BIG SPOILER -- DO NOT READ THIS UNLESS YOU HAVE SEEN THE MOVIE
In the narrations that overlay the action the two main characters tell us this story as if it they are reflecting on it, as if it happened to them in the past. But the professor dies at the end. How can he tell us a story that happened to him if he died before that story ended? I was not sure he was dead until the credits started rolling. Actually, I guess, I am still not sure he died.
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I think it is just a literary device ... that's been used for a while now ... it is just being honest that this is not real life ... which is obvious because the bad guy, ie murderer gets their comeuppance magically in the end.
Im not a film buff so maybe you are right. But I cant ever remember waiting at the very end of a movie for one last scene that would explain away such a narrative inconsistency like this, only to be answered by credits. I mean a scene of police surrounding his hospital bed would be enough, that would tell me he lived to tell the story. Also strange is that Woody Allen is a consummate storyteller and has shown in other movies that he can chop up the narrative, rearrange it, and keep it all consistent and logical. It is possible he is using artistic license, like you say, and doesnt care that it is inconsistent. Or maybe he changed the end of the movie and didnt want to go back and fix this problem or something.
If you or anyone else knows of another film like this -- where the narrator who is telling the story dies before the story he is telling is over -- I would be much obliged if you could name it. I would like to watch it. Probably it would make me feel better. Plenty of movies take liberties with reality, but Ive never seen one made by a filmmaker of this magnitude that left a problem like this unresolved.
I actually liked the movie, by the way. Im a huge Woody Allen fan.
I had assumed the "words that were flowing" to become a book where at this moment that of a journal and that is what we were hearing.
Right or wrong that is the answer I like.
And I have no problem with a thinking movie not answering all questions. That is what our imaginations are for.
I'm like a rabbit suddenly trapped
In the blinding headlights of vacuous crap.
Just think of it as a journal. The professor is relating his thoughts on events that have passed for him, but that does not mean that he is in our present. His reflections are simply coming from a point in the future after the current scene. They do not have to be from a point after the story ends- simply before his part in it does.
So there is no flaw; it's simply unconventional.
Hey, that's a fantastic solution! And a wonderful twisting of convention. I guess I needed my hand held on that one. Thanks. Christ, I feel relieved!
Bravo, setanta.
Thanks poetic justice for the suggestions.
"...the professor dies at the end" is incorrect. Abe falls down in an elevator shaft and the fall was not fatal because he narrated his last scene.
shareI'm pretty sure Abe's narration ends just before the final confrontation with Jill, when he remarks once again about having worked on elevators.
shareOne could also argue that death doesn't kill the "spirit" of a narrator. Why can't a character communicate after death? There are no rules.
shareSidney Sheldon wrote a novel that was turned into a movie where the main character narrated and died while still speaking first person.
I tried looking for it, but can't come up with the title. I was so astounded at the book's first person ending years ago that I made sure I saw the movie.
“One never quite allows for the moron in our midst.” Agatha Christie, The Mirror Crack'd
Having part of the story from a narrator who ends up dying is not that uncommon a literary device. It's hardly a flaw, although this film has many.
Besides, after he dies his narratorial voice overs end :-)