Midnight Cowboy A nice complex mix of sound and visual design. The opening becomes an intricate visual metaphor for the aboutness of the movie, summed up in about 10 seconds. The sounds of a cowboy & Indians shoot em up give way to the reality of a lonely child amusing himself in an abandoned drive-in.
The Wild Angels Another succinct visual metaphor, which features a kid on a big wheel imprisoned by a white picket fence, while the appearance of motorcycle rebel Peter Fonda signifies the threat of 'otherness.'
Enter the Dragon Hey, it opens with Bruce Lee cleaning up the mat with Sammo Hung. Ok, Sammo is fat and Bruce is buff but still, Sammo can flip and kick, they're outdoors surrounded by kung fu monks, the music is cool, Bruce is bad-ass - visceral action in its purest form.
Now, without giving too much a way, let's talk about some terrific endings:
The 400 Blows This pretty much sums up pangs of adolescence and juvenile angst to a tee. Nice use of the freeze frame. Sends quivers up my spine every time as Antoine finds himself at the edge of the earth.
Stroszek This is an incredibly powerful blend of documentary and narrative. The finale captures Americana in its most crude and pure form; a moment full of truth, if you consider the New York Chinatown arcade, which for years featured a dancing chicken.
The Harder They Come The visual storytelling in this antihero ballad triumphs over its low budget. All that has passed before in the story of Ivan the outlaw reggae singer comes together in the devastating climax as he asks for one man to come out and draw, a la the Italian western Django.
Two Lane Blacktop Possibly the greatest ending of all. It's metaphoric and incredibly powerful; formally complex and simple at the same time. Sheer genius.
Please suggest more examples...
Now I'm thinking of the greatest opening sequence ever. What is it? First one right gets a prize.
15 comments:
I'm surprised you didn't mention your favorite movie's ending - Repo Man. It's simultaneously ridiculous and amazing. As is The Good, The Bad and The Ugly's ending, with the credits of whose good, bad and, of course, ugly. The endings to John Carpenter's The Thing, Halloween and They Live are all very cool. They leave the viewer feeling hopeless and wanting to know more. Same goes for most of David Cronenberg's earlier films. Both the beginning and end of They Came From Within (aka Shivers) are pretty bizarrely effective.
I personally really like the opening to Scorsese's Alice Doesn't Live Here Anymore. It's reminiscent direction-wise to the endings of Antonioni's L'Eclisse and The Passenger. Both the latter films are, in my book, knockout endings.
Yes, Repo Man's ending is phenomenal and expresses a natural inclination to escape the whole goddamn world, or as Alex Cox described it - referring to how a few of his films end with a vehicle taking off into the sky - 'cheap transcendence.' It's also been very influential, making its way into mainstream culture's stream of consciousness (like an insurance commercial for ex.). And one of the biggest influences on Repo Man also has an incredible, apocalyptic ending - Kiss Me Deadly!
one of my personal favorite ending sequences is ANNIE HALL. the poignant scenes from Annie and Alvie's doomed relationship, Annie's singing, looking onto their last encounter in front of Lincoln Center from inside the restaurant... sigh... it's so subtle, so brilliant.
I agree with Kayoko. And on top of that, Allen's Manhattan has both a great opening and ending. I may be biased because I'm a New Yorker. But I think most film nerds would agree.
THE NAKED KISS!
The Naked Kiss is a wonderful guess and a great opening! Bald prostitute (her wig gets pulled off) beats up her pimp. But that's not the one I was thinking of. Sam Fuller was a genius though and the beggining of Street of no Return, which wasn't that good a movie, is great - it starts with someone getting clocked with a hammer in a street fight. Okay, guess again!
I want to second Dean's mention of THE PASSENGER; in the annals of haunting, minutes-long, single-shot endings, it's hard to find one to top it. Switching to unexpected, high-impact freeze-framey endings, we should mention SWORD OF DOOM, which is a nice companion ending to TWO-LANE BLACKTOP - two glimpses into the infinite abyss through the eyes of doomed protagonists (speaking of which, AGUIRRE: THE WRATH OF GOD). I don't know what your favorite opening of all time is, though... I'm guessing either spaghetti western, yakuza/samurai or rock 'n' roll epic. Or is it PEE-WEE'S BIG ADVENTURE?
10 stars ********** for Ego. Yes Sword of Doom was supposed to be in this post to begin with, you are so right. Peewee's Big Adventure is great but that's not even close. Now guess again!
I like the intro to Bad Lieutenent with the angry sports show guy on the car radio. Hot and foreboding, but just routine for keitel's character.
Sorry I'm late to the party...
Great openings? The Wild Bunch comes to mind immediately, but then so does Death Race 2000 (whose opening looks drawn by a child or a stoner employee of Roger Corman).
My fave endings? I love it when a flick smash-cuts (no fades!) to black at the very end. John Carpenter has done this, but my faves are Ken Russell's Billion Dollar Brain, and even better: Fassbinder's The Third Generation. A character says something and then the houselights come on! There weren't even end credits! Superb.
Thank you Poop Snakes, Bad Lieutenant is a nice example, a film that's almost in a class by itself (but surely we can come up with some other drugged out over sexed corrupt cop movies now, can't we?). The infamous "show me your ass" scene also makes a rather indelible impression.
And thank you Ivan. YES, WILD BUNCH, how could that have not been mentioned earlier!? One of the greatest opening sequences ever. At least in the top ten and on a par with the one I'm still thinking of.
Speaking of credits, Starship Troopers didn't have any, right? And Kiss Me Deadly had them backwards (and that's where Repo Man got the idea) . I haven't seen the Fassbinder movie but your description reminds me of the ending of Holy Mountain (not even Dean has mentioned that one yet. Okay it might be pretentious but I still like it).
Sq. Dave (Squire David?)
Nope, Starship Troopers didn't have any opening credits except the film's name--but then it blasts off into that FedNet show (a tactic Verhoeven used in Robocop also to good effect).
Oh yeah: I really loved the opening credits to Seven, until ever bad psycho killer movie ripped off the style. That sequence was credited by Kyle Cooper (the new Saul Bass?). He also made another of my fave title sequences, for Godzilla: Final Wars. Toho allowed him to make a very psychotic montage from all the Gorija movies. Worth renting for that and the awesome kaiju battles (but fast-forward through the Matrix/Power Rangers ripoff stuff).
A fave end credits for me is/was the "airstrike end titles" of Apocalypse Now, where the compound is blasted in slow-motion solarized/infra-red film. Coppola (stupidly) removed that ending though, and I'm not sure where you can see it now. (The footage itself is included as a DVD extra, but the titles are no longer superomposed.)
I need to see The Holy Mountain again, but I'm scared...
"Superomposed"?
Sorry. I'll proofread better next time.
Oh, how could I forget this? The opening titles to Magnum Force. Great music (Lalo Schifrin!), simple, but eye-catching design design, and a threatening philosophy--kinda like the Nazis!
(http://youtube.com/watch?v=WiNfGZLiQ1o)
The Best Dynamite Opening(s) list has to include the crazy tracking shot in Touch of Evil!
Yes, toestubber is right, the tracking shot beginning of Touch of Evil was ahead of its time. Now it's canonical. And it's still evil! I don't know about that steady-cam scene in Goodfellas. It's good too but somehow not quite as striking and certainly not as twisted. WHEN WILL TOESTUBBER.COM HAVE A NEW POST!?
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