The Art of Ending Things
How great entertainment sticks the landing.
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UnlikeThe Magnificent Ambersons, the shift inIndemnitys conclusion was Wilders decision, and his alone.
The story was between the two guys.
So we just took out that scene in the gas chamber.
(He talks more about the decisionhere.)
The Shining(Stanley Kubrick, 1980)
Kubrick was not shy about tinkering with his work.
He performed a similar bit of post-release surgery with his 1980 adaptation of Stephen KingsThe Shining.
But on his way out, Ullman tosses Danny the yellow tennis ball that belonged to his father.
(you’re able to read the scenehere.)
Kubrick reportedly decided to remove the epilogue after watching the film with audiences, sensing that it wasnt playing.
The police abuse him.
Dogs are sent after him.
He jumps off cliffs.
He runs through freezing water.
Hes shot in the arm and he has to sew it up himself.
All this, and now were gonna kill him?
The filmmakers tested both endings and, unsurprisingly, the upbeat, live-to-see-another-day conclusion proved far more popular.
And thats the ending they showed to preview audiences.
It was a complete disaster,Oz toldEWin 2012.
We didnt want to, but we understood they couldnt release it with that kind of a reaction.
[Audiences] loved the two leads so much that when we killed them, they felt bereft.
So, Howard rewrote it and I shot it with a satisfying ending.
The original ending was fully restored for the 2012 Blu-ray release, and it frequently pops upon YouTubeas well.
Then when I realized it wasnt, I became incredibly upset.
I thought the proposed new ending was a terrible betrayal of the character Id created and it was!
But they werent going to release the film without a new ending.
Some critics felt the same way;Roger Ebert wrotethat the ending left him feeling cheated and betrayed.
(The original ending was subsequently added as a special feature for the films disc releases.)
It all led to this horribly upsetting ending where they went on trial and got convicted,Ball explained.
We actually shot it, and when it got into editing it was just too cynical and too awful.
Correction:This piece originally misstated one of the writers ofDr.
Terry Southern wrote the film, not Terry George.
