Confusing endings (1 Viewer)

[Luc]

Oh man, I'm like reading the whole thread for the first time and I'm about to die of laughter. I think a third of you are drunk or something . I still have tears in my eyes.
Someone still needs to explain the ending to the 9th Gate.
Don't anyone give me answer like the main character was really dead all along. I agree that it was a good movie until the end.
All time confusing ending for me was "PI"
What the hell happened? And no, he wasn't dead either.

 

[Dick]

Sean, no offence taken. You and Jefe have interesting points.

 

[Seth Paxton]

Thank God Sean entered this thread.
Yee-ikes. The FAMOUS Unsinkable Molly Brown was the old lady at the end?!? You shouldn't have gone out for popcorn...and a few video games...and a smoke...and a cell phone call...:p)
They would have known if they were talking to her because she was extremely famous, especially after the Titanic went down.
On the Blair Witch confusion. I believe what he said is that THE ACTOR WENT HOME when he was no longer needed for filming. Therefore THE ACTOR could not be in scenes where he wasn't present on the set. Nothing to do with his character "going home". His character doesn't get so lucky. If the actor isn't there for the final scene, then his character isn't in it.
I don't remember hearing that he didn't hang around when not needed, but I believe it. Either way it was Mike in the corner where he had just been "taken care of" a few seconds earlier.
9th Gate...I listened to the commentary. Thanks for nothing there. I still am not totally sure what ends up happening to him. Very interpretive I think. Excellent film though, just wish I knew what the final results were with him, who or what he was, pawn or player in the whole thing.

 

[Richard Perris]

I may be the odd man out but I think much of David Lynch's work is not intended to be solved or understood. I think in many of his films he puts his nightmarish visions on screen, draws us in as they are done so well and are so unique, but then leaves the audiance to supply their own meaning. And because we are intellectuals we don't want to feel too stupid to not get what he is trying to say. Yet I think he often does not really have his own answer. He just wants us to think he does. If this is the case it's a cop out. He thus has the luxury of throwing up his wierd images with none of the restraints that likely would come if they had to be connected and lead to a logical conclusion. Its kind of like a glorified music video.

I'm reminded of a rather humerous example of attaching meaning where there was none. "O' Lucky Man" was shot mostly in color but had several black and white scenes intercut throughout. For years students of film assigned meaning to the particular scenes that were in b&w. Turns out that the filmmakers were on a tight budget and when funds ran short they need to purchase b&w film which was cheeper at the time.

Lynch's Twin Peaks illustrates the point. When the show was canceled we were lead to believe the feature film would tie up many of the loose ends. It only added to the confusion. As a result the whole Twin Peaks series was really like what one might imagine Lynch would come up with the morning after watching Northern Exposure following a spicy meal. Wierd and even amusing characters, facinating images, but ultimately a real let down and a disservice to his audiance.

My guess is that if Mulholland Drive had been actually picked up as a television series I don't believe there would have been any intention of bringing the storylines to any logical conclusions.

Don't get me wrong, The man is an artist and a rare visionary. I just think he takes too great a liberty to leave so much of his work open ended as much as he does.

 

[TSpringett]

Let me tackle two in one thread.

Mullholland Drive:



The story that takes place after Rita opens the blue box is what actually happened. Love and death in Hollywood. Two women in love, Diane and Camellia. Camellia falls in love with the Hollywood director. Diane spurned hires a hit man to kill her. After Camellia is killed. Diane goes mad from the act she put into action and the loss of her loved one. she kills herself.

Now.. Here's where we come in. The following story is really a dream of what might have been. A Fantasy of sorts. Camellia is in the car and is involved in the car accident. She survives(in the fantasy story) She has lost her memory. She is wiped clean in a sense, she no longer loves the director. All of that other story has been wiped clean as well. This is Diane's fantasy world and how she would want it. Camellia walks into Diane's alter ego's life. Diane is Betty. Some other girl. A happy girl. Betty and Rita (camellia) investigate Rita's accident and loss of memory. As in dreams the real world sometimes gets intertwined, that is why we get pieces of what really happened. Eventually they come across Diane dead. Rita freaks as she some how knows this is significant to her. Eventually Rita and Betty fall in love. This is how Diane would have liked it all to have been. They go to the Theater where a hint is give to us. "All is not as it seems, it's an illusion. The band is a tape" This is David lynch's way of telling us that we have been watching a Diane's dream. Betty and Rita watch the lady sing, cry and are happy together. The Fantasy is complete. Betty finds the blue box in her purse. I think this was significant in that it was her dream, the box contains the real world or real story. All that is outside the box is the fantasy. When they get home Rita opens the box and the fantasy is over.



Planet of the Apes 2000:



Imagine that a supplimental movie was made. The story that takes place after MArky Mark has left the planet. It might go something like this... The bad guy ape gets free from his prison. He pulls up the pod in the pond and repairs it. Maybe on his own, maybe with help from the space monkey. He learns how to fly it and takes off. He gets sucked into the same space/time warp thing and is whisked away to earth. He arrives on earth many years before Marky Mark and affects the present/future such that apes are now the dominant species. Years & years later Marky Mark shows up and gets a surprise. The end. In the original POA series(first few movies) events sort of were like this in that when Vera and Cornelius ended up on earth in the past and had a smart ape baby there, that baby who servived was responsible and catalystic for creating the world to come where apes were the dominant species. I still think POA2000 had a lame ending in that you have to assume all of this to make it work.



T.

 

[Eric Walsh]

Richard,
The fact that the people making the film you discuss ran out of money and had to use cheaper film, changes nothing and should not stop all those film classes from discussing the film and what these black and white images mean. I do not think that the writers and directors of films can ever explain to us what a film means, even if they wrote it. That decision should be left to the receivers of this art. In the same sense than Lynch is not copping out he is giving us something, that we do something with. I do not look too deeply into his movies because I find the pieces do not fit together they way I think they should, I just take it as it is, and am very happy with what I get. Writers only know what they intended the story to be about, much like directors, they can never know all the things that spilled out of their mind without them even knowing it, and they will never be able to hold the individual back from getting something out of their work they never even saw there. This is a long rant and it has some Freud in it mixed with some Eric and probaly other things I picked up from there to here, but I just thought I would add my two cents. And if none of this made sense....then I am sorry, for it seems I have created yet another confusing ending.
-Eric

 

[Travis D]

Well, alright let's add another film into the mix.
Donnie Darko
Now I saw this for the first time a couple of days ago and I was wondering if the one of the other 4 people who saw this could mind giving me their opinion on this. I really liked the movie, but the ending kinda threw me for a loop.

 

[Patrick Mirza]

She died... man, she was pushing 99 at that point.

I really have to ask though, is this thread for real? Is Ryan just having a good laugh on us?

 

[Steve K.H.]

Okay, re Rocky... (let's get this straight!)
Early in this thread it was asked if Rocky lost (first episode), and a response came back that he did. I panned through all the threads to see that no one corrected the mistake.

The answer is this...
Rocky indeed wanted to win or at the very least go 15 rounds. The judges came back with a SPLIT DECISION. A kissing of the sister, the score is love, a push, whatever... in boxing circles it means no one won... OR LOST. Rocky didn't win the title, cuz you have to win the battle to dethrone the champion. There ain't no shared gold medals in boxing. But he didn't LOSE the fight /rant

I think everyone is close enough on 12 Monkeys (I've only a slight modification on the consensus)...
...someone explain 2001 - A Space Odyssey

 

[Eric Thrall]

Actually, regarding Rocky, someone correct if I'm wrong, but:

A split decision means two judges for Apollo Creed and one for Rocky, which means that Apollo won the fight, but that it was a close decision.

 

[Thomas Reagan]

Anyone want to take a shot at explaining the ending to "Eye of the Beholder" to me ?
Thos.

 

[Ryan L B]

How about one for Memento,Who was the one who killed Lenards wife, was it "Dodd", Sammy or the guy with the mustach who sort of explains it, but on Lenard it says, never trust since he tells lies. (sorry I forgot his name.)

 

[Duane M Davis]

memento: This is how I understood it. I only watched it once, so I'm sure I missed a detail or two:The Sammy story was really about Leonard himself. He had conditioned himself to remember his affliction by the tattoo reminder of Sammy's story. He knew before that if the condition had been physical, he could be conditioned to remember stuff, like which pocket he kept his keys in, which one he kept the photos in, etc. Somehow, he'd lost the true connection. Teddy told the truth in the story. Leonard had indeed already killed the guys who raped his wife (but hadn't killed her-he did that himself with the insulin). Teddy took advantage of Leonard's condition and used him continously to off other criminals. In the scene where Teddy explains this to him, Leonard understands it to be the truth, but knows that he will just forget it and keep on going as Teddy's pawn. So what he does is alter the clues he uses so that they implicate Teddy. He writes, "Don't believe his lies," so when he sees it again, he suspects Teddy of being the killer. He also uses other fake clues like the license plate to inplicate Teddy. I can't remember the details about Dodd.

 

[Ryan L B]

It was a weird movie that should have been nominated for more oscar awards. But did'nt Sammy kill his wife not on purpose with the insulin or was that really Lenard doing that.

 

[Duane M Davis]

Memento

While a similar thing might have happened to Sammy, it was really Leonard that did it and it was an accident, in a sense. He didn't do it on purpose. His wife was testing him. If he was faking (or it was a mental block), then she wouldn't have died. If he wasn't or it was a physical problem, then she didn't want to live anymore, anyway. So it was almost a suicide by proxy.

 

[Ryan L B]

After rewatching A.I I found out thatHis mom reads a pinnochio to him and it said that the blue fairy will make Pinnochio in to a real boy. After his Mom leaves him in the woods, he figures out that he has to go around to try to find the blue fairy in order to become one. At the end of the movie, some kind of blue fairy brings the mother back to life so she could see David. The catch is that David can only see the Mother for only one day before she would die again. In the last scene, they are seen sleeping together and they both live happily ever after.


That is the ending the way I interprited it after seeing it again on DVD

 

[SteveGon]

Does it really matter? A little ambiguity is good for you. Makes ya think!

 

[Ryan L B]

Joy Ride If the bad guy trucker is still alive, who was the one that they killed by having him drive through the building
Also, could somenbody please explain Unbreakable and Heist.

 

[Garrett Lundy]

My question is for The Seventh Seal
Why aren't Antonius Bloc's wife, or the 'silent girl' included in the "dance of death"
at the end?

 

[Bruce Hedtke]

Ryan

Joyride: The driver of the truck at the end was the driver of the Ice truck they met up with earlier in the film, the one who chased them down to give them back their credit card

Bruce