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Tuesday 13 May 2014

A favourite Scene In The Prisoner

   The second scene between No.6 and his personal maid No.56 in 'Dance Of The Dead.' I always enjoy the interaction between them. 56 is a flighty girl, young, attractive, but she is no longer wearing her new dress because she has been promised something special for the evening ball.
   As for No.6, well he doesn't appear to have a costume, they've delivered him his own suit specially for the occasion. Why? Well perhaps he's still himself! {Meaning he's survived thus far intact, unbowed or broken} "Lucky you" 56 tells him with a smile.
    They may have delivered No.6's own suit, but what about that white shirt and black bow tie he wears at the Ball? After all the Prisoner wasn't wearing his suit and black polo neck shirt. Ah, but perhaps the two suitcases that the Prisoner had packed ready for his going away, were also brought to The Village with him. And that's perhaps where the shirt and tie came from.

Be seeing you

7 comments:

  1. Hello David,
    this scene always makes me wonder: are you really yourself if you dress up as yourself? Maybe he is wrong in his interpretation that the village sent him his own suit because of this reason. Maybe they sent it to him to say that his self is a fantasy just like Peter Pan, or history, like Napoleon.
    Best wishes,
    Jana
    BCNU

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  2. Kind of initial masking? - BCNU!

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  3. Hello Jana and arno,
    That's an interesting thought, could one be onself if you dress up as yourself? I suppose it's the same when No.6 is taken to that cloak room in 'Fall Out' and the Supervisor tells him that they thought he would be happier as himself. Its like when one dresses up in costume to become someone else, or at the very least to look like someone else. I remember how at Prisoner conventions of yesteryear, how I would dress in an identcal suit to that worn by the Prisoner, I was no longer myself...I became the Prisoner, a character I found very easy to slip into, and one more difficult to step out of. But this dosen't answer the question, are you really yourself if you dress up as yourself? All I can say is, who would he be? No.1 perhaps, or maybe Patrick McGoohan, after all he was the boss. No, that's not right somehow, I'll have to think about it a little more.

    Kind of initial masking? I'm affraid I don't quite understand this comment. Can you explain please?

    Very kind regards to you both
    David
    BCNU

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  4. It's a complex thing here what I yesterday, in a hurry, called "initial masking". And I'm afraid that I cannot pursue my own thought properly the way I wished I would. Briefly, the moment No. 6 receives his own suit can be taken as it is, that's for sure. It represents his former life, if you whish and according to what he says: his self.

    But as we all know there's always more to it in the Village. The fact that his suit is given to him by the Village, in the first place, to me is significant of a „loaned personality“ or self. Like himself his suit isn’t the same that it was before, its status has changed. Now it’s a costume, carnival disguise. My supposition goes the suit has ever been (like) a mask. Because what makes a piece of cloth a costume isn’t within the fabric, colours or its style, it’s the use, the social cicumstances in which it is placed. If everybody but you dresses in fancy style it becomes the norm and you’re the outsider in a „costume“ called everyday clothes.

    Regarding the somewhat misleading German „Fall Out“ episode title „Demaskierung“ I once wrote that nothing is „de-masked“ because everything is an image, a picture-puzzle, a masquerade. No. 6 rips the mask off the hooded figure’s face only to find another mask, clearly visible, that of an ape. Behind that it’s his „spitting image“, his double. But is this the end of the line of images? Don’t think so. We are now entering the quest for the SELF and the OTHER as embodied in No. 6 and No. 1. But that’s a different discourse… BCNU!

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    1. Hello Arno,
      Thank you for explaining, you put it very well. That's quite right, when No.6 wears his Village attire he fits in. But when he wears his own suit of clothes at the Ball he stands out from the crowd! I wrote something about that a long time ago now, I have it somewhere, have to see if I can find it.

      Very kind regards
      David
      BCNU

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  5. Hello David and Arno,

    I really like this interpretation, and your both questions. Who would the Prisoner be dressing up in his own suit? And is the face of Number 1 (or the mask of insanity) the end of the line in Fall Out?

    To me it seems as if both questions are related to each other. I think that maybe dressing up in his own suit would make Number Six his former self, but didn't he resign from that? As for Number 1 - if this is a further mask, who is behind it? Maybe Number Six, I think? Or also his former self, because isn't Number 1 a representation for all things Number Six resigned from?

    Makes me think. And a little bit confused. But it would account to the circularity, wouldn't it?

    Best wishes,
    Jana
    BCNU

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    1. Hello Jana,
      "And is the face of Number 1 (or the mask of insanity) the end of the line in Fall Out?" I have an idea that it is only the beginning, and was the cause of the Prisoner handing in his letter of resignation!
      No.6 in dressing up in his own clothes would make him his old self, his former self, but that's not what he resigned from, he resigned from his job. I resigned once, but I still remained myself, in fact I went back to being my orginal self. Because I was not myself where I worked! Of course it's always possible, and more likely that the Prisoner resigned from what he had become.....No.1!

      Very kind regards
      David
      BCNU

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