After Bob (Meatloaf) is shot in the head, the Fight Club members lay him down on a table, and while Edward Norton is speaking, you can see Bob's stomach in the background still inhaling and exhaling for about a minute.
I think that the breathing effect was caused by the swinging light above Bob's body. On the comentary track of the DVD, the screenwriter says that a dummy was used for that scene, so it couldn't have been breathing.
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Just a few comments to clear up some supposed facts posted here in regards to human neurological physiology.
First of all, the heart's beating does not depend on the brain at all. There is a grouping of nerve cells called the sinoatrial node on the heart itself that controls the beating. It is wholly independent of the rest of the body's neurological functions. This is why people who's spinal cord has been severed, resulting in the loss of all neurological function below the neck can still survive. It is also why people who are completely brain dead, if put on a ventilator, can still have a beating heart. So long as an otherwise healthy heart is kept in good supply of oxygen, it will continue beating weather or not there's a body around it.
When you're shot in the head, your brain dies. As a result, you stop breathing. (This is because your lungs ARE controlled by your brain.) The heart will keep on pumping like nothing happened until it starts to run out of the oxygen that your lungs provided. If it has no oxygen, it can't contract and it too will cease to function.
If you're shot in the heart, even if it is blown apart... it will continue twitching. Unfortunately, in such a state, it cannot move blood efficiently, and your brain will die from lack of oxygen shortly thereafter.
In regards to victims of the guillotine, an experiment was carried out in the early part of the 20th century in France by a Dr. Beaurieux as the use of the guillotine was winding down. Without going into much of the gory detail, the doctor's friend was being executed and the doctor decided to do a state sanctioned experiment. Immediately after the victim's head was severed, it landed upright in the basket. The face proceeded to twitch for several seconds and it finally relaxed. Then, Dr. Beaurieux called out the victim's name. He reported that the victim opened his eyes slowly and intentionally, looked at, and focused on the doctor, then slowly closed his eyes again. The doctor called out his name a second time and again the victim very intentionally opened his eyes, looked at and focused on his caller. After the second time there was no response to any stimulus. The entire ordeal lasted about 30 seconds. Dr Beaurieux's first hand account can be found at http://www.metaphor.dk/guillotine/Pages/Guillot.html
The moral of the story is that the brain can survive for a period of time as it uses up the oxygen that is already inside of it. After that is gone, it dies.
As far as whether or not Bob was breathing, I have no idea. But this whole page was filled up with ignorant people trying to be experts and my addition is for those who are interested in the truth about what some of these guys are saying. Feel free to email me pinkgue@yahoo.com
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What you say is a mistake is impossible because they talk about the making of the dummy for that scene, so from what I know dummy's don't breathe, so it couldn't have inhaled or exhaled for that matter...
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Okay, The heart thing very informative but pointless. Your arguments are useless because they are way off topic. I too have the DVD version and I too heard the comment about the dead body you claim to breathing was in fact a dummy. The point is dummies don't breath they don't have lungs they don't need oxygen to live they cant live so if you are claiming that the dummy is breathing then that is probably seek some sort of help.
DUMMIES DON'T BREATH!!
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when a head is lanced by a guillotine, the eyes can still blink, yes. sometimes, even, the mouth can quiver a little. That is because the brain can still function for up to 12 seconds, as the supply of oxygen in the brain runs out. (incidently, i know a person can survive w/o breathing for about 5 minutes, but that is cuz the body holds much more oxygen than the brain.) the body does not still live after the head is cut off. the heart run on electric impulses given from the brain. so the heart would not keep going. and the diaphram would not keep him breathing.
by they way. in the same scene, we see the actual wound that was inflicted upon Bob's head. Bob is missing half of his brain. i doubt that a fellow with half a brain could go on breathing for a full minute, my roommate notwithstanding.
that is all.
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Bob was shot outside of a building probably far
away from where the house was that they brought
him to, so he was supposed to be dead and I'm
sure the people who made the movie weren't
thinking about the brain and heart thing. It is a
slp-up.
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ok, correct me if im wrong here - my memories of biology class are VERY vague...but a heart can beat on its own for a little while, the impulses from the brain just makes sure it keeps beating. so it would still beat, or twitch for little while if removed from the body.
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I understand what you are saying, but in retrospect (Scientific aspect), if you are shot in the head, because it was not the heart that was affected, well, it would be, but only in a small way, It can still go on beating for about a minute or so.
It is the same with two other things: If you are shot in the heart, for a while the brain is not effected. That is why, for the first minute or so, people are still alive, but not fully aware of what is/has just happened to them. Because they are in great pain, suggests that the victom's brain is still functioning in a certain way. Trying to take hold of what has just happened.
It is the same if you get you head chopped off in a guillotine(sp?) people are still alive for about 10 seconds. Even though they are alive, their brain can not function properly, and the victom can not understand what just happened. The brain can not comprehend what has happened to its host body, so it is confused. And then the brain just gives up, and that is when the person dies. The same explination stands for what happened in the movie "Anaconda," when the man was spat out of the snake, he winks, but, of course, because he was clinicly dead, his brain was starting to wire out, so the man wouldn't have been aware of the gesture, and died instantly after.
As the saying goes in the X-Files, there is a resonable explination for everything, even when people don't see it. Hope that cleared that up for you.
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