Blog post #8
A couple of weeks ago, I read most of a listicle by Vulture about the best movie endings of all time. It’s an inspired idea, so I’ve nicked it for Blog #8. This isn’t a sour-blogger attempt to rectify everything the Vulture team supposedly left out; the selections were brilliantly chosen and astutely written about. I just wanted to throw my chips in.
When studying Film Production at university, lectures and seminars wrapped around Blake Snyder’s famous book Save the Cat!: The Last Book On Screenwriting That You’ll Ever Need. Synder’s Beat Sheet was treated as the gospel path for making movies. Veering away from the structure would require a damn good reason for the lecturers. I’m still caught up in the art and romance of storytelling, so complete adherence to the rules can be exhausting. Snyder treats the writing process as a formula, a thing of maths not beauty. But it’s worth memorising regardless because it’s the basis for most mainstream movies. I’ve never been in an official pitching meeting, but I imagine part of persuading studios and production companies to back a film is by laying out how and why an audience will like it. How do you attract the largest audience? Playing by the rules, though we know that’s often not the case.
The basic format consists of Thesis (the supposed equilibrium in the story), Antithesis (disruption to that equilibrium), and Synthesis (the compromise made to ensure a new equilibrium). The Finale is meant to make these elements come together - leading to the Final Image that mirrors the Opening Image: showing how things have changed. I’ve chosen my endings for a variety of reasons, but mostly in the beauty of how they follow and subvert this structure. Obviously, there are spoilers ahead.
(Also, I’m sorry about how white and male my selection is: these are just the ones that immediately sprang to mind.)
Inside Llewyn Davis
My favourite Coen Brothers’ movie (yes, even more than all the ones you’re thinking of), Inside Llewyn Davis, goes against most of the Beat Sheet. It’s like the Coens read it and tore it apart. The world is pretty much the same throughout, and the antihero – Llewyn (Oscar Isaac), an unsuccessful folk singer in 60s New York – doesn’t change much either. He has several opportunities to change his ways and be the good guy, but he’s stuck in his own selfishness and trapped in the trauma of his best friend’s suicide.
The genius of the ending is that it’s also the beginning. It’s exactly the same, with some elaborations. The narrative circles back to Llewyn being punched in a Greenwich Village alleyway, showing that the bad in his life will keep repeating over and over. It’s like a beautiful, nihilistic subversion of the Final Image.
Shrek 2
In the past, I’ve aggressively defended the first Shrek over the sequel. But I think the ending of Shrek 2 is superior: built from an exhilarating action scene, pulsed by Jennifer Saunders singing I Need A Hero, in which Shrek (at this point, an attractive human) rides in to save Fiona (again, attractive) from her supposed Prince Charming. He succeeds, and asks Fiona if she wants to stay in these beautiful versions of themselves forever. She refuses, and they return to their ogre-forms.
Most fairytales and Disney classics go the other way, the frogs and monsters turning into eugenically crafted princes. Because you can’t have two ugly people falling in love, who would believe that? But like with the first film, Shrek 2 deliberately reverses those expectations. Shrek and Fiona defy the wants of the society around them, choosing instead to be their true contented selves – warts and all.
The Lord of the Rings: The Fellowship of the Ring
Really, I could’ve included all three endings in The Lord of the Rings movies. Who can forget Samwise’s speech at the end of The Two Towers? Or Frodo departing the Grey Havens in The Return of the King? But the ending of Fellowship is so undeniably satisfying and heart-warming that I had to submit to its power.
Frodo’s thrown into this newer, darker world away from the sublime equilibrium of Hobbiton – having to come to terms with being alone as a ring-bearer, finally submitting to his fate to take the One Ring to Mordor. He stands on the edge of the river Anduin, contemplating his next step – terrified of where it’ll take him, frozen. That is, until his wizard mentor Gandalf posthumously appears, reminding him about deciding what to do with the time given to him. Frodo sets off. He’s not the frightened Hobbit he once was. He’s ready to take on the world, and risk his life saving it. He thinks he can do it alone… then Sam comes along, once a stuttering gardener, determined to help Frodo in his journey. They hug in the boat, and leave the fellowship together. And good thing too: Frodo would’ve fucking died at the first hurdle without his loyal Samwise. Later, when they stare down at the rocky labyrinth of Emyn Muil, Frodo keeps wallowing pessimistically and Sam effortlessly picks him up after each sad line. And they step into that strange and misty place, both willing to face the unseen dangers ahead.
Mulholland Drive
David Lynch made me realise that films can be more than the structures Hollywood install in us. They can be wondrous, surreal, and dangerous. Mulholland Drive is a weird movie throughout, but nothing prepares you for the final half-hour, which unfolds and scares like a fever dream. I love it when fiction does this: guiding you across a road of uncertain breadcrumbs and then pushing you into a terrifying, illogical abyss. (You can also see that structure in Sorry to Bother You and The House That Jack Built, as well as in Haruki Murakami’s Killing Commendatore.)
And yet, at the same time, it’s like Lynch is trying to explain the movie in his own way. The answers are there, but this world is so parallel that we’re incapable of understanding them (like being told ‘42’ before knowing the Ultimate Question). Why have the old people turned tiny? What’s the purpose of The Cowboy? Why are the executives so desperate to have the It Girl? More than that, there’s real emotion behind this surrealism: the ending filled with regret and faded dreams. This emotional surrealism, if I can coin the term, is rare. Even iconic surrealists like Luis Buñuel won’t show their tears, preferring to slice the eyes instead. But Lynch approaches the abstract on a more human level. Mulholland Drive is like a stiff breeze in a boiling house, chilling your bones without you knowing why.
The Shining
Stanley Kubrick’s classic horror movie is another scary enigma. Revelling in the unknown is a perfect way to unnerve anybody; it’s like what John Merrick says in The Elephant Man: ‘People are frightened by what they don’t understand’. And like Mulholland Drive, you think you have some grasp of what’s happening in the Overlook. Basically: it’s a haunted hotel, containing ghosts that force the winter caretaker Jack Torrance to try and murder his family. The motivations are eerily unclear, but you get the gist.
When Wendy and Danny escape and Jack freezes in the maze, the camera (itself a conscious, spectral presence) returns inside the hotel: moving to a framed photograph on the wall. In the photograph, Jack stands smiling in front of a crowd of people in The Gold Room. It was taken, as the camera moves down to see, in 1921.
Kubrick probably understood the value of confusion as much as Lynch, using a Final Image that burns in the mind. I once saw a comment on YouTube saying that the photograph is a trophy of sorts, a display of achievement after the hotel and its inhabitants absorb another ghost into their family. It’s an interesting explanation, but I’m not convinced. I think people who overanalyse these kinds of movies, deliberately tailored to confuse the audience, are missing the point. If Kubrick wanted to convey that explanation, he would’ve made it more obvious. He didn’t, and that’s telling. There is no answer, and what’s scarier than that?
HIGHLIGHT OF THE WEEK
Your Honor, Sky Atlantic
I read a few snooty reviews of Your Honor, and they couldn’t get over Bryan Cranston playing another father entering a life of crime. This series isn’t as refined or era-defining as Breaking Bad, but that’s a difficult standard to compete with.
I, for one, really enjoyed this Sky Atlantic series set in New Orleans; it’s brilliantly bleak and intensely moralistic. It’s implausible in places, with many characters knowing things too quickly. Yet the pace, the writing, and the direction co-ordinate so beautifully: immersing you completely in the experience. I’ve only seen the first four episodes so far, and I intend to continue. It airs on Tuesdays at 9pm on Sky Atlantic. Read my review on Culture Whisper
Other highlights:
It’s slightly embarrassing to admit, being a TV critic, but I hadn’t watched most episodes of Line of Duty. Preparing for season six, coming on Sunday 21 March, I binged nearly four seasons this week. It was always a good series, but I found that season three elevates this police drama to be one of the great British dramas - certainly in recent times. The 90-minute season three finale squeezed, shook, and fascinated me. Jed Mercurio’s one of the only writers to make mundane acronyms and paperwork exciting.
Line of Duty, BBC
I watched one episode of The Terror, another big American series that the BBC have acquired. It’s loosely based on the disappearance of two ships exploring the Arctic in the 1840s, led by Captain John Franklin (no relation). The writer/creator David Kajganich also wrote Luca Guadagnino’s Suspiria remake, which jarringly came out in America in the same year as The Terror. It took its time coming over here. In any case, it’s a quietly intriguing thriller. An icy doom filled with unnerving spectres looks very certain. And like his role in Chernobyl, Jared Harris plays a navy officer warning of intense danger ahead. The Terror airs weekly on BBC Two every Wednesday, and every episode is available on iPlayer.
Last week, I watched Lee Isaac Chung’s wonderful film Minari, following a Korean family struggling to make it in rural America. I was able to watch it online as part of the Glasgow Film Festival. It reminded me of Terrence Malick, especially in the obvious love for the natural world, but Chung’s style is much more grounded. Steve Yuen continues to move away from his mainstream Walking Dead fame and approach more interesting indie roles. The direction suits him. He really absorbs his characters, and you can’t really see the actor anymore. If you haven’t seen the Lee Chang-dong film Burning, which also stars Yuen, I advise you seek it out.
I was predictably disappointed by the WandaVision finale. Perhaps it was inevitable, and perhaps I should’ve expected it. The surreal creativity with which Jac Shaeffer approached this comic-book series was so curious and different, showing a courage for experimentation rarely seen in TV. It will certainly be remembered in years to come, but only because of that head-scratching scope. Inevitably, the writers had to submit to the Marvel factory. The last episode is a tediously calculated story, filled with loud witches and painful CGI.
What I’ve written this week:
My review for Your Honor. See above.
My review for Moxie. Although I’m ambivalent about Amy Poehler’s feminist teen movie, it warms my heart that so many people love it. It’s a rallying call for change, for smashing the patriarchy, and for dissolving the toxic sexism within society - here represented by a high-school with backwards values. I just wish there were more jokes. It’s available now on Netflix.
Moxie, Netflix
My review for The Mauritanian. Many didn’t like this one, but I found it incredibly moving and fascinating. The film’s based on the harrowing true story of Mohamedou Salahi, who was detained for 14 years in Guantanamo Bay and never charged with a crime. It’s a harshly illuminating indictment of the US government in those paranoid post-9/11 days. I think there’s courage in making films like this, and I’m glad Kevin Macdonald did. It comes to Amazon Prime on 1 April.
My review for The Glorias. For some reason, there have been loads of lukewarm and boring biopics in recent weeks. The Glorias is slightly better than the rest, following the four key stages in the life of feminist icon Gloria Steinem. It’s a bit silly and sentimental, but nevertheless entertaining and invigorating in its protest spirit (much like Moxie). It’s available on Sky Cinema now.
I updated my preview for Line of Duty season six, which this time stars Kelly MacDonald. She’s an actor I’ve admired for years, ever since watching her in Trainspotting and No Country for Old Men. But my favourite MacDonald performance is in the dark and underrated BBC drama The Victim (available on iPlayer), in which she plays a grieving mother. I can’t wait to see what she brings to Line of Duty.
