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Post by Deleted on Apr 9, 2020 2:05:02 GMT
The Walkaway. The Third Man (1949) and Millers Crossing (1990). After a funeral. The protagonist loses the girl, no friends, and left behind in the dust. Both have to come to that realization that they are alone, but still have their dignity.
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Post by mhynson27 on Apr 9, 2020 2:30:34 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. Does anyone know a way I can watch this?
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Post by The_Cake_of_Roth on Apr 9, 2020 3:34:03 GMT
Blade Runner 2049, a movie that arguably improves upon its predecessor by taking its themes and going further with them, ends with such a satisfying emotional catharsis that feels completely earned and right for its characters, I can't imagine a better epilogue to this story. Disillusioned with the knowledge that he is not the miracle child of Deckard and Rachel, a symbol of hope for the replicant freedom movement, K is ordered to kill Deckard to prevent the real child from being discovered... but he ultimately chooses his own path. Rather than sacrifice what he once believed to be a part of himself for the greater good of what he's supposed to represent, K reclaims his identity by choosing to carry out a simple act of good: reuniting father and daughter. After discovering a sense of meaning that was proven to be false, K creates new meaning for himself in this final act.
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Post by pacinoyes on Apr 9, 2020 8:46:15 GMT
The Blackcoat's Daughter (2015) - I'm not even a fan of the movie tbh but the ending raises the film a good bit and should have re-thought some of what happened earlier. To me it left me shaken and sad - the opposite of what you usually get "it was good until the end!"........here it's an "ending" in search of a (better) movie. The Emma Roberts character - after committing a gruesome double murder - this time without possession - finds herself used, thrown away, alone at the end - with her horrifying self - she chose this now That ending is logical, clear (where it could be muddled) raises a lot of surprisingly coherent points about God (absence thereof), grief, delusion, and our attraction to darkness or darkness as a wayward path. It's in keeping with a certain horror movie idea I love ....... the "Oh my God - what if it's this .........?".
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Post by Martin Stett on Apr 9, 2020 13:08:24 GMT
One of the top Letterboxd reviews for Rosetta goes into some detail on the superb ending.
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Post by Mattsby on Apr 9, 2020 17:45:25 GMT
No filmmaker mastered endings like Polanski. Most of his films are worth talking about here, Chinatown already mentioned, how about... Knife in the Water - for a film looking so closely at divides (age, class, gender, virility, marital impasse), and close-quarter competition (note the boxing match on the radio), and the unsaid said, the ending is perfect. With characters and dynamics increasingly at odds, with the breakdown of communication. All of its themes, conflicts, tested morality, and Polanski's visual nods and contrasts, all of it comes together at a crossroads. Literally. I almost always, generally, prefer endings that offer an intriguing question over an answer or simplification.... There's a trust in leaving audiences to engage and draw their own conclusions, to discuss and think back on what they've watched, and that's where the The Polish Ministry of Culture got it so wrong. They bridled at Polanski's unclear political stance and the ambiguity, originally rejected the script bc of its "lack of social commitment" and the uncertain ending. Like a kid who hates math so he refuses to even look at the equation, they proved Polanski's point.
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Post by pacinoyes on Apr 9, 2020 22:31:48 GMT
Spoilers below on the films of Coppola & De Palma******************************************************************************************************************* If you see enough movies you start to realize there are only so many thematic endings anyway - boy gets girl, or doesn't, boy dies etc. Well the really good filmmakers know that and have great fun - or balls - in how they "sell" them to you. Two of the best American directors of the 70s - Francis Ford Coppola & Brian De Palma specifically would sell you resolutions the same exact way - with sleight of hand. In Coppola's 4 great 70s films and in several of his others - he sells the "lead character lives to suffer or contemplate their sins" - others die but never the lead. It's the same ending, all 4 times in that way - they live but are irrevocably changed. De Palma was even more sinister with this and how he involved you as a viewer in his work. In Carrie & Dressed To Kill - he played with his fans who watched Dressed To Kill and thought "this is really happening right because he wouldn't dare rip off his own Carrie ending would he?" .......Yes, he would ...........and it pays off to great effect again. Of course De Palma had that malicious sense of humor in his best ending (and best film) too - one of the best endings in American film ever - Blow Out. He copies the Coppola-ending here - character lives, haunted irrevocably ........and in its last shot has maybe the cruelest joke you can imagine - like Chinatown, the ending is remembered because it feels so spectacularly wrongly "right". The ending of Blow Out is so uniquely complex that it balances several thematic strands - even down to the music - sweeping, romantic "Pino" Donaggio score: that's "heroic" - right? How about the the visuals - "loud fireworks": that's a "celebration" right? It mocks the entire history of happy movie endings and US political "celebrations" and nothing is as presented is heroic or celebratory - Nancy Allen of course already gone when we think Travolta has reached her in time while everyone is oblivious in the scene except him. Both Coppola & De Palma loved placing central characters within a narrative and then.......absolutely destroying them.
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Post by stephen on Apr 9, 2020 22:36:55 GMT
Blade Runner 2049, a movie that arguably improves upon its predecessor by taking its themes and going further with them, ends with such a satisfying emotional catharsis that feels completely earned and right for its characters, I can't imagine a better epilogue to this story. Disillusioned with the knowledge that he is not the miracle child of Deckard and Rachel, a symbol of hope for the replicant freedom movement, K is ordered to kill Deckard to prevent the real child from being discovered... but he ultimately chooses his own path. Rather than sacrifice what he once believed to be a part of himself for the greater good of what he's supposed to represent, K reclaims his identity by choosing to carry out a simple act of good: reuniting father and daughter. After discovering a sense of meaning that was proven to be false, K creates new meaning for himself in this final act. Something I absolutely love about Blade Runner 2049 is that, despite the sweeping scope that it invites in expanding the mythology and the landscape of the world (in particular when it comes to the impending replicant uprising), in the end, it's still about the personal journeys of two men.
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Post by DeepArcher on Apr 9, 2020 22:38:08 GMT
^ Blow Out is definitely one I was gonna mention at some point soon. I already sort of was expecting the ending from the beginning based on the set-up ... and yet it still left me absolutely shocked when it all happened. I like the Chinatown comparison, because like that Blow Out's ending is easily one of the bleakest and most cynical I've ever seen (that's a whole category of ending discussion on its own!), and its specifically linked to a very American cynicism and sense of hopelessness -- and obviously they're similar in that both subvert that traditionally happy ending as both are ultimately about the hero who fails the girl, and they are left to live with it. The ending of Blow Out exposes our world not just as one of rampant injustice, but one of ruthless exploitation ... it is utterly disheartening, and so, so brilliant.
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Post by DeepArcher on Apr 10, 2020 3:38:56 GMT
My choice for today is the ending of Magnolia -- another epic film that beautifully ends on an intimate moment between just a couple characters -- and another ending where the image is all about the face and the sound is all about the music and dialogue is only of secondary (or no) importance.
Everything about this moment and the way it's constructed is perfect: the camera slowly pushing in towards Claudia to emphasize the decision to finally let someone into her life, while also emphasizing that in this scene we are in her perspective, too. Aimee Mann's "Save Me" is used perfectly here as Claudia's internal monologue -- she is thinking exactly what the lyrics are saying -- and it's not done in a way that's super obvious or on-the-nose either, I think. We can vaguely make out what Jim is saying, but it's sort of inaudible, and that's very intentional. What Jim's saying doesn't matter, and as we're in Claudia's headspace, she's not really listening to Jim either. She's already made up her mind about Jim; in these two minutes, she's making her mind up about herself, and about letting herself connect with someone, and maybe look towards a brighter future. PTA uses these simple elements to convey that beautiful, life-affirming idea, and of course seals the deal with the synchronization of Claudia smiling with the guitar doing ... whatever you call that ... right at the cut to black. One of the most simple and emotionally satisfying endings I've ever seen.
While I don't love the film overall as much as I used to as I've gotten older ... I've only grown to appreciate this ending more and more with time:
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Post by pacinoyes on Apr 10, 2020 17:30:29 GMT
Dead Ringers (1988)There's a famous artistic ending that is particularly suited for books but not films usually: it's the "descent" - where characters peak and things then turn for the worse. Normally that is hard to pull off in movies since they are group experiences - they can be personal but are made for the collective and this ending isn't easy to calibrate for an audience. David Cronenberg's twins drama Dead Ringers has a great ending of this type and it goes insanely dark first the twins hurt another (innocent) person, then hurt themselves, then one kills the other - in an excruciating manner, and who then refuses available help, and lastly chooses his own Death linked in the most Christ-like way with his deceased brother Whew.........it's staggering this was a big studio release (wtf!) with that ending and everything about it has a chilly precision that's integrated earlier - shot in blood soaked reds (throughout, amazingly) with a marvelous score that's just slightly odd in how it plays on your ear. and gets odder............. everything especially the ending scenes play as both realistic and otherworldly at the same time. Red all over:
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Post by stephen on Apr 10, 2020 17:32:10 GMT
My favorite ending of the 2010s -- one that is so melancholic, so heartbreaking in its simplicity:
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Post by DeepArcher on Apr 10, 2020 18:22:57 GMT
Dead Ringers (1988)There's a famous artistic ending that is particularly suited for books but not films usually: it's the "descent" - where characters peak and things then turn for the worse. Normally that is hard to pull off in movies since they are group experiences - they can be personal but are made for the collective and this ending isn't easy to calibrate for an audience. David Cronenberg's twins drama Dead Ringers has a great ending of this type and it goes insanely dark first the twins hurt another (innocent) person, then hurt themselves, then one kills the other - in an excruciating manner, and who then refuses available help, and lastly chooses his own Death linked in the most Christ-like way with his deceased brother Whew.........it's staggering this was a big studio release (wtf!) with that ending and everything about it has a chilly precision that's integrated earlier - shot in blood soaked reds (throughout, amazingly) with a marvelous score that's just slightly odd in how it plays on your ear. and gets odder............. everything especially the ending scenes play as both realistic and otherworldly at the same time.
Probably my favorite Cronenberg and by extension one of my favorites of the '80s ... and that ending is a huge part of the reason why. The film brilliantly has such a slowly, creeping effect, so that its climax of blood lands even hard, and its conclusion is one of the most chilling things I've ever seen. "Ellie ... Ellie..."
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Post by Billy_Costigan on Apr 10, 2020 20:30:25 GMT
Great thread. I see we have a lot of the "usual suspects" already but I wanted to touch on some modern classics. I'll add more later.
Inception Christopher Nolan really knows how to land an ending. Honestly, you could mention every one of his films here. Nolan crafts a fully realized, original Sci-Fi masterpiece. A dream within a dream. The entire film leads up to this moment. Is Cobb still dreaming? Has he successfully escaped limbo? The entire audience sits on the edge of their seats waiting to see if the top stops spinning - and the film ends. The audience gasps. Inception has spawned hundreds of theories and endless debates. The brilliance of the ending is that it doesn't really matter if it's a dream or not. Cobb chooses his own reality and he's at peace. It's perfectly ambiguous and satisfying.
The Social Network I was only able to fully appreciate the brilliance of The Social Network after a few re-watches. It's my #1 film of the decade and a film that defines a generation. Mark Zuckerberg is awkward and aloof but he's become one of the most successful men in the world. It isn't until the end that we realize his motivations - and it's about a girl. As "Baby, You're a Rich Man" plays in the background, Mark keeps refreshing his former girlfriend's Facebook page as he tries to add her as a friend, longing for what might have been. It's "Rosebud" from Citizen Kane. He created an online network with millions of friends but is truly lonely inside. It's the perfect representation of the internet age and how disconnected our realities may be.
La La Land The perfect love letter to Hollywood. From the start, you feel like you're watching a classic movie as we watch these characters fall in love and visit some of LA's iconic landmarks. It's one of the best romance movies in recent memory with an ending that really punches you in the gut. 5 Years Later. It's a surprising time jump. We see Mia's dreams come full circle. She's now the famous actress at the coffee shop she worked at 5 years ago. Seb is opening the jazz club he's always wanted. Mia arrives home and we realize she's has a baby and is married to another man. When their paths cross again, Chazelle gives us a beautifully constructed dream sequence as we experience what their lives may have been like if things worked out differently. Their dreams came true, but not the way we expected. It's bittersweet, but the subtle smile and head nod at the end can't help but put a smile on your face.
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Post by jimmalone on Apr 10, 2020 20:55:33 GMT
My choice for today is the ending of Magnolia -- another epic film that beautifully ends on an intimate moment between just a couple characters -- and another ending where the image is all about the face and the sound is all about the music and dialogue is only of secondary (or no) importance. Everything about this moment and the way it's constructed is perfect: the camera slowly pushing in towards Claudia to emphasize the decision to finally let someone into her life, while also emphasizing that in this scene we are in her perspective, too. Aimee Mann's "Save Me" is used perfectly here as Claudia's internal monologue -- she is thinking exactly what the lyrics are saying -- and it's not done in a way that's super obvious or on-the-nose either, I think. We can vaguely make out what Jim is saying, but it's sort of inaudible, and that's very intentional. What Jim's saying doesn't matter, and as we're in Claudia's headspace, she's not really listening to Jim either. She's already made up her mind about Jim; in these two minutes, she's making her mind up about herself, and about letting herself connect with someone, and maybe look towards a brighter future. PTA uses these simple elements to convey that beautiful, life-affirming idea, and of course seals the deal with the synchronization of Claudia smiling with the guitar doing ... whatever you call that ... right at the cut to black. One of the most simple and emotionally satisfying endings I've ever seen. While I don't love the film overall as much as I used to as I've gotten older ... I've only grown to appreciate this ending more and more with time: Great, great choice. I'm not as huge on Paul Thomas Anderson as most people are on this board. But his direction of Magnolia is just brillant. And the ending is one of his strongest moment. It's an ingenious move to have such a beautiful song for those last moments that promise that there is somebody top help her. The song and the pictures have such a calming moment that really helps the viewer to feel the atmosphere and what hopefully treats Claudia and it echoes Jim's words very well, though we hear only parts of it. But it's one of the very few moments in a film that I don't really bother what a character is saying - though I personally think that she just as well as we hear some words of what he is saying and they are just what she needs at this point in time and they convince her - what she already had intended probably, but give her the last part of courage - to open up herself to and finally trust somebody again.
The final shot is probably my favourite smile in movie history.
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Nikan
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Post by Nikan on Apr 10, 2020 21:27:22 GMT
Dead Ringers (1988)There's a famous artistic ending that is particularly suited for books but not films usually: it's the "descent" - where characters peak and things then turn for the worse. Normally that is hard to pull off in movies since they are group experiences - they can be personal but are made for the collective and this ending isn't easy to calibrate for an audience. David Cronenberg's twins drama Dead Ringers has a great ending of this type and it goes insanely dark first the twins hurt another (innocent) person, then hurt themselves, then one kills the other - in an excruciating manner, and who then refuses available help, and lastly chooses his own Death linked in the most Christ-like way with his deceased brother Whew.........it's staggering this was a big studio release (wtf!) with that ending and everything about it has a chilly precision that's integrated earlier - shot in blood soaked reds (throughout, amazingly) with a marvelous score that's just slightly odd in how it plays on your ear. and gets odder............. everything especially the ending scenes play as both realistic and otherworldly at the same time. Red all over:
Truly moving... Moments like this knocked me out when I was going through my Cronenberg season. I had always heard what a great master he is of "body horror" and gore and such. I simply wasn't prepared for such human and understanding films.
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Post by DeepArcher on Apr 10, 2020 21:29:05 GMT
The Social Network is such a great one that I definitely wanted to get to — probably the best ever use of the “where are they now” ending text (which typically ruins an ending), at least that I can think of. The “youngest billionaire in the world” is just some guy pathetically sitting behind his computer screen desperately seeking attention from his ex-girlfriend. It’s brilliant and a final note of exploration/criticism of the character that’s easy to misread or overlook too.
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Post by mhynson27 on Apr 11, 2020 2:30:56 GMT
Seeing La La Land in this thread made me think about just how good Chazelle is at ending a film. The endings to all three of Whiplash, La La Land and First Man are imo, some of the best of the 2010's. Some directors just get it.
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Post by pacinoyes on Apr 11, 2020 15:14:58 GMT
I'd say the most difficult ending to pull off in movies is the - "How do I take this?" - and the master of this in almost every one of his great films - and in the 70s he rivaled Coppola - is Werner Herzog and in particular for the boundary pushing ending for one of his masterpieces - "Stroszek". My favorite things in any Art form - heck my favorite thing period - is when you laugh/cry simultaneously (hence my The Replacements/Raymond Carver etc. fixation) and this ending so spectacularly silly, sad, fncked up, complicated, that the first time you see it you're like "Wait...." AND in keeping with the tone of the film previously - it's an incredible juggling act. He had done this ending before - it's the same idea as "Even Dwarfs Started Small" in a way but far more resonant and clear. .......and this doesn't even include the funky chicken for Godsakes:
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cherry68
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Man is unhappy because he doesn't know he's happy. It's only that.
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Post by cherry68 on Apr 11, 2020 16:28:09 GMT
May be one of the most rational romantic comedies. There is no question: The princess gets back to her castle and the reporter goes back to...reporting. What else did we think would happen? There's something in my eye dammit... The current Spanish queen Laetitia was a reporter and married the Prince...
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Post by The_Cake_of_Roth on Apr 11, 2020 20:31:45 GMT
When No Country for Old Men was first released, I frequently heard people irl say stuff like "it was really good until the ending!" which couldn't be further off base. Part of what makes the film a masterpiece for me is its ending, and if it had concluded any other way, it would automatically be a lesser film imo. NCFOM came out when I was in high school, and I saw it in theaters around the time I was first starting to get into film more seriously. The ending hit me like a ton of bricks because of how unexpected it was.... the "hero" is killed, evil persists, and we're left with the existential and spiritual crisis of an old, retired sheriff describing dreams dripping with metaphorical significance. I was certain that I had seen something special even if I couldn't immediately articulate why I felt that way still sitting in the theater as the credits rolled. The ending still struck me as beautifully poetic and "right" - uncompromisingly bleak, but not completely barren of hope. Riding through the cold darkness yearning to find the fire in the distance.
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Post by pacinoyes on Apr 12, 2020 14:32:19 GMT
Another tricky ending to pull off is the ascent/descent ending - almost never happens because to make it work you have to write it as convincing parallel. In fact, this is so hard to pull off that even movies - great ones by great writers give up on it and just touch on it instead (Schindler's List where it actually happens but isn't the theme of the ending). One of the best at this is Sidney Lumet's The Verdict (1982) scripted by David Mamet in his genius period from a novel no one ever bothered to read anyway and never will because that's how definitive his screenplay is. Frank (Paul Newman) is drinking coffee after a redemptive arc while Laura (Charlotte Rampling) is in effect the new "old" Frank, sad, drunk, alone, broken
. That is handled so deftly by Mamet and woven into the plot that you may not even notice how the 3rd act revelations and twists between the Newman and James Mason characters are a fake-out and how the case itself is acting as "judge and jury" to Frank & Laura. It's a great ending in an all-time script - and it's far more complex than just a great final scene.
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Post by stephen on Apr 12, 2020 14:37:30 GMT
Happy endings are so damned hard to pull off, particularly because they can fall into the realm of cheese or schmaltz so easily that it can wind up screwing over the entire movie. In a way, I think it's a more difficult achievement to stick the landing on a happy ending.
Which brings me to my suggestion: The Killing Fields. A touching, heartfelt reunion set to a song that could come off so laughably saccharine (see the latest brouhaha surrounding a certain collection of celebrities singing this same song that went viral a few weeks ago):
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Post by pacinoyes on Apr 13, 2020 10:03:58 GMT
There hasn't been much talk about "happy" endings - I mentioned Buffalo '66 as an amazing - almost parody of one but another one I'd mention is doing that thing I love - the laugh/cry thing - and the way it ties up all its seemingly impossible to tie up strands. Not only that but it executes it in cinematic terms from a guy who had never made a movie before and makes you rethink the movie you've been watching entirely. Martin McDonagh's In Bruges - juggles multiple narrative threads with incidental, seemingly minor descriptive plot points in a left-field resolution that depends on you feeling the same way as the lead character and if you do it's just magical - a trick of the movies. I remember seeing it and the ending raised it from a movie I liked to my favorite movie of 2008 and I've seen it about a million time since because I can't believe how perfect and right that ending is......that's a trick of the movies too.
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Post by DeepArcher on Apr 13, 2020 21:43:24 GMT
This also applies to the "Songs that always make you think of the movie" thread... I had to talk about this one at some point, you all know it. I often refer to this moment (kind of jokingly, mostly not) as the peak of cinema -- the final scene of Beau Travail, Claire Denis's masterpiece that was a good movie I admired until the last scene hit and it became a great movie that I loved. It's that powerful that it enhances the entire experience. There is no movie without it. The entire film has a unique balletic, physical quality, as Denis's films do unfolding largely without dialogue and with little semblance of "plot," instead it's more of a dance exploring its deeply repressed characters. So when this ending hits, it's an inevitability. And so many different interpretations have been assigned to it: is it some sort of awakening of the libido, succumbing to animalistic impulses? An exorcism of demons? Some representation of limbo/the afterlife? An act of defiance, a release of pent-up energy? Something else entirely? I don't know, and I don't care -- it works no matter what, and a big part of the reason it does work is that it is so unexpected and so seemingly random that you don't want it to totally "make sense." It's infectiously joyful and hilarious, and also a testament to how much cinema can achieve with simplicity. You could recreate this scene with no budget -- it's practically a high art Tik Tok Putting in spoilers because ... if you haven't seen it, the first time you see this scene must be at the end of the film ... and you may not like the film itself (I get it), but it's impossible to not love this ending...
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