There are endings that are pointless, and there are endings that are just ambiguous for the sake of being ambiguous. A good amount of ambiguity is good, but sometimes you get the feeling that the author threw in a questionable ending because he couldn’t figure a way out of his own obstacles, or he just couldn’t commit to a resolution. It’s often done to create artificial discussion in the audience in an attempt to generate a buzz. A lot of sci-fi stories involving supernatural elements will throw in enough evidence to please the science geeks and a glimmer of magic to keep the spiritual folks guessing. K-Pax is a good example. In many movies this smacks of pure laziness or cowardice. What are some others?
To preemptively rebut, I loved the end of Lost in Translation. Bill Murray whispers something in Scarlett Johansson’s ear, and the message is left open to interpretation. I’ve always thought that if you can’t relate to one of the characters (specifically if you haven’t been in either of their positions) it’s probably a hard movie to enjoy, and I think that scene is a wonderful way to resolve the characters’ situation. It simply ends however you want it to.
Sorry to derail the thread so soon, but I know someone’s gonna post about that movie.
The final scene of 12 Monkeys is well known for its ambiguity. People not only argue about the interpretation of the final line, there are disagreements about the actual words.
The movie was released in '02. I’m not using the spoiler.
….the entire third act was imagined by Tom Cruise’s character after he was locked up in prison.
The caretaker, Tim Blake Nelson, had mentioned something along the lines that the prisoners, with the electronic head gear in place, imagined “all their dreams coming true,” or something like that.
Then begins a series of rather implausible events that ends perfectly (too perfectly) for Cruise’s character avenging his son’s death and revealing and killing the master mind behind the whole nefarious plot. As part of the dénouement, he’s back with his wife who appears to now be expecting another child.
There’s nothing to outwardly suggest that this sequence is imagined but it seems a valid interpretation.
The classic for generating argument about the ending has to be Martin Scorsese’s much under appreciated The King of Comedy. Everytime I have heard it discussed there has been heated argument about the ending. And funnily enough the argument seems more salient now that it did 20 years ago.
I didn’t think the ending was all that ambiguous. Despite having to go to jail for a short time, Rupert ended up getting all the fame and publicity he wanted.
What’s up with the ending of Basic Instinct? It’s been ages since I saw it, but from memory the camera pans down to below the bed, there’s a mysterious fade to black and then it fades back in to the same scene. WTF?
That’s what I thought since I first saw it but other people insist:
Rupert’s success is all in his imagination. After all he is simply not funny and only he could think he is. Only in his own mind does he parlay his jail term into any sort of fame.
Douglas and Stone are in bed after the apparant murderer of the story has been shot dead by Douglas and Stone exonerated. We then see that under the bed is an ice pick, the weapon used at the start of the film to murder the first victim. So we’re supposed to think (so I gather) that Stone did it all along.
Does anyone have a 12 Monkeys DVD to hand to view the last scene with subtitles? I can check mine after work but with other things to do it may be in 12 hours time…
Was the end of The French Connection ambiguous by anyone?
That’s part of the ambiguity. She might mean she was there to prevent the disaster (although it had already happened and the scientists had supposedly believed the disaster was unpreventable anyway) or she may have been there to ensure it did happen (either to prevent Cole from altering the past or to ensure the scientists would retain their power back in the future).
I remember that the subtitles were checked back when the DVD came out. But some viewers protested that DVD subtitling services often diverge from the actual scripts. Other people tried to find official copies of the script but all that could be cited were transcripts and these differed on what the line was.
Hmm, I’ll have to watch it again (despite having two DVDs somehow and a video, I can’t remember the details I need to join the discussion fully) As I remember it, the scientists of the future ask for samples from above in the future, then try to stop the release of the virus itself.
This is a paradox, if the virus isn’t released, they won’t be there in the future trying to stop it. So they just send more and more time travellers back in vain, Cole is replaced after his death by a scientist and not a convict, but as the virus has already been released, its all for nothing.
Either that, or they realise that if they can’t stop the virus, they can at least take a sample of the virus from the past, hence the hand shake and mention of “insurance” on the plane.
