Laurel Canyon--questions regarding ending (1 Viewer)

[Hunter P]

Tis true but you would have to agree that significantly more happens in your movies. They also have conflict and resolution. Are the people that you meet at the beginning of the film different at the end? Is the situation different at the end? Yes.

What is different in LC? I could argue that nothing is different just as easily as one could argue that everything is different. I would also argue that any perceived difference is based simply on what we expect (optimistically) to happen.

Picture my two examples not as scaled down stories but as complete stories. For example, with the baseball player, let's say that is all that happens. Is he torn up by his near transgression? Will he do it again? Is there remorse, salvation, anything? We will never know because the example ended with him going to the shower.

LC was more about setup than character development. One is an uptight Harvard grad with high social and professional aspirations. His girlfriend is a sheltered, conservative Harvard grad. His mother is a middle-aged rock and roll producer with a rock and roll lifestyle. The mother's boyfriend is the lead singer in a rock and roll band living a rock and roll lifestyle as well. These four personalities are forced to share a house.

I could have written the movie from here myself.

 

[Brent Hutto]

Are the people that you meet at the beginning of the film different at the end? Is the situation different at the end?

Setting aside for the moment any jokes about "Adaptation"...

In general, the most interesting periods in our lives are those periods in which we experience a change in ourselves or our circumstances. Sometimes, "interesting" is a euphemism for some sort of disaster but it can also refer to a series of events that makes one of us into a better or happier person. That said, there are also periods in our lives where nothing is all that different at the end than at the beginning and yet the events that occurred or the people we spent time with were enjoyable in the moment. The point being that "interesting" is most often a characteristic of events that follow the sort of arc that Hunter P describes but there is no absolute requirement that an event worthy of interest leaves its participants changed as a result. The last scene in Lord of the Rings, after all, is Sam returning home completely unchanged although the rest of the world is very different because of the adventures he has been a part of.

There's another possibility. Recall the movie Rain Man. Dustin Hoffman's character can not be any different at the end of the movie. The inability to grow or change is a fact of his nature. However, his brother (Tom Cruise's character) is arguably a different and better man at the end. I'd suggest that most of the characters in Laurel Canyon are more like Raymond than Charlie in that they are stunted in their ability to grow beyond the way you see them at the beginning of the movie.

I think it's quite realistic to see Sam dealing with all the events in the movie by deciding to good-naturedly ignore them and just let things be. Given his upbringing, why would moving back East and going to medical school somehow make him able to influence his mother which he has never been able to do to a significant extent. Alex may come out of her shell a bit after the events in the movie or maybe not. Obviously Jane and Ian have snuggled comfortably into a system in which they are too valuable to be given any incentive to self-examine or mature.

All of this is what I think I understand (and BTW another person's take on these characters might be totally different than mine) after watching the movie. I think it's fascinating to get to know these people well enough to find it perfectly natural for them to experience such emotionally intense events and emerge unscathed and unchanged. Laurel Canyon isn't remotely my favorite movie. It's not even in my top ten of movies I've seen this year. And certainly I wouldn't want to know any of these characters in real life. But the fact that they don't experience Robert McKee character arcs is a contingency of their characters, not a failure of screenwriting.

 

[Mikel_Cooperman]

Yes, one can always find a movie that is better or worse than another movie. However, that is not what I am analyzing. My remarks were meant to analyze LC on its own merits

But you used Action movies as an example so why not use that to support my claim as well as Melrose Place and Dawsons Creek.

I'llbe waiting for your Screenplay outline to see what you can give us thats better since you said you could write this one from where you are. I expect a well rounded conclusion to the script too.

 

[Carlo_M]

Ooh cool, Hunter and I can work on our scripts together! He can work on LC while I'm working on Ep1 and 2, which I have sworn up and down the block I could do a better job on!

 

[Hunter P]

One thing's for sure, there ain't gonna be no half-assed threesome scene in my version. And I will make one of the principle characters a secret agent or something so that we can have an awesome gunfight and car chase at the end.

Seriously, what I meant by writing the film myself is that if you put those four characters in a house together then anyone can predict the conflicts. The mom and son don't get along, the good girl is seduced by the bad boy (and girl), etc. I didn't mean to say that I could have written it out better, even though I actually could have.

Bottom line, I just think the end of the film was too early. The end could have been done later in time and still maintained their desire for an open ending. The middle of the film was pretty soft (as I would say, nothing much happens) so it kinda requires a stronger ending to compensate. If the middle was stronger (e.g. one of the couple or both of them actually did have sex) then I think the ending might have been adequate.

I'm sorry for drawing out such a long discussion on a "forgettable" film. I guess I'm just too bored at work.

Next up: My analysis of the movie Road House. Is this movie flawed or a cinematic masterpiece?

 

[Derek Miner]

Bottom line, I just think the end of the film was too early. The end could have been done later in time and still maintained their desire for an open ending. The middle of the film was pretty soft (as I would say, nothing much happens) so it kinda requires a stronger ending to compensate. If the middle was stronger (e.g. one of the couple or both of them actually did have sex) then I think the ending might have been adequate.

I have to disagree. You seem to want the movie where we see how Sam and Alex deal with one (or both) having had an affair, which would mean the movie would have to start with such a thing (or at least it would happen in the first third). You're wishing for a story they aren't telling.

The story in LAUREL CANYON has to do with a couple that has been isolated and comfortable and therefore hasn't questioned their relationship. Part of this seems to be that Sam likes to ignore certain uncomfortable aspects of his life. Suddenly, the environment is shifted, their comfort zone is gone. The movie is about Sam's temptation to flee from Alex as he flees from his mother. He eventually realizes he has to confront certain aspects of his life if he wants to be happy. Neither Sam or Alex has to cheat to make this conflict stronger. In fact, I think Sam's relationship with Alex ends up much stronger at the end of the movie than at the beginning, because the closeness he had at the start was only out of convenience not out of genuine emotion. There IS a conclusion to this conflict, because Sam makes a definite choice within the structure of the film. The last scene could be ambiguous, I suppose, because it subtly suggests the possibility that Sam hasn't learned to confront everything else in his life. The mother conflict is unresolved (but that was just a plot device, anyway), but I maintain that the film's PRIMARY conflict is resolved because Sam chooses life with Alex despite everything else.

 

[Norm]

I know this is a dead thread. Anyway I just watched this movie on TIVO, and I've watched it three times since, and I don't know why. I guess I can relate to the talented Mother that never grows up angle. I've alway been fasinated by movies about the LA lifestyle, whatever that really means. I think I will pick up the DVD to hear the commentary.

Does anyone have any similar movies like this to reccommend.

 

[Patrick Sun]

You should check out "The L Word" on Showtime if you like shows set in LA.

 

[Norm]

I watched part of an episode, not into it.

Was lifestyle the wrong word. I mean LA scene.

I liked Altmans Short Cuts.

 

[Patrick Sun]

There's always "Mulholland Drive".

 

[Ted Lee]

for me, the greatest movie to ever deal with LA was ... "LA Story" w/steve martin.

it's the best spoof ever of living in LA.