In Marnie (1964), by Alfred Hitchcock, Sean Connery’s character discovers Marnie’s pills and asks her: “Where did you get these things?” He implies that she could use them to take her own life, and then continues, “Heights, ropes, ovens, even plastic bags. Yeah, of course you can. You can also find, at your convenience. The world’s full of alternatives.” This scene highlights how the tragic impulse to end one’s life can manifest through everyday objects; some more common, some unexpected. A few minutes later, the characters engage in a word-association game, linking one word to multiple meanings, which immediately brought to my mind the Cluedo board game I played as a child, where even a candlestick could become a murder weapon, or how Dobby, in Harry Potter and the Chamber of Secrets (2002), hurts himself with a bottle, a wardrobe or even a lamp. Strange parallels.

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​What if someone has a sudden need to write or draw, like the map sketched on a mirror in Patton (1970), or a few notes Cruz writes down on a napkin in Almodóvar’s Parallel Mothers (2021)? Sometimes it is less impulsive and more habitual, as in Spring, Summer, Fall, Winter…and Spring (2003), where the old monk repeatedly used his cat’s tail to trace characters on the wooden floor of his floating temple. Writing is one of those fundamental needs where repurposing objects feels almost natural. Covering one’s head is another, when protecting from the rain with a plastic bag as in the Russian documentary Hush! (2003), or from the sun with a leaf, as in The Bridge on the River Kwai (1957). More recently, while rewatching Indiana Jones and the Last Crusade (1989), I noticed how Indi lights up some Italian catacombs using a bone as a torch. It would probably make sense to compile a list of everyday needs solved by unexpected objects as seen, for instance, in films and documentaries.