Lubezki
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Post by Lubezki on Apr 7, 2020 17:31:32 GMT
Great idea for a thread, I'm a sucker for a good ending too. One that I've been coming back to a lot recently is the ending of Captain Phillips. Fucks me up every single time. It may very well be Hanks' finest acting to date and the fact that the medical examiner in the scene isn't an actress but an actual medical examiner is a brilliant play by Greengrass. Out of this world acting. Tom displays an unbelievable amount of control in the different stages experienced when going into shock. The confusion, anguish and trauma are perfectly portrayed one after the other before they all clash in one fell swoop. A beautiful performance all-round and his snub was absolutely criminal.
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Post by DeepArcher on Apr 7, 2020 22:15:06 GMT
First I think the ending is great already the way it is. Second I think it would have been even better if they would have found a way and arrested Noah Cross. Wouldn't have taken away anything from the poetry that all Gittes wanted had broken down because he wanted it too much, but would even have added the poetry of a certain justice.
Yeah, but I think "justice" would ruin the entire point of the ending ... I respect your view of course, though.
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Film Socialism
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Post by Film Socialism on Apr 7, 2020 22:23:40 GMT
end of akerman's Portrait of a Young Girl is probably my favorite of them all
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Post by futuretrunks on Apr 7, 2020 22:41:52 GMT
I'm going to go ahead and mention a poor ending that pissed me off big time: The LEGO Movie.
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no
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Post by no on Apr 8, 2020 0:57:45 GMT
Salo, or the 120 Days of Sodom
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Post by mikediastavrone96 on Apr 8, 2020 1:47:22 GMT
Another thread, another opportunity for me to talk about E.T. the Extra-Terrestrial.
As Brian Cox's Robert McKee said in Adaptation., "wow them in the end and you've got a hit," which certainly applies to E.T., the then-highest grossing film in history. What an odd movie to be the highest grossing film in history - it's not a sweeping epic (The Birth of a Nation, Gone with the Wind, The Sound of Music, Titanic), based on pre-existing material (Jaws, Jurassic Park, Avengers: Endgame), nor a massive world-building franchise starter (Star Wars, Avatar). Sure, it does have a genre conceit and high concept being about a lost sci-fi alien, but it wasn't exactly mind-melting in 1982 to see an alien on screen, nor to see it make a bicycle fly. Not when the film's competing against The Wrath of Khan, Blade Runner, or The Thing. Hell, even the spaceship is a downgrade from what Spielberg had previously shown us in Close Encounters of the Third Kind.
Then why did the film connect with audiences? Simply put, Spielberg and writer Melissa Mathison led the audience on a trail of breadcrumbs (a hack would say Reese's Pieces so instead I will just have my cake and eat it too) to set the stage for him to wow them in the end. Nothing too crazy, just simply gives us characters with their own wants, shows their relationships develop, throws in an obstacle, and then lets the math work itself out. The result is simple and easy: E.T., having spent a whole movie trying to get home, goes home.
What's so special about that? Glad you asked, critical voice in my head. The genius of Spielberg has been and always will be how he is perhaps the greatest filmmaker to have ever existed at successfully communicating emotions to an audience. He knows how to access the audience's sense of terror, awe, and excitement through just visual language. That exact skill, that level of craft is what makes him the most popular director to ever exist and puts off his greatest critics. And for a lot of people first getting into film, they initially start in that former category of being wowed by a Jaws, Raiders of the Lost Ark, or Jurassic Park only to turn against the bearded one once they start developing a taste for filmmakers whose strengths lie in ambiguity (ex. Kubrick, Scorsese). "He's too manipulative." "Overly sentimental." "I can see him pulling the strings." All complaints that are perfectly understandable, even if I do not agree.
Where I especially do not agree is in this idea of any director's use of craft as being "manipulative." After all, they are directors, the whole point is that they are showing you precisely what they want to show you. If you see an extreme wide shot in Tarkovsky's The Sacrifice, it's because that's what he wanted to tell you and he made it so you could only see that shot at that particular moment. The match cut in 2001 going from the bone to the spaceship? Those weren't images that somehow fell together in the editing room; Kubrick wanted you to see that particular cut because he was trying to communicate an idea to you. And you'd have to be kidding me to suggest Chaplin had no clue as a writer, actor, or director exactly what the hell he was doing with the ending of City Lights. Communication is the foundation for all art, from the Paleolithic cave paintings to the Michelangelo's work in the Sistine Chapel to the bevy of oddball stuff Andy Warhol did. Communicating an idea, an emotion, an expression of self is what the form is all about and it is the job of the artist to use (a.k.a. manipulate) their tools in choosing how the audience will receive those concepts. Is it any more manipulative for a director to choose between a louder or softer sound mix than it is for me to select the next word in this ongoing wall of text? Are we making these decisions for the Machiavellian purposes of manipulating an audience, or for the softer purposes of communication?
Communication is itself a major theme in E.T. Elliott and E.T. start with an obvious language barrier but are able to communicate through simple gesturing: an offering of Reese's Pieces for friendliness, heaviness of the eyes for tiredness, or the chewing of a Star Wars toy for hunger. The two become metaphorically and literally bonded in their shared emotional experiences over time - "Elliott thinks its thoughts?" "No, Elliott feels his feelings." Empathy is the basis of their entire friendship and the language through which they communicate. Of course, the doors blow open once E.T. develops the ability to speak and the depths of his desire to return home are made apparent, famously first through "E.T. phone home" but more poignantly expressed when E.T. and Elliott share an evening looking to the night sky and the alien pokes his finger at his chest, "ouch." For Elliott, a child of divorce, that yearning to go back home is not only understandable but part of his daily reality.
Now I can finally get around to the actual substance of the end of the film. Again, Spielberg could shoot and direct this however he wants. If he wants you to see an eye of God perspective, that's what you're getting. If he wants to completely shoot away from the scene and focus on a big tree while Peter Coyote waxes poetic about heaven, Elliott's mom, or whatever, then that's what's happening. But, using the tool that Roger Ebert once described as "the most powerful empathy machine," Spielberg decides to communicate this emotion. "Wow them with the ending."
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Post by DeepArcher on Apr 8, 2020 4:17:34 GMT
Revisited one of my all-time favorites tonight -- Kurosawa's High and Low, which (naturally) also has one of my all-time favorite endings, that frustratingly doesn't seem to be on Youtube. It's a film all about duality, as evoked by its title, the structure of the film itself, its major class theme, it's a sweltering thriller that all builds to this heated conclusion when these two opposing forces finally collide: the fallen businessman Gondo (happy belated centennial to Toshiro Mifune in his best performance) and the eerie, sunglass-wearing kidnapper (played by Tsutomu Yamazaki in his debut role, a very underrated performance who absolutely owns this scene against Mifune who has been chewing up the screen the entire movie). Even when these two worlds are on the same plane and finally face-to-face, they are still separated, a gated window between them that seems in every way designed to emphasize their separation. The intense conversation between the two has a deep bite to it, as we watch our criminal slowly collapse and reckon with the concepts of "heaven" and "hell" -- the direct translation of the film's Japanese title -- which of course harkens to the film's greater themes about class separation, leaving the audience with a question mark dropped like an anvil on the head. The gate sliding down between the two sides of the window at the end, like the fall of a curtain, just hammers the point home further, and almost sends chills down the spine. One of the most haunting movie endings I can think of.
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Post by DeepArcher on Apr 8, 2020 4:23:59 GMT
mikediastavrone96 -- That's a really great write-up about E.T. and especially Spielberg in general -- thank you so much for sharing. I have no particular attachment to E.T. (I do really like it, though) but you've definitely made me want to revisit it, I feel have new things to look out for whenever I next watch it might be.
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Nikan
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Post by Nikan on Apr 8, 2020 6:56:29 GMT
You don't even know when exactly it has hit you... You only find yourself days after it's over; thinking about Kang‑Ho Song's stare in reaction to that last line.
Devastating stuff.
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Post by jimmalone on Apr 8, 2020 7:10:37 GMT
Another thread, another opportunity for me to talk about E.T. the Extra-Terrestrial. As Brian Cox's Robert McKee said in Adaptation., "wow them in the end and you've got a hit," which certainly applies to E.T., the then-highest grossing film in history. What an odd movie to be the highest grossing film in history - it's not a sweeping epic ( The Birth of a Nation, Gone with the Wind), The Sound of Music, Titanic), based on pre-existing material ( Jaws, Jurassic Park, Avengers: Endgame), nor a massive world-building franchise starter ( Star Wars, Avatar). Sure, it does have a genre conceit and high concept being about a lost sci-fi alien, but it wasn't exactly mind-melting in 1982 to see an alien on screen, nor to see it make a bicycle fly. Not when the film's competing against The Wrath of Khan, Blade Runner, or The Thing. Hell, even the spaceship is a downgrade from what Spielberg had previously shown us in Close Encounters of the Third Kind. Then why did the film connect with audiences? Simply put, Spielberg and writer Melissa Mathison led the audience on a trail of breadcrumbs (a hack would say Reese's Pieces so instead I will just have my cake and eat it too) to set the stage for him to wow them in the end. Nothing too crazy, just simply gives us characters with their own wants, shows their relationships develop, throws in an obstacle, and then lets the math work itself out. The result is simple and easy: E.T., having spent a whole movie trying to get home, goes home. What's so special about that? Glad you asked, critical voice in my head. The genius of Spielberg has been and always will be how he is perhaps the greatest filmmaker to have ever existed at successfully communicating emotions to an audience. He knows how to access the audience's sense of terror, awe, and excitement through just visual language. That exact skill, that level of craft is what makes him the most popular director to ever exist and puts off his greatest critics. And for a lot of people first getting into film, they initially start in that former category of being wowed by a Jaws, Raiders of the Lost Ark, or Jurassic Park only to turn against the bearded one once they start developing a taste for filmmakers whose strengths lie in ambiguity (ex. Kubrick, Scorsese). "He's too manipulative." "Overly sentimental." "I can see him pulling the strings." All complaints that are perfectly understandable, even if I do not agree. Where I especially do not agree is in this idea of any director's use of craft as being "manipulative." After all, they are directors, the whole point is that they are showing you precisely what they want to show you. If you see an extreme wide shot in Tarkovsky's The Sacrifice, it's because that's what he wanted to tell you and he made it so you could only see that shot at that particular moment. The match cut in 2001 going from the bone to the spaceship? Those weren't images that somehow fell together in the editing room; Kubrick wanted you to see that particular cut because he was trying to communicate an idea to you. And you'd have to be kidding me to suggest Chaplin had no clue as a writer, actor, or director exactly what the hell he was doing with the ending of City Lights. Communication is the foundation for all art, from the Paleolithic cave paintings to the Michelangelo's work in the Sistine Chapel to the bevy of oddball stuff Andy Warhol did. Communicating an idea, an emotion, an expression of self is what the form is all about and it is the job of the artist to use (a.k.a. manipulate) their tools in choosing how the audience will receive those concepts. Is it any more manipulative for a director to choose between a louder or softer sound mix than it is for me to select the next word in this ongoing wall of text? Are we making these decisions for the Machiavellian purposes of manipulating an audience, or for the softer purposes of communication? Communication is itself a major theme in E.T. Elliott and E.T. start with an obvious language barrier but are able to communicate through simple gesturing: an offering of Reese's Pieces for friendliness, heaviness of the eyes for tiredness, or the chewing of a Star Wars toy for hunger. The two become metaphorically and literally bonded in their shared emotional experiences over time - "Elliott thinks its thoughts?" "No, Elliott feels his feelings." Empathy is the basis of their entire friendship and the language through which they communicate. Of course, the doors blow open once E.T. develops the ability to speak and the depths of his desire to return home are made apparent, famously first through "E.T. phone home" but more poignantly expressed when E.T. and Elliott share an evening looking to the night sky and the alien pokes his finger at his chest, "ouch." For Elliott, a child of divorce, that yearning to go back home is not only understandable but part of his daily reality. Now I can finally get around to the actual substance of the end of the film. Again, Spielberg could shoot and direct this however he wants. If he wants you to see an eye of God perspective, that's what you're getting. If he wants to completely shoot away from the scene and focus on a big tree while Peter Coyote waxes poetic about heaven, Elliott's mom, or whatever, then that's what's happening. But, using the tool that Roger Ebert once described as "the most powerful empathy machine," Spielberg decides to communicate this emotion. "Wow them with the ending." That's an excellent post. I don't care particularly about E.T. For me it's somewhere in the middle of Spielberg's films quality-wise, but the ending of this film was really great and basically lifted my opinion on it of being average into good.
Even better is your point on Spielberg, a view I totally share. I said it in another post recently: It's a director's job to bring emotions to the viewer. Cause we don't only watch movies - or any other things in the world - with the eyes, but also with the mind and the heart. A director IS a master of strings. He has to bring all elements of a film together, has to orchestre his characters through a screenplay. And I agree that few people in the history of cinema have this ability on such a high level as Spielberg.
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Post by pacinoyes on Apr 8, 2020 7:11:09 GMT
One of the things you could accuse me of - or any fan of 70s cinema actually - is romanticizing the downbeat ending in general. But what about romanticizing an earned version of the opposite? That's pretty rare and that's what Vincent Gallo's unlikely (and unlikely original), quite brilliant at times Buffalo '66 achieved for me.
By placing you inside the central character's head we get to see both sides, see both play out, see the full range of humor and despair of both. It's an exhilarating ending that made me cry and laugh out loud simultaneously (a great feeling - exceedingly rare and hard to replicate).
Gallo shoots the ending in the manner of a comic book - all outlandish grotesque images and expressions (to Yes' "Heart of The Sunrise") which sort of has the effect of a gut punch while smacking you upside the head and shaking you and asking - what are you rooting for here (and why?) and what do you want out of life anyway too (and why?).
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Post by jimmalone on Apr 8, 2020 7:20:50 GMT
First I think the ending is great already the way it is. Second I think it would have been even better if they would have found a way and arrested Noah Cross. Wouldn't have taken away anything from the poetry that all Gittes wanted had broken down because he wanted it too much, but would even have added the poetry of a certain justice.
Yeah, but I think "justice" would ruin the entire point of the ending ... I respect your view of course, though. That would have been the difficulty indeed. But I think the most important thing for Gittes at this point was already to bring Evelyn out of that story undamaged. And her death, for whom he is also responsible is what makes him suffer and lost more than everything else. This feeling you could have created anyway. You would have needed some testimony of her before though, that would have been enough to send Cross to prison.
That's how I view it. But as I haven't seen this ending I can't be sure how it really would have turned out. As I stated before I think the ending is great how it is. It's just that it also leaves me unsatisfied and I know that IS exactly what Polanski wants, but still.
Thanks, I always respect other peoples opinions as well (except they are fascistic or discriminatory). As I said before great thread, by the way.
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Post by jimmalone on Apr 8, 2020 7:28:43 GMT
I just woke up and thought how great the ending of To Kill a Mockingbird is. You can say this is easy, because they went exactly with the ending of the book. But this is exactly the point. How often have I seen an adaptation where they changed the ending a bit or where a director felt the need to force his stamp on it by making a special line of dialogue or something else. But here the details worked perfectly - also thanks to the actors. It's Robert Duvall in a soo small role, who leaves such a huge impact, being the ghost-like Boo, we only had heared about and who seemed to be a maniac. Turns out he is the life saver of the main protagonists and one of the people the title of the movie refers to. And then are the very few last lines and Mulligan had the courage to do what he did for most of the film: let the book and it's story to the work. Cause he just let the narrator read the last lines of the book. It's so simple, but so effective.
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Post by jimmalone on Apr 8, 2020 7:46:09 GMT
I have to add another one and that's Heat.
First of all: This is the climax we had awaited for the past around 140 minutes. Hanna hunts McCauley, comes closer and closer and finally the two of them have to meet again in the last possible way - at the airport. This is only possible by the way, because McCauley broke his own rule and let his emotions get into his way.
This final duel between them is staged so terrific with such a fantastic work by Dante Spinotti, who turns the screen fully in blue and black. The tension increases basically with every second and contrary to the shoot-out at the bank in the movie before Michael Mann doesn't give us an action-packed duel here, but one of rather silence. On a little sidenote this final is also a wonderful reference to the showdown in Bullitt by the way.
Hanna wins because he can read the other ones mind a little better and because he has the fortune of a plane showing him McCauley's position - after all we had seen, we knew that the two of them are very similiar minds. And that's the beauty of the last shot again, which would also already on itsself be a wonderful painting. You see Hanna holding the hand of the dying McCauley, whom he just shot, one as lonesome as the other, showing what Hanna in their coffee meeting had said before: he has sympathy for McCauley, but this didn't hinder him to fulfill his job. And I always think that this picture also summarizes up Hanna's life: That guys like McCauley, even if at the other side of law, are probably the guys, who are the closest to him, who really doesn't have a life outside the job, than anybody else.
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Post by Joaquim on Apr 8, 2020 8:44:43 GMT
Probably doesn't need a spoiler tag since the clip cuts out the ending but I'm throwing spoiler tags anyway so I can talk about it. I loved loved loved this ending when I saw it, and unfortunately I haven't rewatched it since. It reminded me of the stories I would write in my writing classes where even when the plot was resolved and we got a happy ending I would still find a way to kill of my main characters no matter how random, out of place, outlandish or forced the death was.
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Post by pacinoyes on Apr 8, 2020 15:28:04 GMT
No American movie that I can recall at least - has ever been as preoccupied with THE ending, you know, of life - Death and The Irishman's ending, the most emotionally moving examination of it in a gangster film ever which is a genre based on Death somehow skirts sentimentality.
Not only is the ending devastating in its final shot - it's devastating in the way it builds to that shot - endlessly layering on one wrenching scene (daughter at the bank), onto another (casket shopping), onto another (falling down, alone) to get there.
The earlier signs of Death - where words don't mean what they pretend to mean, and characters fates revealed on screen hint at what's coming are the warm up for a 3rd ending act that you would say maybe was too dark to shoehorn onto this story.
But the ending of The Irishman was both its masterstroke and the thing that kept it from winning 10 Oscars instead of losing 10.
It's the ending of a great novel without feeling like a literary ending - which you get sometimes in great movies like NCFOM or Apocalypse Now - and which The Irishman doesn't resemble in its ending at all.
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Shim
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Post by Shim on Apr 8, 2020 16:28:48 GMT
Not gonna lie, I hated this ending. It just felt so silly and out of place, especially with all the emotions that had been built up so skillfully for the previous hour.
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Post by DeepArcher on Apr 8, 2020 16:36:52 GMT
You don't even know when exactly it has hit you... You only find yourself days after it's over; thinking about Kang‑Ho Song's stare in reaction to that last line. Devastating stuff. This was literally the next one I was thinking of posting about A close-up is one of the most powerful shots that you could end a film on, and the one that Bong ends on here bears so much significance for this particular film, for this character and this story. Not only a devastating conclusion to Detective Park's character arc as we see his arrogance entirely diminished, the abilities he once had so much faith and confidence in now reduced to a purely desperate, futile fleeting glance -- but also a plea from the filmmaker, a condemnation staring directly at the audience, searching that very audience for the answer that we're all looking for. There's an argument that it's the best ending of the 21st century in one of the best films of the century ... top five endings of the century at the very least. A stroke of mastery that's utterly haunting.
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Post by Martin Stett on Apr 8, 2020 16:42:25 GMT
themoviesinner Don't get me started. I haven't been able to properly geek out about this for years. Thirty hours later...You got me started. I'm looking at the story through a Christian (particularly Baptist, as that is the denomination I am most familiar with) perspective. The short version of this viewpoint is that everyone is inherently guilty and we all know it, and though we may pretend to be happy, we cannot truly be happy until we put our burden on Jesus. Jesus forgives us who are unworthy of any forgiveness, for we are so vile that any sort of good work that we do is just as putrid as our own souls. To view Madoka as a Christ allegory (and we should, it's pretty juicy that way ), we can see how every magical girl is driven by their self-loathing and self-condemnation. - Sayaka is the clearest example of this. She sees herself as the hero and "white knight" (as denoted by her outfit and sword, and later her armor clad witch form), but she soon sees how she only made her wish to benefit herself because she wanted in Kyousuke's pants (as denoted by the various musical motifs in her magic and the fortissimo symbols in her hair). When faced with him not doing what she wants and choosing his own path in life, she soon realizes how completely selfish her own seemingly selfless acts of goodness are. Her righteousness is as filthy rags, because it is self-serving. She lashes out at Madoka's attempts to help her, which drives her self-loathing even more. She murders or wants to murder the men on the train, and this finally breaks the illusion that she ever did any of this for anyone but herself. - Mami plays it cool as the "leader/big sister" kind of character, but she is haunted by the knowledge that her deal with Kyubey resulted in the deaths of her parents. When she is faced with killing Sayaka in one of the earlier timelines, her response is to go on a big 'ol murdering spree because to stop everyone from witching out - or facing up to their true natures and embracing the knowledge of their own guilt, to overthink it. In the current timeline, she is so lonely and has taken such a burden on herself that she practically goes into ecstasy when Madoka says that she'll be her friend. One could say that she loses her head over it, in fact. - Kyoko comes from a literally christian background. When her father learns the truth of what his daughter has done, he names her as a witch. Even if the twist of what witches really are does come later in the story, her father recognizes that she made a pact with a supernatural being for magical powers: of course she's a witch. And then the usual: murder-suicide and horrible backstories because nobody can be happy ever. Kyoko's response is to acknowledge her own selfishness (she just wanted enough to eat) and actively pushes away her Christian heritage (fully embracing a view of social Darwinism). She lives for herself and nobody else, and anyone who is "living for others" is deceiving themselves. She makes a contrast with Sayaka: the selfless hero who doesn't look inside of her own motivations, and the selfish villain who spells out that we're all just pieces of the food chain and that any philanthropism for the good of "others" is self-delusion. Ultimately, Kyoko comes to admire Sayaka and even love her, and this is her downfall: she can't even stick by her own tenets of selfishness, because even if humans are inherently selfish, we can still love. Love, as defined by my church, is "a selfless commitment to another's good." Selfless does not compute with her worldview, and yet there it is in her actions. If anyone has a redemptive arc in Madoka, it is Kyoko. But it does no good. Sayaka is still a witch, and all that can be done is to put her down. Kyoko dies in the process. There is no relief, because Kyoko's attempts to "do good" can't result in success. She can't redeem Sayaka, because Sayaka cannot redeem herself, because Sayaka is evil and corrupt and does not deserve redemption. What Madoka does for each of them is give them redemption. She becomes God or Jesus, taking their own crimes, their own knowledge of who they are, and forgives them. She takes their punishments upon herself. There is a lot of cool stuff to get into there, but I'll leave it. Okaaaaay, so now that's out of the way, only took me eighty minutes. On to Rebellion! Taking the christian viewpoint, let's tackle this image. Madoka reaches down to Homura, who is on her knees. Homura reaches up to take that hand... and it crumbles. It has no substance: Madoka's promise is not fulfilled. Why? Let us move on before answering that. Here, we have a hint of the answer. The chair scene is a picture of what is happening in Homura's head: Madoka sacrifices herself, Homura "grows up" in a few frames (btw, I love the image of Homura shedding her skin, it's such a unique visual effect), and she reaches out to stop Madoka from sacrificing herself... but her hand of salvation is unable to help. Madoka has thrown herself away, separated herself from Homura's protection and control. Madoka the all-loving goddess has subsumed Madoka the Homura-loving woman. Homura is left with nothing. The girl she loved is gone. Stolen away. But who stole her? She made the decision of her own volition. Madoka's choice was made out of love for all magical girls, not just for Homura. Madoka's choice is the end of our punishment for our crimes. Sayaka knew that she was guilty. Mami knew that she was guilty. Kyoko knew that she was guilty. The punishment was becoming a witch. But Madoka supplied a way out: the one innocent looks upon the magical girls and doesn't see the vile filth that they know they are, but people who are in need of help and compassion. She takes their sentences on herself, if they are willing. (Relevant imagery is at 0:35) Homura "gets religion," one could say. She wants to believe that Madoka loves her, she wants her happy ending. Nobody fought harder for this than Homura. Nobody wanted Madoka's happiness more than her. But what did Homura really want? Did she really fight for the good of all magical girls? Did she really want what Madoka wanted? When Homura separates herself from her soul gem, children begin chanting the words "fort, da." To quote Oxford Reference: And there's the rub. So long as Madoka was under Homura's control, Homura could be happy. Madoka could be safe, everything could be perfect, and Madoka would never have to trouble her pretty little head about anything. Homura could take care of it, she could keep Walpurgisnacht away, she could keep things okay. She doesn't want Madoka's happiness. She wants to be Madoka's protector. Madoka's love has been stolen by the other magical girls. She would never want Homura to be unhappy, right? So clearly, Madoka made a mistake. Homura cannot be happy if the object of her "love" is not completely subsumed by her. Her religion is not true. She will not, can not comprehend the Divine in her carnal state. Her eyes are focused only inwards. But if there's anything that a witch's labyrinth can tell you, it's that looking inwards and seeing yourself and your true desires will make you echo Jeremiah: "The heart is deceitful above all things, and desperately wicked."Even when she performs the part of a "believer," she is lying to herself and to everyone else. She wants Madoka's hand. She wants forgiveness, she wants to be one with Madoka. But she will not bring herself to look upon her own desires as wrong. And so: What else can be done but to tear down Madoka's kingdom, spit upon everything she stands for, take Madoka down to her level? All Homura wanted was for Madoka to be happy... and to be hers. In those final moments, Madoka flatly rejects Homura's "love" as a devouring, selfish act. What else is there to do but to kill God? To rebel against it all, to live life her way? But if God is dead, that means that *I* am God. I am the ruler of my own destiny... but I am also my own judge. Just as Sayaka was her own judge, when she looked into the depths of her heart. Who can return a verdict of anything other than "guilty" a thousand times over? Although Homura is currently "ruling" the world, it is a hollow victory. Satan successfully lured Adam and Eve into sin, and he is currently the ruler of this world... but it won't last. Jesus' return is a foregone conclusion. Madoka will one day engage in battle against Homura. There can be no redemption for one who has rejected Madoka's love, for one who has said in her heart "there is no God." There is only a brief, sad dance as she becomes "a god herself."
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Post by DeepArcher on Apr 8, 2020 16:51:45 GMT
I have to add another one and that's Heat. First of all: This is the climax we had awaited for the past around 140 minutes. Hanna hunts McCauley, comes closer and closer and finally the two of them have to meet again in the last possible way - at the airport. This is only possible by the way, because McCauley broke his own rule and let his emotions get into his way. This final duel between them is staged so terrific with such a fantastic work by Dante Spinotti, who turns the screen fully in blue and black. The tension increases basically with every second and contrary to the shoot-out at the bank in the movie before Michael Mann doesn't give us an action-packed duel here, but one of rather silence. On a little sidenote this final is also a wonderful reference to the showdown in Bullitt by the way. Hanna wins because he can read the other ones mind a little better and because he has the fortune of a plane showing him McCauley's position - after all we had seen, we knew that the two of them are very similiar minds. And that's the beauty of the last shot again, which would also already on itsself be a wonderful painting. You see Hanna holding the hand of the dying McCauley, whom he just shot, one as lonesome as the other, showing what Hanna in their coffee meeting had said before: he has sympathy for McCauley, but this didn't hinder him to fulfill his job. And I always think that this picture also summarizes up Hanna's life: That guys like McCauley, even if at the other side of law, are probably the guys, who are the closest to him, who really doesn't have a life outside the job, than anybody else. Heat is perpetually one of my five favorite movies ever, and this ending is an obvious all-timer that is a big part of the reason why. Another one I was gonna post about soon, but I might as well talk about it now. A lot like what I was just talking about with High and Low, Heat's ending is another one where the two forces that have been at war against each other the entire film collide -- but it's a little different in this case as we've seen these two sides face-to-face before, but this final confrontation between the two contrasts their coffee shop talk because, as you said, this is a showdown that takes place entirely in silence. The brilliance in this ending, and the fact that Hanna ultimately gets the best of McCauley despite the two being an obvious even match for each other, is that it acts perfectly as a conclusion for both characters in a way that's subtle and you don't totally realize until you've watched the film enough times. It goes without saying that both Hanna and McCauley have to deal with the weight of a great deal of emotional baggage throughout the film. They both have key flaws that they must get over in order to get the ending they want ... for McCauley, it's his strict, unwavering dogmatism, his stubborn dedication to his principles; for Hanna, it's the neglect of his family and his domestic life and his emotional detachment from his loved ones as the result of his addiction to his work. Hanna is able to get the best of McCauley because Hanna has ... well, he hasn't conquered his cardinal flaw per se, but he's come to terms with it ... making amends with Justine as they come to a hard acceptance of who Hanna is. And McCauley, of course, doesn't get over his own flaws ... he sticks to those principles to the bitter end, at the cost of abandoning the person he loves. (One could argue that this is a total misreading too as both McCauley and Hanna leave the women they love totally devastated ... literally the very last thing we see of either of those characters is them being abandoned as either man returns to their normal ways, McCauley on the run and Hanna on the hunt. It's a sign that even though Hanna achieves an awareness of who he is and how he's flawed, it's not exactly going to make things better. He and McCauley are still, ultimately, the same person ... but Hanna, perhaps, reaches a place where he becomes the better one. I don't know, there's probably a lot of ways to read it!) It's also so significant that in this showdown, it's McCauley's shadow cast by the lights of the plane that ultimately give him away and allow Hanna to shoot him down. The plane of course represents what McCauley's goal has been the entire film ... an escape, finally getting away from "the life." And it's that dream that finally betrays him in the end, the same way he betrayed the dream just a few minutes earlier. Masterful stuff. Of course, the final exchange of dialogue is perfection ... that final Moby needle drop sendings chills coursing through me every single time (one of the best end credit needle drops ever) ... and it goes without saying, the final shot is just one of the most perfect I've ever witnessed:
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Post by jimmalone on Apr 8, 2020 17:36:12 GMT
I have to add another one and that's Heat. First of all: This is the climax we had awaited for the past around 140 minutes. Hanna hunts McCauley, comes closer and closer and finally the two of them have to meet again in the last possible way - at the airport. This is only possible by the way, because McCauley broke his own rule and let his emotions get into his way. This final duel between them is staged so terrific with such a fantastic work by Dante Spinotti, who turns the screen fully in blue and black. The tension increases basically with every second and contrary to the shoot-out at the bank in the movie before Michael Mann doesn't give us an action-packed duel here, but one of rather silence. On a little sidenote this final is also a wonderful reference to the showdown in Bullitt by the way. Hanna wins because he can read the other ones mind a little better and because he has the fortune of a plane showing him McCauley's position - after all we had seen, we knew that the two of them are very similiar minds. And that's the beauty of the last shot again, which would also already on itsself be a wonderful painting. You see Hanna holding the hand of the dying McCauley, whom he just shot, one as lonesome as the other, showing what Hanna in their coffee meeting had said before: he has sympathy for McCauley, but this didn't hinder him to fulfill his job. And I always think that this picture also summarizes up Hanna's life: That guys like McCauley, even if at the other side of law, are probably the guys, who are the closest to him, who really doesn't have a life outside the job, than anybody else. It's also so significant that in this showdown, it's McCauley's shadow cast by the lights of the plane that ultimately give him away and allow Hanna to shoot him down. The plane of course represents what McCauley's goal has been the entire film ... an escape, finally getting away from "the life." And it's that dream that finally betrays him in the end, the same way he betrayed the dream just a few minutes earlier. Masterful stuff. Of course, the final exchange of dialogue is perfection ... that final Moby needle drop sendings chills coursing through me every single time (one of the best end credit needle drops ever) ... and it goes without saying, the final shot is just one of the most perfect I've ever witnessed: Totally agree with basically everything you said, but especially those last two paragraphs.
For me this is maybe my favourite final shot in any movie, but together with Moby's music tuning in it's just exceptional wonderful.
You could also read another metaphor in it with the light of the plane helping the man representing the light side in this duel against the man of shadows. And so on and on.
I also think that McCauley wasn't to sad about his death. Cause in the end he got away from life, albeit in another way.
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Post by themoviesinner on Apr 8, 2020 17:48:40 GMT
Martin StettGreat write-up there. I actually agree somewhat with your view on the films, although I have some thoughts to add:
I think the whole light vs dark and good vs evil cumulates basically to one thing (and even if I'm not religious myself, so as to continue with your Christian take, a gift from god): free will. We all have our own way of thinking and interacting with one another. Our actions are always based on our emotions, desires, ect. which are different for everyone, and whatever we do will have consequences for ourselves and others. Every acton has a counteraction and that is apparent for every girl (as you adequately discribed in your post above). I want to express some thoughts on Madoka particularly. She does give redemption to all the other girls and takes their punishment upon herself, but at the same time she strips away their free will, as she denies them the chance to seek redemption themselves. It's as if a higher being imposed his will on the world and dictates how everyone thinks and acts. She engulfs them in a cage where they are trapped, unable to act of their own accord. Good and evil can't be imposed on anyone, they can be only a matter of choice.
As for the ending of Rebellion, I think the film pretty clearly wants to show that the notion of god is not something universal, but it originates from each person's spirit or soul and, thus, each one of us has a different understanding of the concept.
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Post by pacinoyes on Apr 8, 2020 18:08:39 GMT
Yes and of course the ending also represents how Neil's rules betray him cruelly, twice - once by ignoring them (the phone call causing him to stay), once by following them too rigidly - he doesn't anticipate the plane exposing him to the light like that - if the plane doesn't expose him he'd likely kill Hanna. That's the way I always took it anyway at least. Insanely complex thematic screenplay for a crime film and of course the actors and their past cinematic histories add yet another layer of meaning to the whole film obviously ...........but particularly that resolution.
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Post by Mattsby on Apr 9, 2020 0:00:37 GMT
The Circus besides being a personal favorite is I think the definitive Chaplin and that's largely bc of the ending. People seem to love his other movies more -- The Kid, The Gold Rush, Modern Times, City Lights. I love them, but not as much. They have simple, happy endings; they untramp the Tramp; they stop. Even though Ebert called The Circus ending "a letdown" he also gets at the essence of the Tramp in the same write-up: "alone and forlorn but with a defiant little hop, going back on the road." That the Tramp is a continuing "character" it only makes sense to return him to the road, so the next movie would be part of his anthological goofing itinerancy (cough). In this ending, the Tramp sees a happy ending, it just isn't his. He accepts that. I find it to be a touching, heartfelt lesson, without being gooey about it - and as his crush and the circus carriage leave, it actually creates a circle in the dirt around him, boxing him in. He sits for a momentary wallow. Then he gets up, with his signature flutter, and bops away, no longer inside that literal/symbolic enclosure. All it took was a step in any direction.
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Post by pacinoyes on Apr 9, 2020 0:46:00 GMT
Another one I really love is the ending where it appears nothing happened but a lot actually did - best shown in In A Lonely Place (1950). A lot of people don't get the ending because nothing "really" happens there's not a murder, Bogart is "innocent", there's nothing to further the relationship or end it heck they could still theoretically be together - except the increasingly dangerous behavior which the next time might have the tragic consequences you don't see here it's all in the unsaid - what they both know and even what Bogart knows about himself. Very tough to pull that ending off and it's why a lot of people really don't get it that movie until a 2nd viewing. I find it tremendously modern too - it doesn't jerk audiences around or manipulate. You have to fill in the piece that the movie won't easily serve to you.
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