Catalin
Ends are such a rich theme philosophically and cinematically. Aristotle said
in the Poetics that the end is the most important thing of
all. Raul Ruiz, on the other hand, says the reason he wrote Poetics of
Cinema was to find out how a movie finishes if 'the word end is not
indicated'.
The fact that end can mean consequence (logical or causal), aim, meaning,
completion, or intention as well what comes after the beginning and middle
(whether in plot or chronology) suggests what an important thing an end is
for we teleological, narrative animals. In this universe, the dazzling
prestige of ends is rivalled only by the prestige of priority (again a
concept with logical, ontological, epistemological, causal and historical
reverberations).
Are ends though the be all and end all? They draw their meaning from all
that precedes them, and ambiguous ends (ends that mark the end of a films
time on screen, but without the completion of all the logical or causal or
semantic strings) seem to be a critique of a certain ideology of ends.
Ross
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