SECONDS

US, 1968, 108 minutes, Black and white.
Rock Hudson, Salome Jens, John Randolph, Will Geer, Jeff Corey, Richard Anderson, Murray Hamilton, Wesley Addy.
Directed by John. Frankenheimer.

Seconds is an intriguing John Frankenheimer film. Many of his films deal with human crises, crises of age and loneliness, crises of challenge to something more demanding, even at the risk of death. These issues are clearly seen in films like Grand Prix, The Fixer, The Gypsy Moths, I Walk the Line, The Horseman. In Seconds, they are treated much more explicitly and mysteriously, in a world of abnormality in the midst of normality.

Taking its cue from dreams of eternal youth, the film shows a race of re-borns who have opted out of worry and responsibility to care only for themselves. They have gone through a form of death in order to live. The hero of the film is an unsatisfactory candidate for this process. He did not have sufficient dream before his re-birth. He has been pushed negatively into the process only to discover that his life had been arranged for him and freedom of choice had been taken from him. He learns about himself for the first time but too late.
The film is always interesting even if frightening. Rock Hudson does well as the re-born and the supporting cast are all excellent - and sinister. As a psychological science-fiction film it is worth seeing.

1. What implications are there in the title?

2. What was the effect of the elongated faces during the credits?

3. What moods were created by the music, especially the piano backgrounds?

4. The film opened with menace, of a man pursuing a man. Did this sense of menace and pursuit continue through the film? How?

5. What was the significance of the way Arthur Hamilton's train ride' was photographed? What kind of a journey was he on?

6. How did the sequences with his wife, and their conversations, reveal Hamilton's personality and make it plausible that he would desire re-birth?

7. How did the director handle the eerie theme and place it in our familiar world - e.g. the station, laundry, butcher's shop, the style of the company's personnel?

8. What were your impressions of the company from the people who met Hamilton - the adviser eating the chickens while Hamilton chose his death, the bedside paternal manner of the company founder?
9. What had Hamilton to lose through re-birth? How did his 'confession-therapy' reveal this? "It is easier to go forward when you can't go back."

10. Were you repelled by the whale idea of the re-birth system? The hallucination? The blackmail of compromising films? The nature of the operation? The clever faking of the death and the new personality?

11. The company told Wilson that he had the most cherished possession: freedom. He was absolved of all responsibility except to himself. Had he gained freedom? Later he complained that all his decisions, the whole manner of his life, associates, friends had all been chosen by the company. Was this theme of freedom and choice fruitfully explored?

12. What of the theme of life and death, a purgation period and new life in heaven or hell? What happened to Wilson? Where did he arrive? Why?

13. How well did the film communicate Wilson's new aloneness - the symbols of the seashore and the woods, John and his home?

14. There was 'still a key unturned in Wilson's heart'. Was it just of the company to make Nora try to turn it? Did you like Nora? Why?

15. What was the significance of the Pan and Bacchus orgy? What did it symbolise about the life of the reborn? How did it break down Wilson's inhibitions? How did it change him - especially his behaviour at the party?

16. Why was he a threat to the reborns? (What kind of life did they live - their parties, lusts, small talk?) Why did they, and Nora, hate him? Why was he so shocked to discover they were all re-borns?

17. Why did he re-visit his wife? How effective was the irony of this scene? It was played gently - did this make it succeed? Did Wilson gain much self-knowledge from what hie wife said about him? How did it affect him?

18. Why did he want another life? Had he had a dream or no dream, only dead years before his rebirth?

19. How effective was his talk with Charlie? How horrifying was Charlie 's betrayal? How much of a torment was the wait?

20. Was he right in being aware that in both lives things had been important and had been made to be important over people? Is the film saying that all men discover this at their death?

21. How cynical were the president's remarks about financial responsibilities and the company's use of Wilson as a cadaver? What was the point of the chaplain?

22. Haw pessimistic a film was this? How effective was it with its message?