I don’t think Gomer was resisting anything. He truly seems like he’s simply less intelligent then the others in his platoon, or maybe even nuerodivergent, and he is bullied past the breaking point to which he suffers a classic psychotic break before committing a murder-suicide.
Any act of resistance was by complete accident. He was just pushed over the edge.
Any act of resistance was by complete accident. He was just pushed over the edge.
Are those two things any different, really? Some people, maybe most people, respond to unrelenting pressure by giving in. Hell maybe Pyle was mostly like this for the most part. Maybe most of us also have one thing we can’t abide, one thing where we’d break before we aquiesced. Isn’t that what resistance is?
It wasn’t really a situation of giving in or fighting back. He was deeply unwell and very obviously autistic, and the unrelenting pressure and stress caused a psychotic break and a spiral into a deep depression.
He wasn’t really aware of any “resistance”, as he was out of his mind and reverted to an almost animalistic version of himself which lost all ability to reason and stay in touch with reality.
He’s not Pyle anymore in the end scene, he’s gone. No well or sane person kills someone and then kills themselves.
He wasn’t always like that, anyone can trigger psychosis, and it turns even the sweetest most loving people into terrifying monsters as they lose control of their minds. That’s why he’s demonically smiling and laughing to himself while doing drill commands in his underwear at 2 in the morning. Before killing someone and then himself. Despite showing absolutely no desire to kill or hurt anyone for the entire training scene.
Yeah, that’s my point. Gomer Pyle doesn’t resist for shits and giggles. He has no choice but to resist. And they portray his character the way they do so you’ll disregard him.
That is a very logical response to the situation, but he is deeply mentally ill and psychotic by the end scene due to the extreme stress, despite not starting that way.
No sane or well person shoots someone and then kills themselves while doing drill commands in a bathroom in the dark with a rifle and trying to lure someone in to kill them.
He doesn’t die for his defiance. He kills himself in a psychotic break.
The way I described it is simply what happens in the movie. He had no resistance, he had no plan, he had no ideology, or grand vision. He has a psychotic break. The military is hell.
You’re creating a story about a character that was never told. They don’t need you to ignore him, because they don’t paint him as a Marxist, or a someone who’s a stalwart resistor.
He had no resistance, he had no plan, he had no ideology, or grand vision.
I think the small difference in our opinions is perhaps our different meanings ascribed to the word “resistance”, which does not (in my mind) have anything to do with a vision or an ideology. It can of course but a simpler, baser resistance is what he did, and what i mean.
Why couldn’t Lawrence just become the killer the US military wanted him to be? Perhaps he himself didn’t know, but in the end instead of moved by the inexorable power to change in to something he was not, he resisted this change. He could not be moved, could not be moulded into what they wanted him to be, “went crazy”.
It wasn’t a choice, youre right. He couldn’t become it. And unfortunately (j/k fortunately. a speech would be dumb) he didn’t have the screen time to write a speech on why he did what he did. We’re left to guess why he made this decision. Now if we all had an assignment to write a paper on leonard’s motivations but weren’t allowed to use the word “crazy” or anything about his intelligence, what would one say was going through his mind?
Great movies that don’t tell the audience everything also invite the audience to make these connections themselves. There’s no right answer either of us will walk away with here but it’s a fun exercise and a good one; one shouldn’t just dismiss these ideas because they are not spelled out explicitly
I don’t think Gomer was resisting anything. He truly seems like he’s simply less intelligent then the others in his platoon, or maybe even nuerodivergent, and he is bullied past the breaking point to which he suffers a classic psychotic break before committing a murder-suicide.
Any act of resistance was by complete accident. He was just pushed over the edge.
Are those two things any different, really? Some people, maybe most people, respond to unrelenting pressure by giving in. Hell maybe Pyle was mostly like this for the most part. Maybe most of us also have one thing we can’t abide, one thing where we’d break before we aquiesced. Isn’t that what resistance is?
It wasn’t really a situation of giving in or fighting back. He was deeply unwell and very obviously autistic, and the unrelenting pressure and stress caused a psychotic break and a spiral into a deep depression.
He wasn’t really aware of any “resistance”, as he was out of his mind and reverted to an almost animalistic version of himself which lost all ability to reason and stay in touch with reality.
He’s not Pyle anymore in the end scene, he’s gone. No well or sane person kills someone and then kills themselves.
He wasn’t always like that, anyone can trigger psychosis, and it turns even the sweetest most loving people into terrifying monsters as they lose control of their minds. That’s why he’s demonically smiling and laughing to himself while doing drill commands in his underwear at 2 in the morning. Before killing someone and then himself. Despite showing absolutely no desire to kill or hurt anyone for the entire training scene.
Yeah, that’s my point. Gomer Pyle doesn’t resist for shits and giggles. He has no choice but to resist. And they portray his character the way they do so you’ll disregard him.
How do they make you disregard him?
That is a very logical response to the situation, but he is deeply mentally ill and psychotic by the end scene due to the extreme stress, despite not starting that way.
No sane or well person shoots someone and then kills themselves while doing drill commands in a bathroom in the dark with a rifle and trying to lure someone in to kill them.
He doesn’t die for his defiance. He kills himself in a psychotic break.
The very way you just described is how they make you ignore his resistance.
I’m not saying it’s some sort of Marxist masterpiece by the way. I just think it was the intention.
The way I described it is simply what happens in the movie. He had no resistance, he had no plan, he had no ideology, or grand vision. He has a psychotic break. The military is hell.
You’re creating a story about a character that was never told. They don’t need you to ignore him, because they don’t paint him as a Marxist, or a someone who’s a stalwart resistor.
I think the small difference in our opinions is perhaps our different meanings ascribed to the word “resistance”, which does not (in my mind) have anything to do with a vision or an ideology. It can of course but a simpler, baser resistance is what he did, and what i mean.
Why couldn’t Lawrence just become the killer the US military wanted him to be? Perhaps he himself didn’t know, but in the end instead of moved by the inexorable power to change in to something he was not, he resisted this change. He could not be moved, could not be moulded into what they wanted him to be, “went crazy”.
It wasn’t a choice, youre right. He couldn’t become it. And unfortunately (j/k fortunately. a speech would be dumb) he didn’t have the screen time to write a speech on why he did what he did. We’re left to guess why he made this decision. Now if we all had an assignment to write a paper on leonard’s motivations but weren’t allowed to use the word “crazy” or anything about his intelligence, what would one say was going through his mind?
Great movies that don’t tell the audience everything also invite the audience to make these connections themselves. There’s no right answer either of us will walk away with here but it’s a fun exercise and a good one; one shouldn’t just dismiss these ideas because they are not spelled out explicitly