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The Endings Thread

post #1 of 121
8/11/08 at 4:37am
Thread Starter 
There are few elements of a story more important than how and when you decide to leave it.

An ending can damn near make or break a movie. It's tough to have a good movie if your ending sucks, but a good ending can leave a bad movie with a better impression than it deserves. I think we ought to have a place to discuss endings in general. Should be plenty to talk about, since every movie has one.

Obviously, this is an inherently dangerous thread since it's tied in with big spoilers. I don't think there is any way to avoid that, but we can make an effort to be as responsible about it as possible. I believe there are a few things we can do to make this a thread everyone can peruse:

- If your going to mention any spoilers of any movie that hasn't been discussed, mention the title up front. (Maybe make a habit of putting them in the title of each post?)

- Inviso-text! It's not that hard, and if done diligently can lead to a thread that can be perused and enjoyed by people without ruining things for them. There has been success with this before. (Examples start around page 30)

- PUT MOVIE TITLES IN BOLD. This will likely be the most effective habit. People can more easily skip dangerous posts if the movie titles stand out.

- Don't be a dick. Don't bitch. Don't participate if your not willing to do some of the things above, but don't freak out if you catch a spoiler either. In other words, be cool.
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post #2 of 121
8/11/08 at 4:59am

Mimic

This is one of the most egregious examples I've ever run into. I absolutely loved this film right up to about the last ten minutes. Seriously, the whole thing just goes completely to shit in ten minutes flat. It's unbelievable.

I've had plenty of otherwise great movies get a thumb-down from me because of a terrible ending. However, I'm having trouble thinking of an otherwise poor film being saved by a great ending.
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post #3 of 121
8/11/08 at 5:16am
Thread Starter 
I've heard that same comment in regards to High Tension. I know I personally hated it's stupid fucking twist/ending, but I like the rest of the movie. It's been a long time since I've seen it though.
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post #4 of 121
8/11/08 at 5:20am

The Kingdom and High Tension

In my opinion if you snip off the last five or so minutes of The Kingdom you end up with a well-executed but fairly generic proceedural. It's the "What did he tell you?" scene that elevates the movie in my opinion to something more.

As for High Tension, the ending isn't great. I like the idea of it (the girl being the unreliable narrator, all of it essentially being in her head) but the logic flaws that spring up are kind of hard to deny.
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post #5 of 121
8/11/08 at 5:29am
Twist endings are almost always the worst offenders. When you compare High Tension to The Sixth Sense, for example, you can see a world of difference in how the story tracks once you know the twist. The Sixth Sense has scenes that are expertly staged to make you think you're seeing something that you're really not; when you see them a second time, they work on a new level. The scenes in High Tension simply become bold-faced lies that don't work and make no sense in light of the new information. A twist ending requires the writer to go back through the story and make absolutely certain that it tracks. Aja didn't do his homework; Shyamalan did.
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post #6 of 121
8/11/08 at 5:46am

House on Haunted Hill (remake) and the Sixth Sense

HoHH was a Great movie up until the great evil (read: evil inkblot of doooom) is revealed. wtf.

the sixth sense was a movie that was great, and then the ending completely blows you away
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post #7 of 121
8/11/08 at 5:51am
One of my favorite all-time endings is Das Boot. After 3 hours of investing interest in these characters in the most harrowing of situations, it snaps it into focus so brilliantly: these are Nazis, and the survival of this particular U-Boat meant nothing at all, really.
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post #8 of 121
8/11/08 at 4:57pm
I was just talking about this in the new War of the Worlds thread. So many of Speilberg's newer films suffer the problem of weak endings, but I love the movies up until that point. My problem is that people refuse to enjoy any of the film because of the weak endings.

Cases in point of genuinely weak endings: Saving Private Ryan (it doesn't need the bookends, and frankly I skip those chapters on the DVD) and War of the Worlds (a glimmer of hope is OK, but we don't need an entirely happy ending).

Cases of seemingly weak endings that I think work: A.I. (it took me a second viewing to realize they weren't aliens, sadly) and Minority Report (the 'just a dream' theory actually holds water, the colour pallet change is a big giveaway).
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post #9 of 121
8/11/08 at 6:20pm

High Tension (Haute Tension)

HIGH TENSION.

Oh my GOD! Don't get me started on High Tension. I loved that movie. Right up until the last 15 minutes or so. I thought it was a brilliant movie. No kidding. A terrific slasher film with genuine suspense...

And then it becomes a complete piece of shit.

In fact, I will reproduce for you my "review" (from my old movie blog on RottenTomatoes which I have not updated in 2 years). A kewpie doll to anyone who can actually answer any of the questions.

Quote:
Why couldn’t it just be a slasher movie?

Is that really so bad?

Look. There’s nothing wrong with a slasher movie if it is skillfully made and suspenseful, which High Tension unquestionably is for about an hour and fifteen. And then, this gleeful exercise in combining Grand Guignol theatrics with Hitchcockian nail-biting basics, decides to throw all its cards on the table and declare itself as an unconvincing modern “thriller.” You know the kind. The one that has to end with a whopper of an ending.

I can’t believe they felt the need to do this. It’s become the trend now that thrillers have to have a Big Surprise Twist or otherwise they wont work. I’m all for a clever, well thought out turn of events that gives new meaning to what you’ve just seen. But I can’t stand it when some screenwriter just decides to tack something on to the end of it just for the sake of making you go “Holy Shit!” and because he probably can’t think of how else to end his fucking movie.

So now I’m left with a bunch of questions.

What’s with the severed head fellatio?

Why bother going outside and ringing the bell if you’re already in the house?

Unless you possess superhuman strength, can a man’s head really be whacked clean off with a wooden bureau?

Where did that truck come from? And, for that matter, what about the shotgun? And the chains? And that rubber tubing?

Why does the Gas Station Attendant go to the liquor cabinet?

Can you make a phone call from one location while not actually being at that location at the time the phone call is supposedly made?

Is that car chase humanly possible? And, if not, what in the name of Almighty God is going on?

If things are as they appear, what exactly happens in that greenhouse and how the fuck do those people get there in the first place?

You know what? Next time guys, plan out your screenplay in advance. Don’t just make it up as you go along. That way you can build logically to a clever ending that actually makes sense. Instead of just pulling a rabbit out of a hat at the last minute and negating your whole fucking movie.

Don’t waste my time.

This could have been a classic.
Sorry for the length. But I've been waiting for years to eviscerate this movie with someone else.

By the way, they can't use the unreliable narrator defense because, technically, the movie cheats this. She isn't narrating the story.
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post #10 of 121
8/11/08 at 6:45pm

Great movie endings = See any John Carpenter movie

Seriously, The Thing, Escape from New York, Prince of Darkness, even the Fog all have endings that perfectly sum up the theme of each movie.

I will say the endings of They Live and Big Trouble in Little China were more gags than brilliant endings, but they still work
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post #11 of 121
8/11/08 at 7:06pm
Quote:
Originally Posted by Greg David View Post
However, I'm having trouble thinking of an otherwise poor film being saved by a great ending.
Terminator 3 was the first thing that sprung to my mind. That ending was so good I don't even want/need another movie (although I'm cautiously optimistic about Salvation). The rest of the film's passable at best, but the last ten minutes makes me think of the whole film in a more positive manner.
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post #12 of 121
8/11/08 at 7:23pm
My problem with the ending of War of the Worlds was more that Cruise manages to bring down a tripod. It jars.

The happy ending's actually somewhat in line with the book.


As I've mentioned before, Sixth Sense's ending would work better as a twist if it hadn't been a ghost story standard since the 1850s. It is, however, integrated well into the film.
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post #13 of 121
8/11/08 at 7:25pm
Quote:
Originally Posted by Erix View Post
HIGH TENSION.
By the way, they can't use the unreliable narrator defense because, technically, the movie cheats this. She isn't narrating the story.
Technically, she is. The events of the movie are basically Marie's retelling of what happened, not what actually happened. Of course, this still doesn't explain the severed head at the beginning (among other things), other than it being a cheat to throw off the viewer.
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post #14 of 121
8/11/08 at 8:27pm
Quote:
Originally Posted by Bill Brasky View Post
Technically, she is. The events of the movie are basically Marie's retelling of what happened, not what actually happened. Of course, this still doesn't explain the severed head at the beginning (among other things), other than it being a cheat to throw off the viewer.
"Oh, so she wasn't skull-fucking the corpse head?"
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post #15 of 121
8/11/08 at 10:45pm
Quote:
Originally Posted by Gabe Powers View Post
I was just talking about this in the new War of the Worlds thread. So many of Speilberg's newer films suffer the problem of weak endings, but I love the movies up until that point. My problem is that people refuse to enjoy any of the film because of the weak endings.

Cases in point of genuinely weak endings: Saving Private Ryan (it doesn't need the bookends, and frankly I skip those chapters on the DVD) and War of the Worlds (a glimmer of hope is OK, but we don't need an entirely happy ending).

Cases of seemingly weak endings that I think work: A.I. (it took me a second viewing to realize they weren't aliens, sadly) and Minority Report (the 'just a dream' theory actually holds water, the colour pallet change is a big giveaway).
On my first viewing (in the theater) of War of the World's I agreed with this. Upon watching the movie on DVD I realized that the ending is not as optimisitc as I thought: yes Cruise saved the Family, but it's not his family anymore. The last shot of Cruise alone in the street while his ex-wife, daughter, and son snuggle up to her prarents and new hubby is pretty damn bleak, at least from the character's perspective.

Saving Private Ryan's ending is not so much weak as unnecessary.
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post #16 of 121
8/11/08 at 10:53pm
Quote:
Originally Posted by Cylon Baby View Post
On my first viewing (in the theater) of War of the World's I agreed with this. Upon watching the movie on DVD I realized that the ending is not as optimisitc as I thought: yes Cruise saved the Family, but it's not his family anymore. The last shot of Cruise alone in the street while his ex-wife, daughter, and son snuggle up to her prarents and new hubby is pretty damn bleak, at least from the character's perspective.
That would work except the last shot is of Cruise and his son embracing, with Cruise smiling at the prospect of having the respect of his offspring. If has stuck with the Searchers-esque shot of little Dakota running from him to her mom, with him left out in the street with little more than a "thank you", your interpretation would've held up. Simple fact is: once it's revealed Robby is alive (with nary an injury!) the wind goes out of the sails at blinding speed. Good thing the film's over about three minutes later.
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post #17 of 121
8/11/08 at 10:55pm
Quote:
Originally Posted by Greg Clark View Post
Terminator 3 was the first thing that sprung to my mind. That ending was so good I don't even want/need another movie (although I'm cautiously optimistic about Salvation). The rest of the film's passable at best, but the last ten minutes makes me think of the whole film in a more positive manner.
Good call. That actually is a great example. Cylon Baby's mention of Prince of Darkness also fits. I enjoyed both films to some extent before their endings, but the finales threw a layer of frosting over the top that improved the whole cake.
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post #18 of 121
8/11/08 at 11:06pm
You could easily do a similar thread about "last shots" or "last acts," but I think one of my favorite endings in recent memory would have to be everything that happens after the assassination in Jesse James. The fate of Sam Rockwell and that last shot in particular.

In terms of twist endings, I guess you could technically call Gone Baby Gone a "twist," but they do such a good job of resolving it, and it feels so thematically 'right', that it's not really a twist. And speaking of twist endings, what makes The Sixth Sense work is that they don't leave it on the twist -- there's that lovely scene between Willis and his sleeping wife.

Completely agree on Terminator 3. For a summer release, that ending had a pair of brass ones. (It's also why I couldn't completely hate I Am Legend's ending, any move that has the balls to kill off the biggest movie star in the world is okay by me.)

And I think the ending to Munich -- while still a little on the nose -- more than makes up for the endings of Minority Report, A.I., and other later Spielbergs. (I haven't seen War of the Worlds yet, but I actually enjoyed/defend the endings to those other two.)

Favorite ending? Probably a tie between The Searchers and Rushmore.
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post #19 of 121
8/11/08 at 11:16pm
I actually think that the alternate ending to I Am Legend has bigger balls than the theatrical, even if it didn't kill the hero. Making the audience rethink the whole situation is a more courageous thing to do at the end of a story like that. That's probably why it got canned.

My favorite final shot would have to be The Graduate. The fact that Nichols refuses to cut the shot until they stop smiling is simply awesome.
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post #20 of 121
8/11/08 at 11:18pm
Quote:
Originally Posted by Patrick Ripoll View Post
One of my favorite all-time endings is Das Boot. After 3 hours of investing interest in these characters in the most harrowing of situations, it snaps it into focus so brilliantly: these are Nazis, and the survival of this particular U-Boat meant nothing at all, really.
Good call. I don't really love this movie (which probably puts me in the minority,) but that ending is wonderful.
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post #21 of 121
8/11/08 at 11:27pm
Oh, and lest we forget, Philip Kaufman's 1978 remake of Invasion of the Body Snatchers. To save everyone's sanity, I won't reproduce the image here, even though it would probably be the one-millionth time it's been posted on the Web, and I'd probably win some kind of prize.

Still, damn, it's an incredible ending.
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post #22 of 121
8/12/08 at 4:57am

The Music Lovers

That was a pretty fucked up ending to a wild movie, Glenda Jackson winds up in a mental institution, sits on a grate and lets the crazies below lick her puss while her mother watches in horror, and then Richard Chamberlain poisons himself with contaminated water swearing up and down to his deathbed that he loved his wife even though he was a homosexual.
But I love all the wild music montages Ken Russell does. For the most part I heard this film was disturbing and creepy and didn't see why until the very end.
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post #23 of 121
8/12/08 at 5:39am
Thread Starter 
I completely forgot to mention that I wrote a real short blog about this, and that was what inspired me to get this going.

I'm enjoying reading thoughts from everyone. When I get a few more minutes, I'll come put some deeper thoughts down about one of my favorite endings.
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post #24 of 121
8/12/08 at 6:11am
I kind of hated Crank until the last ten minutes, then it won me over. I won't say I'm exactly a fan per se, but yeah, I won't stop people from watching it.

I echo the Terminator 3 ending. So awesome. The rest of the film certainly has it's moments, but it's also chock full of shitty bits("talk to the hand"? really?).
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post #25 of 121
8/12/08 at 12:11pm
HELLBOY 2, THE DARK KNIGHT, THE HULK, IRON MAN...

Really dig the finales of this summer's comic book flicks. They manage to send you out of the theater in classic serial fiction fashion, all pushing into cliffhanger territory with a certain acceptance, yet stay true to character and tone.

HELLBOY 2: The quirky freeze-frame to Barry Manilow.
THE DARK KNIGHT: The bittersweet and heroic sacrifice.
THE HULK: The mischievious, yet controlled acceptance.
IRON MAN: The bold coming-out press conference declaration.
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post #26 of 121
8/12/08 at 12:19pm
I really liked the endings to Iron Man and Hellboy II. The last line of Iron Man, in particular, left me with a big smile and was one of the few times I'd been surprised by a big superhero movie like that.

I don't want to turn this into another Dark Knight thread, but a friend of mine pointed out that one of the reasons the ending works so well is that it's using the fact that the Batman movies take place in their own "universe" separate from the comics to explore aspects of that character that you couldn't otherwise. You can't have a Batman existing in the DCU where he's a accused cop killer, but in the movie you can, and it really sells the ending. I don't think Dark Knight is as bleak as some people make it out to be, but again, I was surprised by it.
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post #27 of 121
8/12/08 at 12:34pm
Quote:
Originally Posted by RathBandu View Post
You can't have a Batman existing in the DCU where he's a accused cop killer, but in the movie you can, and it really sells the ending.
What? Sure you can. They fuck with the characters all the time.
That DK ending worked because it was just the right blend of rousing kitsch and dramatic irony.
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post #28 of 121
8/12/08 at 12:39pm
Yeah, I typed that and I promptly remembered "Bruce Wayne: Murderer." (Which I haven't read.) But I think the point I was sort of trying to make is you can't exactly have Batman be a member of the JLA under the circumstances that the Dark Knight ends under. Been a while since I picked up a comic, though.
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post #29 of 121
8/12/08 at 12:51pm
Quote:
Originally Posted by RathBandu View Post
Yeah, I typed that and I promptly remembered "Bruce Wayne: Murderer." (Which I haven't read.)
Hahaha! Never heard of that one. I was just guessing.
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post #30 of 121
8/12/08 at 1:01pm
I want to mention the endings to The Fellowship of the Ring and The Two Towers. They have the unenviable task of ending on cliffhangers, but both manage to bring a sense of closure to their individual films that doesn't leave you unsatisfied. FOTR ending with Frodo and Sam deciding to go to Mordor and Aragorn, Legolas and Gimli deciding to go after Merry and Pippin underlines the "all we have to decide is what to do with the time that is given to us" theme, while TTT's final speech by Sam reenforces the idea that they've made the right choices because they've chosen to fight for something they believe in. It would have been so easy to end each film with some cheesy "dun-dun-duuuuuuuuun!!!!" style scene (Matrix Reloaded, I'm looking at you), but instead Jackson and company took care to give each film its own sense of ending while still teasing the next chapter.
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post #31 of 121
8/12/08 at 1:07pm
I especially love Two Towers' ending, not just for the semi-sinister cliffhanger ("This way, Hobbits! Follow meeeee..."), but for the forboding shot of the border to Mordor that closes the film. It really shows you that for all their tribulations, the hard part is still around the corner.
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post #32 of 121
8/12/08 at 1:15pm
I feel the same way about the final shot in FOTR. Shore's score for that entire sequence may be my favorite piece of film music ever.
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post #33 of 121
8/12/08 at 1:27pm
Also, Alien 3 has an ending that should have wrapped up the series right there. Beyond Ripley's fall, the final shots of the lights being turned off in the prison and the score under them really had a feeling of finality that should have been maintained.
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post #34 of 121
8/12/08 at 2:38pm
I think my favorite "type" of ending is the kind that forces the viewer to think about the film, often putting a different spin on the events you just saw. Films like Gone Baby Gone, Das Boot, City of God, or Memento.

Also, if you'll allow me to get specific, I really like a certain kind of stillness of frame before cutting to black. Something about the ways films like Y Tu Mama Tambien, Squid and the Whale, and The Fountain end really strike a chord with me. There's something meditative about it, which ties into making the viewer think about the film. If I ever made a film*, I'm pretty sure that's how I'd end it.

*Is this the most useless phrase in the English language? I'm pretty sure it is.
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post #35 of 121
8/12/08 at 3:04pm

Saving Private Ryan

Quote:
Originally Posted by Cylon Baby View Post
Saving Private Ryan's ending is not so much weak as unnecessary.
There's a fundamental flaw with SAVING PRIVATE RYAN. It's not only the ending. Making the story be bookended by an old Matt Damon (actually, it's the dad from House of 1000 Corpses) not only has to give us the corny shots of the stars and stripes... I guess I could live with that. It's the fact that it makes the movie dishonest.

You go from an old Matt Damon's eyes to Tom Hanks's eyes about to storm Normandy. That gives us the impression that it was Hanks at the cemetery. Why? To fool us? What for?

Then... Everybody is pretty much dead by the end of it. Except Matt Damon and Ed (douchebag) Burns. And we are told that it was Matt Damon at the cemetery.

That doesn't make any fucking sense. Because his character didn't show up until the second half of the movie. He was not a part of the journey that we see beginning in Normandy.

And, after lying to us. The movie asks us to sit through a colossally corny scene in which he asks his wife if he's been a good man.

It's embarrassing.

The movie should have opened on Hanks at Normandy and closed with him saying Earn this, earn it.

With that, it would be flawless in my opinion. Because the story told during WWII, and the way Spielberg and Robert Rodat chose to tell it, is an extraordinary bit of filmmaking.
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post #36 of 121
8/12/08 at 3:13pm
I always took using Damon's character at the beginning as him remembering everything Capt. Miller did for him. It's pretty safe to assume Ed Burns' character told him the whole story, so he's thinking back to the sequence of events that made it possible for him to be standing in that cemetary. Which is why he breaks down at the end -- he's remembering Miller's sacrifice. Sure he didn't experience most of it, but that conceit gets thrown out the window anyway after the D-Day scene when we move to the war offices in Washington -- neither Hanks nor Damon were there, so why are we seeing it?

And I still stand by the washed-out flag shots being an accusation that we haven't "earned this".
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post #37 of 121
8/12/08 at 3:22pm
Quote:
Originally Posted by Richard Dickson View Post
I always took using Damon's character at the beginning as him remembering everything Capt. Miller did for him. It's pretty safe to assume Ed Burns' character told him the whole story, so he's thinking back to the sequence of events that made it possible for him to be standing in that cemetary. Which is why he breaks down at the end -- he's remembering Miller's sacrifice. Sure he didn't experience most of it, but that conceit gets thrown out the window anyway after the D-Day scene when we move to the war offices in Washington -- neither Hanks nor Damon were there, so why are we seeing it?

And I still stand by the washed-out flag shots being an accusation that we haven't "earned this".
You definitely have a valid point about the flag shots. And, as I said, that never bothered me all that much. It's the framing device that I've never been totally sold on. Why bother telling it as a flashback at all? And if we take it a step further - you're absolutely right: none of the principals are present at the meeting in Washington. That scene's entire purpose is to set up the plot of the film. It makes the framing story even more clunky and unnecessary.

I still don't think there was a point to the flashback device. Besides making the movie 10 minutes longer than it needs to be, it's corny. Wouldn't you agree that just having it all take place in WWII would have been tighter and more effective?

I think the message of the movie is clear either way. It's more about the sacrifice of war than about earning things. And how, when the lines are drawn, it's men fighting for each other's lives more than for God or country.
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post #38 of 121
8/12/08 at 3:33pm
Quote:
Originally Posted by Patrick Ripoll View Post
Also, if you'll allow me to get specific, I really like a certain kind of stillness of frame before cutting to black. Something about the ways films like Y Tu Mama Tambien, Squid and the Whale, and The Fountain end really strike a chord with me. There's something meditative about it, which ties into making the viewer think about the film. If I ever made a film*, I'm pretty sure that's how I'd end it.
Any thoughts on fade-to-blinding-white, then-cut-to-black endings? Eternal Sunshine, Titanic, the new Brideshead Revisited? As a projectionist, I kind of hate them because after a couple weeks every tiny bit of dust and dirt flickers across the screen.

Artistically, they're often quite effective but I wonder how much of the impact is physical-- there's a tear running down your cheek because someone just shone a blinding light in your face, not because you empathized with the characters.
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post #39 of 121
8/12/08 at 3:59pm
While I'm sort of luke-warm on the film, I love the final shot of Michael Clayton and how it plays under the credits.
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post #40 of 121
8/12/08 at 4:02pm
Quote:
Originally Posted by Erix View Post
I still don't think there was a point to the flashback device. Besides making the movie 10 minutes longer than it needs to be, it's corny. Wouldn't you agree that just having it all take place in WWII would have been tighter and more effective?
It's the beauty of DVD that I can self edit those bits out every time I watch it. Usually the bad bits of good movies are shuffled all through the flick, but Steve was good enough to put the crap at the beginning and end.
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post #41 of 121
8/12/08 at 4:08pm
Quote:
Originally Posted by Erix View Post
You go from an old Matt Damon's eyes to Tom Hanks's eyes about to storm Normandy. That gives us the impression that it was Hanks at the cemetery. Why? To fool us? What for?
I'm all for a discussion on the pros and cons of the bookends to Saving Private Ryan, but this particular critcisim pisses me off, because it's not valid in the slightest, but every few years I see this complaint revisited.

This does not happen in the movie. At all. That you mistake the old man for Hanks is the audience automatically assuming he's the old man because he's the big star of the movie, not anything the movie actually tells you. Like it's been said, Ryan is thinking back to everything Miller did for him, and that story begins on Omaha Beach (that, and one of his brothers died there as well). But the film itself does not employ this supposed trickery, you just invented it for yourself.
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post #42 of 121
8/12/08 at 4:12pm
Well, I do think the audience is supposed to assume old guy = Capt. Miller, but I think that makes Miller's death all the more shocking, because you're expecting him to live to be the old man from the beginning. It's a trick, but a good one.
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post #43 of 121
8/12/08 at 4:17pm
Quote:
Originally Posted by Greg Clark View Post
This does not happen in the movie. At all. That you mistake the old man for Hanks is the audience automatically assuming he's the old man because he's the big star of the movie, not anything the movie actually tells you. Like it's been said, Ryan is thinking back to everything Miller did for him, and that story begins on Omaha Beach (that, and one of his brothers died there as well). But the film itself does not employ this supposed trickery, you just invented it for yourself.
Not necessarily. I made the assumption because there was a visual relationship. They don't cut from Old Damon's eyes to a shot of Normandy beach or a shot of a boat... Or some German soldier preparing his rifle. They splice directly from his eyes to Hanks's eyes. Call me crazy, but it seems perfectly natural to assume the flashback is his. I can't presume to say that Spielberg intended this ... but it was a mistake to make that splice. He probably did it because it's visually interesting. But it does connect the two characters. The rules of flashback storytelling dictate that Hanks is the old man at the cemetery.

Just one reason why bookending a movie in this way is such a clunky device that people should avoid it whenever possible. Flashback storytelling tends to be a cliched way of doing things anyway. I usually abhor framing devices and find it is especially crippling in this otherwise brilliant film.
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post #44 of 121
8/12/08 at 4:17pm
I'm talking the supposed "fibbing" of cutting from the old man's eyes to Cap. Miller's eyes--that doesn't ever happen. Not even close. It's something that got remembered wrong and has sort of taken on a life of its own from people who didn't bother to double check if this "lie" actually takes place. Playing against people's expectations on who the old man is is cinematic slight of hand, but it never outright misinforms you.
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post #45 of 121
8/12/08 at 4:18pm
I dunno, it's a pretty well-established piece of film grammar that a transition like that (close-up of old man in the present cuts to close-up of younger man in the past) indicates a personal flashback. Nobody's stupid for reading Ryan like that, and I do think that Spielberg uses it to mislead us regarding which characters live or die at the end.

(edit) hey Dickson, Erix...

(edit) And OK, I haven't seen the film in ten years (yikes). Can anyone post screencaps of before/after on the transition?
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post #46 of 121
8/12/08 at 4:24pm
Quote:
Originally Posted by Erix View Post
Not necessarily. I made the assumption because there was a visual relationship. They don't cut from Old Damon's eyes to a shot of Normandy beach or a shot of a boat... Or some German soldier preparing his rifle. They splice directly from his eyes to Hanks's eyes. Call me crazy, but it seems perfectly natural to assume the flashback is his. I can't presume to say that Spielberg intended this ... but it was a mistake to make that splice. He probably did it because it's visually interesting. But it does connect the two characters. The rules of flashback storytelling dictate that Hanks is the old man at the cemetery.
No, it doesn't. Observe:






*Cut for more photos*
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post #47 of 121
8/12/08 at 4:24pm





Not only does it not do a direct cut from old man's eyes to Hanks' eyes, there's a full six edits before we get our first look of...his shaking hand.
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post #48 of 121
8/12/08 at 4:27pm
Damn, I need to watch this again.
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post #49 of 121
8/12/08 at 4:27pm
It does kind of imply that Ryan was at D-Day, which he wasn't.
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post #50 of 121
8/12/08 at 4:31pm
Quote:
Originally Posted by Gabe Powers View Post
It does kind of imply that Ryan was at D-Day, which he wasn't.
I can understand that, but I think the main implication they were going for with that edit was to tell Ryan's story is to tell Miller's involvement in the story (since Ryan is visiting his grave), and that story began on D-Day.
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