Stupidity: After Dan confesses his affair to his wife, he never thinks about bringing the tape Alex had sent him to the police. This would have been proof beyond a reasonable doubt of her mental instability and harassment of him, and she would have been immediately sought out and likely committed to an institution, and both of the film's endings wouldn't had to happen.
Fatal Attraction (1987)
1 stupidity
Directed by: Adrian Lyne
Starring: Michael Douglas, Glenn Close, Anne Archer, Ellen Latzen
Other mistake: Dan and Alex go to what looks to be Alex's apartment after meeting at the office and going for a drink. After romping around in bed, they go dancing, and on the way back through the meat-packing district, she leads him to the door of her apartment and tells him she lives upstairs and he says something like, "this is your building?" It seems odd as they were just up there having sex.
Dan Gallagher: Do you remember the girl, who came to the apartment?
Beth Gallagher: The one with the blond hair.
Trivia: The opera that Glenn Close buys the tickets for is Madame Butterfly. That is the song she is listening to when we see the first signs that she is losing it. Note: At the end of Madame Butterfly the heroine kills herself over a lover. In the director's cut of Fatal Attraction Glenn Close cuts her throat in the bathroom of Michael Douglas' house thereby killing herself over a lover.
Question: What is the significance of Glenn Close and the color white? I noticed that her apartment is white and with the exception of one scene when she's wearing the black leather coat, she is always wearing white. Any thoughts on this?
Chosen answer: With questions such as this, one can either speculate, or one can go directly to the source. So, using IMDb, I looked up the names of the crew on "Fatal Attraction." The costume designer is listed as Ellen Mirojnick. The set decoration was the responsibility of George DeTittas, Sr. I found Ellen Mirojnick on Facebook (https://www.facebook.com/Ellenmirojnick/posts/263462080524551?comment_id=263621453841947&offset=0&total_comments=2¬if_t=feed_comment), and posed the question to her. This was the reply she gave: " (I)n our process there is always a purpose for a palette to tell a story dramatically. I chose white for her character because white is powerful and although not essentially a "color" it reflects all other colors, which would in turn reflect where we were in the story. I thought through her silhouettes and use of shades of whites, it would reflect her mood and not give away the demon she kept hidden. WHITE is powerful... As she was!" I have not yet been able to track down Mr. DeTittas for comment. But I have posed the additional question to Ms. Mirojnick regarding whether the color palette motif was a decision shared by different departments on the film. Ms. Mironjnick added the following comments: "she wears white to discuise (sic) her darkness, that somehow is revealed in certain places.. white is all things combined .. it radiatesits (sic) the confusion as if she was in an asylum, but her own."
Michael Albert