Question: Why does Goldie Hawn wear odd-colored contact lenses to emphasize the fact that her character is dead, but Meryl Streep does not?
Answer: Actually, they're both wearing coloured contacts. If you look at timestamp 01:17:23 when they say "Pleeeaase" to Ernest, you can see they're both wearing contacts. Meryl's aren't as noticeable, but they are the bluish-purple/periwinkle colour Ernest was using when he was painting her touch-ups on the pool table.
Answer: Her eyes changed when she fell into the hot tub. They were essentially boiled.
My interpretation was that when she was shot, she completely bled out, thus all color of her skin and eyes would fade away.
But there's no blood inside eyeballs?
There are several blood vessels that supply blood to the eyeball. The cornea is the only part of the body not supplied by blood.
It wasn't a hot tub she fell into. It was a little pond. No hot water.
Question: When Helen and Madelin are fighting with the shovels, Helen whacks off the end of Madelin's shovel, and then Madelin throws the stick through Helen. How did they achieve this effect?
Chosen answer: CGI, just like any other difficult effect.
Question: In the scene where Goldie Hawn nearly gets her head run over by the car, how do they get that effect? It just looks far too dangerous to be an actual stunt, but it looks too real to be a bluescreen / split screen effect either.
Chosen answer: It is a composite shot, with the actor's head added to the scene. They just did a particularly good job on the scene.
Question: What caused Helen and Madeline to break into pieces as they fell down the steps of the church?
Answer: They were warned earlier in the film that they needed to take care of their bodies. But obviously, they put them through a lot of abuse. They didn't take care of themselves, needing to be patched up frequently and whatnot. As a result, at this point, their bodies are like living mannequins more than human bodies. They simply break apart with force, such as falling down the stairs.
Question: Why does Lisle keep the potion's existence a secret? What's gonna happen if the public does know?
Answer: As shown in the movie, the potion not only restores a person's youth and makes them immortal, but it would also stop the person from having any type of disease. If the public ever knew about it, everybody would suddenly start fighting to get it without realizing the damage it could do. Ex: At the end of the movie, Madeline and Helen both fall down the church steps and shatter upon hitting the ground. Better to keep it a secret from the whole world than let it get out and have people doing anything that could irreparably damage their bodies.
Question: When Streep and Rossellini talk about the potion, Rossellini says "Or as one of my clients simply said -- 'I vant to be alone, yah.'" and Streep replies "No" She's not!" -- Who are they talking about?
Chosen answer: It's a reference to Greta Garbo who abandoned Hollywood shortly after WWII.
Question: When Helen and Madelin have finished fighting and they asked Earnest to fix them, how did he fix the great big hole in Helen's stomach?
Chosen answer: He most likely filled it with something soft, then covered it. You'll notice the lingerie she is wearing completely covers her midsection.
Question: How come when Lisa is swimming in the pool none of her eyes wash out or anything like the others?
Question: In the scene when Madeline falls down the stairs, the stunt double appears to take an impossibly hard fall tumbling down those solid marble steps. It is obvious that CGI was used at the start of the fall, when we see Meryl Streep's face hitting the stairs, but during the tumble there was definitely a stunt double used. Do you know if the stunt double did this fall in one take, as it appears in the film, or if special editing was used to make the fall appear harder and faster than it actually was? I can't believe the stunt double could perform such a hard fall without serious injury, but it looks genuine in the film.
Answer: Special editing was used to make the fall seem faster and longer than what it was. If you watch the fall and look closely you can see that two of the shots used were a repeat. The editors used these two shots twice in the fall in order to make the fall appear longer and faster.
Question: Mr. Chagall, the man who told Madeline about Lisle, what was the deal with his eye? It twitched seemingly uncontrollably in his first scene, but then when he's giving his speech at the party it seems completely fine.
Answer: Like all zombies his body was falling apart. He was pushing it back into place.
Answer: Ernest painted Madeline's eyes before she came down the stairs. He even notes that the balance in her eyes were messed up.