Not much of an update, but...
Here's an interesting question for everyone to ponder-- can you compile a list of saddest endings to stories, sorted by medium? For example, what do you believe to be the saddest ending to a movie, and why? No irony here, I don't want someone coming up with "Der Untergang, because Hitler dies." I'm talking honest to goodness sadness. And I'm not sure if bittersweet counts or not-- is a bittersweet ending more or less sad than a plainly sad ending? And how many endings are sad these days without being bittersweet?
I guess the reason I come up with this question is because it's so damned difficult for me to answer. I mean, my knee-jerk response in the category of "books" is always going to be His Dark Materials, but there's the bittersweet issue to consider (and in that case, what about The Shadow in the North, huh? Darn Pullman!), and I'm certain that with a little more thought I might be able to come up with something more heart-wrenching.
I think I can probably suggest The Legend of Zelda: Link's Awakening as the saddest ending in the list of videogames I've played. It's darn rare for a game to end sadly (because videogames involve active participation, sad endings seem to punish the players for playing), but boy does the end of that particular game kind of make you wish you hadn't beaten the final boss after all.
Y'all know what I'm sayin'? Has anyone but me completed that particular entertainment? Is it worth me explaining the nature of the story's conclusion, and why I would desperately wish to ape it in a future piece of my writing?
Gimme some thoughts here. Sad movies, books, games? Daguerrotypes?
I guess the reason I come up with this question is because it's so damned difficult for me to answer. I mean, my knee-jerk response in the category of "books" is always going to be His Dark Materials, but there's the bittersweet issue to consider (and in that case, what about The Shadow in the North, huh? Darn Pullman!), and I'm certain that with a little more thought I might be able to come up with something more heart-wrenching.
I think I can probably suggest The Legend of Zelda: Link's Awakening as the saddest ending in the list of videogames I've played. It's darn rare for a game to end sadly (because videogames involve active participation, sad endings seem to punish the players for playing), but boy does the end of that particular game kind of make you wish you hadn't beaten the final boss after all.
Y'all know what I'm sayin'? Has anyone but me completed that particular entertainment? Is it worth me explaining the nature of the story's conclusion, and why I would desperately wish to ape it in a future piece of my writing?
Gimme some thoughts here. Sad movies, books, games? Daguerrotypes?
posted by Nate at 10:11 PM
4 Comments:
Okay. I'm trying to argue for their emotional importance as well and not just list off what matters to me. Let's kick out the jams:
Movies (If you haven't seen all of these, you should):
1-Cinema Paradiso - a boy rediscovers his father, rebels against 'the man' and teaches us movies are even more important than we thought they were. Not just the saddest, but THE best ending of all time, period.
2-Edward Scissorhands - Not so much the actual ending, but about ten minutes before it, when Edward and Winona are in her parents' living room, and they actually embrace, and she asks him why he would lie for her and he . . . ahh, I'm blubbering just thinking about it.
3-American Beauty - Kevin Spacey's ending monologue connects the film to viewers on a much more personal level than anything I can recall.
4-Barry Lyndon - you try and do the right thing and what do you get for your trouble? Shot in the leg by your son-in-law and abandoned by your wife. The music sells this.
5-Schindler's List - I'm always amazed that people consider this too schmaltzy - I think the dark humor of Ralph Fiennes' last line hangs over everything we see afterwards, especially the actual Schindler Jews and Liam Neeson . . . I'd watch this movie every day, if I had three hours to kill.
Additionally, filmcritic.org has an awful list of endings, but you might want to see their thoughts. And if you haven't seen 'Brazil,' there's a reason we're showing that at KFS in December.
The episode of Pokemon where Pikachu runs away from home always made me cry.
Tom Waits' song 'Georgia Lee' is considered by many one of the saddest. But the best specific ending for a song is 'Hair,' by the group Atmosphere.
Saddest video game ending: The only one that ever made me cry . . . Planescape: Torment. Just the way it is.
-TH
I think picking out sad things at all can be tricky because of the questionable means by which one measures it. I know of course about that basset hound (subjectivity), but I mean here whether we're talking tears or not. I can think of several things that I would qualify as having "despairing" endings, but I don't know if that counts as sad. To take your excellent example of Link's Awakening - you get choked up because of the music, the flashbacks, and perhaps a little guilt for doing what you had to do to get off the island. But what about, say, Requiem for a Dream (I'll pick an extreme example here), which certainly has a "low" ending but it's more of the "jaw hanging open in abject despair" sad ending than "sniff sniff." I could say similar things of Dancer in the Dark - the ending is depressing as hell, but is it sad? I think perhaps sadness needs some aspect of sentimentality (not a bad thing!)... this can come as shmaltzy music, flashbacks, whatever. Take the ending to the (uggh) Family Stone. Yes, I know many would put this as more bittersweet but one might get weepy for the way the camera zooms in on Diane Keaton's photo as the family goes about their holiday.
So where am I going with all this? I think if we cut out bittersweet, we're left with not a lot of things that produce tears. Maybe we can't respond to sometihng that's just utterly depressing with tears - maybe it's only a death following immediately from a reconciliation or some other bittersweet thing (dispelling an illusion to be free but wiping out the denizens of the dreamworld) that makes the tears come.
With all this said, I think my nomination for saddest ending on film that I know of would be for Long Day's Journey into Night - I know I'm cheating somewhat since it was a sad stage ending before. But seeing all the drunken Tyrones just staring sadly at their dope-addled mother babbling about the past... that's some sad shit. Speaking of the stage, I've never wept like I wept at the end of My Name is Rachel Corrie - after spending the whole play with one woman, this onstage TV comes on and a friend of hers gives a description of her death at the hands of the Israeli bulldozer. And then (I blame Alan Rickman for this even if it wasn't his idea!) the TV switches over to home video footage of Rachel at a very young age giving a speech (lisp and all) at some "children fighting hunger" event. It's bittersweet, because you know she died in the process of doing what she felt she had to do (life-purpose-wise) but there's definitely more bitter in there. And, of course, you can't say that showing footage of a person as a child after learning they're dead isn't sentimental and (on the part of the director/writer) perhaps intentionally manipulative of emotions. But they had an audience willing to mourn at this point... so. Shit, I've talked too much. Stop posting evocative questions. Next time just ask Isabella Rossellini and she'll tell you about the saddest music in the world.
. . . But wasn't the whole point that Isabella was incapable of appreciating the Saddest Music in the World? As soon as she thought she knew it, she cheapened it . . . and was left without a leg to stand on. Wakka wakka.
Or something. That's what my tapeworm told me, at any rate.
(If Krocker-pot has no idea what we're talking about, shame on him).
Book: Pnin.
Movie: Hmmm... Fargo's up there. Don't know what else.
Game? Jeez. FFX? I don't know.
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