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mimesereWhat follows is in no way critical or coherent. Mostly it is me being terribly flaily and full of bored-at-work and highly sleep-deprived squee. Forgive me!
Okay, so I have now seen the movie twice: once in a regular theater and once in IMAX 3D and I want to talk about the latter one a little bit in detail (just for the technical stuff and only about the four sequences of the movie that were in 3D).
I need to say upfront that I'm totally biased in favor of liking Superman because a) he's Superman and thus b) he's totally one of those characters I saw as a kid who influenced *everything* that came after[1]. I love Lois. I love Clark. I love Jimmy and Perry. Up until Smallville, I was a hugely faithful viewer of the Superman texts. I watched George Reeves, I watched Lois and Clark, I watched Superboy. And leaving all the *character* love aside, I love Bryan Singer. More than that, even, I trust Bryan Singer as a director and as a storyteller; he's a fantastic person to have running the show on a superhero movie because he's proven that he can do it and that he can do it with sincerity and deep, abiding love for the characters. So, that puts runners on first and second, with the movie itself stepping up to bat.
And, for me, Superman Returns knocked it out of the park. It had everything I wanted from a Superman movie and, maybe more importantly, it had everything I wanted from a movie about a hero.
I suppose that the most logical place to start is with Kal El/Superman/Clark and Brandon Routh's performance. I honestly thought Brandon Routh was fantastic in the role. He played the three aspects of the character (Kal-El, Clark Kent, and Superman) with appropriate and varying degrees of gravitas and, impressively, he made them his own separate and distinct from the portrayals that have come before. Routh's Kal-El (who I would bet money we will see more of in the DVD release of the movie since I know good and well there are at least three other scenes of him on the Kent farm that did not make it into the theatrical release) and his Superman are both true to the established character. He's believable as Superman, with all the charm and sincerity and dignity necessary to make me, at least, buy him wholeheartedly in the role. And what's more, he plays the Superman/Kal-El character as someone distinct from the Christopher Reeve Superman who, while sharing basic characteristics, is also in a totally different state of mind. And it's impressive to me that Routh's Superman had all of the larger than life aspects nailed while keeping the character grounded in his loneliness and alienation.
In the supertext[3], we're presented with the following:
a) Astronomers (under the influence of Lex Luthor) "discover" Krypton and state that it may not, in fact, have been destroyed. This discovery is what prompts Superman (but not Clark) to leave without saying a word to anybody because hi, hi, he *could go home*. He could have a family. He could find a place where he's not set apart from everyone else. That's an incredibly powerful thing to want, especially for a person who has to keep aspects of himself hidden from people that he loves.
b) Martha has hooked it up with a new guy and is selling the Kent farm and moving to Montana. So when Kal-El comes back, not only has he spent five years going to and coming back from what he calls a graveyard, but he comes back to find that the home he grew up in is no longer going to be his home at all and that his mother has, well, hooked it up with a new guy.
c) The woman he loves has moved on to another guy -- a *good* guy -- and she has a child. Not only that, but she's told the world that he's unnecessary and she's being celebrated for it.
d) The Fortress of Solitude is no longer a sanctuary for him.
and e) As Clark, he doesn't even have an apartment to call his own.
I'm just saying, he's not exactly in the best of all possible situations in the movie. He doesn't have a place to go, he's questioning his relevance[4], and the only people who seem to have noticed Clark was gone at all are his mom and Jimmy Olsen. So yes, I'm actually glad that Routh's Superman and Kal-El are tinged with melancholy. He's earned it and he doesn't let any of it stop him from doing what he needs to do.
Also? He KICKS UNHOLY AMOUNTS OF ASS. Like during the bank robbery sequence when the bad guy shoots him in the eye and it bounces off and they both sort of watch the bullet fall and then they look at each other and Superman has that wicked little glint in his eye? That is hot, my friends, largely because it really is the look of "I'm here to chew bubblegum and kick some ass and I am *all out of bubblegum*." I looooove it. Love!
Truthfully, I love all of the action sequences. I love that Bryan Singer clearly thought about how Superman's powers worked. I loved the ripple along the body of the plane. I loved the Action Comics shoutout when he lowers Kitty's car to the ground. I loved that Superman had his arm around Lois' waist, her hand in his, and that her legs were all tangled up in his during their flight. I love that lifting a landmass was difficult for him such that you can see him straining to lift it and to keep going. I love that he hovers in space, listening for where he needs to go. I love beyond the telling of it that before he lifts New Krypton out of the ocean, he has to go recharge himself in the sun. I love that like Joss Whedon loves big eyed waifs. I love that he's flying out to save Lois and then *turns back* because Metropolis needs him more. Oh my god, the sheer amount of my love for that can't be expressed in words. I love the Atlas moment when he's holding up the globe of the Daily Planet and I love more that that image is what breaks Jimmy's photographer's block.
And I love Lex vs Superman in New Krypton. The brutality of the beating and the kryptonite shiv in the back just make me go all wibbly and flaily and sometimes I have to close my eyes. And good lord, the physical closeness and emotional intensity of the knife in the back coupled with the "Now, *fly*," just makes me go meep a lot. It's so intimate and vicious and passionate that I get all tangled up in the wrong and the hot and the omg wrong.
I love his fall to earth. I love that the shot from the trailers of everyone watching the sky was of everyone watching him fall. I love that it was silent.
And OMG, I love how emotional he was when he was talking to Jason. I totally got all teary eyed there when he did and he was just...brimming with feeling and love and happiness and oh, oh. Love.
*sighs happily*
I want to talk about Clark for a second because Brandon Routh's Clark was outstanding, like, even more than his Kal-El or Superman. What distinguishes Routh's Clark from that of Christopher Reeve is that Routh's Clark isn't nearly as much of a performance. The Reeve Clark is a noticeable exaggeration -- he's not physically imposing, he's not brave, he hides behind Lois, and in all that exaggeration, he's *conspicuous* in his physical ineptitude. And that works for Clark as a disguise because everyone knows that Clark is all of those things and that Superman isn't. It's hugely performative and Kal-El never loses sight of that. But Routh's Clark isn't so much of an exaggeration. He's not clumsy with the suitcases because Superman wouldn't be clumsy, he's clumsy with them 'cause they're huge suitcases. Routh's Clark is actually Clark Kent, the guy from Kansas and the son of Martha and Jonathan Kent. He's quieter, a little dorky, very sincere, a little clueless, a little old-fashioned, but mostly he's...Clark. Jimmy loves him, Perry respects him, and Lois doesn't notice him at all.
Clark is *adorable*. There's a bit in the official movie guide where Brandon Routh is talking about Clark and he says that the thing about Clark is that he's totally excited to be in Metropolis and to have the job he has to be surrounded by all of these cool things and it's that exuberance that sort of spills out and makes him clumsy. I love that. I love that he has this huge goofy grin. I love that he waves. I love Clark -- what little we saw of him, anyway -- as much as I love Superman.
Jen said in her post about the movie that she thinks it's clear that Bryan Singer agrees with Quentin Tarantino that Clark is the mask that Superman wears and, honestly, I don't agree with that. I mean, I know and agree that there are totally identity issues kind of inherent in the genre we're working with here, but I don't think Kal-el/Superman/Clark is a question of mask-wearing so much as it is a question of...hm. Let me back up.
I think that for Batman, Batman is first and Bruce Wayne is secondary at best. Millionaire playboy Bruce Wayne who is charming and affable and who does charitable works isn't *real*, like, not even a little bit. And there are totally a bunch of heroes who are like that in both the Marvel and DC universes. But then you have characters like Superman and Spiderman and the X-Men who aren't in quite the same boat. They're the characters who don't have that sharp differentiation between the hero and the regular person. It's hard to separate Logan from Wolverine or Ororo from Storm or Scott Summers from Cyclops.
If there were no one around to see, Batman would still be Batman. If there were no one around to see, Superman wouldn't be Superman at all. He'd be Kal-El, who has elements of both Superman and Clark Kent in him. Like, he doesn't sit around his apartment in the suit and use his heat vision to toast the bread.
...though, seriously, I would. If I had heat vision. I'm just sayin'.
I think that Superman is as much performance as it is anything else. There's always someone watching and I thought the movie did an *outstanding* job of showing that hyperawareness of the audience's existence. The minute he saves the plane and lands in the middle of Yankee stadium and is put up on the screens there with the entire audience of people looking on and cheering, he's back, very firmly, in the public eye. And from that point on, there's always, *always* someone watching. Everything he does is noticed and remarked upon. That scene in the Daily Planet after his return makes that very very clear. Perry ties Superman into every section of the newspaper and by so doing, makes every aspect of him newsworthy. Superman always has to be on because he's always being watched.
Anyway, that was totally rambly and probably incoherent.
Love! A movie where I liked everyone! I am as shocked as anyone else!
I actually liked Kate Bosworth's Lois Lane. She wasn't as snappy/sparky as Margot Kidder's, but I liked her. I...don't have much else to say. She was awfully pretty and while she did look really, really young (almost too young), I believe she loves Richard and that she loves Superman and that she loves Jason most of all. She's impulsive and smart and self-sufficient and emotionally distant in a lot of ways and she totally takes things personally. I just really liked her. Um, yes.
And Richard! Awwww, Richard. I love that Lois totally has a thing for hot, honorable, heroic blue-eyed guys with really dark hair who like to fly. I love that he was allowed to be heroic. And I love that he was allowed to be a good man. The novelization also has a great line of his that makes me almost consider going all OT3.
I loved Jason a lot. I loved especially when he put together that Clark and Superman were the same person and immediately went for his inhaler. Canhead! Grar! He was adorable and not cloying and adorable. Also, he had AQUAMAN PAJAMAS. That is too cute for words.
Perry! Perry was awesome and grounded and totally the awesome patriarch guy who knows what's up and he keeps it all together.
Jimmy! Oh, Jimmy with your ginormous mancrush on Clark and your adorableness and your photographer's block and the *cake*. Dorky and cute and wonderful! *heart* I want to write stupid stories like, "Jimmy and Clark Go to White Castle" and other wacky misadventure things. I can't see it happening, but Jimmy makes me want to write it.
Kumar! Oh, Kumar, we hardly knew ye. And Creepy Clownface Back of Head Guy. Whatever. I'm totally glad you got capped by Jason. That whole scene was terrifying and horrible for me -- the casual way Clownface Guy grabbed Lois by the hair and smashed her head into the table was just...brutal. I can totally empathize with Jason there because *I* was tense and sick-feeling and scared for her and um, yes.
Lex was terrifyingly mean and vicious and creepy and charming and suave and menacing. Kitty was...Parker Posey. Which hey, worked for me, 'cause I love me some Parker Posey. And wow, does Lex ever have the hate on for Superman which, you know, I *knew*, but I love that at least part of it is just sheer jealousy. I love that. I love that Kitty cried when Superman was being beaten.
I want more Martha. That is all.
And, quite frankly, I think I have gone on long enough but um. Yes. Love! Lots and lots and lots of love.
1 - Superman, Zorro, Robin Hood (specifically Outlaws of Sherwood and even more specifically Marian, Cecily, Little John, Eva, and Sibyl), Dorothy and Ozma, Taran and Eilonwy, Leia and Han and Lando (I um. I totally thought Billy Dee Williams was super hot when I was like, seven, and also he was charming! And yes, he was a dick in ESB, but he was a dick to protect his city and thus I cannot really hate him for it *and* he made up for it later), Red Sonja, Madmartigan and Sorcha, Batgirl from the old tv show, Spider-man and His Amazing Friends, on and on and on.
2 - Movie-verse Batman. The Tim Burtons and Batman Begins.
3 - Pun only intended a little bit. But seriously, the supertext: the official movie guide, the visual companion, various interviews and articles, the novelization, the prequel comics, and Superman 1 and 2.
4 - This whole thing makes me want to be Bryan Singer's platonic babymama. I *love* that he used this movie as a metacommentary on why the character's necessary. It works for me the way Magog's breakdown in Kingdom Come works for me and it's why I don't have a problem (the way many seem to) with the idea of Superman as savior. But then, I actually have way more of a problem with ET as Christ figure, so I may not be entirely reasonable on the subject.
Okay, so I have now seen the movie twice: once in a regular theater and once in IMAX 3D and I want to talk about the latter one a little bit in detail (just for the technical stuff and only about the four sequences of the movie that were in 3D).
I need to say upfront that I'm totally biased in favor of liking Superman because a) he's Superman and thus b) he's totally one of those characters I saw as a kid who influenced *everything* that came after[1]. I love Lois. I love Clark. I love Jimmy and Perry. Up until Smallville, I was a hugely faithful viewer of the Superman texts. I watched George Reeves, I watched Lois and Clark, I watched Superboy. And leaving all the *character* love aside, I love Bryan Singer. More than that, even, I trust Bryan Singer as a director and as a storyteller; he's a fantastic person to have running the show on a superhero movie because he's proven that he can do it and that he can do it with sincerity and deep, abiding love for the characters. So, that puts runners on first and second, with the movie itself stepping up to bat.
And, for me, Superman Returns knocked it out of the park. It had everything I wanted from a Superman movie and, maybe more importantly, it had everything I wanted from a movie about a hero.
I suppose that the most logical place to start is with Kal El/Superman/Clark and Brandon Routh's performance. I honestly thought Brandon Routh was fantastic in the role. He played the three aspects of the character (Kal-El, Clark Kent, and Superman) with appropriate and varying degrees of gravitas and, impressively, he made them his own separate and distinct from the portrayals that have come before. Routh's Kal-El (who I would bet money we will see more of in the DVD release of the movie since I know good and well there are at least three other scenes of him on the Kent farm that did not make it into the theatrical release) and his Superman are both true to the established character. He's believable as Superman, with all the charm and sincerity and dignity necessary to make me, at least, buy him wholeheartedly in the role. And what's more, he plays the Superman/Kal-El character as someone distinct from the Christopher Reeve Superman who, while sharing basic characteristics, is also in a totally different state of mind. And it's impressive to me that Routh's Superman had all of the larger than life aspects nailed while keeping the character grounded in his loneliness and alienation.
In the supertext[3], we're presented with the following:
a) Astronomers (under the influence of Lex Luthor) "discover" Krypton and state that it may not, in fact, have been destroyed. This discovery is what prompts Superman (but not Clark) to leave without saying a word to anybody because hi, hi, he *could go home*. He could have a family. He could find a place where he's not set apart from everyone else. That's an incredibly powerful thing to want, especially for a person who has to keep aspects of himself hidden from people that he loves.
b) Martha has hooked it up with a new guy and is selling the Kent farm and moving to Montana. So when Kal-El comes back, not only has he spent five years going to and coming back from what he calls a graveyard, but he comes back to find that the home he grew up in is no longer going to be his home at all and that his mother has, well, hooked it up with a new guy.
c) The woman he loves has moved on to another guy -- a *good* guy -- and she has a child. Not only that, but she's told the world that he's unnecessary and she's being celebrated for it.
d) The Fortress of Solitude is no longer a sanctuary for him.
and e) As Clark, he doesn't even have an apartment to call his own.
I'm just saying, he's not exactly in the best of all possible situations in the movie. He doesn't have a place to go, he's questioning his relevance[4], and the only people who seem to have noticed Clark was gone at all are his mom and Jimmy Olsen. So yes, I'm actually glad that Routh's Superman and Kal-El are tinged with melancholy. He's earned it and he doesn't let any of it stop him from doing what he needs to do.
Also? He KICKS UNHOLY AMOUNTS OF ASS. Like during the bank robbery sequence when the bad guy shoots him in the eye and it bounces off and they both sort of watch the bullet fall and then they look at each other and Superman has that wicked little glint in his eye? That is hot, my friends, largely because it really is the look of "I'm here to chew bubblegum and kick some ass and I am *all out of bubblegum*." I looooove it. Love!
Truthfully, I love all of the action sequences. I love that Bryan Singer clearly thought about how Superman's powers worked. I loved the ripple along the body of the plane. I loved the Action Comics shoutout when he lowers Kitty's car to the ground. I loved that Superman had his arm around Lois' waist, her hand in his, and that her legs were all tangled up in his during their flight. I love that lifting a landmass was difficult for him such that you can see him straining to lift it and to keep going. I love that he hovers in space, listening for where he needs to go. I love beyond the telling of it that before he lifts New Krypton out of the ocean, he has to go recharge himself in the sun. I love that like Joss Whedon loves big eyed waifs. I love that he's flying out to save Lois and then *turns back* because Metropolis needs him more. Oh my god, the sheer amount of my love for that can't be expressed in words. I love the Atlas moment when he's holding up the globe of the Daily Planet and I love more that that image is what breaks Jimmy's photographer's block.
And I love Lex vs Superman in New Krypton. The brutality of the beating and the kryptonite shiv in the back just make me go all wibbly and flaily and sometimes I have to close my eyes. And good lord, the physical closeness and emotional intensity of the knife in the back coupled with the "Now, *fly*," just makes me go meep a lot. It's so intimate and vicious and passionate that I get all tangled up in the wrong and the hot and the omg wrong.
I love his fall to earth. I love that the shot from the trailers of everyone watching the sky was of everyone watching him fall. I love that it was silent.
And OMG, I love how emotional he was when he was talking to Jason. I totally got all teary eyed there when he did and he was just...brimming with feeling and love and happiness and oh, oh. Love.
*sighs happily*
I want to talk about Clark for a second because Brandon Routh's Clark was outstanding, like, even more than his Kal-El or Superman. What distinguishes Routh's Clark from that of Christopher Reeve is that Routh's Clark isn't nearly as much of a performance. The Reeve Clark is a noticeable exaggeration -- he's not physically imposing, he's not brave, he hides behind Lois, and in all that exaggeration, he's *conspicuous* in his physical ineptitude. And that works for Clark as a disguise because everyone knows that Clark is all of those things and that Superman isn't. It's hugely performative and Kal-El never loses sight of that. But Routh's Clark isn't so much of an exaggeration. He's not clumsy with the suitcases because Superman wouldn't be clumsy, he's clumsy with them 'cause they're huge suitcases. Routh's Clark is actually Clark Kent, the guy from Kansas and the son of Martha and Jonathan Kent. He's quieter, a little dorky, very sincere, a little clueless, a little old-fashioned, but mostly he's...Clark. Jimmy loves him, Perry respects him, and Lois doesn't notice him at all.
Clark is *adorable*. There's a bit in the official movie guide where Brandon Routh is talking about Clark and he says that the thing about Clark is that he's totally excited to be in Metropolis and to have the job he has to be surrounded by all of these cool things and it's that exuberance that sort of spills out and makes him clumsy. I love that. I love that he has this huge goofy grin. I love that he waves. I love Clark -- what little we saw of him, anyway -- as much as I love Superman.
Jen said in her post about the movie that she thinks it's clear that Bryan Singer agrees with Quentin Tarantino that Clark is the mask that Superman wears and, honestly, I don't agree with that. I mean, I know and agree that there are totally identity issues kind of inherent in the genre we're working with here, but I don't think Kal-el/Superman/Clark is a question of mask-wearing so much as it is a question of...hm. Let me back up.
I think that for Batman, Batman is first and Bruce Wayne is secondary at best. Millionaire playboy Bruce Wayne who is charming and affable and who does charitable works isn't *real*, like, not even a little bit. And there are totally a bunch of heroes who are like that in both the Marvel and DC universes. But then you have characters like Superman and Spiderman and the X-Men who aren't in quite the same boat. They're the characters who don't have that sharp differentiation between the hero and the regular person. It's hard to separate Logan from Wolverine or Ororo from Storm or Scott Summers from Cyclops.
If there were no one around to see, Batman would still be Batman. If there were no one around to see, Superman wouldn't be Superman at all. He'd be Kal-El, who has elements of both Superman and Clark Kent in him. Like, he doesn't sit around his apartment in the suit and use his heat vision to toast the bread.
...though, seriously, I would. If I had heat vision. I'm just sayin'.
I think that Superman is as much performance as it is anything else. There's always someone watching and I thought the movie did an *outstanding* job of showing that hyperawareness of the audience's existence. The minute he saves the plane and lands in the middle of Yankee stadium and is put up on the screens there with the entire audience of people looking on and cheering, he's back, very firmly, in the public eye. And from that point on, there's always, *always* someone watching. Everything he does is noticed and remarked upon. That scene in the Daily Planet after his return makes that very very clear. Perry ties Superman into every section of the newspaper and by so doing, makes every aspect of him newsworthy. Superman always has to be on because he's always being watched.
Anyway, that was totally rambly and probably incoherent.
Love! A movie where I liked everyone! I am as shocked as anyone else!
I actually liked Kate Bosworth's Lois Lane. She wasn't as snappy/sparky as Margot Kidder's, but I liked her. I...don't have much else to say. She was awfully pretty and while she did look really, really young (almost too young), I believe she loves Richard and that she loves Superman and that she loves Jason most of all. She's impulsive and smart and self-sufficient and emotionally distant in a lot of ways and she totally takes things personally. I just really liked her. Um, yes.
And Richard! Awwww, Richard. I love that Lois totally has a thing for hot, honorable, heroic blue-eyed guys with really dark hair who like to fly. I love that he was allowed to be heroic. And I love that he was allowed to be a good man. The novelization also has a great line of his that makes me almost consider going all OT3.
I loved Jason a lot. I loved especially when he put together that Clark and Superman were the same person and immediately went for his inhaler. Canhead! Grar! He was adorable and not cloying and adorable. Also, he had AQUAMAN PAJAMAS. That is too cute for words.
Perry! Perry was awesome and grounded and totally the awesome patriarch guy who knows what's up and he keeps it all together.
Jimmy! Oh, Jimmy with your ginormous mancrush on Clark and your adorableness and your photographer's block and the *cake*. Dorky and cute and wonderful! *heart* I want to write stupid stories like, "Jimmy and Clark Go to White Castle" and other wacky misadventure things. I can't see it happening, but Jimmy makes me want to write it.
Kumar! Oh, Kumar, we hardly knew ye. And Creepy Clownface Back of Head Guy. Whatever. I'm totally glad you got capped by Jason. That whole scene was terrifying and horrible for me -- the casual way Clownface Guy grabbed Lois by the hair and smashed her head into the table was just...brutal. I can totally empathize with Jason there because *I* was tense and sick-feeling and scared for her and um, yes.
Lex was terrifyingly mean and vicious and creepy and charming and suave and menacing. Kitty was...Parker Posey. Which hey, worked for me, 'cause I love me some Parker Posey. And wow, does Lex ever have the hate on for Superman which, you know, I *knew*, but I love that at least part of it is just sheer jealousy. I love that. I love that Kitty cried when Superman was being beaten.
I want more Martha. That is all.
And, quite frankly, I think I have gone on long enough but um. Yes. Love! Lots and lots and lots of love.
1 - Superman, Zorro, Robin Hood (specifically Outlaws of Sherwood and even more specifically Marian, Cecily, Little John, Eva, and Sibyl), Dorothy and Ozma, Taran and Eilonwy, Leia and Han and Lando (I um. I totally thought Billy Dee Williams was super hot when I was like, seven, and also he was charming! And yes, he was a dick in ESB, but he was a dick to protect his city and thus I cannot really hate him for it *and* he made up for it later), Red Sonja, Madmartigan and Sorcha, Batgirl from the old tv show, Spider-man and His Amazing Friends, on and on and on.
2 - Movie-verse Batman. The Tim Burtons and Batman Begins.
3 - Pun only intended a little bit. But seriously, the supertext: the official movie guide, the visual companion, various interviews and articles, the novelization, the prequel comics, and Superman 1 and 2.
4 - This whole thing makes me want to be Bryan Singer's platonic babymama. I *love* that he used this movie as a metacommentary on why the character's necessary. It works for me the way Magog's breakdown in Kingdom Come works for me and it's why I don't have a problem (the way many seem to) with the idea of Superman as savior. But then, I actually have way more of a problem with ET as Christ figure, so I may not be entirely reasonable on the subject.
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(no subject)
Date: 2006-07-03 05:07 am (UTC)I agree with you about Superman/Clark/Kal-el. Like, I am all *for* identity porn, but I don't think Clark is nearly as much with the schizophrenia as Batman. I don't think it's as clear-cut as 'Superman is the real person, Clark is a mask' or vice-versa; I think, like you said, Clark's real self is an amalgam of Clark, Kal, and Superman, and that's definitely how I read the movie. I can enjoy stories that paint Clark as a Big Scary Alien first and foremost, but I always read them as slightly AU.
Aaanyway, I will stop rambling in your comments now. Just wanted to give drive-by love to your Superman thoughts. :)
(no subject)
Date: 2006-07-04 10:25 pm (UTC)(no subject)
Date: 2006-07-12 10:10 am (UTC)But, oh, Clark/Kal-el/Superman yes to that and everything more. And why, why does Richard have to be a good man? I've always been a Lois/Clark shipper but to have Richard there? And to have his heart eventually broken? *why*?
Plus, I love Jason, he's small and fragile but not too cute. Plus he's a little stand-offish in a Superman kind of way, like he's part of this world, but not really. I just love this movie so much.