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Just end. Just. End.
Jan. 13th, 2015 11:08 amThere was a point, about a day and a half into watching Interstellar, when my arse had gone to sleep and I’d slowly slumped lower and lower into my cinema seat whilst Matthew McConaughey was giving yet another long, meaningful and probably teary-eyed gaze into infinity when I realised that under my breath I was muttering “End. Just End” to myself. It was about then that I decided that Christopher Nolan had lost me as an audience.
Interstellar, I thought, was a perfectly good 100-120 minute film stretched far beyond its natural life, but as well as that it had another, more serious problem. It just didn’t know when to stop. From time to time Matthew McConaughey would give a subtext-laden stare into the distance, and I’d sit up briskly thinking the titles were about to roll and I could go and get treated for Deep Vein Thrombosis when another scene crammed with reflections about life and love and family would start and I’d slide slowly back into the semi-coma from which I’d awoken. The point where I found myself muttering to myself was about 20-30 minutes before it finally ground to a halt and there were still two or three false endings left to go.
The first great example of a film which should have ended and then just carried right on was A.I. about 15 years ago, but for some reason it seems have been a common style in films released over the last year; I went to see into the Woods the other night, which is okay and in parts quite fun (Chris Pine as Prince Charming is very enjoyable), but it ends and then for some reason carries on for another half hour or so.
Similarly Birdman excellently tells its story, wraps the whole thing up in a neat bow (and it is a good film), and then for no apparent reason carries on for another fifteen or twenty minutes when if they’d had any halfway decent human being directing it they’d have knocked it on the head and given us all an extra twenty minutes in the pub. When Peter Jackson asked Jack Nicholson what he thought of The Return of the King, Nicholson brusquely replied "Too many endings" and walked off.
The Wolf of Wall Street spends two hours depicting a life of hedonistic 80s debauchery and financial crime and then, as it’s Oliver Stone, he has to make it clear that this is bad and there’s a price to be paid. Unfortunately he feels he has to tell us again and again and again. After a while it’s like being hit in the face by a pillow with “Unfettered greed is bad, Mm’kay?” written on it. Okay once, but after the fifth or sixth time and another 45 minutes of my life it wears a bit thin.
I can’t help but think this is because it’s easier to think of beginnings than endings. A good setup is one of the delights of writing but it’s extremely difficult to give a payoff which justifies a setup which gets your audience thinking “Oh, that’s interesting, I wonder what’s going on here”. I’ve recently been reading some Jack Reacher and Dean Koontz books, and the same problem arises here – great set up, which then just slowly falls into the usual trap of samey denouement with serial killers or terrorists or whatnot.
Most narratives follow a three-act structure – the plot, the chase and the fight (or mix them up, like The Empire Strikes Back which is ordered the Fight, the plot and the chase), and the conflict/resolution at the end of the structure can feel pat as there’s far fewer ways to do it then begin a plot. You can have a big battle, the baddy arrested, everyone having the argument which makes them realise what they wanted all along is right in front of them, the lead characters winning or losing the battle of the bands/ dance-off, sporting event, and so on, and I wonder if the multiple-ending theme is a result of authors not wanting to use the tried and tested so instead mix them up.
A standard narrative trope might be the hero saving humanity and redeeming himself to his daughter at the same time, whilst at the end of the fight the love interest in clinging adoringly to his leg whilst gazing up seductively. Cue titles. Interstellar has the humanity saving then the redemption then the getting the girl interspersed with lengthy meaningful shots of Matthew McConaughey staring at stuff and it dragged because I’m so used to seeing all of those things wrapped in in one go.
So I understand why filmmakers think they have to mix up endings - there are fewer of them than beginnings - but it's annoying that they feel they have to waste large chunks of my life through their experimentation. My advice would be - when you start to write something, you really need to have a damn good idea of how you're going to
Interstellar, I thought, was a perfectly good 100-120 minute film stretched far beyond its natural life, but as well as that it had another, more serious problem. It just didn’t know when to stop. From time to time Matthew McConaughey would give a subtext-laden stare into the distance, and I’d sit up briskly thinking the titles were about to roll and I could go and get treated for Deep Vein Thrombosis when another scene crammed with reflections about life and love and family would start and I’d slide slowly back into the semi-coma from which I’d awoken. The point where I found myself muttering to myself was about 20-30 minutes before it finally ground to a halt and there were still two or three false endings left to go.
The first great example of a film which should have ended and then just carried right on was A.I. about 15 years ago, but for some reason it seems have been a common style in films released over the last year; I went to see into the Woods the other night, which is okay and in parts quite fun (Chris Pine as Prince Charming is very enjoyable), but it ends and then for some reason carries on for another half hour or so.
Similarly Birdman excellently tells its story, wraps the whole thing up in a neat bow (and it is a good film), and then for no apparent reason carries on for another fifteen or twenty minutes when if they’d had any halfway decent human being directing it they’d have knocked it on the head and given us all an extra twenty minutes in the pub. When Peter Jackson asked Jack Nicholson what he thought of The Return of the King, Nicholson brusquely replied "Too many endings" and walked off.
The Wolf of Wall Street spends two hours depicting a life of hedonistic 80s debauchery and financial crime and then, as it’s Oliver Stone, he has to make it clear that this is bad and there’s a price to be paid. Unfortunately he feels he has to tell us again and again and again. After a while it’s like being hit in the face by a pillow with “Unfettered greed is bad, Mm’kay?” written on it. Okay once, but after the fifth or sixth time and another 45 minutes of my life it wears a bit thin.
I can’t help but think this is because it’s easier to think of beginnings than endings. A good setup is one of the delights of writing but it’s extremely difficult to give a payoff which justifies a setup which gets your audience thinking “Oh, that’s interesting, I wonder what’s going on here”. I’ve recently been reading some Jack Reacher and Dean Koontz books, and the same problem arises here – great set up, which then just slowly falls into the usual trap of samey denouement with serial killers or terrorists or whatnot.
Most narratives follow a three-act structure – the plot, the chase and the fight (or mix them up, like The Empire Strikes Back which is ordered the Fight, the plot and the chase), and the conflict/resolution at the end of the structure can feel pat as there’s far fewer ways to do it then begin a plot. You can have a big battle, the baddy arrested, everyone having the argument which makes them realise what they wanted all along is right in front of them, the lead characters winning or losing the battle of the bands/ dance-off, sporting event, and so on, and I wonder if the multiple-ending theme is a result of authors not wanting to use the tried and tested so instead mix them up.
A standard narrative trope might be the hero saving humanity and redeeming himself to his daughter at the same time, whilst at the end of the fight the love interest in clinging adoringly to his leg whilst gazing up seductively. Cue titles. Interstellar has the humanity saving then the redemption then the getting the girl interspersed with lengthy meaningful shots of Matthew McConaughey staring at stuff and it dragged because I’m so used to seeing all of those things wrapped in in one go.
So I understand why filmmakers think they have to mix up endings - there are fewer of them than beginnings - but it's annoying that they feel they have to waste large chunks of my life through their experimentation. My advice would be - when you start to write something, you really need to have a damn good idea of how you're going to
