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Yeah i did originally have Bob Valdez on my list too, but its more a memorable ending for its ambiguity. I know a lot of annoyed people in britain when it was premiered on tv in the 70s. I seem to recall a letter moaning at the bbc about screening it and the author thought they had missed the ending off!!
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The saddest ending for me was the end of the Anthony Hopkins Hunchback of Notre Dame. I found it heartbreakingly distressing as a kid.
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Posted: |
Jan 16, 2016 - 5:34 PM
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By: |
Last Child
(Member)
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Yeah i did originally have Bob Valdez on my list too, but its more a memorable ending for its ambiguity. I know a lot of annoyed people in britain when it was premiered on tv in the 70s. I seem to recall a letter moaning at the bbc about screening it and the author thought they had missed the ending off!!
A typical shootout ending might have had the same result as Duvall in THE OUTFIT (1973) hunting down and finally killing a mob boss. He simply explains to the boss's girlfriend, "He owed me some money." Somewhat anticlimactic, as you'd like to think the boss killing Duvall's brother was the real reason for his vendetta - "This is for killing little Johnny!" - but no. Like Valdez, Duvall makes up a dollar amount to account for the mob boss's harassment and brother's death, but the money is his primary goal. Whereas when Valdez keeps bring up the money, you know it represents justice, capitulation to the law, etc.
Btw, I wasnt knocking THE OUTFIT which I also enjoy; the finale is appropriate given its context.
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Another superb ending that comes to my mind is the one for Amelio's LAMERICA (1994). The plot concerns a young, scheming Italian who takes advantage of Albania's liberation from communism to set up a phony business front there to get benefits from the Italian government. Meanwhile, all around him are huge numbers of Albanian refugees trying to get into prosperous Italy (the "Lamerica" of the title) who the young Italian feels nothing but contempt for.
The turn of the plot is when he loses his papers and the tires to his car to theft, so now he is one of those scrambling to get to Italy with nothing but his wits. We feel his sense of panic, loss, humiliation. We come to identify with the ragged refugees and their (and the Italian's) desperation. And the film ends on a beautiful grace note and, politics aside, a life-affirming look at humanity, not as "masses," but as individuals, all children of God.
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'No Country for Old Men', for a host of reasons.
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Lots of great choices here, one of my favorites being Pelham. Though I'm not usually one to say "I'm surprised no one has mentioned....", I have to say I really am surprised no one has mentioned Vertigo - for me, THE great thriller ending, and a great existential and psychological ending as well.
Two of my favorites are tearjerkers (for me, anyway):
-The Life and Times of Judge Roy Bean: '....your ardent admirer and champion, Judge Roy Bean.'
-Defending Your Life: 'Brave enough for you?'
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LAMERICA is indeed a worthy film that deserves to be better known.
I've been on an Italian cinema kick lately, and there certainly are some classic endings in many films from that nation:
Those derelict and overgrown with weeds train tracks at the end of Bertolucci's THE SPIDER'S STRATAGEM that should NOT be derelict and overgrown with weeds. The reveal of this causes us to reassess the main character's status: Is he for real or perhaps the ghost of his own father?
A mimed tennis game witnessed by the alienated photographer at the end of BLOW-UP, directed by the master of alienation and ennui himself Michelangelo Antonioni.
Enigmatic smiles directed right toward the movie-goer as final shots of two Fellini films: NIGHTS OF CABIRIA and LA DOLCE VITA.
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