Abrupt Endings

Synecdoche New York. Right when Caden maybe--just maybe--has it all figured out....

"Die."

 

Cut to black. Roll credits. Audience haunted.

 

I've got years to go in picking that movie's brain, but that's still just a brilliant period on the film in and of itself.

The Taking Of Pelham 123. The freeze frame perfected.

 

Sadly, the first thing that came to mind.

 

The original Hills Have Eyes come to mind.

Hot Rod had a great and absurd ending.

I was going to pick "No country for old men", but i personally think its ending is anything but abrupt in terms of character and the inner narrative of the story; plus, ive personally seen huge arguments over its merits among friends and relatives.

I'll go with the greatest "cop out" ending of all time:

 

"No Country For Old Men". The perfect closure for a man who realizes he's not brutal enough to deal with a new breed of criminal. 

Carpenter is a master of "Oh, I guess it's over now" endings. Example: The Fog


And to a lesser extent:

"Murphy." [cut to black]

"The Taking of Pelham 1..2..3" is really the only one I think qualifies here, thus far...{I haven't seen Synocdoche New York...}

 

This will be the other one...

 

Apologies for the Russiam voice-over...

 

(Yes it's the end of a film...what did you expect? No one made you click that video.)

"Dead & Buried."

 

"Blade Runner."

 

"French Connection II."

 

Pretty much any Universal Monster movie from the '30s and '40s.

"I just your missed heart"

 

*bang*

 

'HANNA'

Now you're getting the hang of it...

Although intentional, A Serious Man hands down.

BURN AFTER READING literally closes the book on the whole absurd affair.

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Along those lines, and I know it isn't exactly abrupt, but Inception had the biggest groan (in a good way!) I have ever experienced with audiences.  At each and every viewing, the audiences all sounded the same when the screen went black.

 

The Prestige might fit the definition, though I admit that it's more of a "hard cut". Still, the film cuts to black on the sharp end of the film's thematic point.

As does the ending of Primal Fear:

Edited by Art Decade - 10/3/11 at 8:54pm

Cronenberg likes to end his films the second the bodies hit the floor. See Videodrome, The Dead Zone, The Fly, Dead Ringers...

 

On a different note, I'm impressed by how quickly Little Miss Sunshine wraps up after its big crowd-pleaser scene.

I've always loved that United 93 had the balls to pull one. No faces gaping at radar screens, no silent shot of a nearby field and birds scatter, no montages, no bullshit.

I can't believe everyone actually forgot it, just because it's Chinatown.

"Mein Fuhrer, I can walk!"

[BOOM!]

 

Would these cut-to-credits cliffhangers count?  If so...

 

The Matrix Reloaded.

 

(Smith-Bane reveal)

 

BOOM

 

To Be Concluded

 

(audience in a pissy uproar)

 

 

Along the same lines... Dead Man's Chest.

 

Barbossa reveal, juicy apple bite, pirate laugh, cut to black.

 

 

Kill Bill Vol. 1

 

"Does she know that her daughter is still alive?"

 

(whaaaaaa!?)

^ How about the original Italian Job ending on a real cliffhanger with the last line uttered by Michael Caine "Hang on a minute, lads, I've got a great idea! Err..."

For my money, MIAMI VICE felt like it stopped just as it really got started. The larger villains were never really dealt with. The issue of a possible FBI MOLE, who I assume might have been Ciran Hinds*, was never resolved


* I just got that vibe, and in fact, my first viewing of the film (which was the directors cut), the ending came out of the blue because I just assumed that there was no way they were not going back to deal with the villainous Hinds before the credits rolled

LAYERCAKE! I love the ending to this movie. It *makes* the film, in many ways

"My name? If you knew that, you'd be as clever as me" ::blam!::

Throughout the film, it had been in the back of my mind that I didn't know Craig's character's name, but I never focused on it. To have him point it out at the end, breaking the fourth wall, so smugly satisfied with his own cleverness, only to ultimately be brought down because he wronged Sidney - of all people - over his girlfriend (when for most of the running time his main concern was getting beheaded by Dragun, or getting nicked by the cops) is just a wonderful irony




Edited by Princess Kate - 10/3/11 at 7:10pm

Jurassic Park 3. The guy in the suit shows up on the beach and whisks them off the island. The end.

The Series Finale of the "Sopranos".   "Don't Stop--" Cut to black.

 

Also pretty much all the Rocky movies except for III and Balboa get out pretty quickly.   Rocky wins fight, freeze frame, credits.

American Werewolf in London ends pretty quick.  Just before the most inappropriate closing credits song ever.

You should have heard the theater audience I saw Fellowship Of The Ring with on opening night. "They're just walking off? After all that? What the fuck is this?"

Word had definitely not gotten out that the trilogy was a serial.

Grosse Point Blank. Possibly my favorite movie, but the cut to them driving off after Aykroyd is killed is ridiculously sudden.

I remember when this first screened, at the NYFF, the end card read something like, "And so the war on terror had begun..." I REALLY don't know how I feel about that, but it certainly doesn't sound right at all.

 

Anyway, this thread is spoilery!

'Cop'

 

Well, there's some good and there's some bad news. The good news is you're right - I'm a cop and I've gotta take you in. The bad news is I've been suspended and I don't give a fuck. 

Children Of Men

.

Birdy.

 

"What?"

Halloween kinda applies, I think.  You see the killer have a revolver unloaded into him point blank and he falls off the second story balcony.  Cut to be "dead" on the ground.  Loomis checks on the victim.  She's ok.  Checks back outside.  Killer is gone.  Ominous shots of places he has been, but no killer in sight as HEAR his heavy breathing increase.  Oh fuck, he's still coming after you.  The End.

 

Not knowing whether or not Mac & Childs make it is another good one.  Prince of Darkness pulls an Inception-esque ending.  As stated above, Carpenter was always pretty damn good at this sort of thing.  I would consider them all "abrupt" endings.  The might not end full stop and suddenly go to black, but they certainly finish before main bits of info are dealt out.

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I came in here to list this one. It reminds me of many old monster flicks. Once the beast is slain (TARANTULA, etc), roll credits. No denouement. Nothing. Course in most of those old creature features, it's just some huge lumbering beast and the lead humans are just after-thoughts. In this one, David is a developed character, we as an audience care, AND he's the monster. But it's kind of brilliant. And funny.

This ranks up there with the crucifix masturbation in the Exorcist, I couldn't get it out of my head for weeks. I was 10 and having a sleepover with kids from my youth group and one of them had an older brother who owned the tape and we watched it. Most of them laughed after we turned it off, but nobody slept well that night. It has become one of my favorite films just for the ending and it heavily influenced the themes of homosexualaity in Synchronized. These things happen in real life and I call them the nightmare of truth.

 

Children of Men and The Thing both have slower final scenes that allow one to catch their breath after the climax.  Ambiguous is not the same as abrupt, at all.  Even stuff like Halloween, or Friday the Thirteenth or Carrie, I'm not sure, since they have endings, then"...or is he??" moment, which can be viewed as a coda.  They could have run after the credits and you wouldn't feel like the movie "just ended". 

 

In terms of what I feel is abrupt, I think genre plays into it a fair amount.  I'd say the dividing line is whether I'm surprised when the credits start rolling.  Birdy and Reservoir Dogs certainly had that effect, whereas Halloween didn't because that seemed like a logical beat to end a slasher movie on.  Then there's stuff like Chinatown or Pulp Fiction, where they don't really cut to black abruptly, but the feeling is there because it seems like there could be easily be another scene or two of denouement.   It's not about cutting to black, it's about the proximity of the climax to the final shot.

 

Although a great one that flies in the face of everything I just said is Iron Man, which plays off its genre conventions brilliantly.

 

Sidebar:  more inappropriate than "15 Step" closing out Twilight?  That was a real headscratcher for me.

 

Edited by Schwartz - 10/4/11 at 9:09am

Oh, and if we're including TV shows, it's gotta be a toss up between The Sopranos and Angel for best abrupt ending ever.  I'd say Sopranos made a bigger impact because it was such a zeitgeist thing, but Angel's was more effective as an ending.

Edited by Schwartz - 10/4/11 at 9:38am

It can be quite a bit of fun when movies just en

Iron Man. Tony Stark reveals his identity and then BAM! credits.

 

The film ended perfectly, as it was the cinematic way of echoing the passengers' end: abrupt, dark, and final. And it's good it ended without any title cards or bullshit because I was sobbing like a baby at that point (I've only seen it once) and I think anything other than just dark silence and credits would've blunted the pain.

Does the end of PRINCE OF DARKNESS count? 

United 93 did have a few title cards that explained the aftermath of that day.  But it was fittingly journalistic.

The ending of A Hard Day's Night is pretty abrupt. The film's unusual "day in the life of" narrative doesn't lend itself to character arcs or climaxes & after we see the boys play a few tunes in a TV studio, they immediately hop into a helicopter & the movie ends. There is no resolution, no point, but, shrewdly, the film leaves us immeasurably elated & craven for more.