Nihilism wins
Nihilism wins... I liked that it ended in such a dark way.
sharegod lost.
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MovieChat Forums > The Sunset Limited (2011) Discussion > Nihilism wins
I didn't. I don't like to be left feeling down about entertainment. It was the one weak link in an otherwise fine film.
shareSee that's just why i liked it so much. With a vast majority of movies you go in knowing good will prevail, the good guys will live/win it's assured in most mainstream movies and tv. The fact that it goes dark like it does was a nice surprise it's nice to have a lil uncertainty in films especially films with this type of subject matter.
It's sort of like sam said in the movie without pain how can you know if you're truly happy.
Walter Crewes: God is just an imaginary friend for grown ups.
Neither side "wins," since both men walk away unmoved by the other. It's a stalemate. White is still in despair, convinced that life is meaningless and determined to commit to suicide, and Black maintains his faith, certain that each life has purpose and resolute to be back at the platform in the morning to again save White from killing himself.
shareTo some extent i think thats what they wanted us to think with that scene. Although with the very last scene with him questioning god and asking if it was ok was him questioning his faith so i think nihilism did sort of win in that it made black, a truely faithful man, question his faith in the end.
Walter Crewes: God is just an imaginary friend for grown ups.
Yes, Black questioned his faith for a moment ... and was answered. He was not shaken from his path. "I'ma be there in the morning."
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White's final speech was powerful and logically sound. Black knew that nothing he could say was going to change White's mind and I felt that black was doubting himself and was obviously wondering why God didn't give him the ability to speak so definitively in his favor.
shareFurther, I think Black's faith was fundamentally shaken, which is why he was ardently repeating his self-assurances after White had left. He was trying to rebuild the ideological walls he had erected to keep himself functioning from day to day. It seemed to me that the look in Jackson's eyes at the very end was one of despair.
shareI whole heartedly agree.
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As a Christian, this movie was incredibly uplifting for me. I didn't feel the message was nihilistic. The ending was perfect.
Maybe it could be compared to one of those optical illusion pictures where when you look at it one way, it looks like an ugly old woman, but when you look at it another way, it looks like an attractive young woman. It's up to you, how to see it.
I kept thinking, "this will be weak, if it ends with a tearful confession of faith by Tommy Lee Jones": and now I get why. The biggest profession/show of faith was seeing that Sam Jackson, even after all of his witnessing seemed to be in vain, still had faith and didn't ask anything more of God.
So, hooray for us believers. We get to see the beautiful young woman. And we choose to still see her, even if others choose to see the ugly picture.
Who is to say that what White believed is the ugly side?
share"Who is to say that what White believed is the ugly side?"
That right there is a concept few people looking at this movie will realize. Nihilism did win, because Religion/God doesn't have the answers for everybody.
I realize this because I am very much like White's character. When he talks about how wonderful it will be to die because it will be an end to community, my ears perked up. I hate society at large, and have no use for my fellow man, shocking as that sounds. All the rules I am forced to follow on a daily basis are because people before me abused things. See airport securety as the most obvious example. As the famous French playwright Jean-Paul Sartre once said "Hell is other people".
That doesn't mean I dress in black and listen to crappy music, I am one of the nicest and most normal people you'd ever want to meet, but the human condition is one that I fundamentally dissagree with. The only thing that keeps me from seeking my Sunset Limited is the few people who would be hurt if I did that, my parents mostly, and when their gone, I plan to follow soon after. And White is exactly right that too much education can lead to such thoughts, Eve bit from the apple of knowledge and God banished her to the land of Nod, because he has no use for people who think for themselves. "Ignorance is bliss", one of the truest statements I know.
And Blacks frustration and sadness is the perfect representation of how society views people with such beliefs, in the end, there's nothing to be said. You can put blinders on, or take them off, it's all a matter of choice. For people like White and I, this life is hell, it's a forced labor camp that depends on the ignorance of it's workers to sustain itself, the only thing binding me to it is the few other people whom I wouldn't wish to make their lives any harder on. White's endind is a happy one.
And btw this movie/play is a work of genius, it puts in words most all the thoughts I've had on the subject. Another genius in a simular vein is the awesome George Carlin, all of his stand up is pure genius, and for this subject especially see "Life is worth Losing".
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Oh good Lord, take your "poor little me, I am going to off myself after my parents die" rant down the road, you pathetic fool. Airport security is your big problem? You disagree with the "human condition"? You make me want to laugh.
People in the past 100 years lived through slavery, polio, the Great Depression, starvation, concentration camps, mass executions, world wars, and on and on. What exactly do YOU live through that is so damn hard you pitiful creature? Did you wake up today and yank on the blinds and they went up instead of down? Did you lose a button on your sweater?
You likely have air conditioning, good food, shelter, you mention parents that obviously love you, the ability to watch interesting films, and a computer to type your BS onto. And you are bitching about life's darkness? Would that be anything like having your gunboat destroyed and being a sole survivor, watching your friends get blown to pieces like my uncle in WW2? My grandmother starving in the Great Depression? These people came back hard and strong and raised families and built businesses. They saw some darkness boy, and never lost faith. But here you are giving us the sob story about your dark little life. Hey, question, if the world is such a bad place and no one will surely care about your death, why are you bothering us with it now? Why not have the courage to, right now, kill yourself?
Reason? Because you want the freaking attention. Look at me, I am a sad sack. Don't you feel sorry for me?! And you know what, NO. We don't feel sorry for your lazy a$$. Stand up man, and grow a set. The world isn't dark. It just is. Happy? I am freaking happy EVERY day of my life, rain, shine, sick, or healthy. And the only thing different between you and I, and that would be most of the world and you, is that people tend to get up, tough it out, get out there and carve a quality life for themselves, and find their own happiness...which, by the way, isn't waiting for your parents to die so you can follow them.
Grow up and make your own world...because that's what life is about. Everything else is bull.
"Oh good Lord" does not exist for White nor those who identify with his character. Words and objects became empty for him. Belief, be it moral or spiritual - is what charges peoples lives with meaning, mystery and purpose, without which, causes some kind of terminal isolation. I think that material comforts such as air-conditioning (and even food and shelter), are absolutely secondary to that. As you said, people have survived through horrifying circumstances, perhaps part of this was due to their moral convictions or spiritual belief.
It's pretty obvious that mundane frustrations such as airport security don't drive a person to suicidal thinking - it runs much deeper than that. We as individuals contribute to the reality presented to us in everyday life. Perhaps spending 20 years of suffering through the internal hell of chronic depression is comparable to 2 years of suffering the external hell of a concentration camp.
I agree with the guy you try to mock and I got so angry reading your reply because you FULLY miss the point he was trying to make. Completely.
I don't know if I should try to explain to you what people like us are talking about or I should just be happy for you for not understanding how we look at things.
However there is one thing I want to ask you: Did you even watch this movie? Did you understand even a word of White's monologue at the end?
Because if you did, you wouldn't be blobbing that nonsense in response to that fellow "white" poster.
I tried to write something here, explaining the point but I don't even know where to begin, I'm not comfortable with English (3rd language) and I don't even know if it had a point to do so. At the end our conversation here would end like this movie: we both would go on with our way of seeing things. You probably think you know it better than me or him, I think it the other way around sort-of. Who is right then?
On the movie: we aren't all just Black and White by the way. There are some reasoning that I think would be very strong in White's character but I didn't hear them in this movie.
Why does the nihilist even care if he wins," anyway? Win... lose... it's all meaningless either way.
Of course, very, very few people are actually true nihilists, who understand and completely live the philosophy. Most nihilists are just confused emos who think they're being intellectual.
N.C.S.E. Exposed - No Victim-Blaming Allowed!
www.ncseexposed.org
I don't think he wanted to win. Right until the very end of the movie he doesn't really suggest his serious nihilistic views.
He was very confused throughout the movie, probably because he was just saved moments before his death and didn't even know what was happening.
He just wanted to get out. Black kept him talking, and since white is a culture junkie he played along for a while. That's how I see it.
No, nihilism didn't "win," and neither did faith. Or they both won equally. Black and White both listened to each other's most powerful arguments and experiences and in the end remained unshaken. This was not evidence of thoughtlessness and simplism but rather strength of conviction on the part of both men.
shareI think it was pretty obvious that nihilism shook Black harder than faith impacted white.
shareI think it was pretty obvious that nihilism shook Black harder than faith impacted white.
Haven't seen this yet, but that's definitely the impression I was under when I read the play. share
I think it was pretty obvious that nihilism shook Black harder than faith impacted white.
Black's faith wasn't shaken by White's nihilism so much as Black was disturbed and pained that anyone could go through life so devoid of attachment. Look at the tearful expression on his face during White's devastating monologue - it's one of sorrow, not of having his fundamental beliefs shaken. Black's promise to "be there in the morning" and his vow to God to "keep [His] word" show that his faith survived intact.
It's also important to consider the disparity in education between Black and White. I don't think it was without meaning that White is a professor who, it is casually revealed, reads over 300 books a year and is the son of a lawyer, while Black is a relatively uneducated ex-con. It should not be surprising, then, that White is able to own the intellectual terrain and leave Black scrambling for "words" with his powerful final monologue. The flip side, of course, is that Black is able to take comfort in the end in his strong faith, which White does not have, and it is left to the reader/viewer to decide whether "knowledge" or "faith" is the greater gift. share
Black knew before white’s ending monologue that he was devoid of any sense of meaning in his life, but until then he thought that there was something he could do to bring him around, at least enough to convince him that he shouldn’t kill himself. When Black said “I’ll be there in the morning” he was grasping at straws. He knew he had failed. White’s ending monologue was very powerful and logically sound and I think Black knew somewhere deep down that he was on to something. I think that Black’s sorrow and pain at the end was a combination of failing to help White and coming to terms with the fact that his faith may be leading him in the wrong direction, in as much as it guides his understanding of reality.
Black may have been an uneducated man, but he was an intelligent man that held his own rather well with White all things considered, though he was admittedly at a disadvantage when arguing ultimate truths with him. I think that White was taking comfort in his conviction that he had nothingness to look forward to instead of the pointless sorrow that he felt in his life.
I really wish television and movies would consist more of this sort of thing. Gets people to thinking.
I tend to agree with you. I always hesitate to try to assume things are meant in films an such by the writers. Especially in something like this. But I saw it as Black did have his faith shaken. To the very core. And why wouldn't it be. To have his faith then have what we'd essentially call An Act Of God, even by non-believers ironically enough, occur. Then outgunned linguistically has to try to use words to "win." One minute you are on your way to work and next is this? How many people have days start like that? He had to think there was a hand involved. And yet after God dumps this in his lap, no pun intended, God then steps back and lets him fail? Brutal. But my goodness can those two act together or what?
Don't trust reality. After all, it's only a collective hunch.
Ahhhhhh, yes, Nihilism wins. Nihilism, for whom "rage" is now actually, "for the good days" - for whom otherwise all around is empty. Nihilism, who's going to dive for the train (again) at the next chance -- yupper, Nihilism wins awright!
Nihilism's concluding monologue is minute-after-minute of just how awful it is to be Nihilism, but ... yo, guess what: actually, Nihilism wins! Who knew?? :)
I love internet discussion of movies! You can watch a character rant full-out about how awful his existence is, and then go read how that character "wins". Gotta love it.
Hey, Cardster: I'm not bein' in your face, okay? Let's not get ad hominem here. I belieeeeeve that the phenomenon of people looking at exactly the same thing and deciding different stuff has already been noted in History. That's why it currently works well to have an odd number of Supreme Court justices, among other things. So, and But: the guy who hates his life, and is determined to go under the train, he is not the winner. We may call him many things, but the winner is not one of them.
I will now dash to my bunker.
Yo, dgross-3, I had no intention of getting all ad hominem. I may be a troll, but at least I have my dignity. ;)
I think Nihilism as a concept did win, logically atleast and in this instance.
It currently works well to have an odd number of Supreme Court justices so as to have a built in tie-breaker. But you’re right. It is a good idea to have more than one justice, among other things, because people can have different feelings based on the same evidence.
How do you know White wasn’t the winner? He wanted nothingness as an escape from his suffering, and when he throws himself under that train, that is what he most likely will get.
I will now dash to my storm shelter.
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He wanted nothingness as an escape from his suffering, and when he throws himself under that train, that is what he most likely will get. [text position moved slightly -> ] How do you know White wasn’t the winner?
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Well, what's most to the point is, his suffering is the result of his nihilism. He declares that his nihilism is caused by his suffering, but it ain't necessarily so, since we know that many people suffer and yet do not become nihilists (e.g., hey, Black.)
The script shows skill in how it briefly shines a flashlight on, but does not go too deep into, the Professor's primary rationalization - that anyone (to paraphrase Black) who is not a sorry dumdum would reach the same conclusion as the Professor. Black correctly throws a flag on White's inner sense of superiority over all those poor dumb other commuters. But as the script shows, the ability of White to entertain this train of thought (no pun intended) is indicative really of no particular intellectual strength. White may be a professor, but the script does not paint him as performing any feats of ideation that Black could not do equally.
And, what White cannot even look straight at ... reprise:
"He wanted nothingness as an escape from his suffering, and ... that is what he most likely will get."
Actually, White cannot be sure of that. It is, instead, an article of faith for him - that after death there is nothingness. He believes it is the only sane conclusion, the only conclusion that a non-fool can draw, but ... he cannot be sure. So his faith in _this_ (his certainty of extinction in death) is as arbitrary as any other item of faith that he would dismiss as folly.
Amazing piece really. Having been both an atheist and a man of God I strangely was able to relate to both characters. The ending was profound, White went off to be greeted by the Sunset Limited, while Black was greeted by the sunrise, as if an answer to his question to God.
shareInteresting take. Sunrise vs. Sunset. I missed that initially.
Though I don't think either side "Won".
Both men are struggling. Both are clearly stubborn. But does either convince the other? No. Some have read Black's emotion at the end as him questioning his faith, whereas I read it as his frustration with his inability to accurately articulate faith in a meaningful way.
People seem to imply that Black's failure to convince White not to kill himself was in some way a failing. It seems obvious to me that he was already at a massive disadvantage when the discussion began. His ability to convince White otherwise would have been nothing short of a miracle. This probably resonates with anyone who has tried to reason with someone such as White.
Finally, I get a kick out of people "who don't believe in anything". That's still a belief, in that you do not know for sure there is nothing. You simply have faith in nothingness. You, in fact, BELIEVE that nothing exists past death.
To my mind that's just as silly as people believing something does exists past death. Different side of the same coin, really.
Neither side "won" - life doesn't have to be about winning. It's the journey that counts and this movie was all about the journey.
shareI tend to agree with the folks thinking that Black wasn't questioning faith but more frustrated at himself for failing to convince white. Case in point (somehow I haven't see someone mentioning that in this thread) is when Black says: 'Why didn't you give me the words?"
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