"It goes on and on and on and on..."
It was 1991 and we were talking about "Barton Fink":
Joel Coen: ... I also don't think it's as difficult as some people think it is. I mean, some people come out going, 'I don't get it.' And I don't quite know what they're trying to 'get,' what they're struggling for.Where would it get you? That's what I was thinking about after the "Sopranos" finale last night, and I remembered this conversation. What if Barton had opened the box? What then? I've mentioned the ways "The Sopranos" has paid tribute to the Coens' "Miller's Crossing" (particularly in "Pine Barrens," the whacking of Adriana, the lawyer named Mink), right down to the ambiguous (and perfect) ending. Which is also in the spirit of "Barton Fink." I can't imagine anything more true to the show, or more dramatically satisfying, than what happened Sunday night. (I'm also reminded of those who were desperate to know, once and for all, if Julia Sweeney's Pat character on "SNL" was a man or a woman -- when it was perfectly obvious that the whole conception of the character was that there was no answer to that question. The question is the character. That's not only the joke, it's the punchline.)Ethan Coen: It's a weird story, but it's a fairly straightforward story that I think can be enjoyed on its own terms... 'Barton Fink' does end up telling you what's going on to the extent that it's important to know -- you know what I mean? What isn't crystal clear isn't intended to become crystal clear, and it's fine to leave it at that.
Joel Coen: But we have had the reaction where people leave the movie sort of uncomfortable and befuddled because of that. Although that wasn't our intention to do that. I was going to say that maybe our telling of the story wasn't as clear as it should have been, but I don't think that's true. In terms of understanding the story, it comes across.
The question is: Where would it get you if something that's a little bit ambiguous in the movie is made clear? It doesn't get you anywhere.
What if you could open this? Then what?
So, for those who wanted to "know what happened" in Episode 86 of "The Sopranos" (and apparently there are lots of them -- evidently casual "fans" of the show who haven't been paying any attention to what it's about for eight years), I have to ask: What did you want? If any or all of the things you expected happened, then where would that get you?
Series creator David Chase obviously knew that if he provided one or more of the usual denouements, it would color everything that came before. So, Tony gets his comeuppance, by getting whacked, or losing family members, or going to jail, or going into the Witness Protection Program like that schmuck Henry Hill in "GoodFellas." Aha! That's what this has all been leading up to! What could be more anti-climactic than any of those trite outcomes? You've seen them all before in other movies, anyway. To me, they would have spoiled "The Sopranos" by arbitrarily assigning it a hackneyed and finite "moral lesson" end-point.
"The Sopranos" has always been founded on the proposition that human nature, character arcs (Christopher: "Where is my arc?!?!") and narrative structures are roughly the shape of... I don't know, onion rings. People have breakthroughs, illuminations (Tony: "I get it!"), vow to change their ways, think they have changed... and then fall back into their old ways. Because that, fundamentally, is who they are.
AJ winds up being the same spoiled brat he was in Season One. Meadow continues to be the mildly rebellious princess (and she's the only one in the house who seems to unambiguously acknowledge and even accept what Tony does for a living -- hence her not-so-subtle dig at her father about why she wants to become a lawyer), but within bounds that will still win parental approval. Christopher straightens out, and then relapses. Carmella leaves Tony on principle, and then succumbs to the same old pattern of denial and expensive kickbacks that formed the basis of her marriage from the beginning. Dr. Melfi convinces herself that she's helping Tony, and then dumps him in an unprofessional huff when publicly exposed, simply because she got "caught," as if she were one of his mistresses. Tony the sympathetic sociopath learns to blame everything on his mother as his latest way to avoid reforming or taking any responsibility for his own behavior... Will the circle be unbroken? No way.
Remember Charles Foster Kane. Thompson, the reporter (William Alland), gives his eloquent speech: "Mr. Kane was a man who got everything he wanted and then lost it. Maybe Rosebud was something he couldn't get, or something he lost. Anyway, it wouldn't have explained anything... I don't think any word can explain a man's life. No, I guess Rosebud is just a... piece in a jigsaw puzzle... a missing piece." And then, in the final seconds, we discover what "Rosebud" is, even if nobody in the movie ever does. And where does that get you? The real ending of "Citizen Kane" is Thompson's speech. The revelation of "Rosebud" is great showmanship, the final piece of the jigsaw puzzle, all right, but it doesn't really explain anything we didn't already know.
Brilliant. The Pat analogy is dead on. Every other episodes ended with a bunch of cliffhangers, why not this one?
Of course, we all know he got whacked anyway.
Must. Avoid. Spoilers.
Only. In. Season 5.
Wilde. Was. Right.
Resist. Everything. But. Temptation.
The distinct 2001 vibe I got from the editing in the diner sequence reminds me of why Kubrick's film is a more powerful and lasting invention than the book and its sequels. Do we really need to know that the monoliths are Von Neumann machines from an alien intelligence guiding our evolutionary progress? Where does that get us? Is this knowledge more significant than that image of the apes pawing at the black surface, primitively wondering at its purpose and depths? It's enough that we recognize that the object represents the infinite, the unknown, and it's so much more fun that way.
I also thought of Catch-22, with that abrupt cut-off (“Jump!”) that nonetheless fulfills the novel's structure and Yossarian's character. One could even equate Yossarian's walk through Hell, the ruined Eternal City Rome, with Tony's experience during the past nine episodes.
To a certain extent, I understand the frustration of many Sopranos fans, but I absolutely cannot think of any other ending that would be at all appropriate, much less so damn perfect. Chase, Heller, Kubrick, Welles and the Coens all fulfill their dramatic and thematic obligations as well as anyone could hope for.
I've watched maybe four episodes of "The Sopranos" in my life, and all of those from the first couple of seasons. So, is it weird that I've become so fascinated with this ending, and, when I watched it last night, loved it (and when I say ending, I mean the last scene only)? I have virtually no context for it, outside of what I've read, but watching that diner scene I was completely caught up in the way it was shot and edited, the strange details (particularly the 10 seconds of blackness), the use of music, and just the mystery of it all.
Of course, I have no way of knowing how I'd feel if I'd been a "Sopranos" fan from the beginning. It's very possible I'd be really disappointed with the series finale. But as an outsider looking in, I love it. Don't ask me why.
Jim,
I've been reading and enjoying your blog for quite a while now and figured I should go ahead and comment. The points you raise in your post pretty much capture why I still defend Lost, at least on an abstract level (I haven't yet had the chance to watch the last half season). The point to me never seemed to be precisely what the answers to the innumerable questions were, or even that every question was finally answered - I was always more interested in the way new, and perhaps unanswerable, questions were raised in a way to keep the core of the problem concealed. It always seemed to me that the wrong way to watch the show was in order to figure out, say, why the polar bear or dead relatives appeared. What's more interesting is the way the apparatus of inexplicable things works to reveal something about the whole of the show, and perhaps even more importantly, to keep parts of it concealed.
A few weeks ago, I was talking to a Christian friend of mine who had given up on the show in the third season, and the way I put it to him was that it was similar to the way Christians are supposed to approach God. Ultimately, of course, He is incomprehensible in His totality; the only approach we have to Him is through His individual aspects, which, while revealing certain things about His nature, never actually reveals His essence, but only contribute to a general picture of Him. But in the process of learning His explicitly delimited characteristics, we actually get to know Him, in a way that can't be explained and doesn't actually bring the core of the question to light. Though His essence remains concealed, we can still experience revelation. And isn't that better than being given the answers anyway?
This is a topic I could beat to death. How do you please an audience unwilling to accept anything other than a hammer hitting the nail on its head?
Last year I saw the brilliant "Cache" by Michael Hanecke at the movie theater. I was one of about 15 people there. It was a great experience; everyone was so emotionally wrapped up in the story. We were gasping at the same time, laughing at the same time, silent at the same time. We were following the film as it strode along, wondering where the hell it would take us.
Then the end happened. Everyone remained seated for a few moments, sort of settling. Then a gentleman with frazzled grey hair in a sports coat stood up, turned to everyone, threw his arms into the air and asked/proclaimed, "Did anyone else get that? How annoying!" That isn't what he said verbatim, but it was the gist of it. And everyone agreed. And I was flabbergasted.
First of all they were missing it from a thematic perspective. Fear of terrorism, the unknown. (For those of you who haven't seen the film, I won't say how it ends...I hate things like that.)
Secondly do you have to have the questions in the film answered if you understood what was happening in the film? If you were emotionally involved in every aspect of the film. If it took you on the roller coaster, then how important is it that you know absolutely everything by the end. You know about the characters, what they're dealing with, how they've dealt with it, where they are left in the end, the demons they have to face every morning...you understand all of it, but the physical. Is this where our science heavy culture has brought us? We're so afraid of the unknown that we have to have everything answered on a physical level as well as an abstract metaphorical level. Or has everyone just gotten used to having the meaning of something handed to them in a nice little package very much like modern religion? Or, it could just be television...but so now is the Sopranos.
I remember watching a television series when I was young, that Oliver Stone "Wilds Palms" thing. It was all very intriguing, but very much a lesser "Twin Peaks". I watched every episode, growing excited as the end approached...and then, there it was. The bad guy/someone being manipulated by the bad guy (I think it was someone's son) was pointing a gun at the two good guys (James Belushi and the mother of the son?), what's going to happen next? They're talking to the kid, "It's not worth it Johnny! Give us the gun!" They reach for the gun. The kid is crying, what's he going to do?!?! He lowers the gun and hands it over, the good guys sigh a breath of relief and I learn that I should never end a story with a cliche... Even as a youth I realized how disappointing an ending this was. I was pissed.
Give me "Cache" or "Miller's Crossing" any day. Me? I have to watch the first season of "The Sopranos" first.
I was going to mention 2001 and Twin Peaks, but some other bloggers beat me to it. I could also add Lynch's brilliant Mulholland Drive to the list. I have my own idea what happened, but I appreciate Lynch didn't spoon feed it to me (which is the main reason he won't do commentary tracks on DVDs).
Movies that might have been ruined with a clearer ending:
The Conversation (so that's where the bug is!)
The Shining (oh, so that was Jack's grandad in the picture)
Psycho (let's bring in a psychiatrist to explain what really hap- oops)