Bitter Moon : What did Mimi see in Oscar

What did Mimi see in Oscar

Perhaps some women could explain this because as a guy, I don`t see it. He seems to be fairly pompous, crude and solely concerned with himself. Yet she seemed to be helplessly in love with him. Even when she cripples and subsequently humiliates him, it`s obvious that he is still the central focus of her life.

Re: What did Mimi see in Oscar

When he was in love with her he gave her all he had---passion, love, worship---she was his total obsession and then he took it all away. Besides that Oscar had charm, inteligence, sense of humor, great imagination and devotion.... when love was there. Some people just cannot evolve past that first/second stage of the relationship when things start becoming mundane and repetitious. They chase that ultimate high of the early stages in a relationship, the ultimate sexual intimacy of those moments.

When his love ended passion became revulsion, possesivness triggered resentment, worship turned into humiliationa and love became hate. Charm was replaced with rudeness, sense of humor with cynism, devotion with promiscuity. When in love every little thing about the object of our love makes us smile and happy, when love dies the very same things that we once adored irritate us.

Love and hate operates the same glands therefore Mimi would rather be unhappy with Oscar that unhappy without him.

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Re: What did Mimi see in Oscar

He was just sooooooooooooo sexy!! :)

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Re: What did Mimi see in Oscar

First of all, great film and intriguing story! And Emmanuelle Seigner is gorgeous!

I think Mimì was attracted by Oscar because she was a waitress (or a professed dancer, as she says!) and he was a professed writer.
Actually, what I can't understand is how, after Mimì went away, he could find a woman for night, as he says!
I mean, I don't think he's the most fascinating man of the world!
Or maybe it's a lie, since we can't know if his story is all true!


I'm Mr Wolf. I solve problems.

TILL I WILL LIVE, I WILL BE A RED-BLACK! AND FOR THE MILAN I WILL SING, I WILL FIGHT!

Re: What did Mimi see in Oscar

Mimi probably liked Oscar because he was different (i.e., American and rich). Suffice to say, she enjoyed having him as a sugar daddy and sharing his idle, hedonistic lifestyle.

You're sooo off on this one. Hedonistic lifestyle was exactly what Oscar gave up to have this extremely intimate, obsessive relationship with her---wanting each other to the exclusion of everything. Oscar definitely fits your description but at least he wasn't boring. They both had imagination and knew how to enjoy each other. The fact he was culturally different was an additional charm factor, however whether he had money or not was quite irrelevant to her.

Mimi was very sexual but you're making it sound like she had some XIX century psycho sexual disorder. Being a dancer one has to be an exhibitionist and it often extends to one's sexuality. She liked being objectified and worshiped by the man who was in love with her; it's truly intoxicating.

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Re: What did Mimi see in Oscar

Oscar never gave up his lifestyle for Mimi. She became part of it..

Of course he did. They both gave up their respective lifestyles and became each other's lives. Remember, how Oscar writes about his life before Mimi:.."sidewalk cafes, fluttering skirts, fleeting affairs. Paris was heaven until that day on the bus...". Once together they rarely left his apartment minus one-time intimate vacation in the Alps. So I don't quite get what kind of "lifestyle" you have in mind. Sitting at home and having sex? The moment he mentioned "change of the scene" it was very clear that, as he told Nigel, their relationship was going down the hill.

Besides, with such a substantial age difference it's hard to imagine he would share Mimi's lifestyle and hang out with people half his age. Once taken out of the realm of their obsessive intimacy and with Oscar's passion gone their relationship was a disaster. That's the point of the movie.

Of course his money was part of the attraction for her and he was her sugar daddy.

You trivialize everything and sound like Oscar at his cynical worst lol. So, if they were the same age it'd be all kosher or would that make him her sugar-boy? . Money or rather the fact he didn't have to work just made it possible for them to have such an intense relationship. Sugar daddy has a connotation of exchanging sex and companionship for comfort and financial security and that's not why Mimi was with Oscar. You don't see him buy her gifts or wine and dine her all the time or travel the world. He provided for her basic needs: food, passion and love. They were both crazy about each other. Mimi fell in love with the innocence of a child so there was nothing calculated about her being with Oscar. She barely knew him and was already head over heels; what initially touched her was his kindness. She had a very romantic notion of Oscar and even saved the bus ticket he gave her. In Oscar's words, his life (and Mimi's life too) was devastated by love that was too strong.

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Re: What did Mimi see in Oscar

So do you think Mimi would have been so infatuated with Oscar if he were broke? Face it: Oscar's money and the leisure it afforded them was a big factor in their codependency.

She was infatuated before she knew much about him, whether he was rich or not. If she paid attention to the newspaper he read on the bus, which she didn’t, she could have assumed he was an English-speaking foreigner. Oscar was her knight in the shining armor, a romantic embodiment of mature masculinity. Remember the look on Mimi’s face when the bus was leaving and later when she encountered him in the restaurant. To her it was fate.

Broke? Why so extreme? I don’t think it'd make much of a difference in her feelings if he had to work for a living as a writer. Certainly, their relationship wouldn't have been 24/7 but it doesn’t mean it wouldn’t have been as emotionally intense. We didn’t see Oscar buying her lavish gifts or wine her and dine her; he still took cabs and lived in a regular 1-bedroom apartment in Montparnasse. Money gives us independence and freedom to do what we want not what we must and that’s the most alluring aspect of having it. Oscar’s life was about guilt-free self-indulgence but not Mimi's.

Remember when Mimi came back and told him about what she had to do for money when he left her stranded in Martinique?

She waited tables and did cabaret performances at the hotel. She was a waitress/aspiring dancer before she met Oscar so she fell back on her experience. I know plenty of struggling, wanna-be dancers in New York who work in nightclubs, restaurants, cabarets and similar jobs.

It's not hard at all to imagine Oscar hanging out with people Mimi's age. For most of the movie, at nightclubs and restaurants around town, he is doing precisely that.

Hanging out with young crowd to score is not the same as hanging out socially with younger people and your gf/bf for intellectual stimulation or conversation where there’s no sexual incentive. I can go to a club full of 21 y.olds and have fun but once I have a hot, young thing to myself, I wouldn’t be particularly interested in hanging out with his buddies or young chicks half my age. When in love with someone much younger we care about the intimacy we share and their life not some high school dilemmas of their friends.

As I said, I agree with most of the things you wrote but think that your perception of Mimi is too jaded. She really was in love and had dreams of "together forever". Her sexual and emotional devotion was a result of her all-consuming love and passion. Oscar knew how to bring it out; he got “Europeanized “after 8 years in Paris. Being older he knew himself all too well enjoying the relationship till his passion lasts. Oscar corrupted Mimi’s innocence and in a way she became a female predatory imitation of Oscar.

I’ve been on both sides of the equation and I can definitely say that the younger we are the more we tend to have an idealized vision of the relationships' future because we don’t have enough experience to compare. At Mimi’s age nothing is impossible, the world is your oyster and you can still make mistakes and bounce back. Unfortunately she was so emotionally destroyed that her self-preservation switched to self-destruct. She also had an addictive personality and love was her drug of choice.


Re: What did Mimi see in Oscar

I agree that love was her drug of choice, she just loved him TOO much.

Re: What did Mimi see in Oscar

I think from the moment Mimi met Oscar in the bus, she believed she experienced love at first sight while Oscar feel the same in the beginning, but then Mimi took the relationship seriously while Oscar think of her merely as some kind of disposable pleasure.

Re: What did Mimi see in Oscar

What nyccoolgirl in her first reply said
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