After re-watching the last few minutes, I didn't think it was ambiguous. Not sure Florence and Roger will end up together, or belong together, but at the end they are sharing some genuine moments.
What did you think about the ending?
The ending is a metaphor. When you see Greenberg hitting the nail on the head, means he is finally doing things right. He builds a nest, a home, a couple, a family, with Florence.
You see Greenberg building a house for his brother's dog, throughout the movie. Greenberg himself is that dog. He is not really a Man. He wastes his life in futile pursuits. Instead of building a place for himself as a Man, he builds a place for a dog, a dehumanized individual.
Dehumanization is a fundamental mechanism in philosophy and psychology. Greenberg is not a Man, he is a lost boy, an adolescent, who is still attached to an immature understanding of the world and reality.
So, when he's putting that painting on the wall, he is building a house for himself as a Man.
You see him maturing throughout the movie, and there are obvious metaphors used to show that, but you need to be familiarized with the psychological and philosophical concepts.
Greenberg is "in love" with a Mother/Whore, represented by Beth. Beth was the girl he was with in highschool, whom he left, as an immature adolescent incapable of commitment, and to whom he still clings on, as an immature adult incapable of commitment.
Then Beth - now a mother - rejects him. This is a critical stage in the development of a cub - ablactation, the emotional separation, emotional independence from the mother. Beth rejecting him, resolves a psychological conflict inside him. He is now on his own, cut from the unresolved adolescent fantasies he clung onto.
For this metaphor to unfold, you don't see Greenberg having any mother, although he's only 40. The implication is that he was abandoned by his parents, left without guidance.
A child without the critical guidance of a parent figure, has a hard time finding the way to maturity. In other words, Greenberg was lost.
The metaphor of Greenberg being lost is the information that he was coming out of a mental hospital. That information is saying that Greenberg has lived an insane life up to now. His mind was not fortified, his parents did not raise him in a sane way. The way he was brought up as a child and adolescent, was not healthy.
That frame created by his parents, that should have given Greenberg the means to deal with the world, had collapsed, because it was bankrupt.
Greenberg is not really mentally insane. The paradigm in which he was raised, was insane. You are seeing Greenberg learning and adapting to a new, healthy paradigm.
Greenberg resolves conflicts left unsolved from his past, and for this, he needs to revisit his past. By coming back to his childhood city, he is willingly or unwillingly, resolving the conflicts:
1. Beth - representing the adolescent romantic fantasy
2. the band - his friends tell him that his attitude caused the band to die
3. Ivan - his closest friend tells him couple of truths about him
Ivan and his brother also act as Father figures. His brother pushes him to think independently in the scene with "can the pool overflow?" while Ivan introduces him to fatherhood.
compare the party thrown by Ivan, that baffles Greenberg, who doesn't know that there is satisfaction in having a few people chilling around you at a pool, Greenberg whose idea of having fun is the adolescent party that takes place later, with coke and booze, and posing and being hip. Also compare to the other party with many kids, that scares Greenberg, as he is not prepared for that stage.
Eventually, you see that dead animal in the pool, where Greenberg previously took a quick swim. That's Greenberg shedding that "illness", his former self, the abomination that he was, before becoming a Man. That dead animal in the pool, is like the cocoon shed by the pupa that turned into a butterfly, the dead skin, the old winter fur shed by the wolf when spring arrives, the placenta - he is "born" into manhood.
At the end of the movie, Greenberg is able to be responsible - he takes care of the dog on his own initiative, not requiring assistance from mommy and daddy. He is also able to commit to a romantic relationship, able to open and communicate emotionally - he tells Ivan how he feels about what happened, unlike before, when he ran as far away as possible, incapable of communicating and standing his ground and taking responsibility for his decisions.
Another metaphor for Greenberg becoming an adult, is the rejection at the party. He can feel for himself that he is not like the young kids at the party. He then rejects the fantasy of running away from reality, when the two girls offer him to go with them to Australia.
This movie is packed with metaphors and psychology, but if you're not familiar with psychology, you probably won't get much out of it.
reply
share
DiangeloWolfer
9 years ago
Great insights. I think they're spot-on.
Did you figure all these out for yourself or did you glean some from interviews with the filmmakers and such?
reply
share
criztu
9 years ago
i haven't watched interviews with the film makers, I just read psychology and watch movies.
Syndromes like Mother/Whore are epidemic in our culture, just go to wikipedia read the Madonna-whore article, you can see there examples from Hitchcock and Martin Scorsese.
Ever since Hitchcock, psychology became the favorite toy of film makers, and so concepts from psychology are being represented in movie after movie, it's like looking at a collection of Ford car designs through the years.
Noah Baumbach is not really an artist, he just probably studied psychology and stuff. His movies are excellent representations of concepts from psychology, but not much art.
reply
share