The ending !?! SPOILER

It's actually Taylor who screams like a nut. She had no idea that Robert Forster was in her room and fondling her undergarments. It also proves to the others that loony Julie Harris was right all along about seeing Forster in Taylor's room.

This was one of John Huaton's personal film favorites. It's one of mine, too. The camera swinging back and forth at the end must have been Huston's way of taking advantage of the Panavision lense!

Soon to Be a Major Motion Picture.

alfie

The ending wraps up the film and re-establishes the norm for heterosexual marriage by the death of Williams. With his death, class and social conventions are returned to the norm as Brando's character upholds his honor by killing the intruder, pervert, and object of his desire. Although Brando wants Williams, he must reject him if he is to be a leader of men, the role of officers in the military. Williams by entering the home of an officer is both transgressive of the enlisted man/officer seperation, as well as other man/husband's castle. His wife is never aware of her affect on Williams and she continues to sleep until he is shot by her husband. Because Williams has invaded the home of Brando, and is found in his wife's bedroom, Brando must protect her honor and his own position by killing him. When Brian Keith, the adulterous husband of dead Allison and Elizabeth Taylor's lover enters the bedroom, he is not the one to kill Williams because he has no rights, she's not his wife. Brando's deviant lust for Williams is unrequited, he is rejected, and, Williams knows that Brando and Taylor's marriage is a fraud. In the end he must die to return the status quo to the situation, although the falseness of the menage a trois is reinforced by the camera jumping from the dead body of Williams to screaming Taylor to ineffectual husband Brando/lover Brian Keith. This grotesque comedy ends on just the right note.

-- If Ewan McGregor were a lollipop I'd be a diabetic strumpet --

I think you're quite right to be dismayed by the ending, which I found a bit of a cop-out, frankly. First, I think the abrupt and violent ending is out of keeping with the slow, meditative pace of the rest of the film. Second, I found the swinging camera gimmicky and the sudden reappearance of the ominous caption from the beginning of the film premature and ugly--given the dark and disturbing visual imagery of the rest of the film. Finally, I think that the ending lacked the clarity that made all of the film up until its last few moments so very absorbing.

For example, if you compare the enormous care with which the candy-wrapper scene was filmed--how both director and actor conspire to endow the paper wrapper with intense eroticism, to lend a fly-away piece of garbage with such IMPORTANCE...and compare that sequence of slow shots with the "throwaway" ending of the film--it's almost as if another director showed up to get it all over with as quickly as possible!

Or, if you prefer to take other violent moments from the film, consider the two beating scenes, and how much exploration we had of the major's emotional conflicts during the horse-beating scene, and the sizzling power of the confrontation with his wife at the party: and compare the emotional content and care with which THOSE scenes were made with the almost amateurish look of what is, after all, the structural climax of the story!

I think the ending is the biggest of this film's flaws: I don't think it needed to be dragged out much longer, but instead of being a shock, it left me feeling cheated of a proper ending. And, by the way, I feel the same way about the toss-away, off-screen death of Mrs. Langdon--it's as if the authors got tired of her and Anacleto and just decided to write them out of the script, instead of constructing some plot for them to disappear into.

Don't get me wrong--it's a film I like, and enjoy--I just think it's flawed, and agree that the ending is inadequate.

I think in order to get this film you need to focus solely on Brando's character and his actions and ask yourself why he does everything he does (and also turn on the subtitles, since he mumbles so much of the dialog and some of it is very telling).

In the end he realizes whatever fantasies he's had about Williams will never come to fruition, and so with nothing left to lose (knowing he'll never have the object of his desire) he chooses to shoot Williams simply to rid himself of the demon he feels within himself, and to be done with those feelings once and for all with the object of his attraction irrevocably gone.

With the realization that Williams' object of desire is his wife and not himself, Brando's character shifts gears, and, being a man who needs to be in control, he decides to kill Williams (this has less to do with Williams than with Brando trying to restore order within himself and rid himself of temptation and desire that are controlling him, rather than him controlling them).


He'll get away with it he realizes because it will look like he's killing an intruder in his home with an unnatural intent toward his wife, but the real thing he's killing is the temptation within himself that draws him to Williams once he realizes that Williams (despite what Brando might have thought during all those gay "cruising" scenes) doesn't return his attraction (may not even know of it) and that Brando's character's been deceiving himself and falling further and further away FROM control.

The camera swinging back and forth, again and again, was quite odd!

About the neighbor, maybe he's like the neighbor on a sitcom, and suddenly barges in on a regular basis!

"I. Drink. Your. Milkshake! [slurp!] I DRINK IT UP!" - Daniel Plainview - "There Will Be Blood"

It's only a movie, but bizarre to say the least. You knew this movie had to come to an end, Houston chose a good ending maybe not the best.


Imre Demech

Synopsis of Film's Ending: "Ahhhhhhhhhh!! Ahhhhh!!!! Ahhhhhh!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!" :-)

Yeah, pretty spastic filmmaking at the film's end.