---

Respond to the following prompts on this wiki page using the "edit" feature.

 

Make sure to include your username in your response and separate your answers from each other using the "insert horizontal line" button.

See the rubric if you have questions about how you will be graded on your response.

 

Before responding to the prompt below make sure you watch the film, and read the Lecture Notes. Don't forget to cite your information if it is coming from another source. Even if you are paraphrasing (putting information into your own words), you still need to acknowledge where you found that information originally.

 

Prompt:

The relationship between Donnie and Frank is rather intriguing and I would be interested in your analysis of these two character's relationship in this film. What is the connection between Frank and Donnie? Why does Donnie obey Frank? Who is Frank? Furthermore, how is Donnie's experience explained by Roberta Sparrow's book, the Philosophy of Time Travel, and how do you think Frank's character plays into that explanation? (Explain and be specific as to how and why, use examples from the film).

---

Soap

     The whole plot of Donnie Darko is that he knows he's gonna die, but Frank the Bunny, who I always saw as Donnie's personal spirit of death (which is an intriguing concept, everyone having their own personal vision of death, or even by that matter the chance to see what life would be like if your time was extended), gives him the chance to stay with her, even for a short time. His love at first sight. So he follows the events that are supposed to happen, staying on the path leading from his chest, and eventually ending in her death. Effectively ending his world. Hints the date and time. Frank became his spirit of death because Donnie killed him in the timeline where he lived. Sparrow's book not only explains to him everything that he's seeing, but it leads him upon his path. It fuels his ideas, mostly discussed in the therapist's office. The book leads him to the real life Frank, which leads to his decision of sacrifice. Taking himself out of the world, so that she can stay in it.

---

Yat

 

Frank was guiding Donnie in the hallucination.  He first appeared to help him surviving in the jet engine crash accident, and later on he guided him in his hallucination to do certain things:  flooding the school, meeting Grandmother Death to find out through time travel, burned down the house, meeting his girlfriend, Gretchen, and yet at the end, the whole hallucination of Frank had caused him the death of his girlfriend as he was tried to dodge out from the end of the world in 28 days time frame.  I think Frank obeyed Donnie because not only Frank was a hallucination, an imaginary friend of Donnie, he is also a character that actually grew out of Donnie's mind, and represents the dark side of himself.  The Philosophy of Time Travel has ensured that Donnie was able to go back to the past change everything where he made the decision by not going out of the room and stop the world from ending and also avoiding the tragedy of his girlfriend. 

 

---

Cristina 

     The first time I watched Donnie Darko, I believe the main character did suffer from schizophrenic hallucinations. I thought Frank and Donnie were the same person, which is why Donnie followed all of Frank’s orders. Initially, I thought the movie was making a statement about society’s perception of the mentally ill and the need to label people as such. What was written-off as schizophrenia was actually Donnie’s ability to see the future and other parallel worlds. This ability is far beyond pedestrian comprehension, thus it must be labeled as “sick” for the other characters and audience to understand it. 

     After watching the film recently, I did some research and discovered a new theory of who Frank is. According to Roberta Sparrow’s fictional book, The Philosophy of Time Travel, Frank is what is called the manipulated dead. When time becomes unstable, a Tangent Universe (TA) can be created. When this happens, the TA must be realigned with the Primary Universe; otherwise it will collapse into a black hole within the Primary Universe and destroy all existence. The manipulated dead can act as an aid to help the one who has been chosen to realign the TA – in this case it is Donnie. Under this theory, Frank and Donnie are working together to preserve and prevent their world from vanishing.

 

---

Andi 

     Donnie and Frank have an interesting relationship. Donnie does everything that Frank asks of him without putting up much of a fight. He is in a daze, accepting his crazed schizophrenic realm with no struggle and simply “going with the flow”. He is in a sense a puppet, being controlled by Frank and the worm whole arrow in his chest. Frank and Donnie are connected in that Frank is Donnie’s sisters’ boyfriend. They are also connected even more deeply by the fact that Donnie in a sense created Frank. He shot him and caused him to loose his eye creating the “Frank” that must permanently wear the rabbit costume to hide his face. I believe Donnie obeys Frank because he is curious and crazy. He wants to know what will happen if he does what Frank tells him and the idea that he will not get caught must help as well. Aside from that Donnie just seems to be a disturbed person, really needing no reason to do anything especially obeying something he believes to be a hallucination. Frank is Elizabeth’s boyfriend. As he is on his way to the party he tries to stop himself from running over grandma death and accidentally runs over Gretchen. He is then shot by Donnie, thus beginning/ending the time loop. 

---

Arielle

  Frank is the one who guides Donnie throughout the movie. From the very beginning Frank tells Donnie in so and so days the world will end. He was referring to Donnie’s world. A world that was determined by fear. Frank is his inevitable future because he is the representation of what would have happened if Donnie didn’t die in the end. Had Donnie not died his world would be chaos. He speaks to Donnie in his dreams and hallucinations. The connection between Frank and Donnie is the future. Donnie obeys Frank to see the path that Frank is on. Frank was a forth dimension of entities that took over his body because Frank is his inevitable  future. He wants to know Franks master plan because he has the power to build a time machine.

  Frank is the man underneath the bunny suite with one eye, from the future guiding Donnie’s path. He is also a student who was dressed as a bunny for Halloween that ran over his girlfriend with his car by accident. He is the one Donnie shot in the eye. He is the representation of what couldn’t be. He experienced a forth-dimensional possession, it was all a dream. He would have to be in real time for him to time travel. So he really didn’t seem to time travel unless he was just seeing what would have been because that is all he experienced. He didn’t use vortexes, it was showing us his potential future.

 

---

Joe 

 

     What connects Donnie to Frank is that Frank saved Donnie’s life by making Donnie follow him the night of the accident. By following Frank, he was able to avoid being killed by the falling jet engine. Donnie feels that he owes Frank his life as a result and does what Frank tells him to do. Frank is both Elizabeth’s boyfriend and some kind of figment of Donnie’s imagination. Donnie’s experience is explained by Roberta Sparrow’s book, as it explains that a person’s “path” emanates from their solar plexus, and that path acts as their future actions. Frank’s character seems to act as the physical manifestation of that “path” by telling him what to do, and leading him to his destiny. His destiny in this case is dying and sparing the others who presumably die as the plane loses its engine. Donnie basically creates a paradox by doing this however, as if he dies in the past, it means that he never saw Frank and subsequently, never needed to go back in the first place. That would be a paradox, as he negates the actions that lead him to this conclusion.

---

Julia  

     The actual relationship between Donnie and Frank is left intentionally vague. One minute it seems as though Donnie is simply a mentally ill teenager dealing with the bizarre time that is adolescence in upper-middle class suburbia. He takes pills for an unknown psychiatric condition, and his psychiatrist even informs his parents that he may be a paranoid schizophrenic. The things he sees, like the gruesome, mutant rabbit that contains Frank with a bleeding, missing eye, certainly seem to indicate that he is very disturbed. 

     However, all of this speculation is countered by the jet engine, which seems to be solid proof that actual time Travel is taking place. It could be that Donnie halucinates every single thing we see past the beginning crash, and Frank is a creation of his mind. Paranoid schizophrenics often halucinate, and hear voices that they feel compelled to obey. But it could also be that Donnie is your typical, somewhat emotionally troubled suburban teenager who happens to time travel. Regardless of whether or not he is real or an imaginary friend, Frank is Donnie’s companion through most of his direct time travel experiences. If Frank is an extension of Donnie’s mind, it makes sense that he would obey himself, albeit unconsciously. 

     Roberta Sparrow writes a book that explains many of Donnie’s experiences, such as the iridescent, gelatinous tubes that extend from peoples chests in the direction they will travel, and provides the time travel explanation. Without reading her book, he would never have concluded he was time travelling. The irony of it all, is that Donnie’s life runs in a circle in the movie. He is trapped in a repetitive cycle, where the beginning is the end, which is strangely similar to Roberta Sparrow. Day in and day out, she visits her mailbox over and over. Is she simply an insane, withdrawn old woman, or is she too trapped in some sort of time travel paradox? Her book makes no mention of an alarming, creepy companion that speaks to her. So it could be that Frank is a creation of Donnie’s disturbed mind, as a way to deal with his stress and inability to cope with his time travelling, or it could be that Roberta had such a companion, but made no mention of it. A philosophical book on time travel might be considered “out there,” but mention of a monstrous, halloween-costume clad companion would render her absolutely insane in the eyes of anyone else. 

     The bizarre aspect at the end of the film is that Frank turns out to be a real, living kid. He not only is an artist who draws/creates the mutant bunny and makes it his halloween costume, but visits Donnie’s halloween party and writes on his refrigerator before drunk driving and accidentally killing Gretchen. Donny uses his father’s gun, which the wormhole from his chest led him to, to kill Frank. This explains his oozing eye as a gunshot wound, but does not explain why his post-mortem self has been Donnie’s companion. In the end, perhaps it is that Donnie realizes all the good that has happened is not worth the bad, and his guilty mind uses Frank as his time travel companion as he chooses to undo/prevent it all with his death. 

 

---

Mike

 

The relationship between Donnie and Frank is a complex one, but the thing we do know is that they are companions in this closed timeline within the movie. Frank is a six-foot rabbit with an exposed skull and he is Donnie's future in a sense as we see his reappearance in the outcome of events. Frank serves as Donnie's guide to fulfill a predetermined timeline. Throughout the movie, Donnie's middle-class suburban family and psychiatrist simply think he is crazy and seek to cling to a cure for his illness and psychotic hallucinations. They prescribe pills to him to reinforce the American solve-all problems with a pill motto, but they turn this on itself when we find out at the end they are simply placebos. I think Donnie obeys Frank because Frank is the embodiment of destiny. So in a sense, Donnie has no choice but to obey Frank because he is the one who created Frank (because he shoots him at the end).  Once Donnie shoots Frank; Donnie begins a natural timeline which frees him from his hallucinations of destiny because he decides to die. 

 

Donnie's experience is explained by Roberta Sparrow's book because each character within the movie serves a role in the book and ultimately the outcome of the events. They are closely related as Roberta Sparrow somehow figured out the sequence of events. Also, if he had not become interested in time travel through Frank , the manipulated dead, he would not have pursued the book which states the existence of the manipulated dead. Via the book, Donnie begins to figure out his position in regards to time which also begins to explain the visuals within his hallucinations (water, rolling car). Within the book, Donnie is taken as the one to realign the Tangent Universe. With the help of Frank, Donnie successfully sacrifices himself to prevent the end of his world.   

 

---

Wonwoong

 

Donnie was instructed by Franks who is from future. Through Frank's illusion, Donnie could save his life out of dangers like falling huge jet engine, and also Donnie meets girl friend, Ross through a flood. Also, Frank orders Donnie to make fire to a speaker who always said Love and Fear. After all, by arresting the speaker, woman teacher ask Donnie’s mom to take care of dance team including Donnie’s younger sister. Also, due to mom and younger sister’s dance competition, Donnie and his older sister hold Halloween party, and finally Ross was dead by Frank and Donnie shoot Frank eye. Like all events and Donnie’s action by Frank, Frank’s instruction leads Donnie to the consequence of this story, the end of the world. I think Frank is just one man from the future and also another world (Multiverse), because he already knows everything like death of Donnie and Ross, and also porn video of a speaker. Roberta Sparrow’s book explained what happen, When the time line is unstable. However, I think there are some paradoxes. For instance, if the Tangent universe would be creative and the primary universe would be destructed, anybody could not explain why a jet engine falls down again to Donnie’s bed room. Last world may be unstable again?  

-------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------

 

Kelvin k

     To Donnie Darko, Frank appears as two different characters in the story.  First, Frank, the disturbing rabbit suit, is the Manipulated Dead who appears to give a premonition to Donnie from the future of the Tangent Universe. Murder of Frank and death toward Donnie are what he is aware of Donnie's destiny, and he impels Donnie to realize them. As for the Second, Frank appears as Donnie's sister's boyfriend, whose fate unfolds within the Tangent Universe by means of Donnie's successes in realizing his mission. He is getting a shot by Donnie in the end of this movie, which it is destined for Donnie to kill.

     Donnie and Frank have a strange relationship, which they starts with the mental disease called "comma of daylight hallucination." It is most common figure for people to see someone who can see something by self. His relationship with Frank(bunny face) is most horror. It seems like nothing related scientific matter. Since entire movie makes a connection with time-travel with Donnie and Frank. It appears that their connection is started from future to past to warn the death cycle to be nullity.

     Most intriguing story is the Roberta Sparrow (crazy lady)'s book was actually setting a prove for his strangeness as Tangent Universe. Such as manipulated death of Frank is somehow giving power to go through the tangent universe to contact Donnie for a premonition. Thorugh Sparrow, the Frank's exitence is questioned as what's his purpose of coming toward Donnie.

     Still it is difficult to believe who is right Donnie? or Civilized people?. Also is dead people really can contact people from different tangent universe? This question is emphasizing every detail what is Donnie and Frank relationship is and connection in the movie. 

---

Christopher

 

The relationship between Frank and Donnie is strange. The first time I saw it I didn’t quite get it but I think I do know. When Donnie survived the jet engine falling on him the universe split unto the real universe and a fragile temporary universe that would end in 28 days. Frank I believe is a projection of the should-of-been-dead Donnie or his potentially dead self from the real universe. The real universe killed Donnie with a jet engine but since Donnie wasn’t there to die it fractured into two separate universes. Now Donnie must realize this and accept his fate to put things back together. Frank is there to explain this in really abstract ways to Donnie, to help guide him back to that realization. The impending death of his girlfriend and the inevitable death of a boy in a bunny costume similar to Franks are all just a fabrication to help Donnie put the pieces together. He needs to return to his bedroom on October 2 and accept his death from the jet engine, thus completing the tangent universe and restoring stability to the original one. The Philosphy of Time Travel talks about similar occurrences with wormholes and the trails showing peoples predestined paths through time. The way the universe has fated things for us.  Donnie Darko is a very creative movie done by a very talented director with a lot to say about time travel.