The Scrap Heap

Advance warning: the post that follows necessarily reveals the resolution of both Éric Rohmer’s Conte d’automne (Autumn Tale) and Ang Lee’s The Wedding Banquet.  If you haven’t seen either and would rather do so without spoilers, save this for later.

I’m convinced that at some point in the 80s a law was passed forbidding the making of pictures without twist endings (or, the more the merrier, a final twist to the twist; usually one twist too many).  This was already questionable when confined to genres that might more obviously benefit (mystery, suspense, horror); but it has spread everywhere, to far less interest far less often than filmmakers seem to hope.  A recent example of an otherwise enjoyable film messily impaling itself on its final twist was Tom Ford’s A Single Man, which managed a quadruple whammy: it was facile, it was pompous, it insulted the audience’s intelligence and, astonishingly, betrayed everything that preceded it by keeping the original end. I’ll explain: the structuring device Ford invented to hang his film on was clever, strong, very believable and very moving. Unfortunately, it also completely undermined the conclusion of Isherwood’s source novel, which, by following on from said device, fell from poignant reminder of life’s unpredictability to cloying, pseudo-profound “message” on the (cheap) “ironies” of life. In other words, what had been a twist in the novel turned into a waste in the film. Good twist endings follow:

"Paris", Moshi Moshi Records 2007, artwork Edward Gibson

It’s touching, because it sounds so naïve – just saying “One day we’re going to live in Paris” already marks you out as a starry-eyed innocent. Paradoxically, it might mark you out as unimaginative as well – as dreams go, it’s hardly exceptional in these days of incessant pressure to try and explore everything within reach of transportation, and then try and find something beyond it (because to be satisfied nowadays is to betray your own potential; worse even, you’re refusing your sacred duty to keep the economy running). Neither difficult, nor original, dreaming of Paris is conventional, provincial even: it ushers in nostalgia, it’s old-fashioned; it almost smells of under-achievement, one should really be striving to spend one’s next holiday in another planet or bungee-jump from a satellite.

Not that any of this should have even crossed the mind of the boy who sings  Friendly Fires‘s Paris (who may or may not be Ed McFarlane). But it’s precisely the simplicity and the intensity of this wish that make the song so powerful. Unlike the narrator in Opportunities (Let’s make lots of money), who strives to be cleverer and more manipulative than everyone else in a world of schemers (and, by Neil Tennant’s own reckoning, is doomed to fail), the boy who promises to take his friend (lover?) to Paris doesn’t come across as even knowing the word “cynicism”. It’s an affordable dream, he doesn’t have to trample over anyone to achieve it. However…

Narrative art often imitates life; just as often, the attempt will stumble on the looseness of life’s “plots” (or maybe it’s the total lack thereof). This may be an impossible problem; after all, coherence and control are among the most traditional and enduring defining characteristics of narrative art. It’s very difficult to think of “story” without immediately thinking of structure, and organisation. It’s certainly not unthinkable,though; for  instance, much of the literature of the 20th Century strived to weaken or altogether break precisely that link. (I said 20th Century, but what about Brás Cubas? or his acknowledged grandfather Tristram Shandy?) Such striving, however, can feel awfully strained, and unless your attempt to open your plot out to the vagaries of the vaster world is very convincing, you will only draw further attention to the finitude of your story.

I will get to the dog, keep reading…