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The forest— obstacle, but also haven—is suddenly at an end. I am somewhere else, somewhere I may very well not want to be. And what I feel at the apex of 1223, moving backward, is just this queasiness and uncertainty, a loss of a world—accomplished deftly in one quick shot because of what is peripherally apparent to the eye. However, in shot 1224, and suddenly looking from Roger and Eve’s point of view, I see that the awkwardness of my placement is ineffably greater than I supposed a fraction of a moment before.

When the auctioneer suggests an opening bid of seven hundred and fifty for “A Louis Quinze carved and gilded . ”—Roger interrupts with a coup de grâce, a pronouncement of the one question this and all other manifestations of the art world are built upon cloistering, the one question that blows the keystone in any auction house arch: “How do we know it’s not a fake? ” Well, indeed, how do buyers know that what they’re buying in auction houses aren’t fakes? The items do precisely look like fakes, in the sense that fakes designed for such circumstances are made to look authentic.

I have avoided mentioning the most obvious verticality, which is our general journey from sea level in Manhattan to the relatively higher ground of South Dakota, in parallel with the increasingly exciting action in the plot. We go up with the story, in short, and descend rapidly to earth in the final mo- A G r e a t F a l l 2 9 ments, just as Eve is elevated into what we are to presume is bliss. And that is a fascinating final moment: if in fact elevation is a symptom of problematization—it surely was for us throughout the film —troubles may just be beginning for the new Mrs.