Stay (2005 film)

"The man you are will know the boy you were."
-- Elbow, "Open Arms"

Opening Caviat:
I wrote this post originally and then it gelled in my head over night (one of my mentors in grad school and editing used to like to tell his undergrad students, "we write to think, not the other way around"). The "Final Summation" below before the section on characters and lines worked backwards is my most succinct statement of the types of things the events and characters are.

Intro
I looked through my posts, and as nearly as I can tell, I have not posted on this yet. Part of my project with this blog is to get all the different thoughts across the years out into one place, in part so that if a particular film or book or something else comes up on which I have developed thoughts over the years, even if my presentation of it in person is a bit jumbled, I can say "I wrote this up on my blog ...  that's where I present my thoughts in a little more orderly manner." And Stay (2005) is definitely one film about which I have developed a distinct reading that I want to get out on paper, so to speak.

Stay stars  Ewan McGregor, Ryan Gosling, and Naomi Watts (supporting roles by Janeane Garofalo and Bob Hoskins and some others). It was directed by Marc Foster and written by David Benioff, but I only just looked that up and it never played into my reading of the film, which I developed years ago. I don't even remember how I found out about the film ... it may have been a netflix try out while living in NYC; I'm pretty sure that's how I found 1408. I just know what I liked in it; and I liked it a lot.

In any event, in looking those details up, I watched the theatrical trailer and realized how divergent my reading is from the impression the trailer gives of the type of movie it is. I'm not just talking about the outcome of "who done it" type things, or even Fight Club hidden identities, although that's getting warmer. I mean the fact that the trailer sets you up to think of some kind of psychological, crime, or supernatural thriller. I think that part of the panning of the film is that it never delivers on this level in the way that those genres usually do ... you don't have some big reveal of what was really going on. The only thing in the trailer that hints at the type of meaning I am going to discuss is a shot with the subway doors closing or opening and one minute you see Gosling or McGregor and the next instant you see the other so that there is kind of a morphing. But that sort of sets you up for a Fight Club kind of reveal or a "so and so was really the evil guy behind it all" reveal, and it doesn't pay off with that or with any other clear psychological or quasi-supernatural payoff.

The film never, that I can tell, reveals what really "happened." You get a sense that the car wreck is the real time and the previous something else, but it's not spelled out in anything like a clear way. But I don't fault the movie for that because I think it is thoroughly symbolist and symbolist art doesn't pay off in that way. Dissatisfation with the film is I think along the lines of why so many people were unhappy with the ending of Lost (meaning those who watched it through ... I know other people who simply rely on their own ability to be pigheaded and believe their own sales pitch abut their own brilliant ability to discern the full quality from a half episode here and there and condemn the show out of their own pre-existing prejudice against it without ever really processing it) ... people looked for a materialist conclusion, but the whole series was not about a materialist, scientific subject; as I have said in my defense of the series in this post, the island is the mythic dimension of life. As I have said in my review of As Above, So Below, I think it gets panned for similar reasons: people do not know the backgrounds being used and so miss the point, while thinking that they know everything.

Anyway, to try to pull the threads of this intro section together, the film is in reality, I would argue as my reading of it, thoroughly symbolist. I'm going to stick with that term, but I have to note here that I am using it in a broader sense to mean not only analogical relations between one symbol and one referent that are entirely different things, but rather also representation relations in which one instance stand for the whole class. That statement doesn't completely cover it all because concreteness versus abstraction is also involved, but it is mostly the representation relationship: one man represents all men and both are fully real in the sense that they neither symbolize anything further than themselves (obviously, there is also also a sense of "real" in which none of this is real because ... its fiction ... although I don't believe that that material sense defines the whole of what it really means to be real).

Then, on top of the symbolism, there is a free association identification and activity of certain characters. And it is this aspect that we see what distinctly makes the film hard to process in much the same way as the narrative technique of the Benji section makes Faulkner's The Sound and the Fury difficult to process, although in a different way. The main symbolic event is not encountered til the end, and then it is seen that two statements in that even must be read back through the earlier parts of the film.

SO: those are the two categories and the structure I would like to keep on the page: thoroughly symbolist literature and free association exploration worked backwards in a structure in which one symbolist event (really one in two parts, but we'll get to that) is worked backwards through free association.

Reel Time

So, in order to do this I have to clarify my definition of the "real time." And, sorry, I know it's been done a million times and more and probably very tired, but "reel time" was just too good to pass up for a pun-dit like me (and it does sort of resemble my point in my "Story Time" post, even though it does it through a well-worn pun) ... and here's a funny video about how fun puns are (although, not all of the examples they use are technically puns; they're actual double entendres of the same word ... puns are always homophonic but never homographic ... but they are all fun).

The real time of the film, or rather the specific main content that is happening in that real time, is simply the coming of age of a young man. And there are only two actual narrative moments in that real time, and they both come at the end of the film. This makes it hard to experience and piece this film together on the first round, but I do think there is a method to the experiential story structure that makes it work ... as I said, part of my defense of my reading of the film is the disgruntledness of some on the ending. The fact that some are not satisfied with the ending on the level of material unveiling is part of what makes me say that it is not meant to be materialist, but rather symbolist.

So, as I say, and to get back on target (sometimes in writing on some subjects that are harder to pin down, I feel fated like the "almost there ..." "stay on target ..." pilot in Star wars IV). The real time of the film is the coming of age, and it involves only two moments, and they both come at they end. They are the car crash that kills the parents and almost kills the boy (Gosling) and the man (McGregor) asking the woman out to coffee. Everything else is actually worked backwards from this point in a free association manner ... which I think is always a bit like automatic writing exercises, although I haven't sat down and worked out what I think might be the discoveries of these particular free associations (why a woman who says this, why an old man who says that, etc.); I've just made the connections to establish the presence of the statements (that a woman did say this same thing in two different places with two different meanings that probably connect to inform the coming of age theme in some way).

The main event, the first of the only two real moments in the real time of the film, is the near fatal (for Gosling) car crash. But remember that I have said this is a thoroughly symbolist project ... there is no literal car crash that happens in the real time of the movie, only the thing it symbolizes.Of course, this isn't entirely accurate, but I don't think you can get completely accurate descriptions of this sort of thing. For instance, Gosling feels like he is committing suicide in the run-up to the accident ... him walking on the bridge with a gun and the car driving on the bridge are not real in the realist sense because they are properly symbols, but the feeling of being about to die, and about to be the one doing the killing of oneself, and feeling some volitional role in the event ... those are real in all senses in the real time of the film (they may not be accurate feelings in that he may not actually have the sense of agency he feels he does, but the having of the feelings is a real part of the real time even).

But, to stay on target, I have to define what the car crash symbolizes, which is the trauma of coming of age (hence the feelings being real in the full sense), a trauma that nearly kills the boy and really does risk actually killing him in order for the man to emerge. Ryan Gosling is the boy; Ewan McGregor is the man ... and they are two parts of the same person. In the coming of age, there is the risk of the boy being lost. The doctor who tries to save him (McGregor) is the man he becomes trying to save the boy part of himself.

But it is important to keep in mind what I said above about this not being Fight Club. This is not a case of two personalities existing simultaneously in one body or external manifestation in a realist representation. It is not at issue here whether or not we ever see Sam and Henry together with a third person who is clearly cognizant of both of them as distinct persons, as it was with Tyler and Jack (as those who probably figured out the secret of Fight Club before the end probably noticed that you never see them together with a third person who addresses both: the guys in the car only ever think they are talking to the one person who seems to be acting a little schitzo), and in fact we do see Sam and Henry together at least with Leon (Hoskins) talking to both. This film, as I said, does not have the plot reveal of the "multiple personality" type, which relies on a realist formula (you have finally gotten the "real situation").

Coffee as a Solution? 

I did see one critic give at least a somewhat positive review and address the working back from the ending without a reveal thing. Roger Ebert said "The ending is an explanation, but not a solution. For a solution we have to think back through the whole film, and now the visual style becomes a guide. It is an illustration of the way the materials of life can be shaped for the purposes of the moment."

He has the working it backward thing, but I would disagree with him in saying that you have to work explanation backwards through the visual imagery to get to the solution. I don't think the solution involves working it back. I think the working backwards is mainly the revelation at the end in the explanation is simply that you can do the working it back (the Garofalo  character's double setting-meaning of "you're not supposed to touch them") ... the fact that things have multiple levels of meaning that can be seem radically unconnected ... that one can be both the boy and the man even thought those seem radically dis-connected in the form of being mutually exclusive (although I do think that the visual style supplements).

I do think there is a solution, but it is not in the working backwards. This solution actually happens in forward motion the way it does in all normal narrative (one of the things I think makes it better than non-linear for non-linear's sake stuff like Pulp Fiction). That moment is the second of the only two "real time" events, and it is when the man Sam (McGregor) asks the woman Lila (Watts) out for coffee. That is a real time moment, and it is the solution to keeping the boy alive in that Sam is a doctor (medical doctor in the "Real time" of the ending symbolizing man performing a psychological function on the boy part of himself, and so folding back into the symbolic role of psychologist in the main part of the film) and Lila is the nurse, and nurses help doctors do what they do, which is keeping the boy alive. The helping role is symbolized in the backwards part of the film in her asking to meet Henry because Sam is afraid he will try to commit suicide and Lila actually tried in her own past, which I think is symbolic of the fact that women are empathetic, they understand and help by entering into the world or mind of those they try to understand and help.

 I think it is important that there is this literal side to the event, that Sam is a real man, and this is the representational aspect, and I think it is what actually keeps the film from becoming full blown "symbolist" in a way that would wreck it (a radicalized version that I think is often mistaken for healthy symbolist functioning ... akin to what Tolkien disliked in relying on allegory and taking it to be the core of symbolism, which is kind of the fallacy at the opposite pole from the other one he greatly disliked, taking drama to be the core of literary art, see my post on Tolkien versus Shakespeare for more on that). I think it keeps the film from going down the erroneous path I think other films travel, including ones that get so praised by the critics. Cabin in the Woods has a 92 % rating on Rotten Tomatoes and the critics seem to wet themselves over it, but I think that (in addition to a morbid fascination quality that made me feel a little soiled when I was done watching) the film goes too "meta," which is the term for a work of art symbolizing not things in life about which discourses happen but about the discourse itself.

I think many were right in panning Shymalan's Lady in the Water in general (although I was annoyed by the snooty pejorative tone of critics) for going too meta (a story about story, done so on-the-sleeve that "story" is a main character), but I think that Cabin in the Woods, praised by the critics, does it too. I would here borrow and adapt a line from another movie I found really not much use for at all other than the adaptation possibilities of this line: in Tropic Thunder, Robert Downey Jr's white actor playing a black soldier tells Ben Stiller, "never go full retard! never go full retard!" expressing what he thought was the problem with Stiller's character's famous role as a mentally handicapped boy (he cited Tom Hanks in Forest Gump and Sean Penn in I am Sam as those who did mentally impaired but not "full retard"). I would adapt this line to say "never go full meta!" Cabin in the Woods goes full meta (a horror movie exposition of horror as a genre), but then it makes an attempt to revert to mere symbolist but the only place it has to go is gods (all the usual horror baddies have been used), which winds up kind of hokey, in my opinion, and then they have the evil gods escape onto the world and, thus, win, and with the level that gods, by their nature, must symbolize, the ending is just flat out depressing (with a sort of half-jaded, half-apathetic ennui on the part of the two remaining youths). But, while Stay is definitely symbolist, I think it is saved from the "full meta" trap by the fact that, while the man and woman are representative of men and women in general, they are still real man and woman: a real man surviving (including the boy inside) by asking the real woman out for coffee, attempting to connect with her.

(sidenote: As can be guessed from the above, Cabin in the Woods is yet another instance in my growing body of "the critics are a bit full of themselves" feeling. They got all excited about that movie and I think it really, at best, goes nowhere but depressing and does so by making the mistake of going "full meta." Mad Max Fury Road has rave reviews from the critics and I think that, for all the valid points that can be made about the amazing creativity in filming technique, camera angles and shot staging and pacing etc, it is mainly a lot of tired post-apocalyptic tropes that really go nowhere [about the best I could find was some vague symbolic value to water that never really gets fulfilled and maybe a potential criticism of Henry VIII's mentality of seeking male heirs, but that doesn't really go anywhere either]. On the converse side, the critics, as mentioned above, panned As Above So Below hard and I thought it was great because of its adaptation of alchemy theme and Dantean theme and structure, as I have said in my post on that film. The reviews of Collateral Beauty likewise skewed to the negative, but I thought it was good, and I would actually use that "never go full meta" line again in that regard because I think that what keeps the project from becoming hokey is the fact that it is not conclusive that the three are actually the personifications and not just actors, and in fact the effectiveness of the conveyance of the message of the film relies on the unresolved ambiguity over which they are as meaning that, in a certain way, it doesn't matter because they perform the same real function effectively ... but it is the final openness to the "only actors" reading that keeps it from going "full meta"; read my post on that film for more detail).

The main tension of Stay is something I would sum up by quoting the line I used as an epigraph at the beginning, which is a line from the song "Open Arms" by the English band Elbow: "The man you are will known the boy you were." That is the project in which the nurse-woman will help the doctor-man, in keeping the boy in him alive after the near-fatal car wreck, the man he is knowing the boy he was (by keeping him alive in himself, not becoming the stuffed and self-important kind of "adult").


A Final Summation:
This is how my brain gelled on this overnight after originally writing this post. The event is symbol, the character is representative.

Working it backwards: Free association characters and clothing as symbolic

So, to sum up, here everything is symbolic and there are two levels: first level is the "real time" two events and involves both symbolism and representation (asking out on a date is real in the sense of not symbolizing anything further and representative of all real asking out on dates as attempts to connect and work together in the project of being adults and all that good stuff). The second level is the working it backwards in which it is really a form of new contextualization. It might seem random. but is not; it is productive free association.

The two persons and lines that get worked backward into the main film are the old man asking "do you think he will be all right?" and Janeane Garofalo's "I didn't touch him; they say you're not supposed to touch them." I'll leave the first aside because its appearance in the main film is more disconnected: he is simply the man in the art store asking if Henry (Gosling) will be all right in general. The more interesting is Garofalo's "not touching them" because it bears witness to the psychological core of the film. In the car crash setting it is the random woman at the crash site saying that she didn't move Henry around because you're not supposed to move victims unless you really have to because you don't know what injuries there are that you might accidentally exacerbate or what vulnerabilities have been created that you might accidentally turn into real injuries, maybe even fatal ones. The way it is worked back into the main part of the film is that she is revealed to be Henry's first psychologist and she is having problems with near fatal pill and alcohol use because of her interaction with Henry. When she says "I didn't touch him; I know you're not supposed to move them" in this setting, it is in reference to some possible and maybe even real romantic involvement. The therapist is not supposed to be even friend, let alone lover. Therapy is to happen within the "construct," the safe place of the therapy room or institution that is set apart from the "real life" that it analyzes and seeks to process.

This may be a critique of that practice, even if just on the level of exposition of how difficult it is to really accomplish, to keep the therapist's personality truly out of the mix.  Along these lines, Watts's female character as woman nurse helping the full-grown man doctor may be a response to that. In the eyes of the film, it is a real woman with real potential for inter-relation with the man who will actually be able to help. But I haven't worked any of this out thoroughly, and this last part is mainly just a possibility and not fleshed out in detail.