7 Mar 2003 01:53)
Perhaps I know best why it is man alone who laughs; he alone suffers so deeply that he had to invent laughter
F.N.
>>By The Curious Orange (Friday, 7 Mar 2003 02:27)
My take on the cellar door is that Donnie is drawn to it, both because of what Karen Pomeroy tells him about its meaning. But also because when he sees Franks beer message and goes outside with Gretchen, and sees the guy in red, he is at that point inexplicably drawn to it. I don't think it's until after events unfold that he himself knows why he wants to go there.
>>By mahalia (Friday, 7 Mar 2003 02:58)
Jay.... Think of it as 1 universe. The tangent universe is just the primary universe gone the worng way. The tangent started the day Donnie didn't die. It continued until Donnie sent the engine back in time to kill himself and fixed the tangent universe making it now the primary universe. get it?
As fer sparrow...maybe she just saw that she was going to get an important letter....didn't know from who or when....
>>By Kelvin (Friday, 7 Mar 2003 07:25)
Tears For Fears
Mad World
All around me are familiar faces
Worn out places, worn out faces
Bright and early for their daily races
Going nowhere, going nowhere
And their tears are filling up their glasses
No expression, no expression
Hide my head I want to drown my sorrow
No tommorow, no tommorow
And I find it kind of funny
I find it kind of sad
The dreams in which I'm dying
Are the best I've ever had
I find it hard to tell you
'Cos I find it hard to take
When people run in circles
It's a very, very
Mad World
Children waiting for the day they feel good
Happy Birthday, Happy Birthday
Made to feel the way that every child should
Sit and listen, sit and listen
Went to school and I was very nervous
No one knew me, no one knew me
Hello teacher tell me what's my lesson
Look right through me, look right through me
>>By the curious orange (Friday, 7 Mar 2003 12:19)
Perhaps Donnie laughs in the end because it's all one big joke :-D
>>By Andrew C (Friday, 7 Mar 2003 14:08)
Donnine goes to the cellar door to save Ms. Sparrow becuase the two punks there with knives were going to kill her.' yeah
>>By hairbrushuh (Sunday, 9 Mar 2003 00:13)
All very interesting theories... I only have time to point out a few things...
The theory of Donnie being "Jesus"
1) The movie theater is playing the Christ movie, where Jesus sees what it would be like if he didnt save the world (which directly relates to donnie, and I dont think would be considered a horror movie)
2) In the end donnie sacrifices himself to save the whole Universe
3) Frank tells Donnie to take off his man suit..... Jesus was God in human form, couldnt it be said that Jesus was wearing a man suit?
Just a few thoughts....
another note on Deux Ex Machina.... Where a god comes in to wrap everythign up neatly.... Donnie is that "god" and the machine that brings him in, or to realize that, is the car with frank in it. At that point, with the gun, it is all clear...
>>By dxkj@hotmail.com (Sunday, 9 Mar 2003 06:14)
dxky wow....good thoughts.... i never thought as Donnie being "Jesus" himself...thanks fer the other theory...
>>By Kelvin (Sunday, 9 Mar 2003 08:36)
I dont think Donnie laughs for any reason at all.
>>By Kitty (Sunday, 9 Mar 2003 09:49)
I've just seen DD and been to the site, I think I've got it mostly worked out thanks to the previous posters...
I would just like to share those ideas such as I think haven't been really touched upon.
Donnie is a superhero, he isn't god and he isn't a man. By this I mean that Donnie is more than a man, he is most likely a christ-type figure. He is definitely a receiver as the website points out for us. Frank is one of the manipulated dead and as such with the others, manipulates events and Donnie until he can understand.
Understand what? The plan, life the universe and everything (don't forget the 42 mention in the time), when he looks into gretchen's 4th dimensional extension (the projection of one's destiny into the 4th dimension) he sees "the sky opening up" ie: God's will.
Donnie knows that the "plan" is that if he can sacrifice himself, those closest to him, and more importantly, the entire universe can live. While he is tempted to stay and do nothing by gretchen, The fat man in the red suit seems to pop up whenever his path is in doubt. Keeping Donnie's inertia in the right direction.
The chinese girl is us, everyman, no man in particular, she is alone and misunderstood, the earmuffs (kudos to the person who caught this, because i didn't) represent her isolation and her infatuation with donnie is representative of our desire for truth.
As for the much quibbled over laughing, this is one of the few things I did get (for sure) the first time through. Donnie saw the mind of God, he saw the sky opening up and he was replacing his unhappiest memory, ie: his death with something happy and beautiful, ie, what he saw looking into the fourth dimension and undersanding.
The patrick swayze character is not an anti-christ he is just a sinner, one who clouds himself from the will and mind of God completely. This can be evidenced by his living a lie (motivational speeches are all lies) and his kiddie porn dungeon.
So donnie escaped from the primary and became tangential reciever donnie. donnie was guided by frank and hindered by swayze. donnie was tempted by gretchen and saw god through her projection.
The old woman also saw HIS plan and vision, but in her capacity as reciever, didn't have to die, so she still knows THE plan and is there to pitch in when donnie is in a bind.
I think that's all the stuff I have for now, I hope people still post here!!!
>>By Subtillus (Sunday, 9 Mar 2003 20:53)
I'm not sure if anyone has mentioned this before or not.....but when Donnie sends the jet engine back in time, therefore killing himself on October 2nd, he starts another loop of events. If Donnie were dead, he could never have sent the engine back. Rose wouldn't have been on the plane, the plane would never have hit the wormhole and essentially, there would be no jet engine to ever crash into Donnie's room, because he wouldn't have sent it back. Argh....I can't explain this very well....does anyone get what I'm trying to say?
>>By blackberry (Monday, 10 Mar 2003 03:35)
You're saying that you're confused by paradoxes.
It happens, get over it.
He didn't send the plane back from the primary he sent it back from the tangent while he was in the primary, there's no incongruity here, it's all clear cut.
>>By subtillus (Monday, 10 Mar 2003 04:13)
yup its clear cut...think of it as 1 time line.....
>>By Kelvin (Monday, 10 Mar 2003 06:38)
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