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STANLEY KUBRICK'S KILLER'S KISS
A SHOT-BY-SHOT ANALYSIS
PART THREE

Go to TOC for this film ( (which has also a statement on purpose and manner of analysis and a disclaimer as to caveat emptor and my knowing anything authoritatively, which I do not, but I do try to not know earnestly, with some discretion, and considerable thought).

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PART THREE

TOC and Supplemental Posts | Part 1 | Part 2 | Part 3 | Part 4 | Films Home

LINKS TO SECTIONS OF THE ANALYSIS ON THIS PAGE:

The Killing of Albert, Shots 237 through 293
Notes on the Killing of Albert. The mocking twin clowns, the window, and the broken mirror. Watch your step, the two conventioneers, map of the contradictory paths taken on the street. The Man Between. 8:15 sharp. The alley.
Gloria Vanishes, shots 294 through 325.
Notes on Gloria Vanishes. Revisiting the goldfish bowl. Those twin keys.

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THE KILLING OF ALBERT

237 Sunset over the city 34:22

DAVEY (voice-over): Looking back now, I really don't know what her reasons were then, but she agreed to come out to Seattle with me. I should have had sense enough though to know it was no good and that she was so scared she'd grab at anything. But I was kidding myself and all I could think of was how much I wanted her. We made train reservations and wired Uncle George to brace himself for a niece, and then we began to get our finances together.

We have much the same view in the below vintage image taken from, it seems, around the Dumbo area in Brooklynn.

238 MS Vincent in his office. (34:48)

The phone rings and he picks it up.

VINCENT: Yeah.

LOUIS: This is Louie, out front. Gloria Price just called (can't tell what's said for a couple words) she's coming in tonight to pick up her last week's salary. You there Mr. Rapallo?

VINCENT: Thanks. Goodbye.

Vincent wanders over by a few photographs of an older woman, presumably his mother.

239 Vincent's reflection in a mirror. (35:24)

240 2 Mocking Vaudeville style clowns stare back at Vincent from a window. (35:30)

241 Vincent's reflection in a mirror. He breaks the mirror with his glass. (35:32)

242 LS Albert at the gym. (36:02)

The phone rings several times as Albert watches a boxer. He answers the phone.

DAVEY (off screen): Hello, Albert.

ALBERT: Hello there, Davey. How are you?

DAVEY (off screen): Okay, thanks. Listen, Albert, have you got enough money on you to cash my check from yesterday?

ALBERT: What's the rush? The banks open in the morning.

DAVEY (off screen): Well, I don't feel too good, Albert. I think I'll go out to Seattle for a while and take stock of things.

ALBERT: Wait a minute, I'll see.

DAVEY: Thanks. I appreciate it.

ALBERT (checks his wallet): Okay, come on over.

243 MLS Davey sitting on Gloria's bed with her. (36:27)

DAVEY: How about Pleasure Land instead. You know that...

244 MCU Gloria holding her doll. (36:30) DAVEY (off screen): ...dance hall at 49th and Broadway. Maybe around 8 tonight, uh?

245 MS Albert. (35:34)

ALBERT: I'll be there but it has to be 8:15 sharp. I'm taking my wife to a show and I'll just about make it.

DAVEY (off screen): All right. I'll see you there. Take it easy.

ALBERT: Okay.

246 Crossfade to 2 conventioneers cavorting drunkenly down the street, one playing harmonica. (36:47)

The harmonica player plays "Old Susanna".

247 Dancing Partners sign outside the dance hall. (36:57)

248 Another Dancing Partners sign outside the dance hall. (37:00)

249 LS Davey and Gloria crossing the street. (37:02)

250 Gloria approaches the Pleasure Land entrance. (37:18)

251 Davey throws a kiss at Gloria as she glances back. (37:19)

252 Gloria throws a kiss as well. (37:20)

253 Gloria mounts the stairway up to Pleasure Land. (37:27)

254 MS Davey on the sidewalk. (37:31)

255 LS The Two conventioneers. (37:34)

256 LS Gloria in Pleasure Land. She makes her way across the dance floor to Vincent. (37:49)

257 MS Davey on the sidewalk. (38:15)

258 LS The Two conventioneers. (38:19)

259 CU Gloria. (38:30)

VINCENT (off screen): Still feel the same way?

GLORIA: Yes.

260 MS Vincent in front of "The Cherry Pickers" theatrical poster. (38:33)

VINCENT: I understand you're going away some place.

GLORIA (off screen): Yes.

VINCENT: Where?

GLORIA (off screen): That's my business. I came for my pay check.

VINCENT: Oh, sure. How much do I owe you?

GLORIA (off screen): A week.

VINCENT: Can't you tell me where you're going?

GLORIA (off screen): No.

261 CU Gloria. (38:49)

VINCENT (off screen): Will I ever see you again?

GLORIA: I doubt it.

VINCENT (off screen): I couldn't take that.

GLORIA: You'll have to.

262 CU Vincent. (38:53)

VINCENT: That's not true.

GLORIA (off screen): Why isn't it?

VINCENT (opening a drawer): I could kill you right here and now.

GLORIA: Oh, I don't think you will.

VINCENT (putting a cigar in his mouth): I wouldn't be too sure of that.

263 MS Gloria before the venetian blinds. (39:06)

GLORIA: Look, Vinnie, I really am in a hurry.

VINCENT: For what?

GLORIA: Somebody's waiting downstairs.

264 MS Vincent. (39:12)

265 MS Gloria before the venetian blinds. Vincent approaches, lighting his cigar (39:14)

266 CU Vincent looking out the window. (39:19)

267 CU Vincent facing Gloria, from beyond her right shoulder. (39:21)

VINCENT: You going away with him?

GLORIA: I don't have to tell you anything.

VINCENT: All the same, you are though, aren't you?

GLORIA: You'll figure it out.

VINCENT: Then you are.

GLORIA: No comment.

VINCENT: Look, he's a bum. You'll spend the rest of your life grubbing for him.

GLORIA: Is that so?

VINCENT: Sure. Like the man said, can happiness buy money?

GLORIA: Well, you're a comedian, too. See what I'm missing?

268 MS Vincent from beyond Gloria's left shoulder. (39:40)

VINCENT: Get out.

GLORIA: I'm not...

269 MCU Vincent, Gloria beyond. (39:49)

GLORIA: ...asking for favors, but you owe it to me.

VINCENT: Get out!

Gloria exits.

270 The conventioneers still making their way down the sidewalk. (39:57)

271 MS Davey waiting for Gloria. (40:05)

The conventioneers dance up to Davey. One brushes his suit with a paintbrush. Doing so, he takes Davey's scarf.

DAVEY: Hey...

272 MLS Davey good-naturedly tries to retrieve his scarf. (40:15)

DAVEY: Come on, give me back the scarf.

273 The conventioneers. (40:20)

274 MCU Conventioneer. (40:22)

275 Davey pursues the conventioneers. (40:26)

276 Davey pursues the conventioneers. (40:30)

277 Davey's manager pulls up in a cab and gets out. (40:33)

278 Davey's manager before the Pleasure Land door. (40:47)

279 Street scene. (40:51)

280 The Pleasure Land dance floor. (40:53)

Vincent stumbles out and goes to speak to his gangsters.

281 Gloria exits onto the sidewalk and stands beside the manager at the door, not knowing who he is. (41:00)

282 The Pleasure Land stairway. (41:08)

The two gangsters enter the stairway. One remains on a landing while another goes down to get Gloria.

GANGSTER (to Gloria): The boss says he's sorry and if you go upstairs you can collect your money.

Gloria goes upstairs. After she passes the second gangster he goes outside.

283 MLS of Davey on the street, having retrieved his scarf. (41:52)

284 Davey on the street, having retrieved his scarf, heads back to the Pleasure Land. (41:59)

285 Davey returns to the Pleasure Land sidewalk. (42:05)

286 The Pleasure Land doors. (42:14)

287 The two gangsters chase Albert into an alley. (42:17)

ALBERT: What do you guys want? (He falls on a box and clambers back up, losing his hat.) Who are you? Here. You want my money? Take it.

One gangster slaps the wallet away. Albert bangs on closed windows. We hear laughter from an invisible (theater) audience.

288 Albert is backed into a corner. (42:53)

289 Gloria going down the Pleasure Land stairway. (43:06)

290 Pleasure Land doors from outside, Gloria pressing through them. (43:15)

291 MS Davey. (43:18)

GLORIA: Where'd you go?

DAVEY: Some jerk grabbed my scarf. Did you get the money?

GLORIA: First he said no then he gave me an extra $100.

DAVEY: That's weird. Did you see Albert?

GLORIA: I don't know. Somebody was here.

292 The alley. The two gangsters hustle to leave it, throwing Albert's hat and wallet on his body. (41:08)

293 Davey and Gloria. (44:04)

DAVEY: I guess he got tired of waiting. We'll call him when he gets home.

Begin blur transition as they cross street.

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THE KILLING OF ALBERT: THINGS TO NOTE

The Mocking Twin Clowns, The Window, and the Broken Mirror

A shot that Kubrick would have known would be an attention-getter is the mirror one in which Vincent appears to be reacting to viewing two clowns mocking him through a window, standing in for his own reflection, and smashes his glass against the mirror, which is when we realize it is a mirror, the glass at first appearing to assail the camera. At first glance, we never do see the source for this vision of the clowns, it appearing to be internal. The office is wood-paneled but the clowns are an illustration painted in a window frame that is positioned in a real window frame. They even appear to be twin clowns. They are twin clowns.

We can see on an old theater poster a photo that has in it two figures that are positioned in a way resembling the two clowns, but it is too small for me to tell any more about it. The photo is sized and positioned to appear to be a part of the poster, like a window. The amount of white around the image reveals it to be a photo placed upon a theater poster that shows, from best I can tell, a policeman chasing someone down the stairs of a brownstone, individuals in a doorway watching, and the figures in the photo, by way of their placement, seeming to watch.

That photo of the clown illustration on the poster is this shot of the clowns, however it appears the shot is different. I don't believe in the photo we see the brick wall surrounding the clowns, and one of the clowns may be wearing a different hat. The shot instead shows the clowns painted as looking through a window in a real brick wall.

The function of the shot of the twin clowns seems to be not just taunting but almost oracular, concerning the two Shriner "clowns" who will distract Davey from the harm Vincent has planned him.

But let's also return a moment to shot 144. What is happening there? Davey has woken from his nightmare of the negative-positive inverted streets. Hearing Gloria scream, he rushes to the window. We see Vincent through Gloria's window. He covers his face, reaches up to pull down the window shade but it pops back up. He flees. With this window showing the clowns, we may be reminded of Vincent's reaction to when he realizes Davey is able to see him through the window at Gloria's apartment.

Windows and mirrors are positioned meaningfully opposite each other in the film. The mirror is opposite the window in Davey's room, and as well as in Gloria's room, so that we don't only see into each room through the windows but we have opposing rooms, via their reflections, within the frames. Ultimately the mirrors reflect each other through the windows and could be taken as potentially creating an infinity effect between which Davey and Gloria are caught, and Vincent as well.

As with Davey and Gloria's apartments, there is the mirror in Vincent's office facing his window, but we aren't aware of this until the shot in which he breaks it, and never do see the mirror in context of the wall, I don't believe. Instead, we only see Vincent's mirror in dialogue with the peculiar window in which we see the taunting twin clowns, becoming confused with it, so that he appears to throw his glass at the clowns but instead crashes it against the mirror.

Albert at the Gym

In section one, we had the odd shot of Albert at the gym which made him appear to be before a blue screen or rear screen projection. It is now, with our second viewing of Albert at the gym, in shots 242 and 245, that Kubrick clarifies and shows Albert moving from the main body of the gym to the fore to answer the phone, and so we are certain that it's not a blue screen or rear screen projection behind, we instead just have some very odd lighting going on. What the lighting does is separate Albert from the boxers at the gym even while having him in their space and even briefly, physically interacting with one of them. Considering that Albert's death is preceded with more views of the theater posters in Vincent's office, and Albert is taking his wife to a show which he'll "just about make", Kubrick may be using these shots to set off Albert as becoming a self-conscious part of the theatrical spectacle himself. Kubrick will surround Albert's killing with the sound of audience laughter as he bangs upon windows trying to escape from the alley into the theater. As the subject, he is unable to take a seat in the theater as only a viewer of the spectacle, and is also unable to intersect with the audience. He is self-consciously stuck in his role in the film from which there is no escape.

Kubrick in later films plays with audience objectivity and subjectity in relationship to what they are viewing on the screen, and may be doing so already here.

I'll return to the possibility of audience interaction with the screen in section four when I'm discussing a card trick that distracts Davey.

Watch Your Step and The Two Conventioneers and Their Paths That Intersect With Davey

In shot 255, though it doesn't look like it as they don't cross each other's paths yet, the conventioneers are carousing down the same side of the street as Davey. They are opposite the Bond clothing store, the Grand Union, the Planters Peanuts sign (we see the Grand Union and Planters sign prominently in shots of Davey) and the RKO at 6th Avenue and 49th Street.

The Parisian Dance Land, where the advertisements for Pleasure Land were filmed, and may have been where the interior of the Pleasure Land was filmed (I'm uncertain about this) was located to the left of the RKO Palace, next to Whelan Drugs, on the 2nd floor. You can just make it out in the third screen grab from shot 255 below.

We can see in some images, down this sidewalk, in the vicinity of Childs, the Globe theater at 205 W. 46th St., and the Holiday theater at 1567 Broadway across from the RKO Palace. The Orpheum, a famous taxi-dancer place, was at 46th and Broadway.

Below is a 1953 photo from a govt website showing the Parisian.

The below screengrabs are from Jonas Mekas' 1975 film Lost, Lost, Lost, taken from the first reel that diaries 1949, his first year in New York. We see the first floor entrance of the Parisian dance club and that it is not the same as the Pleasure Land in Kubrick's film. Kubrick filmed none of the sidewalk scenes for the Pleasure Land in front of the Parisian, and this image shows that the entrance for the Parisian was very different from the entrance, unknown, used for Pleasure Land.

In shot 258, the conventioneers are now across the street from Childs (you can see it on the corner by the automat), and Victoria Theater (1547 Broadway at 46 St.) where The Man Between plays, the Astor Theater (1537 Broadway at 45th St.), and Cardinal. The shots of Davey are taken somewhere right beside the Victoria so this means the conventioneers are across the street from Davey and the fictional Pleasure Land.

In shot 270 we have the conventioneers carousing down a sidewalk in a view that doesn't afford us an establishing shot as to where they might be. The street is on their screen left, but, in shot 271, when they come upon Davey the street appears to be on their screen right. When the clowns run away with Davey's scarf the street is on their screen right, but in shot 276 Davey will be seen pursuing them past the same theater front as in shot 270 and the street will be on their left.

In shot 283, Davey, having retrieved his scarf, walks down the sidewalk on the opposite side of the street from the Astor. This places him in the position of the clowns in shot 258. He is across the street from the Pleasure Land and heading away from it.

In shot 284 Davey is walking away from the Embassy Theater at 7th and 47th Street. Then in shot 285 he is walking from Childs back toward where he was originally standing.

OK. Maybe I ought to do some very approximate, not to scale diagrams, just to give a feel of the positioning. In shot 255 where we see the clowns for the first time they are actually just beyond the front of the Pleasure Land, heading away from it toward the Pepsi sign. Then in shot 257 we are shown Davey outside the Pleasure Land again. In shot 258 we are shown the clowns on the opposite side of the street going in the opposite direction from what they had been, again moving away from the Pleasure Land, yet we are given the feeling the clowns are always moving in the same direction toward their encounter with Davey.

In shots 271-275 the clowns have the encounter with Davey in front of Pleasure Land and run off toward the Pepsi sign. In shot 277 we see Albert arriving and standing before the Pleasure Land. Davey had told his manager to meet him at the dance hall at 49th and Broadway, but the dance hall they are at W. 46th and Broadway. Kubrick may have determined that the flip of the 6 to a 9, 46th Street replacing 49th, was to be another demonstration of an inversion/reversal, this one coincident with Albert being mistaken for someone else when he arrives at an address different from the one Davey had voiced.

In shot 283 Davey, who has retrieved his scarf, is supposedly starting back to the Pleasure Land, but he is approximately where the clowns were in shot 258, on the opposite side of the street moving in the opposite direction screen right away from the Pleasure Land. In shot 284 he is on the opposite side of the street walking screen right toward the Pleasure Land. In shot 285 he is shown back on the right side of the street near the Pleasure Land and moving screen right toward it.

If I pay attention to where exactly the conventioneers and Davey are in these different shots, it's due the "Watch Your Step" sign in the hallway leading up to the Pleasure Land dance hall. This is taken to be a wry reference to Gloria (and Davey) being in a state of danger. Albert as well. But what do we have outside, in conjunction with this, but the wild steps of the dancing, drunken Shriners and Davey so they are often not where one would expect them to be. The way the scene is edited, the sidewalk is almost always on the outside right of the conventioneers, rather than the left, so the feeling is that they are ever progressing down the same walk towards Davey. One likely doesn't realize that they are at one point across the street. One certainly wouldn't expect Davey to be across the street. This all may be a matter of constraints placed on them by illegally filming on the street when police cars aren't around and grabbing what they can. Still, I'm reminded of the numerous times Kubrick works flip horizontals into his work.

The clowns are as if an intentional kink in Vincent's plans, tossed in by fate to distract Davey away from Pleasure Land and out of danger. Thus, they screw everything up for Vincent--and poor Albert as well. Because Davey has run off to chase the clowns, Albert is mistaken as Davey by Vincent's henchmen.

Part of Davey's problem (and also his saving grace in this situation, which keeps him from being killed) is he's just too damn nice and also doesn't see the big picture. Rather than telling the clowns to get lost, he good-naturedly puts up with their antics. He is unable to read their intentions. This is much the same as his predicament in the ring, and will later be replayed when he has the upper hand when attempting to rescue Gloria, when she is kidnaped, then is knocked out by the thugs. He won't anticpate the greater scheme as the thugs plot to overcome him, and though he has a gun on them, and a couple of other guns in his pockets, he won't fire a shot. It won't be until the duel in the mannequin factory that Davey wins, when fighting for his life, and finally claims in his real life the victory that has previously eluded him in the ring.

The Man Between

The Man Between is playing at the Victoria Theater, and the Pleasureland is fictionally situated so that Davey and Gloria stand right before that theater in shots where the camera is facing the street. The Man Between starred James Mason (who will later be in Lolita) as a (Wikipedia here) "former lawyer who has participated in Nazi atrocities and is now selling his expertise to East Germans to kidnap and transport certain West Germans to the eastern bloc. Although Kern (Mason) desires to relocate to the West, he is hampered by West German suspicions and his criminal past. Nevertheless, he agrees to a final kidnapping venture that fails, forcing his employer to take over and abduct Briton Suasanne Mallison by mistake. Kern had earlier feigned a romance with Mallison as a means to seize his kidnapping target. The abduction of Mallison presents Kern with an opportunity to both return the unfortunate victim to the West and impress western authorities with his atonement." To make a longer story a trifle shorter, Mallison falls in love with him. Despite his conviction that he's a bad man, Kern falls in love with her and when their escape to the West is endangered, he distracts the border guards, putting his own life in peril. Mallison successfully escapes and Kern is killed by the border guards. This movie was directed by Carol Reed, who had also directed The Third Man starring Orson Welles.

When the Gaiety/Victoria Theater was opened it was decorated in Louis XV style. Thought I'd make a note of that.

8:15 Sharp

Davey's manager had agreed, in shot 245, to meet with him at exactly 8:15 sharp. In shot 277 we see a clock behind him as he arrives in his taxi and it is 7:30. A simple change in dialogue could have averted this discrepancy so the difference may be purposeful.

The Alley

The shot of the alley in which Davey's manager is killed (292) has always evoked, for me, the below shot from Cocteau's Orpheus.

I would pass this over as purely coincidental except that there are several other shots that seem indebted to Orpheus, which I will discuss in section 4.

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GLORIA VANISHES

294 MS Davey at Penn Station. (44:17)

DAVEY (narration): We had some ham and eggs and took our time saying goodbye to the bright lights and then we went home. Downstairs in the courtyard, I suggested that we each go and get packed and I'd come over when I was through.

Begin blur transition.

295 MS Davey in his apartment. (44:17)

Davey writing a note on his table, we see what he doesn't, the silhouette of a man in a hat crossing before Gloria's window.

296 CU the fish bowl and the note. (44:45)

Davey places a note before the fishbowl asking that the fish please be fed once a day.

297 MLS Davey slips on his coat. (44:48)

298 CU Davey tosses the keys on the dresser. (44:58)

299 MLS Davey gets his bags, goes to the door and exits. (44:59)

300 Davey mounts the stairs to the roof. (45:14)

301 Davey exits onto the roof. (45:32)

A train whistle sounds.

302 Davey enters Gloria's stairwell. (45:47)

303 Davey goes down Gloria's stairs. (45:55)

304 MLS Davey enters Gloria's apartment. (46:10)

305 Gloria's empty apartment, the kitchenette. (46:15)

POLICE (off screen, at Davey's apartment): Open up...

306 Gloria's empty apartment, the bed. (46:16)

POLICE (off screen, at Davey's apartment): ...in there!

307 LS Davey gazing about. (46:17)

We hear more pounding on the door.

308 MCU Davey drops his bags. (46:21)

309 Panning shot to the window. (46:21)

POLICE (off screen, at Davey's apartment): Open the door!

310 Davey goes to the window. (46:25)

POLICE (off screen, at Davey's apartment): Gordon! Open the door!

312 Davey's hand in silhouette pulling aside the blind. (46:29)

The light in his apartment comes on and the police and landlord enter and look around.

LANDLORD: Looks like he's gone.

POLICEMAN: You know where?

LANDLORD: No, sir.

POLICEMAN: Where's he from?

LANDLORD: I don't know.

POLICEMAN: When did he leave?

LANDLORD: I don't know.

POLICEMAN: How long did he live here?

LANDLORD: Oh, uh, about a year.

POLICEMAN: Give me a hand with this drawer. It's jammed.

LANDLORD (helping): Say, what kind of trouble is he in?

POLICEMAN: Bad trouble. They found his manager's body about an hour ago with his head bashed in.

312 Davey's eye through his blind. (47:20)

POLICEMAN (off screen): Okay, let's go.

313 The police leave Davey's apartment. (47:26)

The silhouette of Davey's hand drops the blind back down.

314 LS Davey in Gloria's apartment. He places his scarf on her table. (47:32)

315 MS of Davey through Gloria's window. (47:35)

316 CU Davey opens his suitcase and takes out a gun. (47:44)

317 Street scene at Pleasure Land. (47:47)

318 Dance Hall Hostesses sign. (47:53)

319 Vincent exits Pleasure Land. (47:57)

320 Vincent climbs in his car. (48:02)

321 MCU Vincent in his car. (48:10)

322 Vincent drives off. (48:16)

323 Davey, in a cab behind, follows. (48:19)

324 The cab pulls away from the curb. (48:22)

325 The night street. (48:27)

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GLORIA VANISHES: THINGS TO NOTICE

Revisiting the Goldfish Bowl

Now for a more extended examination of that goldfish bowl. Kubrick has the bowl stand out in shot 15 with Davey's face magnified looking through it. When we are watching the boxing match on the television in Vincent's office, we are reminded of the goldfish bowl effect.

We return to the goldfish bowl in this section. Davey, writing a note that he will place in front of it, is focused on the note and so doesn't see the silhouettes of the men in Gloria's apartment against her blind. He doesn't see her being kidnapped. He writes his note on an "Air Mail" envelope. In shot 15 we had seen two goldfish in the bowl, but in shot 286, when he places the note before the bowl, we only see one goldfish, perhaps commenting already on Gloria's disappearance in respect of the bowl as a metaphor for residing in the city and one's life being lived in the open.

In respect of the goldfish bowl and how it is used in this scene, I wonder if we might need to step back to Fear and Desire, a scene in which Sidney is telling a story to the bound "enemy" girl, who had been out netting fish when she happened upon the soldiers. He paraphrases a scene out of the The Tempest in which Ariel, a spirit, delivers a message. Sidney tells the girl,

Then the spirit in the magician's power goes back to the island and tells Miranda that her father's dead. The spirit sings how he's dead at the bottom of the ocean. His bones are coral, his eyes are pearls, and Miranda, her father's dead. Dead! Can't you understand anything? Dead! Dead! Dead! Now d'you understand?

The message Sidney is relating a false message Ariel had given Prince Ferdinand that was intended to make him believe his father was dead, but he actually wasn't. The message was sung, and that song was meant to lead Ferdinand to Miranda, which it does. Sidney, however, relates it incorrectly, saying that Miranda's father is dead.

It may seem absurd but I look at the message Davey is writing and that it's on an Air Mail envelope, and that it has to do with a fish, and I wonder if Kubrick has imported Ariel into Killer's Kiss, which sounds odd but isn't for Kubrick as he brings Ariel into The Killing by means of a sign. The message, "Please Feed Fish Once a Day", refers to the theme song "Once" that is heard throughout the film.

Where there were two goldfish there is now one.

I wonder if Kubrick might be referring to the scene of the captive girl from Fear and Desire in anticipation of Gloria having been kidnaped.

We have also a visual that connects back to the captive girl in Fear and Desire. Davey, having crossed to Gloria's apartment, finding her gone, discreetly gazes on his own apartment now from Gloria's. We see his hand in silhouette pulling back the curtain to watch the police enter. They are looking for him, believing he is a suspect in Alfred's death.

As Davey watches the police searching his apartment we have a shot of his eye.

After the girl is killed in Fear and Desire, Mac passes his hand before her face, the eye of the camera.

The dead girl is depicted in a "normal" view and also reversed, in a flip horizontal.

Her aspect, in death, will remind of the mannequins in the scene in which Davey fights Vincent.

Her eyes never close. A mannequin's eyes, once painted open, are always open.

The eyes of fish never close not even when they sleep.

I also refer back to this scene in Fear and Desire because just as Ariel's song is actually on the illusory death of Alonso, Davey is also believed to be dead by Vincent.

In my analysis on Fear and Desire, I write on how already in that film we have what will later become HAL's supposed "error", which is to see not only from one's own perspective but other perspectives as well, such as Frank's when they are playing chess. In Fear and Desire two of the soldiers meet their own likenesses in the "enemy", their doubles, who they kill. When Davey is over in Gloria's apartment, he is as if on the other side of the chess board, able now to see from a different perspective.

Those Twin Keys

These keys in shot 298 are perfectly ordinary and it's a perfectly ordinary shot, yet the way the keys lay on the dresser stands out and so I always take notice of this shot. We know that Kubrick is preoccupied with doubling and that these two apartments are in effect doubles of one another.

In shots 300 through 303 we see Davey crossing over to Gloria's apartment.

Shots 300 to 303 recall shots 145-149, when Davey woke from his nightmare to see Gloria being attacked by Vincent and ran across to help her.

Kubrick perhaps has intentionally structured these two scenes so that if you divide the shot of the doubled keys by 2, getting 149 we are in the proximity of that earlier scene in which Davey runs over to Gloria's, this scene duplicating that one. It seems like the kind of thing Kubrick might have done, playing with discreet structure.

August 2014 transferred to html. Approx 5640 words or 11 single-spaced pages. A 43 minute read at 130 wpm.

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Go to Part 4
Go to Table of Contents of the analysis (with supplemental posts)
Link to the main TOC page for all the analyses