I hope this doesn't come across as mean spirited in any way, just wanted to add to a discussion and need to get these thoughts off my chest after seeing your Saltburn post.
After reading/listening to a bunch of interviews/q&as with Barry Keoghan and Emeral Fenell i'm pretty sure that at least the intention was that he's not 100% honest with himself/us in that monologue and it shouldn't be taken at face value.
For one Barry has said something like that Olivers motivation changes throghout the film and that he (Oliver) is often confused and not completly aware of what he really wants.
Emerald has said multiple times that the first idea about the film she had was someone saying "i didn't love him" and then licking that persons bathtub and that therefore that that person's obviously not being entirely truthful and that line is part of how he starts the monologue so i'm pretty sure we aren't supossed to take the whole thing at face value.
I can't remember which of the multiple live q&as you can find on youtube it is but i also remember her responding in a after the film q&a to someone seemingly having that same read of the film i've seen so many people have of Oliver being a mastermind that had this whole plan laid out from the start and she said something like that it was in part actually more like responsive to the situation from moment to moment
Like it starts with him seeing Felix and being like "i wanna get closer to that guy" and since he has seemingly always just been good at knowing what people want and giving it to them (another thing emerald has been reapeating in a lot of q&as) he knows that setting up the bike and drinks at the bar situation and a sob story of a family backgroud will get Felix's attention but then like he always does Felix get's bored and starts pulling away so Olivers like "aw fuck what do i do? oh i know just up the story by saying my dad died" and that does make Felix invite him to Saltburn but that wasn't like the concious end goal of that action he just wanted to get Felix's attention back in that moment and i don't believe Felix dying in any way was a concious goal at any other time but pretty much right before he did it. His obsession with him comprising of part loving him, hating him and wanting to be him just escalated to that point.
Now, you could say that with so many (hard to say but maybe even the majority of) people "misunderstanding" the film/that part as him accuratly, sincerly and 100% honestly revealing that he masterminded and planned the whole thing from pretty much the beginning that they (Emerald & Co.) just did a bad job of getting that across which would be fair.
As someone that didn't read the film/monologue that way and then was validated by all the q&as i've seen i can't lie that it hasn't been at least a little frustating that so many people "misread" that part (or take it "too" honestly) but i would say that it's more the fault of the film actually not making that intention clear enough. Also "death of the author" and all that, i guess.
But i would recommend checking out all the after film q&as with Emeral Fenell you can find on youtube anyway if you're interested.
P.S 100% agree what you said about Felix tho
hey, not mean-spirited at all! iβm always open to discussion, media analysis is rarely about being right or wrong :)
it could surely be read in that way - i have not seen the q&aβs, iβll check them out! i think i personally focused on the class commentary because of how much of a trend it is in cinema at the moment. discussions of social status and class have always been apart of media (i was talking about maupassant in my previous post, which goes all the way back to the 19th century), but it has become more prevalent in mainstream cinema nowadays. everyone is trying their hand at it, and i would argue that parasite winning the oscar for best picture reinforced the idea that class commentary in movies was socially acceptable enough to still win awards.
my main issue with saltburn is that the same story has been done multiple times before, and apart from cinematography, i fail to see what saltburn brings to the table. @tigerfancy mentioned the talented mr ripley earlier in my notes, which iβd forgotten about, but it is very similar and strikes that balance between obsessive, unreliable narrator and mastermind social climber quite clearly. someone i know irl also mentioned summer of 85 (Γ©tΓ© 85) and how in her eyes, saltburn is essentially a ripoff of that. itβs all inspiration; but seeing all these other stories that deal with this nuance more adequately unfortunately makes saltburn look clumsy in comparison.
maybe oliver is indeed not being 100% truthful, and he didnβt actually mastermind anything beyond his first meeting with oliver up to the point where he is invited to saltburn. personally, though, it does not make the monologue any less gimmicky to me. maybe the intention was not clear enough. maybe saltburn was trying to pull from too many of its inspirations and lost itself along the way. but i totally respect your interpretation of the film! and it would indeed be much better if the monologue at the end is oliver trying to convince himself rather than him revealing earnestly that he masterminded the whole thing.
