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The Gift (2000) dir. Sam Raimi

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The Monuments Men (2014)

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for me this is one of the most weirdly affecting moments in the movie. lewis, marissa’s right-hand dude, has just been killed by erik; erik was shooting through the door at marissa and, at this moment, has started to kick the door in. he’s going to kill her. she knows he’s going to kill her. and right now, hiding behind the couch, as his foot thumps against the door again and again, she freezes. she only starts moving again after she actively tells herself to do so (“move. get up”) and only then when he’s almost got the door down. it’s a completely normal panic response--but it’s also a very human one, which i think is extremely important.

somewhere in some interview (i’ll find it) the movie’s director has said that he wasn’t trying to make a strictly realistic movie; that it was meant to be like a fairy tale. so marissa could have been portrayed as relentless and unwavering, because that’s what a fairy tale villain is; and she is shown to be so, for the most part--but here we see her panic. she isn’t perfectly unwavering. she’s a human being with natural, human responses to situations of fear and violence. and although this moment is relatively small in comparison to the rest of the movie, it complicates her psychology, and makes it harder to put a single, straightforward label on her personality.

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i should probably do for marissa what i’ve done for anna and annie so far, so here’s the Not Short List of Fun Facts

marissa is a CIA agent. formerly the head of a covert research operation, in the mid-90s, that went sour. the research was into genetic modification of human embryos in order to create “perfect soldiers.” the whole thing was terminated under unclear circumstances (although erik blames marissa herself for this) and the results--actual human children--had to be “disposed of.” hanna, the title/main character of the movie, is the one child who escaped, stolen by erik heller (himself a CIA asset who went rogue to protect hanna) and her birth mother, johanna. marissa tracked them down, shot out the tire of their car as they were driving, and murdered johanna in the wreckage--but erik got away, with baby hanna.

cate has suggested an element of “thwarted ambition” as a result of marissa’s failed op, so that erik and hanna especially become symbols of marissa’s own failure, and must be hunted down, eradicated, so that her failure can itself be eradicated. she describes marissa’s need to get/destroy hanna as becoming her “personal pathology.”

marissa has pathologies up the wazoo, the most pervasive of which is her pathological obsession with control. one of the movie’s recurring images is of her perfect, straight, white teeth; we are shown an array of dental implements in her bathroom, and in one scene watch her brush her teeth until her gums bleed. obviously hanna as a rogue factor/loose end ties into marissa’s thing about Control, because hanna is the one thing she cannot control; johanna’s dying words to marissa are “she will never be yours.”

there is something Funky in marissa’s backstory that i have yet to iron out, and it’s her thing about children. it’s definitely an element of the story added to increase her sort of... hansel-and-gretel-witch-in-the-woods vibe, and it’s never explicitly told to us what exactly it is. marissa tells johanna’s mother at one point in the movie that she made “certain choices” which prevented her from having children, and this is her expression:

so there’s something going on there.

and there’s something in the way she seems to think of hanna, almost, as hers. when she and hanna are finally going to meet face-to-face at the end of the movie, she calls out to her, “i’m here now, hanna,” as though she were the one hanna was waiting for all along, as though she were the one hanna really wanted.

there is some need that Acquiring hanna is going to fulfill for marissa. is it the need to erase evidence of her failure? is it the need for control of the one thing that’s not in her grasp? is it the need for a child?

who knows!

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defenestratio replied to your photoset

Did you just make a cake blanket multi

ive had it for like a week where were u kat

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also just in case anyone was unclear on whether or not marissa wiegler is, in fact, the devil

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actually, i wonder... is her accent at the end, maybe, her trying (at first) to seem syrupy and nonthreatening to hanna? the body double she sends in to try to cozen hanna earlier in the movie has a much thicker southern accent than marissa does, and has the appearance of being much warmer, or at least more personable, than marissa herself is.

also marissa’s accent gets much more noticeable 1) when she’s not in a professional setting and especially 2) when she’s under duress. her accent is much, much more noticeable in the confrontation scene with hanna at the end of the movie than it is when she’s at the conference table with a bunch of other CIA people at the beginning. i might clip some of the movie so y’all can see what i mean it’s very striking

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also marissa’s accent gets much more noticeable 1) when she’s not in a professional setting and especially 2) when she’s under duress. her accent is much, much more noticeable in the confrontation scene with hanna at the end of the movie than it is when she’s at the conference table with a bunch of other CIA people at the beginning. i might clip some of the movie so y’all can see what i mean it’s very striking

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just so you guys know rl quick

both marissa and annie have southern accents. annie is from georgia; i’m not a doctor so i couldn’t tell you with certainty where marissa’s accent is from, but my inclination is that maybe it’s a ? texan accent ?

i’m mostly going to signal their accents via sentence structure and word choice--especially in the case of annie (e.g. “it’s ‘bout this time of year his daddy passed away... he’s still real messed up over it”). i’m also going to drop the ‘g’s off of their -ing words, because, especially in the case of marissa, whose grammar and vocabulary is much closer to Standard American English™, i think it’s the most immediately recognizable marker of their dialects.

i’m going to try to avoid “writing” their dialect any further than that. my own preference as a writer re: dialect is “less is more,” generally speaking, and i don’t want to slip into caricature.

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compulsory heterosexuality moodboard 💖

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fashion

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msjanebond.

         Shore leave has never been something Jane looked forwards to.

         If nothing else, it was just a grim reminder of how alone she was, drifting through the seas without port, without wind, just…floating. A training exercise has stranded her here, waiting for orders and something to do – for what is a Commander without commands to give?

         So she breaths in a little harshly, the contact of the stranger unexpected; the stranger herself unexpected, so meek in her carriage and yet warm in her glow. Jane straightens her back, turning to face her, offering a grin of her own in return, lips joyful where her eyes remain sad. “I…if you’re interested, I was rather hoping for someone to talk to.” Oh god how she aches for some form of contact, something gentle and sweet. Motioning to the stool beside her, listening to the ricochet of the game of pool in the corner, Jane flutters her lashes and smooths her uniform unconsciously. “I’m Jane.”

          She hears the click-thud of the pool game behind herself as she sits. That’ll be Linda, with her man-of-the-month. It’s her habit to leave Annie alone when they go out--Annie knows she’s no fun, a stick-in-the-mud; more likely to sit nursing a single drink and worrying about the kids at the babysitter’s than to bring in male attention. But at least this time there’ll be company, someone with thoughts that needs sharing. That’s when Annie feels most comfortable, listening to other people.

          “I’m Annie. Hope this wasn’t too forward of me, but you had, uh...” She smiles. “You had a bit of a look about you. I don’t think you’re from town, are you?” The bar makes her uncomfortable--the music, the noisy voices--but talking this way, with the gentle prompting she might use on a client at home, gives Annie a little ease.

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wayne shining the flashlight directly on her face as she tries to lie to him is just the most telling thing lmfao. he knows perfectly well that she’s going to lie and that she’s INCAPABLE of lying and has absolutely no ability to conceal her emotions at all.

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person: touches me

me: who gave you the Permission

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mrs. annabelle wilson is so low-key that she wakes up from a disturbing dream and gets herself a glass of milk. annie. POUR YOURSELF A SHOT