Endings at the sea
Lots of good replies, (i’m having break in France and haven’t had internet for 5 days, all sorts of problems with it- in case anyone was wondering!)
Oh, one i forgot: a short silent film from 1912, written by Shore, directed by Shaw: The Land Beyond the Sunset. About a very poor mistreated city boy who manages to get on a special idyllic outing arranged by a charity. This has a really beautiful and touching ending. It was made to attract support for a real charity- which still exists apparently
oh and how could i fail to mention one of my favourite films, The Green Ray; what a glorious, romantic, uplifting affirmative ending- and seeing the ray for real with my wife is a moment we’ll treasure for ever.
Land Beyond the Sunset Unknown. I just found it, this treasure (?). I’m going to watch it in the next days.
Thanks for the post.
ah, great, it’s sentimental but worth it. I’m trying to upload the final image but getting stuck on something.
Excalibur (to this day, I think the lady in the water and the funeral shots are beatifull).
Another rarity of identical shots (both with Jenifer Connelly): Dark City and Requiem for a Dream.
I tend to love those ’40’s melodramas where the house on the high cliffs and the sea waves pounding underneath were a staple, such as Rebecca or the more obscure Ray Milland ghost vehicle: The Uninvited. Also, one of my favourite films from this period, Portrait of Jennie, has a great sea storm/tidal wave ending. Good to see you up and running again, Kenji.
Thanks, i’m in France and oh the frustration with several long phone calls to technical assistance (and me a technophobe), before finally it worked. Portrait of Jennie reminds me a bit of Vertigo, which has the sea too. I wonder if Hitch was influenced at all. As for Excalibur, the real Avalon may be Bardsey island, off the north west coast of Wales
Ohhh, Portrait of Jennie. Yes, I think Hitchcock “stole” the final sequence, too; it is very, too much – similar.
Has anybody seen this?
Barton Fink ends with Barton sitting on a beach, gazing upon a woman who sits like the one in the cheap painting in his hotel room. A bird hit the water a few seconds into the shot, leading the Coens to claim (after the stellar opening shots of Fargo) that they had always had great luck with birds.
Barton Fink >> http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=TaUE2y-2l-4&feature=related
Polanski’s 1958 short Two Men and a Wardrobe, which can be seen here or youtube, has a pleasing symmetry beginning and ending at the sea. Quite a good looking little film, aboit two guys who lug a wardrobe out of the sea, take it round town but are rebuffed and battered by all and sundry, its social comment and meanings feel elusive but there’s trademark cruelty and cynicism (Polanski himself the vicious hoodlum, this time fisticuffs, in Chinatown a knife), though it’s quite quirky and chirpy in tone.
Ah, yes, to me that is the best Polanski short. great surrealism!
Kind of an ‘into the fog’ ending but you know where they are headed towards and plenty of ocean fare throughout, The Ghost & Mrs. Muir.
Did Carnival of Souls end on the beach or was that just before the ending? Isn’t it crazy we can only remember so much?
No, I recall… Carnival ends on a river bank, but I think KENJI can accept it. :)
well, if i really really must, but i’m telling you this is really pushing my tolerance to the limit- and only because Carnival of Souls reminded me of this Munch painting:
apologies for going beyond the square- i’ll have to test out Filmy Andy’s resizing suggestions
Brody and Hooper on the Beach…Jaws. Only in the credits..but comes after the great ending lines in the water: I used to be afraid of the water…I can’t imagine why…"
Ray Dennis Steckler, who died Jan. 9, will be remembered, if he is remembered at all, for his non-opus, “The Incredibly Strange Creatures Who Stopped Living and Became Mixed-Up Zombies,” which ends by the sea.
Also, we musn’t forget Roger Corman’s odd little film with the improbable title: “The Saga of the Viking Women and Their Voyage to the Waters of the Great Sea Serpent.”
Aye, we’re into long movie titles today.
The 400 Blows
I remember a Japanese Literature teacher pointing out the sea ending in Ozu’s film and not being able to answer her question as to why the film ends with the sea and thinking that perhaps it is simply because the story took place at a seaside city. Anyway, here’s a rather convincing article on the WWW that offers a possible explanation:
http://www.filmreference.com/Films-Aw-Be/Banshun.html
Endings at the sea have become such a stereotype that I cannot bear them in newer films. In the classics as in 400 Blows it always makes for a great scene, of course. But today I get the feeling that every third arthouse movie or so fades out at the shore somewhere.
I Walked With a Zombie
La Dolce Vita
La Strada
Fellini Satyricon
Contempt
Pierrot le Fou
Son Frere
La Stanza del figlio (The Son’s Room) by Nanni Moretti ends at the sea, too. And a good film it is.
Kim, thanks for the film reference site link. Robin Wood, an excellent writer, hits the nail on the head with Ozu and Late Spring in his general observations- and Ozu certainly can’t be neatly pigeonholed politically. Wood is right about the limitations of some approaches to Ozu. The comparison of the sea at the end with the happiness of the bike ride setting (which by coincidence i just picked for the favourite frames thread) is apt.
La Dolce Vita and Pierrot Le Fou by far
COL. DAX – Stranger Than Paradise sort of ends at the sea. Your memory is correct -there’s a shot at the sea where the mistaken identity takes place and Eva makes off with a lot of cash, then there’s a plane, a car, and a seaside bungalow in that order. Eva goes to the airport, followed by Willie and Eddie who are trying to track her down, then there’s a cut to Eddie waiting at the car for Willie to come back from the plane, then another cut to Eva returning to the seaside bungalow after deciding not to fly to Budapest. You can’t really see the sea in the shot, but the sea is just outside the bungalow.
One of my favorite endings at the sea is in “Face” (Japanese title “Kao”) by Junji Sakamoto. The protaganist Masako is making her desperate but heroic escape by swimming out to sea in a floating ring. It’s a quirky, sad but also hilarious story of a sullen, sheltered woman making her journey to fearlessness and self discovery. Great flick – and the ending shot is unforgettable.
Thanks Susan. It’s all so clear now.
Just seen The Land Beyond the Sunset but it is not the good film I was expecting to see, it was a promotional campaign after all and only a few seconds could be numbered as artistic.
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Three Crowns of the Sailor, beautiful shot of the ocean and sky as the sailor sails on. Glorious.