requested #11
I am traveling to Japan and I have to post something so you people won't abandon me before I get back, so here are the requested writings.
Today's Topic: American Endings
Imagine, if you will, the movie, "Gladiator" shot with an American ending. Our hero, Maximus, would live and the story would end with him sitting on the recently vacated thrown of Rome. There would be flowers, dancing midgets, pan flutes and all that other Terry Gilliam-esque period piece ticker tape flying around. That's an American ending.
I know what you're thinking. "Gladiator was American made", wrong. It was directed by a Brit, was cast full of Brits, Germans, Aussies, Irishmen, Afrikaners and Ugandans( Or what ever that black guy was). Even the two Americans in the film, Joquin Phoenix and that other guy (soldier buddy of Maximus) are two hippies, which, in assessing are not "American" film ending actors. Both of them can be found in dozens of low budget, artsy films. None of which have American endings. AND, Mr. Phoenix comes from a Hippie family from Florida which is the same as saying, "European" so perhaps he doesn't count against the total, and that leaves just the one American on the set.
An American ending is one where love conquers all, the truth sets us free, Joanie does love Chachi and the Beav does learn not to play with matches. It's the notion that Americans are brought up to expect and will not live without. That, in the end, it all works out for the best. No matter what. As Americans, we are expected to see life this way and we are trained by our pop culture to accept this as fact. This is why we don't believe conspiracy theorists. We don't believe that bad things happen and that bad people get away with awful things. WE REALLY don't want to believe that it can happen to us now. We feel we are too smart and that there is really no such thing as someone that is that evil that doesn't get caught. We believe this because we know that James Bond, Rambo and those guys from Mission Impossible will bring them down and save us. We are stunned that 9-11 happened, I guess John McLane didn't answer the riddle fast enough.
Europeans and really, the rest of the world, all see the world in a more, well, worldly and honest way. Their realities are much more real. More grounded and their art and pop culture reflect that. A good European movie might end with the bad guys winning and the good guy marrying the shallow, evil vamp and not the pollyanna girl next door with a heart of gold. Asian films show us that love is rarely a factor that determines an outcome and people can die without ever feeling loved, being love, or making love. Asian films show us that there is a dark, real side to everything and that most of the time Serendipity is just a funny sounding word and not the fate of each lover. Rarely in an Eastern European film will you see the ugly, funny guy get the girl. She sees him for the ugly, unsexy bastard that he is and isn't about to waste her time no matter how hard he fights for her. Eastern Europeans are also fond of killing children in films and having children watch their families die in front of them and then never living to see them avenged. South America loves to show the bad guys as good guys and there idea of horror is two steps above what we casual American horror audiences think of as horror. They will show a pregnant woman murdered in graphic detail and then show someone eating her and the fetus... Yes, it was a huge hit down south. Here, that kind of thing isn't going to make it into the American release. (and it wasn't)
American audiences are tame, lame and heat pasteurized. They know that the ending of the film won't leave them with a huge hole in their hearts or a question in their heads. They want to walk out of a film and be excited that the black cop in "Die Hard" shot the bad guy in the end. They sleep peacefully at night knowing that the children will always be reunited with their families, the good guy will always get the right gal, the bad guy will always die or go to jail and that the snobby girl will always fall in the mud in the end. We have come to expect this so much that when directors try to do something different or try to recreate a European film for American audiences, the ending must always fit into that formula so that Americans will accept it. Some common examples : "Dodgeball" ended with the bad guys winning it all. The studio saw this and made them reshoot the ending so the good guys one. "The Vanishing" in Europe the bad guy kills good guy without any struggle. In the American version, the good guy narrowly escapes death and beats the bad guy, which takes away from the pure moral of the story.
There has been a trend in the past few years to keep American made remakes of foreign films as close as possible to the original. Case in point, "Psycho" by Gus Van Sant and "The Ring" formerly a dark Japanese film, now an American film that was shot to look low budget and smart. The idea with "The Ring" was that if you didn't put big name stars in it and you shot it in Canada and you barely advertised the film, then it would look like an original concept by some smart young film director. The idea worked until someone got wise and released the original "Ringu" and then the idea was shot to hell. SO, being Hollywood, they released a shiny, shitty sequel. (so did the Japanese)
American endings reflect American mentality. The day we see movies end poorly (To live and die in LA) and we see it consistently, then we know we, as a nation, have made it through our emotional puberty. Remember, on a time line, we are still the young kids on the block. Eventually our souls and emotions will catch up with the rest of the world, hopefully after the awkward acne stage has ended.
Today's Topic: American Endings
Imagine, if you will, the movie, "Gladiator" shot with an American ending. Our hero, Maximus, would live and the story would end with him sitting on the recently vacated thrown of Rome. There would be flowers, dancing midgets, pan flutes and all that other Terry Gilliam-esque period piece ticker tape flying around. That's an American ending.
I know what you're thinking. "Gladiator was American made", wrong. It was directed by a Brit, was cast full of Brits, Germans, Aussies, Irishmen, Afrikaners and Ugandans( Or what ever that black guy was). Even the two Americans in the film, Joquin Phoenix and that other guy (soldier buddy of Maximus) are two hippies, which, in assessing are not "American" film ending actors. Both of them can be found in dozens of low budget, artsy films. None of which have American endings. AND, Mr. Phoenix comes from a Hippie family from Florida which is the same as saying, "European" so perhaps he doesn't count against the total, and that leaves just the one American on the set.
An American ending is one where love conquers all, the truth sets us free, Joanie does love Chachi and the Beav does learn not to play with matches. It's the notion that Americans are brought up to expect and will not live without. That, in the end, it all works out for the best. No matter what. As Americans, we are expected to see life this way and we are trained by our pop culture to accept this as fact. This is why we don't believe conspiracy theorists. We don't believe that bad things happen and that bad people get away with awful things. WE REALLY don't want to believe that it can happen to us now. We feel we are too smart and that there is really no such thing as someone that is that evil that doesn't get caught. We believe this because we know that James Bond, Rambo and those guys from Mission Impossible will bring them down and save us. We are stunned that 9-11 happened, I guess John McLane didn't answer the riddle fast enough.
Europeans and really, the rest of the world, all see the world in a more, well, worldly and honest way. Their realities are much more real. More grounded and their art and pop culture reflect that. A good European movie might end with the bad guys winning and the good guy marrying the shallow, evil vamp and not the pollyanna girl next door with a heart of gold. Asian films show us that love is rarely a factor that determines an outcome and people can die without ever feeling loved, being love, or making love. Asian films show us that there is a dark, real side to everything and that most of the time Serendipity is just a funny sounding word and not the fate of each lover. Rarely in an Eastern European film will you see the ugly, funny guy get the girl. She sees him for the ugly, unsexy bastard that he is and isn't about to waste her time no matter how hard he fights for her. Eastern Europeans are also fond of killing children in films and having children watch their families die in front of them and then never living to see them avenged. South America loves to show the bad guys as good guys and there idea of horror is two steps above what we casual American horror audiences think of as horror. They will show a pregnant woman murdered in graphic detail and then show someone eating her and the fetus... Yes, it was a huge hit down south. Here, that kind of thing isn't going to make it into the American release. (and it wasn't)
American audiences are tame, lame and heat pasteurized. They know that the ending of the film won't leave them with a huge hole in their hearts or a question in their heads. They want to walk out of a film and be excited that the black cop in "Die Hard" shot the bad guy in the end. They sleep peacefully at night knowing that the children will always be reunited with their families, the good guy will always get the right gal, the bad guy will always die or go to jail and that the snobby girl will always fall in the mud in the end. We have come to expect this so much that when directors try to do something different or try to recreate a European film for American audiences, the ending must always fit into that formula so that Americans will accept it. Some common examples : "Dodgeball" ended with the bad guys winning it all. The studio saw this and made them reshoot the ending so the good guys one. "The Vanishing" in Europe the bad guy kills good guy without any struggle. In the American version, the good guy narrowly escapes death and beats the bad guy, which takes away from the pure moral of the story.
There has been a trend in the past few years to keep American made remakes of foreign films as close as possible to the original. Case in point, "Psycho" by Gus Van Sant and "The Ring" formerly a dark Japanese film, now an American film that was shot to look low budget and smart. The idea with "The Ring" was that if you didn't put big name stars in it and you shot it in Canada and you barely advertised the film, then it would look like an original concept by some smart young film director. The idea worked until someone got wise and released the original "Ringu" and then the idea was shot to hell. SO, being Hollywood, they released a shiny, shitty sequel. (so did the Japanese)
American endings reflect American mentality. The day we see movies end poorly (To live and die in LA) and we see it consistently, then we know we, as a nation, have made it through our emotional puberty. Remember, on a time line, we are still the young kids on the block. Eventually our souls and emotions will catch up with the rest of the world, hopefully after the awkward acne stage has ended.
posted by Daniel Loomis | 3:51 PM
<< Home