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Post by pacinoyes on Apr 14, 2020 9:26:07 GMT
One movie ending I love to talk about is "they wouldn't end it that way now!" and no movie has that as much the great Five Easy Pieces (1970). Starring Jack Nicholson - the most definitive thematic star of the entire decade (in the same way Altman defines it for directors) in his very best performance (fight me!) this film ends exactly true to his character .......... he leaves his very pregnant girlfriend with some money (not much!), no warning, no way home, he has no plan for where he'll be next either and leaves even himself without his coat Not only wouldn't they end it that way now, it's hard to believe they ended it that way then
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Post by stephen on Apr 14, 2020 11:38:01 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. The thing about In Bruges is that the original script has an extra scene at the end that, in my opinion, would have ruined the entire piece -- just up and shat right all over it. McDonagh wisely killed his darlings with that one.
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Post by Deleted on Apr 14, 2020 20:05:19 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?). Saw this semi-recently - great shout. Ending definitely hits like a truck. Gallo is one of those guys that gets a lot of love on the twitter circles I'm in these days but I almost never see anyone mention him here.
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Post by pacinoyes on Apr 15, 2020 18:29:22 GMT
The hands-down director of the greatest endings (not just last scenes) to me is my beloved - Claude Chabrol. Chabrol was such a master of controlling his craft elements both visual and narrative that he has several films where he can end them in one of multiple ways and they would still work. That's how ingeniously he wove things together - logically and conceptually. La Cérémonie - The Parasite of its day La Rupture - One of his most daring conclusions - doesn't even end on a character but a feeling (!) Le Boucher - Which ends poetically (actually IS poetic) which is nothing like what it appears on paper Story of Women - Devastating irony L'Enfer - Which doesn't actually end I guess! You can literally think of a dozen or more Chabrol movies where his dark humor, classicist approach, and razor sharp analysis of human behavior are fighting it out at the end ..........and until the last seconds you are never quite sure what will win. One of his best films and endings - Betty (1992) - (photo is not the ending!) I'm not sure I could even summarize it exactly and that's what's great about movies - show don't tell.
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Post by pacinoyes on Apr 16, 2020 14:09:40 GMT
There's movies, occasionally, that are so inspired with their endings that you can't believe the director even made them. Dario Argento has a few memorable endings in his best films but only one of them has it from a screenwriting POV - not usually his strength. Tenebrae (1982) is an all-time film for me - for horror at least - and one of the reasons is that the ending takes up the almost the entire 3rd act. It switches the whole narrative context and does it gradually - in one of the great (and legitimate, logical) twists in the movies. In several ending scenes it also ties together several magnificent Argento-isms: his use of blood (spectacular), the fake-out (silly, spectacular), the flashback sequence, and a link to dangerous, lethal works of Art (and fashion! see spoiler if you have already seen the film) - which he had as far back as his very first movie. It's a delirious ending, where you respond to everything you like about the filmmaker and something he had also never done before - and where does this particular ending actually "start" in the movie exactly anyway? For almost everyone, on first viewing, it's far after the script has already shown you a pivot...no movie makes you want to work backwards like this one.
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Post by DeepArcher on Apr 17, 2020 5:22:36 GMT
In honor of the 2010s poll presentation (or something), I think I'm gonna dedicate my next posts here to talking about some of my favorite recent endings. First one up is also one I'm surprised hasn't been mentioned yet: Portrait of a Lady on Fire. It's the exact type of ending that I love that practically always lands for me. But this ending, this one final looong push-in that the film ends on, transcends being just an absolutely remarkable performance of the complex range of emotions conveyed by the face alone by Haenel (which it very it much is) -- it's also imbued with so much meaning that coming at the end of this slow, gentle, passionate, sensual love story, it really hits you right down to the core. Watching this sequence is much the same experience as the character Heloise herself is having, which is exactly the brilliance of it. This ending is all about being a spectator, the overwhelming power of art, the importance of a memory that will never fade -- it's the entire film summarized in one heartbreaking, life-affirming, beautiful final shot. And yet it's somehow still only like the third best ending of last year, which is just lunacy. Putting this under spoiler tags because I reckon a lot of people have still not had the chance to see this, and it really needs to be experienced in the film itself to be believed. Just breathtaking:
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Post by pacinoyes on Apr 17, 2020 10:04:57 GMT
The Coen Brothers are masters of the sort of baffling, sticks with you long-term ending - or last scene at least: NCFOM (mentioned earlier), Barton Fink, Blood Simple all end with a "wait a minute" last scenes on first watch that on 2nd watch are spectacular, perfect all-timers. Fargo (1996) - does this trick in reverse by wrapping up the plot simultaneously to its thematic messages yet keeping the two distinctly separate - it is presenting the details of the case and then depends on you seeing the details as stand alone elements. It's one of the greatest original scripts ever, rivals Chinatown even in that way - and as a feminist classic like Chinatown too and does it in under 100 minutes - and never once feels slight or the plot points or the ending rushed at all. At no point in the film does anyone ever say to Marge Gunderson - "what kind of a world are you bringing your child into Marge?" and she never articulates it except relative to the plot itself: "There's more to life than money - don't you know that?" When she says that, well he doesn't and she isn't just saying that either.......and never is her love for her husband and her life with him and the purpose of their life articulated as being the very thing that makes her the story's heroine and distinctly so.........as a cop and soon to be mother. What's so ingenious about the specific ending is that every plot strand is tied up so it seems satisfying in the narrative - the bigger thematic strands are not tied up, and they can they ever be ........in any way, at all.......and it doesn't feel like a cheat or underdeveloped.
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Post by DanQuixote on Apr 17, 2020 12:53:21 GMT
Shout out to the three best endings of the decade and the four female performances responsible for making them so impactful.
Phoenix
Carol
45 Years
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Post by DeepArcher on Apr 17, 2020 23:10:36 GMT
Today's pick: this film called Parasite maybe you've heard of it. (Warranting a spoiler warning here, maybe don't read this post if for some reason you still haven't seen this movie?)
This ending continues to astonish me in its perfection. Never has the sleight-of-hand "this is just in the character's imagination" thing worked so well -- in fact, that ploy will often ruin a scene like this. But here, it is perfect precisely because Ki-woo's dreams and ambitions have formed the crux of this entire film, the impetus of its conflict to begin with, and much like that scholar's rock he's still clinging to them and clinging to his plans because, what other hope does he have? This epilogue is the perfect quiet, contemplative coda for this loud masterpiece of deception and bloodshed ... where we are confronted with the harsh reality that capitalism is built upon the specters of those who are stomped on, and the freeing of those specters is an impossibility.
The first time I watched this it was the black comedy meets heist movie tone of the first half that stuck out to me the most ... but the more I've watched it and have had time to ruminate on it, it's this ending that continues to linger in my mind the most. It's imbedded into my mind to the point that I think about it everyday. And it's so masterful because it's not just a bleak ending for its characters -- it's a disheartening realization for all of us. There are few things I've seen in movies that I consider to be this devastating, and this perfect:
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Post by Tommen_Saperstein on Apr 17, 2020 23:54:23 GMT
When I watched Portrait of a Lady on Fire I was reminded of the ending of CMBYN and after rewatching it that comparison makes even more sense. Both films are related to memory and how experiences can be treasured despite the pain of that absence. The "call me by your name and I'll call you by mine" line comes full circle and remains what binds these men together forever. Oliver is talking about his life and his plans and Elio just has to say a simple thing: "Elio." It's a code word, a special shared language. Oliver pauses, and then responds: "Oliver... I remember everything."
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Post by DeepArcher on Apr 18, 2020 5:55:20 GMT
Dan already mentioned this one above me, but I had to mention it to as part of my "recent series" and because, fun fact, this was actually the ending that originally inspired me to make this thread: Phoenix.
For me, there are basically two types of great movie endings: those that are so perfect for the already-great film you're watching that just cements it as a masterpiece (or at least, as something really special), and those that are so powerful that they clarify some sense of uncertainty about the film, fulfill something that was missing, and elevate a good movie into a great one. Phoenix is a key example of that latter category to me ... up until this ending, it was a movie I really enjoyed that took a captivating look at themes of identity and rebirth that really fascinated and resonated with me. But there was something missing about it, a certain power to it that didn't hit me until this ending came along.
Simultaneously loud and quiet all at once -- it's an inevitable conclusion that the entire film has been building to, but not a violent climax, rather a soft, delicate moment of grace, an instant of recognition, where the gestures are what speak volumes and serve as our conclusion for these characters and this story. Really just such a masterful conclusion that, immediately when I saw it, I knew it had elevated Phoenix into one of my favorite films of the 2010s:
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Post by pacinoyes on Apr 18, 2020 12:03:06 GMT
I'll do one from the 2010s today........an ending that raised the movie from very good to great imo........and maybe the most wildly romantic ending in a horror film ever - It Follows (2014). That's important because horror always pits the individual against the horror - right off the bat it's different. The premise is of course a perfect horror film conception - it's just slightly odd enough to be believable (real life horror is your rent check, that's not cinematic, it's just mundane)......the film then plays with altered reality over and over - when is this set anyway, what year do the cars indicate it is anyway .......why are there no adults in some scenes anyway. As the premise plays out, logically for this type of movie - we anticipate what the characters do not........or maybe they do.......we have no way of knowing for sure..........it's either just stupidity, or a beautiful love moment that doesn't concede to a horror trope but concedes to a trope from entirely different genres.
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Post by pacinoyes on Apr 19, 2020 10:23:20 GMT
There are two movie rules that no one who loves movies should ever break: 1. Judge the film you are actually seeing not the one you wish you were seeing. 2. Do not "add" things into the movie that are not there - trust the reality of the film itself. Well no (great) piece of cinema challenges, confounds and then doubles back on itself - and has had more wrongly written about it in this way and its ending imo - than Michael Haneke's Cache (2005). Everything in it is up for debate - from what characters remember (selectively), to the lies we tell ourselves (or truths others tell about us, and even confront us with), and the reasons we tell ourselves those lies in the first place. As each plot development seemingly reveals and obscures, the story has several "apparent" resolutions of the plot but without illuminating the central mystery itself who is sending the tapes? - and is that the central mystery anyway? It is one of the great "I think it's this...." endings in movies......the question itself is part of Cache's considerable punch, our need to know is written into this movie's DNA from the first frame.........to the last.
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Post by pacinoyes on Apr 20, 2020 14:53:36 GMT
Election (1999) - - My number 1 for 1999 - and 1999 was an all-timer year - has an ending that spectacularly sticks the landing. The hardest kind of movies to make at all are satires becase they have no tropes built in - and they are almost always flaccid and toothless (Jojo Rabbit cheap shot, incoming). Often they fall apart halfway through as the same joke is beaten into your head repeatedly. But Election is very clever in how it keeps the satire going and how it shows multiple sides of characters - so it keeps building and building (this movie needed a sequel - when do you say that about a satire?!?) and its ending - a little sad, very funny and dazzlingly on point is perfect. Very few movies evoke high school in its glorious dumb-fnckery and not just go for obvious jokes but show how those jokes can maybe turn into your life. I like Pepsi too:
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Post by wallsofjericho on Apr 20, 2020 15:00:47 GMT
Hell or High Water.
It's simple but is still left open ended regarding if both individuals will meet again. Plus the staredown on the porch is as intense as any shoot out in any western.
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Post by pacinoyes on Apr 20, 2020 15:18:39 GMT
Hell or High Water. It's simple but is still left open ended regarding if both individuals will meet again. Plus the staredown on the porch is as intense as any shoot out in any western. It's great because it shows that you can take your ending from somewhere else - I don't mean "rip-off" - but just re-work another movies part as your specific ending: basically this ending is Heat's diner scene re-worked to fit this movie. I really love that because I see endings fail all the time that had great things in them but didn't work - Unbreakable is one of those to me where the twist at the end should have come instead in the middle of its story as a plot twist........... not as an ending. In Hell or High Water, Heat's "middle" is perfect for it....it's kind of ingenious.....
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Post by stephen on Apr 20, 2020 15:23:15 GMT
Hell or High Water. It's simple but is still left open ended regarding if both individuals will meet again. Plus the staredown on the porch is as intense as any shoot out in any western. "You'll never be done with it, no matter what. It's gonna haunt you, son, for the rest of your days. But you won't be alone. It's gonna haunt me, too." That's one of the finest, most heartbreaking lines of the decade for me.
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Post by wallsofjericho on Apr 20, 2020 15:27:48 GMT
Hell or High Water. It's simple but is still left open ended regarding if both individuals will meet again. Plus the staredown on the porch is as intense as any shoot out in any western. It's great because it shows that you can take your ending from somewhere else - I don't mean "rip-off" - but just re-work another movies part as your specific ending: basically this ending is Heat's diner scene re-worked to fit this movie. I really love that because I see endings fail all the time that had great things in them but didn't work - Unbreakable is one of those to me where the twist at the end should have come instead in the middle of its story as a plot twist........... not as an ending. In Hell or High Water, Heat's "middle" is perfect for it....it's kind of ingenious..... That's a good point about Heat. I feel like I've heard similar dialogue in Heat in other films which didn't really work to the same effect. Im trying to think of those films of the top of my head but you sometimes see a similar rehash of the diner scene in other films which didn't really work.
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Post by stephen on Apr 20, 2020 15:30:24 GMT
Slightly cheating because there is a good minute-long coda after this, but I think that this scene works as one of the most heartbreaking farewells in cinema. And its power is only augmented by the meta aspect of this: it is Philip Seymour Hoffman's farewell to PTA, and though he had a couple more movies after this (including a barnstormer of a final scene in A Most Wanted Man), I can think of no finer goodbye for an actor than this moment. Again, slightly cheating on that, but you tell me that his passing doesn't make this already melancholic sequence utterly shattering.
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Post by pacinoyes on Apr 20, 2020 16:20:14 GMT
stephen - As you know I often say that PTA can't end films very well (almost always) - and that includes some big films that I love otherwise - though this scene (marvelous) and this ending does work for me.......it doesn't work as well as it could have: it really bothers me - out of all proportion - that this scene comes AFTER he learns about Doris. To me that's a writing mistake - after Doris he should never believe in Dodd again or Dodd should be gone and he should be alone - and by saving this scene for the very end he ruins the need for this to exist: the coda should have come after the Doris scene imo and this should come earlier. I do get why he did it, it's like a "last gasp" but still irks me. Obviously it doesn't bother me THAT much - it's my number 5 of the decade but..... I have talked with The_Cake_of_Roth about it in the past but never heard you talk about it .....think it works as is or should the order be swapped around? Any other POV's welcomed too......
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Post by stephen on Apr 20, 2020 16:31:26 GMT
stephen - As you know I often say that PTA can't end films very well (almost always) - and that includes some big films that I love otherwise - though this scene (marvelous) and this ending does work for me.......it doesn't work as well as it could have: it really bothers me - out of all proportion - that this scene comes AFTER he learns about Doris. To me that's a writing mistake - after Doris he should never believe in Dodd again or Dodd should be gone and he should be alone - and by saving this scene for the very end he ruins the need for this to exist: the coda should have come after the Doris scene imo and this should come earlier. I do get why he did it, it's like a "last gasp" but still irks me. Obviously it doesn't bother me THAT much - it's my number 5 of the decade but..... I have talked with The_Cake_of_Roth about it in the past but never heard you talk about it .....think it works as is or should the order be swapped around? Any other POV's welcomed too...... See, I think that it makes much more sense to have it where it is now. Freddie always thought that Doris would wait for him, and that he could do whatever the hell he wanted because he knew that once he was ready to settle down (if ever), Doris would be there waiting for him. Problem is, he didn't understand (because he's a selfish animalistic man-child) that Doris would not wait forever and she would need to move on. When Freddie is confronted by that reality, he realizes the only relationship that he can truly rely on is the one he'd built with Dodd, and so he tries to go back to him, only to find that he knows, deep down, that Dodd is full of shit and empty promises. After leaving Dodd behind, he has some semblance of self-awareness, and in doing so, he puts that animalistic side to him to sleep (hence that final shot of him laying next to the sand-woman). Freddie has tamed his urges, or at least he has found a healthy outlet for them because, at long last, he has sex (because every other time he's either too drunk and passes out, or his attempts go unfulfilled).
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Post by stephen on Apr 20, 2020 16:36:51 GMT
To add on what I said above, I'd also like to note that when I first saw it, the scene where Freddie rides off on the bike feels like the perfect ending for a Hollywood movie -- the hero rides off into the sunset, perchance to reunite with his lady love. But that's not what Anderson was going for, and I admittedly missed the sheer brilliance of that extra 15-20 minutes. It's where PTA channels Thomas Wolfe, who famously said "You can't go home again." Freddie has labored under a delusion that the virginal girl will wait forever, but he discovers she has married and has had children while he's been fucking about halfway round the world. Then he tries to go back to the home he'd been building as Dodd's dogsbody, only to find that there is no place for a person like him because he can't be held down and mastered. For me, it's those additional scenes after the desert that elevate The Master in such a way that I could call it the closest thing to the Great American Novel of Steinbeck's time in cinematic form.
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Post by pacinoyes on Apr 20, 2020 18:30:16 GMT
To add on what I said above, I'd also like to note that when I first saw it, the scene where Freddie rides off on the bike feels like the perfect ending for a Hollywood movie -- the hero rides off into the sunset, perchance to reunite with his lady love. But that's not what Anderson was going for, and I admittedly missed the sheer brilliance of that extra 15-20 minutes. It's where PTA channels Thomas Wolfe, who famously said "You can't go home again." Freddie has labored under a delusion that the virginal girl will wait forever, but he discovers she has married and has had children while he's been fucking about halfway round the world. Then he tries to go back to the home he'd been building as Dodd's dogsbody, only to find that there is no place for a person like him because he can't be held down and mastered. For me, it's those additional scenes after the desert that elevate The Master in such a way that I could call it the closest thing to the Great American Novel of Steinbeck's time in cinematic form. It's an interesting discussion - like I said it always bothered me because in the pacinoyes version (which is brilliant I might add , imho!) the Doris scene gutting him and having nowhere to turn is a more universal, gutting ending though not the one PTA's interested in putting across.........although some of this gets into my "review the film your watching not the film you wish you were watching too" theory of movie criticism...... I do think it's the one ending that does work for him and isn't as owed to someone else too (TWBB - Ionesco etc.) .....which is a big thing....a very big thing
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Post by The_Cake_of_Roth on Apr 20, 2020 20:40:03 GMT
stephen - As you know I often say that PTA can't end films very well (almost always) - and that includes some big films that I love otherwise - though this scene (marvelous) and this ending does work for me.......it doesn't work as well as it could have: it really bothers me - out of all proportion - that this scene comes AFTER he learns about Doris. To me that's a writing mistake - after Doris he should never believe in Dodd again or Dodd should be gone and he should be alone - and by saving this scene for the very end he ruins the need for this to exist: the coda should have come after the Doris scene imo and this should come earlier. I do get why he did it, it's like a "last gasp" but still irks me. Obviously it doesn't bother me THAT much - it's my number 5 of the decade but..... I have talked with The_Cake_of_Roth about it in the past but never heard you talk about it .....think it works as is or should the order be swapped around? Any other POV's welcomed too...... See, I think that it makes much more sense to have it where it is now. Freddie always thought that Doris would wait for him, and that he could do whatever the hell he wanted because he knew that once he was ready to settle down (if ever), Doris would be there waiting for him. Problem is, he didn't understand (because he's a selfish animalistic man-child) that Doris would not wait forever and she would need to move on. When Freddie is confronted by that reality, he realizes the only relationship that he can truly rely on is the one he'd built with Dodd, and so he tries to go back to him, only to find that he knows, deep down, that Dodd is full of shit and empty promises. After leaving Dodd behind, he has some semblance of self-awareness, and in doing so, he puts that animalistic side to him to sleep (hence that final shot of him laying next to the sand-woman). Freddie has tamed his urges, or at least he has found a healthy outlet for them because, at long last, he has sex (because every other time he's either too drunk and passes out, or his attempts go unfulfilled). I mostly agree with this, but I don't read the very last scene as Freddie having tamed his urges just because this is the only time we see him having sex in the film - if anything it indicates that his impulses haven't been quelled (ha). That final shot of him next to the sand woman is a callback to the beginning of the film when we see him in almost the exact same position... so to me the ending suggests that he's come full circle and is back where he started, which makes his character arc that much sadder. It reaffirms that the sense of order and discipline that Dodd offered to Freddie was illusory and he will always be adrift.
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Post by stephen on Apr 20, 2020 21:44:07 GMT
See, I think that it makes much more sense to have it where it is now. Freddie always thought that Doris would wait for him, and that he could do whatever the hell he wanted because he knew that once he was ready to settle down (if ever), Doris would be there waiting for him. Problem is, he didn't understand (because he's a selfish animalistic man-child) that Doris would not wait forever and she would need to move on. When Freddie is confronted by that reality, he realizes the only relationship that he can truly rely on is the one he'd built with Dodd, and so he tries to go back to him, only to find that he knows, deep down, that Dodd is full of shit and empty promises. After leaving Dodd behind, he has some semblance of self-awareness, and in doing so, he puts that animalistic side to him to sleep (hence that final shot of him laying next to the sand-woman). Freddie has tamed his urges, or at least he has found a healthy outlet for them because, at long last, he has sex (because every other time he's either too drunk and passes out, or his attempts go unfulfilled). I mostly agree with this, but I don't read the very last scene as Freddie having tamed his urges just because this is the only time we see him having sex in the film - if anything it indicates that his impulses haven't been quelled (ha). That final shot of him next to the sand woman is a callback to the beginning of the film when we see him in almost the exact same position... so to me the ending suggests that he's come full circle and is back where he started, which makes his character arc that much sadder. It reaffirms that the sense of order and discipline that Dodd offered to Freddie was illusory and he will always be adrift. I used to view it that way, but I feel like Anderson adds a note of hopefulness in those final moments, because of the significance of Freddie actually achieving what he had pursued for the entirety of the film's runtime. Why else would we have that sex scene?
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