The Hospital Elevator

Max and Herman are at an all time low, which can be seen by looking at their depressed facial expressions, and are stuck in a box with each other. Herman is divorced, has a broken heart, and is very depressed. We can see this when he puts what is most likely alcohol in his soda and smokes two cigarettes at once. Max has been kicked out of Rushmore, rejected by Rosemary, and thinks that he cannot achieve anything more than becoming a barber like his father. On top of that, no one likes being stuck in a tight space with someone you don’t like. In this scene, they are not only together in the small space of an elevator, but half of the elevator is taken up by shelves. The camera shot is close which adds to the effect of claustrophobicness. However bad things might seem, this scene is also the moment when Max and Herman start to make up. Just like Max said in the graveyard, “what’s the use?”, they both decide that there is no reason to continue hating each other when bad things happen. A factor in this is that they are both going to see Dr. Guggenheim, who just had a stroke. While they don’t necessarily like him very much, as seen by the discarded flowers behind them, the thought is there that bad things happen to everyone. If I were to add an object to this scene, I would add a poster for donations from Never Let Me Go. It would be on the back wall where you could see it easily, but tucked away enough to where you wouldn’t really look at it closely. This way, people know what donations are and might remember looking at it or hearing about it, but they never really question it because its just always there. It fits because they are in a hospital which seems like an appropriate place for the poster.