...with Charles Durning's character on the telephone pole watching the couch with a binocular was very odd. It was such an unconventional ending, but was it supposed to be more like a statement than just an easy conclusion? I mean, he could've inspected the couch to discover the body, but instead he just sits there observing it, and with a binocular! He wasn't even that far away. Pretty surreal scene. Any ideas?
shareI always thought the end was pretty funny, though in a very morbid way. De Palma definitely refused to tie everything up neatly with a pretty bow!
I loved the cow mooing as the persistent Durning waits for someone to pick up the couch. And I think we can assume that he (or someone) would eventually find the body, and that Danielle will then be implicated in both murders. A shame - she was so sweet! Well, except when near sharp, pointy objects.
As for Salt's character? I guess that old cliche, "curiosity killed the cat," rings true once again. It doesn't always pay to be so dang nosy!
SALT's character died???? please remind me.
shareshe didn't die.
shareLike I said in another post, I made an explanation for this scene.
Something interesting in a lot of early DePalma movies is the notion of double. Not only the double like Dominique/Danielle but the double in a narrative way.
For example, in "Dressed to Kill" the end of the movie is a lot like the begining.
I see the same thing in "Sisters"; The movie starts of with Philip in a T.V. show about voyeurism, and the movie ends...with Philip hidden in the couch. But at the end it's not Philip being a voyeur, he's the one being look at through binoculars(binoculars being the symbol of voyeurism).
That's my opinion. What do you think?
Good point, derooderoo! I hadn't thought of the end being a kind of mirror-image to the first scene. Both the first and last scenes employ some kind of visual trick, too. The first scene looks "real" but ends up being a part of a TV game show, while the last scene starts off showing the couch before slowly revealing the detective watching.
The ending is so surreal - and funny! - that I think De Palma wants to draw attention to our own position as cinema-voyeurs of the film. The "reality" of the narrative is broken by this last scene: in this way it is quite Brechtian. It makes us realise that we have suspended our disbelief to a ridiculous level with our intent viewing, just like this private detective has.
I also think that there is significance in the fact that the object being watched is a couch. A couch is the place where people sit to be TV spectators (like of the show Peeping Tom) - one is tempted to say, then, that the detective is watching *us*.
as mentioned in the other post. i think this is a great theory.
shareBarbara Creed (The Monstrous-Feminine):
"The final shot reveals the private detective strapped, in an erect pose, to a phallic telegraph pole as he spies through his binoculars on the couch containing Philip's mutilated body, now abandoned at a country station. In its attempt to fortify the power of the phallus, the image conveys - intentionally - a slightly absurd, even surreal, impression. The threatening power of woman lingers in the final shot, pointing to the insecurity of the male imagination. Man must be ever on the alert, poised in phallic anticipation whenever signs of the deadly femme castratrice are present."
The final shot reveals the private detective strapped, in an erect pose, to a phallic telegraph pole as he spies through his binoculars on the couch containing Philip's mutilated body, now abandoned at a country station. In its attempt to fortify the power of the phallus, the image conveys - intentionally - a slightly absurd, even surreal, impression. The threatening power of woman lingers in the final shot, pointing to the insecurity of the male imagination. Man must be ever on the alert, poised in phallic anticipation whenever signs of the deadly femme castratrice are present."
Your reply:
Okay, now I've heard/read everything!! Interesting take, but c'mon!!! Absolutely no way is that the "hidden meaning" of the ending of the film, I mean really---I'm still laugning after reading that! I merely interpreted the ending is that Durning's character is just waiting to see who picks up the couch--bottom line. And he'll stay there as long as neccessary, and there's the subtle humour, because as an audience, we KNOW that no one is coming to claim the couch. But I gotta' say, thanks for the day-brightner from Miss Creed, best laugh I've had in a long while!
derooderoo wrote:
<<The movie starts off with ... a T.V. show about voyeurism, and the movie ends [with] ... a voyeur ... look[ing] ... through binoculars (binoculars being the symbol of voyeurism).>>
OCDinephile wrote:
<<...I think De Palma wants to draw attention to our own position as cinema-voyeurs of the film. ... the detective is watching *us*.>>
raymond-x-jacobsen wrote:
<<...Durning's character is just waiting to see who picks up the couch ... And he'll stay there as long as necessary, and there's the subtle humour, because as an audience, we KNOW that no one is coming to claim the couch.>>
I agree with these interpretations and many of the others.
The final shot of Sisters is ironic and disturbingly open-ended. It is also a summation of De Palma's core theme of voyeurism (by way of Hitchcock, Powell and Polanski) and implication of the viewer as voyeur.
De Palma posits Cinema itself as manipulative media fetishism. His films, especially those of the "Red Period" initiated by Sisters, confront us with the act of watching and being watched. We watch ourselves watching a movie and the movie watches us watching ourselves.
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I think it's a perfectly plausible interpretation. Although DePalma may not have consciously had these exact terms in mind, I doubt if she's far off the mark.
"I'll book you. I'll book you on something. I'll find something in the book to book you on."
this is quite absurd. 00000
shareIt's unfortunate that some people over analyze these things to the point that they just see cocks and pussies everywhere they look. Get into reviewing porno if that's all you can think about.
I liked the take on voyeurism, which is in the beginning and throughout the film, but I just thought of the ending as dark humour. The experienced PI was so locked in his ways that he'd just wait endlessly for someone to pick up the body. (Until the cows come home, I guess) But, yeah, there's nothing proactive about his job, it's just voyeurism, waiting for something to happen.
Also, when someone gets stabbed, it's kind of like a dick going in a pussy, so that's interesting too.
I read a lot about De Palma. I'm pretty sure she is right about castration. Remember De Niro's impotent voyeur in Hi Mom. Remember Angie getting punished for casual sex in Dressed.
Another thing is if De Palma makes fun of cock/pussy-ists.
Indeed the word "*beep*" derives from a word meaning 'to stab or penetrate'. Danielle kills her husband with slashes to his genitals. I don't think there's anything remotely farfetched about an analysis in terms of phallic symbolism and castration.
"I'll book you. I'll book you on something. I'll find something in the book to book you on."
during the film, danielle mentions not being able to become pregnant and how she was attacked by her sister in the garden.
my guess would be that dominique did the same thing to her that danielle did to the men in the film.
so while i don't agree with a majority of the ridiculous freudian bs that so many people come up with when dissecting film, i can definitely say that the text (in the sense that the film is the text) and not the subtext is dealing castration. the overall theme of the film does seem to revolve around male dominance over women, though.
Notice that the two males are cut near the genitals.
"You couldn't be much further from the truth" - several
Barbara Creed is an idiot. Perfect example of over analysis. I know I know, the screen is a giant breast and we are all sucking from it. (For those of you who haven't studied Film Theory, there are tons of feminist theories on cinema that are ridiculous including the screen-breast theory). Some people can only see the trees, not the forest. They live only in the world of subtext and can't really simply accept the text. Dumb!
shareWow, there are phallic symbols all over. I guess everywhere Barbara looks she sees a phallus. I guess the Washington monument is a homage to John Holmes. Get a date Babs.
Go ahead, make my day....
Oh God...Gloria Steinem wrote movie reviews under a pseudonym huh? SMH...jeez, feminists can be bat *beep* crazy sometimes.
shareI've always thought the last scene was meant as a joke to show that Durning's character was obsessed with the couch and was going to watch it possibly forever. I felt the couch had been disposed of and wasn't going to be picked up by anyone at that point. I really like the suggestion that it is a parallel with the beginning of the film too. Depalma does seem to put many parallels in his personal films.
shareHe's waiting to see who will come to pick up the couch, but no one is coming. The irony is that the one person who can confirm some of the suspicions that Grace placed in the cops' minds is unavailable because he's searching for non-existent clues.
I do think the ending is rather weak, but the rest of the film is so well done that overall I really liked it.
"I'll book you. I'll book you on something. I'll find something in the book to book you on."
A LOT of DePalma's films end in this way, they seem to be the most far-out left-field shots or situations which refuse to "wrap up" anything. I think he was just frustrated by the typical happy endings... you know, main character talks to the cops, dead body escorted away in an ambulance, roll credits. He seems to focus on seemingly trivial aspects (see especially the Snake Eyes ending) for his endings, or his endings kinda have this unexplained surrealism (Body Double, Blow Out, this film).
shareYeah, even the hard hats from SE.
"You couldn't be much further from the truth" - several
When Durning's character realizes the body is in the couch, he decides to follow it to see who claims it. Posing as a utility repairman, he's left hanging at the end, as is the audience.
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