If anyone watched Capturing Mary on BBC2 could you please tell me what the endin!
Question: It was so confusing, what did this guy actually do to mary, Why was he saying Help Me in the car? ... What was that Lisa girl all about??? .... So confused ?????
Answers: It was so confusing, what did this guy actually do to mary, Why was he saying Help Me in the car? ... What was that Lisa girl all about??? .... So confused ?????
I had a much more surreal take on this. I was thinking of "A Beautiful Mind" - perhaps Mary was schizophrenic? Perhaps Greville and Lisa were characters in her imagination (this would explain a lot - for one thing Greville's apparent youth later on, his old-fashioned way of dressing, etc). Perhaps she used this imaginary 'excuse' that he was sabotaging her career, rather than accept the reality of her own real shortcomings. And just the surrealness of their encounters, him 'speaking' to her from across a crowded room or from a car, and the unusual Lisa. Perhaps at the end, Mary had finally rid herself of this phantom of her mind, or at least, come to accept and live with it. Just proferring some ideas here!
I know the park bit but I'll have to hazard a guess at the others, see what you think. Where she tells him it is ok to leave her, she'll be alright, it is because yesterday when she saw/thought she saw him in the park she was on the verge of giving up on life. The terrible things he had told her had eaten away at her so much and she'd lost her whole life to trying to run away from them that she just realised she hadn't had a life. In a way I think this is what he was saying 'Help me' for. I think he felt as trapped by the terrible burden of all the things he knew as she did and that was why he told her in the first place, he needed someone to share it all with and he (possibly mistakenly) thought she was the right person to support him. As for Lisa.... hmmm.... I think, she represented his desire to connect with something pure and untainted by all his secrets. Nicely highlighted by her removed presence at the last party where she seemed to represent a more innocent time and place in her dated clothes and demeanour. Possibly why he clung to his out dated attire too, a desire to cling to a time before it all went wrong and that his life was simple and happy. I think over all it was a story about wanting something you cant quite get and what a terrible toll that takes upon you if you aren't able to let it go. What do you think it was about and did you enjoy it though?
I think it's like a poem - it's about what you bring to it and what you personally take from it. Strictly speaking, there's no right or wrong answer. For me, Greville could be a cipher for many things, a symbol of the harsh realities or even horrors in life, or growing up, or growing closer to death, of lost youth, or a suffocating establishment, of how people can be imprisoned by their own fears. Basically, I think he took Mary's innocence and idealism, her security in her own sophistication and judgement. But he also offered her something that she was too afraid to accept - a different way, an unsettling partnership.
At the end it seemed like Greville may have needed Mary as much as she obviously needed him (or was at least obsessed by him.) His plea 'help me' is maybe something to do with his waning power in a new world - he was dwindling and felt his influence and importance shrinking, perhaps he just wanted a friend, or more cynically someone he could still manipulate or own.
The ending was tough for me. If it had ended 10 minutes earlier I would have been happier, because it would have been more fitting to me if it had been open-ended, allowing more interpretations. As it was, it seems that Mary found some measure of peace from sharing her story and confronting her past. At the end of the day, she shared the story of wasted potential and fears that never seemed fully justified. The big theme was seeing yourself as others see you - at the end we see her through Joe's eyes - she looks at peace, satisfied, calmed.... but is she? Personally, I don't think so. Nothing was really as it seemed in the drama, after all.
not just me then?!
i didnt get it either, had to post a message too.
your answerers have helped me though!
There was a very important moment, near the end where she realised "the bad thing she had done", and nothing in the film really preceeded this reflection.
I have a hunch that Greville was the devil, which was why he was present at all occasions which were bad, and we do not know this, but maybe he was also haunting those, that he had spoke about, as he was Lisa. Now, had Lisa done anything wrong in the past? Maybe the first play, A real Summer, may highlight this! He is seen to mime "help me" and also something else, in the sixties style penthouse renovation. When he is in the car, leaving the party where he is no longer the favourite that he was, the light shines on him, as the car drives into the distance. Was Poliakoff, saying that all those in the newspaper industry, were work of the devil. Why doesn't Greville age in the park, but those old dears had?
Now, the answer to your question is still not answered I know, maybe the devil was losing his power, and he was desperate to clinch a little life, which may have still been within Lisa. Very loose, I know, but it is a tough question.