The Big Sleep: The most baffling film ever made?

at_a_remove 2021-08-18 20:20:03 +0000 UTC [ - ]

Take Dark City. I believe the studio forced a new opening that more or less explained everything rather than letting you puzzle it all out. I didn't find the movie too hard to work through, but I think Hollywood execs have a fairly low estimation of the audience's intellect.

Lynch is a bit harder. Lynch is atypical in two ways that play off of one another. First and most obviously, he has been developing as a film-maker (as one would hope over the decades), but he expects that his audience would have kept up with him, introducing a kind of filmic vocabulary. I would say that Mulholland Drive is much, much more comprehensible once you have understood what Lost Highway is on about. In turn, Lost Highway is an extended riff off of the dualism you would see in Twin Peaks and Fire Walk With Me. As to the second factor, Lynch is very heavy into TM and he would like to present images, sounds, and such to the viewer, and then find out what the viewer thinks of them. Not in a "this is up to you to puzzle out," rather he is pitching rocks and skipping stones off of what he likely believes is to be a collective unconscious or a shared cultural experience, then being excited about what might pop up. It's a genuine interest, I think.

jasonwatkinspdx 2021-08-19 03:44:21 +0000 UTC [ - ]

Yeah, that intro to Dark City was a crime against the audience. And honestly I think it was really shortsighted/cowardly of the studio. If you look at two movies that came just a year later, The Matrix and Sixth Sense, a big surprise reveal was central to both of their appeal. And this shouldn't have been a surprise to the studios... the twist in The Usual Suspects came half a decade earlier, not to mention Empire Strikes Back.

My second least favorite thing studios do is cut the trailer in a way that makes the movie seem totally different or even a totally different genre.

Aside: a friend gave me the Sixth Sense dvd as a birthday gift one year, which I had yet to see, and my idiot roommate at that time was in the room couldn't restrain himself from trying to cleverly address my friend in a way that communicated he knew the twist. Except he'd never touched on clever in his life and gave it away instantly. Nice one Paul. Nice one.

RobertoG 2021-08-18 22:22:53 +0000 UTC [ - ]

That's great insight about Lynch.

I was totally puzzled by Mulholland Drive, then I read an explanation in a IMDB review, watch it again, and I was amazed that everything made sense. It was encrypted and somebody gave me the keys. That's really an artistic experience.

earleybird 2021-08-18 22:58:02 +0000 UTC [ - ]

Great artists are often misunderstood, many who are misunderstood are not great artists - The Sphinx :-)

dhosek 2021-08-19 02:16:23 +0000 UTC [ - ]

We are Number One. All others are Number Two. Or lower. —The Sphinx.

LaundroMat 2021-08-19 06:43:25 +0000 UTC [ - ]

Do you still have that link somewhere?

RobertoG 2021-08-19 09:19:28 +0000 UTC [ - ]

Sorry, I can't find the one I read, but there are several good "explanations" in the IMDB review section. Actually, the story is pretty straightforward. I suppose that if you are a Lynch scholar already, the effect is not so great. The magic for me happened when I didn't get it in the first view and everything made sense in the second.

One big thing, that I realized later (and the GP comments on this too) is that Lynch has his owns symbols and language that clue the audience about what's going on (the red velvet curtain for the subconscious/dream world, for instance). If you are not aware of that, it's easy to get lost.

kubanczyk 2021-08-19 08:21:20 +0000 UTC [ - ]

https://www.imdb.com/review/rw1902343/?ref_=tt_urv for example

LarrySellers 2021-08-18 20:55:52 +0000 UTC [ - ]

“I don't know why people expect art to make sense. They accept the fact that life doesn't make sense.” -- David Lynch

newsbinator 2021-08-18 22:25:14 +0000 UTC [ - ]

> They accept the fact that life doesn't make sense.

Most people, in most cultures, don't accept it as fact that life doesn't make sense.

What % of people would agree with the statement "everything happens for a reason"? Or even "because God did it".

Of those who don't think everything happens for a reason (i.e. life makes sense... to someone), the vast majority nevertheless believe we live in a universe of physical rules.

We accept we could get wiped out by an asteroid or a deadly plague, sure. That makes sense.

We don't accept we could get wiped out by a Lynchian fever dream. That doesn't make sense.

SkittyDog 2021-08-19 01:13:20 +0000 UTC [ - ]

You've misunderstood the David Lynch quote. He's observing the fact that people have the instinctive ability to rationalize about the reality we observe, in order to maintain a consistent theory of our own existence in it... We can be surprised or shocked at what we witness, but we must somehow integrate it into our mental picture of reality. Often as not, our mental picture isn't particularly accurate... We have to fill in the gaps with our imagination.

Film & literary theory starts from an understanding of this phenomenon. It's the basis of willing suspension of disbelief. We don't have to try to fill in the gaps with our imagination, when we see/hear/read the corpus of a story... Our minds tend to start playing along, automatically, when prompted.

Plenty of people have proved perfectly willing to entertain the idea of getting wiped out by asteroid or plague... But also, plenty of people have proved willing to entertain the idea that we live in a constructed artificial reality, a la "The Matrix".

Our religious beliefs are just as nutty and varied as movie premises, and that's not a coincidence, because religious beliefs basically emerge from the same mental phenomenon as literature.

I mean, it makes no sense that an invisible Sky-Father supernaturally impregnated a Jewish teenage girl, two thousand years ago, and that the resulting child could reverse thermodynamic processes at will... But nearly 1/3 of the world says they believe it like that, more or less.

troutwine 2021-08-18 22:48:40 +0000 UTC [ - ]

What sense does getting wiped out by a plague make?

gambiting 2021-08-18 23:02:17 +0000 UTC [ - ]

A lot of religious people I know would just say that god had his reasons and that's good enough. You don't need to understand why, the very core of religion is to believe that god "acts in misterious ways" and if something happened then it's because god wanted it to happen. Maybe those people have sinned. Maybe that's god's way to teach people a lesson. Or maybe it's something entirely else and we just don't know yet - you just need to trust that god knows what they are doing.

Really, it's as deep/shallow as this, not much else to it.

mr_toad 2021-08-19 00:49:47 +0000 UTC [ - ]

For most of history this was how people viewed life and death.

If you tried telling them it was just nature, bad luck, and an uncaring universe they would have viewed you as a naive simpleton.

perl4ever 2021-08-19 01:07:08 +0000 UTC [ - ]

> uncaring universe

What "caring universe" do you measure things against to see it's not caring?

How can you have yin without yang, in other words?

jasonwatkinspdx 2021-08-19 04:11:46 +0000 UTC [ - ]

This is a classic philosophical argument that was dispensed with in the middle ages. The usual form of it is "how can you know what infinity is if infinity doesn't exist?" The answer is as simple as "I take the word finite and put the word not in front of it." We are perfectly capable of synthesizing concepts that do not exist in our experience of reality.

perl4ever 2021-08-19 04:26:35 +0000 UTC [ - ]

>We are perfectly capable of synthesizing concepts that do not exist in our experience of reality.

I am not sure exactly what this means, but I don't think I asserted anything to the contrary.

An automaton or a parrot can place words next to each other without "synthesizing concepts". Can an intelligent being not do that too?

As another application of my original point, "synthesizing concepts" would not mean anything unless it was possible (and I think it is) to not synthesize a concept when a string of symbols is put together.

It's not that we have to have a caring universe to imagine one, it's that we have to at least imagine one in order to say the universe is not caring.

One way to look at the universe we live in is that it seems to be faithful. Every atom follows physical law perfectly, at least we assume. Maybe that's not exactly proven, but it's the conventional faith today, and we certainly can imagine the world otherwise, with lots of miracles.

newsbinator 2021-08-18 22:59:37 +0000 UTC [ - ]

You could look at it a dozen different ways, depending on your sense-making framework:

* God did it (makes sense- God does cataclysmic stuff)

* Nature did it (makes sense- biology is a jerk and we haven't mastered it yet)

* Humans did it by mistake (makes sense- we make huge errors all the time)

* etc

troutwine 2021-08-18 23:27:20 +0000 UTC [ - ]

Sure. In the context of Lynch's work things that happen without sense are often intra-textual in his work or hint at some interior sense that is obscure to the characters, audience. Why do characters (dead!) from Twin Peaks show up in Mulholland Drive? Well, that _might_ be touched on in Twin Peaks season 3 or maybe it isn't. Kinda up to you.

Seems to me that's Lynch's point. In daily life we're all willing to accept on some level that we need to make sense of things ourselves so why should we expect art to be direct?

FeepingCreature 2021-08-19 08:13:17 +0000 UTC [ - ]

In daily life, we have faith that there is some sense out there to be made of things. This is generally justified by the lawful nature of nature. In comparison, Lynch can do whatever he likes.

In other words, I disagree with Mark Twain: Reality has to make sense, whereas fiction can be made arbitrarily nonsensical.

(However, doing so may make it bad fiction, whereas reality is not subject to any such appeal.)

SkittyDog 2021-08-19 00:47:32 +0000 UTC [ - ]

The GP is just making assertions about cultural anthropology, with basically zero evidence or argument supporting their assertions. I wouldnt bother trying to argue with them, directly... I would not expect them to have any real expertise on the subject, so I expect you'll just get more of the same quality.

perl4ever 2021-08-19 01:21:48 +0000 UTC [ - ]

The quote about "the difference between reality and fiction is that fiction has to make sense" has been around in some form for around two centuries in western culture.

References:

https://quoteinvestigator.com/2015/07/15/truth-stranger/

https://tvtropes.org/pmwiki/pmwiki.php/Quotes/RealityIsUnrea...

The quote from Lynch makes it sound as though the obvious way to get people to accept an implausible story didn't occur to him.

Simply have some small print at the beginning that says "based on a true story". As I recall, that's what was done with the movie Fargo.

"Important point: just because it has happened in real life does not make it believable in a story. If a reader says she didn’t believe such a thing would happen, it is no defence for you to say, "Oh, but that did happen! In 1982 I was walking along..." — Nicola Morgan, Write To Be Published

https://xkcd.com/2115/

SkittyDog 2021-08-19 02:12:19 +0000 UTC [ - ]

I'm familiar with both quotes, but I think we're barking up the wrong tree by trying to intepret them literally.

"Based on a true story" is not what makes a film plausible to us... We instinctively engage in a willing suspension of disbelief when we're prompted by literature, even when we directly know that the story is false.

Fargo includes that text because the film is an homage to the hardboiled crime fiction genre, which frequently featured that style of blurb on book covers as a marketing tool. But people consume books & films, near universally where we have the means to do so, with or without claims that the stories within are factual.

You've misunderstood what Nicola Morgan is talking about, in that quote. In context, "believable" means that the author's job is to reduce obstacles that get in the way of our willing suspension of disbelief... Empathy, context, proportionality, etc.

See my other comments, re: the David Lynch quote. His meaning needs to be taken in context of some film theory.

perl4ever 2021-08-19 03:45:33 +0000 UTC [ - ]

>"Based on a true story" is not what makes a film plausible to us

It wasn't the only thing that made Fargo seem plausible.

But it permitted people to suspend disbelief, because it was enough like a weird news story.

Saying the same thing about Raising Arizona wouldn't make it realistic, granted.

And it isn't license to tell any story that is true, no matter how unbelievable.

>You've misunderstood what Nicola Morgan is talking about, in that quote.

That quote was from the TV tropes link. I don't think I misunderstood it. I acknowledge the "job" you state. My point, or a point, was, that Lynch appeared to be complaining about doing that fundamental job.

If you want to be pedantic, better to tell me something about Lynch, because I have only read about him.

SkittyDog 2021-08-19 06:57:24 +0000 UTC [ - ]

I get the impression that you're seeing the word "belief" and assuming that you understand what they're talking about.

I apologize if I've offended you, I'm really not trying to be pedantic, or a dick. I just believe that your intepretation lacks some critical context.

Now, I admit, I'm feeling a little confused, and I suspect that I may have missed something you said earlier.

I think my key point is that the human capacity for a willing suspension of disbelief is totally unrelated to how realistic or factual we believe the story to be... Most of us regularly consume wildly unrealistic fiction that we KNOW is pretty far from reality. Consider Game of Thrones and Star Wars... both massively popular, and neither making any claims of factual realism.

Our social primate brains are wired to be constantly trying to understand each other. We're driven to try to predict the reactions of the peers, mates, competitors, and enemies in our social groups. The details are informed by our own learning and life experiences, but at the core is an obsessive, hard-wired anxiety about what is going on in everyone else's heads.

Literature exploits our internal empathizing behavior by presenting us with depictions (on screen, on stage, in text, etc) of characters exhibiting human-like behavior. In response, our social mind instinctively starts to try to make sense of whatever is depicted. Our minds are drawn into attempting to model what is going on inside the characters, just as if they're normal human beings.

For believeability, it's not really relevant whether the characters physically resemble human beings... We can equally empathize with robots, animals, gods, etc. The important thing is that the characters perform in ways to which our brains can assign some human meaning.

When Nicola Morgan points out that factual truth isn't relevant to believeability, she's talking about the fact that real humans sometimes behave in ways that don't compute, and our empathizing process fails to model them for us.

Does that make sense? Are we actually in agreement here, and maybe I just misunderstood something on your end?

psychomugs 2021-08-18 21:14:28 +0000 UTC [ - ]

I've been on a mini Lynch binge recently (Twin Peaks, Blue Velvet, and a lot of his interviews on Linda Faludi's excellent channel [1]) and I feel like this quote sums him up.

[1] https://www.youtube.com/channel/UCVdYdogQM2xd29HUOED4EbQ

2021-08-18 23:12:36 +0000 UTC [ - ]

slim 2021-08-19 00:51:10 +0000 UTC [ - ]

The corollary is one should start David Lynch from Eraser head :) Which in a way is his easiest film because you can't read it in a superficial level, there's simply no superficial level. You go straight to the cipher.

gfxgirl 2021-08-19 09:23:29 +0000 UTC [ - ]

I must have been lucky. I saw Dark City opening week and there was no explainer. I bought the DVD as soon as it came out, no explainer there either. I bought the Bluray later, no explainer there.

On the other hand I did see Blade Runner when it had the narration the first time I saw it. Luckily I've seen it without many times since.

hmsshagatsea 2021-08-18 23:27:06 +0000 UTC [ - ]

Dark City’s changes, like most of the time a studio interferes with a creator’s vision, is all about profitability. It’s too risky financially to make a film that does not have wide appeal. It’s nothing personal, just business. And when they test these films they take any criticism rather harshly. They simply don’t have the time or the foresight to find out if people will like it after a little bit.

pjmorris 2021-08-18 19:08:04 +0000 UTC [ - ]

I was amazed and astonished when I first saw 'The Big Sleep', early in my college career. I'd never seen a movie I had a hard time following before, and I was captivated.

There's an old Steve Yegge post where he described presenting for Jeff Bezos. I'm paraphrasing, but Yegge said something like after writing the presentation (no slides), delete every fifth paragraph to keep Bezos intrigued enough to pay attention. I feel like that's what happened to either the script or the filming of 'The Big Sleep.'

EDIT: Every third paragraph, link to Yegge post: https://gist.github.com/kislayverma/6681d4cce736cd7041e6c821...

bmitc 2021-08-19 04:51:18 +0000 UTC [ - ]

The advice to arbitrarily delete every third paragraph makes zero sense. That whole piece is just cult of personality. The advice is also an insult to real writers who know how to actually craft intriguing stories.

lqet 2021-08-18 20:27:41 +0000 UTC [ - ]

This is also exactly how I felt when I first watched "The Godfather: Part 2". There was just so much left out, and so much of extreme significance was only slightly hinted at (just take the scene where Michael realizes the betrayal!). If you only stop paying attention for a single scene, chances are that you will not get the plot. That not only makes you completely immersed in the movie, it also makes for very satisfying rewatches.

zmp0989 2021-08-18 21:24:15 +0000 UTC [ - ]

Funny (to me) story about the first time I watched the first two Godfather films. I was in high school and home pretty ill. My dad rented both films for me. I was so out of it that I didn't know which family was the Corleones until midway through the 2nd movie.

jimbob45 2021-08-18 21:08:58 +0000 UTC [ - ]

When I watch things with other people and I see them looking down at their phone during scenes like the one where Michael realizes the betrayal, I then know they're not going to have enjoyed the movie because they'll have missed a critical visual cue. I don't want to rewind the scene because that seems passive-aggressive but I also don't want to waste another two hours on their part on a movie that they almost certainly can't enjoy anymore.

blacksqr 2021-08-18 21:45:42 +0000 UTC [ - ]

I remember I had to watch "The Long Goodbye" with Elliot Gould three times to figure out exactly what was going on [0]. A detective job in itself.

A good movie nonetheless.

[0] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Talk:The_Long_Goodbye_(film)#A...

candlemas 2021-08-19 02:30:38 +0000 UTC [ - ]

Leigh Brackett also wrote the screenplay for that movie.

Graffur 2021-08-18 23:49:21 +0000 UTC [ - ]

That post is cringe inducing. Yegge had to put himself down " I don’t know why it’s not in there. It should be. I’m a dork." to keep Bezos happy?

Let's face it: Bezos isn't some alien from another planet. He's privileged and lucky. He's lucky he had engineers come and help him build his company.

aidenn0 2021-08-18 20:16:12 +0000 UTC [ - ]

Per TFA there was an early cut with Marlowe in voiceover explaining things. This was removed at some point, which does indeed support your theory.

YeBanKo 2021-08-18 22:00:24 +0000 UTC [ - ]

The linked article reads like a pure idolization. It’s like Bible, except written not more than a thousand years ago but now, and by fishermen, but by sw engineers, the message is the same though.

seph-reed 2021-08-18 19:29:27 +0000 UTC [ - ]

This was a really nice read.

I've made a habit lately of "checking out" on having any opinion about anything I can't truly analyze. And this is a great example of why.

I'm surrounded in content telling me why Bezos is a monster, and they make a good argument. But for all that hatred, I've never once heard a single mention of him being smart, let alone intimidatingly smart, let alone "a first class genius" or "better regarded as hyper-intelligent aliens with a tangential interest in human affairs."

This seems like an important character detail to have been left out.

yumaikas 2021-08-18 19:52:31 +0000 UTC [ - ]

I wonder how much of "smart" is due to his power, and how much of it is due to his intellect.

I say this not because I don't believe he doesn't have an impressive intellect, but because, well, what if someone had his intellect, but worked in an Amazon warehouse due to circumstances outside of their control?

WalterBright 2021-08-18 20:47:09 +0000 UTC [ - ]

Being smart isn't good enough. One must also be motivated, be willing to put in the effort, and not be discouraged by repeated failure.

I had a friend once who was very smart. He was always starting new projects to make money, and always quit at the first or second obstacle.

yumaikas 2021-08-19 03:05:11 +0000 UTC [ - ]

And have the spare resources on hand to be able to survive repeated failures, for that matter. And not be dealing with ADHD or other mental issues.

In the back of my head I want to tease out how much of Beso's success is due to aptitude, how much is due to work, how much is due to privilege, and how much is due to luck, and how much is due to ruthlessness.

This might be a futile exercise, all told, but I do think all of those factors have played into his success.

And I wonder how his success and the other factors compound in the perception people have of him.

lexapro 2021-08-19 08:16:49 +0000 UTC [ - ]

>One must also be motivated, be willing to put in the effort, and not be discouraged by repeated failure.

And even then they will most likely fail. So they need a lot of luck, too.

yumaikas 2021-08-18 19:53:09 +0000 UTC [ - ]

Lots of people with power shut down people who are smarter than them for being annoying, I guess is what I'm getting at.

AussieWog93 2021-08-18 22:45:15 +0000 UTC [ - ]

I'd counter that by saying lots of people think they're being smart but in fact are just annoying pedants (like me!).

earleybird 2021-08-18 23:01:42 +0000 UTC [ - ]

upvote, just for driving the point home - with parenthesis

hellbannedguy 2021-08-18 22:45:38 +0000 UTC [ - ]

I think the "smart" compliment is just common sence. Build up his ego, you might need him one day. Business 101.

1. Yes--he built an impressive company, and a company ripe for unionization. I've never understood why he allowed so much counterfeit merch on that site? I can't imagine why he didn't stifle that one.

2. He gave away billions in a preventable divorce.

3. Because of vanity, he wore those stupid cowboy hats during that amusement ride for wealthy people. Looking back that PR stunt could have been so much better.

4. I really think his forte is diligence, and drive testosterone gives a man. He was also first to market basically, and tenacious.

Hell-- if he was truely a genius, he probally would have never started the company. I'll go farther. Being smart might be a impediment to a good businessman?

5. I don't know Bezos. I don't know any successful businessman, except one. The owner of Dentek. Oh yea, I do know the CA governor. Both are far from intelligent. They both came from wealthy families, and had sympathetic fathers financing,planning,inventing prototypes in every move in their lives. Intelligence had nothing to do with their success.

6. What makes Bezos special is it sounds like he didn't come from money, and didn't have the sterotypical wealthy father.

seph-reed 2021-08-18 23:10:18 +0000 UTC [ - ]

None of these things are related to why the author was convinced of his intelligence.

And while it absolutely is common to call others smart, I think the following comment is rather special:

> "better regarded as hyper-intelligent aliens with a tangential interest in human affairs."

That comment is, IMO, believably earnest. And any person who requires such a comment to build up their ego is believably pretty smart as well.

1123581321 2021-08-19 00:19:45 +0000 UTC [ - ]

You usually find that in anything talking about his DE Shaw background.

soneca 2021-08-18 19:39:09 +0000 UTC [ - ]

I remember reading about him being very smart multiple times. Just not on articles commenting Amazon workplace environment and such, as it should not be indeed.

On articles about the beginnings of Amazon, the writing culture, or anything that is in part a biography on Bezos, I always see it mentioned how smart he is.

seph-reed 2021-08-18 21:12:48 +0000 UTC [ - ]

> Just not on articles commenting Amazon workplace environment and such, as it should not be indeed

I think the distinction between "evil" and "evil genius" is actually kind of important for a world that often anchors its reality to Hollywood narratives. It sets up a more believable antagonist, and makes it clear that -- unlike the grinch -- their heart is not likely to change.

It also sets up the challenge: be smarter. If he was just greedy, it might be a race to the bottom (greed always wins). But in this case it's a race to the top (intelligence seems to win).

I also think the distinction between "greed wins" and "smart wins" extends with a similar lack of mention into other popular "villains" like Elon or THE ZUCK.

At least for me, knowing that the richest person in the world is also considered extremely smart by the smartest people he could pay to work with him... it makes me feel that -- unlike politics -- business is not yet a complete race to the bottom.

version_five 2021-08-18 20:42:00 +0000 UTC [ - ]

One thing I'd add to the article is that a key feature of the Marlow novels is their meandering plots. I read once that Raymond Chandler stories are about the journey, not the destination, so basically you're following Marlow around as he does stuff (that is mentioned in the article). The stuff he does is locally interesting, and it makes the stories good. But judging the stories based on their plot synopsis doesn't really get you anywhere. I've read all the Marlow novels, a while ago now, but I'd be challenged to give a decent summary of any of them. Its about the individual scenes.

smackeyacky 2021-08-18 22:20:36 +0000 UTC [ - ]

This is very much my experience of those novels. Not quite as opaque as Conrad's "Heart of darkness" but I get the idea that you are supposed to be as much in the dark about what is happening to Marlowe as Marlowe is himself. It helps with the immersion.

twelvechairs 2021-08-18 22:41:06 +0000 UTC [ - ]

TV has shifted this way, where its now common to have long running series where different writers, directors, etc. across every episode. Everything is logical in its immediate context but can seem illogical in the broader context of the entire series/show.

mixmastamyk 2021-08-18 22:51:30 +0000 UTC [ - ]

Yes, lots of characters change at random, just when you think you know them.

version_five 2021-08-18 23:30:49 +0000 UTC [ - ]

I find this in a lot of Netflix shows, where the season is ostensibly building to some revelation about who the killer or mole or whoever is, but each episode plays out like it was based only on prompts from the previous ones and not according to some planned story arc. At the end you don't see everything fall into place, you learn that there was a relationship that was not alluded to in any way through the rest of the season that suddenly makes someone the killer.

wrp 2021-08-19 01:11:57 +0000 UTC [ - ]

Exquisite Corpse the miniseries! It might be interesting to do that deliberately.

fenomas 2021-08-19 06:58:46 +0000 UTC [ - ]

Yeah, he talks a lot about this in his essays - one quote I liked was "a good mystery is one you'd read even if the end was missing". He was definitely rebelling against the classical mystery format, where every clue must be clearly presented so that the reader can guess whodunit.

02020202 2021-08-19 08:11:10 +0000 UTC [ - ]

i could say the same thing about poirot. not books but the suchet series. in the end, poirot can never, ever, produce a proof to jail the killer or thief. it's all about the journey, as you said.

telesphore 2021-08-18 20:39:00 +0000 UTC [ - ]

It's a matter of setting up expectations and balancing that with good story telling.

Ambiguity, elision, out-of-order story telling, etc. are all part of art but it's a delicate balance. There's a contract that artists set up with the audience that will allow them to use these techniques. Primer is one of those where I'm OK with my confusion because the story was interesting without all the answers, and it was setup pretty early on that this wasn't an A to B story. On the other hand, the fade-to-black ending of The Sopranos was, in my opinion, a total violation of that contract. Nowhere did they setup that kind of ambiguity. Yes, it's a series vs. a movie but my point still stands.

No Country for Old Men, again IMO, rides that line a little close. Sure the Bardem character checks his boots at the end but there were some other major gaps that I don't think were set up. It was well acted and produced but expectations were not managed so it still goes into my meh pile.

When it works the it's a lot of fun figuring things out. I'll have to give The Big Sleep a try.

Edit: At the other end of the spectrum, expository lumps are no fun either.

PopePompus 2021-08-19 02:22:24 +0000 UTC [ - ]

My takeaway from Primer (perhaps my favorite movie) is that the confusion is the message of the movie. If a time machine existed, and was used repeatedly, it would become impossible even for the persons involved to maintain a clear understanding of what had happened and what was happening.

lqet 2021-08-18 20:47:06 +0000 UTC [ - ]

> On the other hand, the fade-to-black ending of The Sopranos was, in my opinion, a total violation of that contract. Nowhere did they setup that kind of ambiguity.

I respectfully disagree. One of the qualities of "The Sopranos" was exactly that things weren't always spelled out explicitely. Also, I did not really find the ending to be extremely ambigious. I mean, it is pretty clear what happened.

d23 2021-08-18 23:22:38 +0000 UTC [ - ]

> No Country for Old Men, again IMO, rides that line a little close. Sure the Bardem character checks his boots at the end but there were some other major gaps that I don't think were set up. It was well acted and produced but expectations were not managed so it still goes into my meh pile.

Really? This is one of my favorite movies. What did you find overly ambiguous? If anything I felt the closing dialog and monologue were sort of on the nose about the theme of the movie, but I don't mind that.

lqet 2021-08-18 20:33:08 +0000 UTC [ - ]

Regarding classic film-noir movies, I found "The Lady from Shanghai" by Orson Welles much more baffling, and also frustrating. The first time I watched it, I didn't really get the plot. As a big Orson Welles fan, I assumed it was my fault and consulted Wikipedia. The Wikipedia understanding of the plot was equivalent to mine and didn't answer any questions, so I watched it a second time, and a third time. There are massive plot holes. I really believe that Welles was not interested in a coherent plot, he just needed a vehicle for beautiful cinematography and great acting. But it is so frustrating if you try to follow a complicated plot, only to realise at the end of the movie that not even the director was able to understand it.

WalterBright 2021-08-18 20:50:22 +0000 UTC [ - ]

The "Lost" miniseries is enjoyable only once you accept that it simply doesn't make any sense. Just enjoy the moments.

Though "Lost" was on to something with the dialog "it's a snowglobe!" They could have followed up on that, leading to a satisfying conclusion, but as with everything else, it just went nowhere.

asdff 2021-08-18 20:54:04 +0000 UTC [ - ]

I'm really surprised LOST still has that reputation years after release. Having seen the entire thing, I think the plot makes sense and there aren't very many holes. The writers omit a lot early on but I felt like it gets answered by the end as you learn more about the island. In the moment as it was being released year by year I can see how it was seen as confusing when you'd wait for a while to get an explanation, but these days you could binge the entire thing.

WalterBright 2021-08-18 20:59:05 +0000 UTC [ - ]

Having an "explanation" that it's all pointless magic is not an explanation.

I suspect that the writers originally had a coherent story arc, but the show was so successful they had to extend, extend, extend it, which produced the incoherence.

asdff 2021-08-18 21:18:45 +0000 UTC [ - ]

Well, it is one of the most highly regarded series in history by critics, so some people thought the explanations were sufficient at least. Abrams and the writers were planning from the outset to do that many seasons and wrote a story bible outlining all the lore and mythology referenced throughout the writing. Having story arcs over the course of years was intentional and a novel idea at the time when most TV series plots were written on a per episode basis.

skinnymuch 2021-08-19 11:20:20 +0000 UTC [ - ]

Where do you get Lost being one of the most highly regarded series in history by critics? Besides that not being the case even if you only look at Metacritic and Rotten and only look at the basic numbers, a review from Entertainment Weekly, TV Guide, or E! are always on those sites but not worth much at all.

For the two core creators, they both have other shows that are arguably more highly regarded. Lindelof’s The Leftover’s and depending on how you feel comparing it to a mini series, The Watchmen. For JJ Abrahams, Fringe’s last 3 seasons or each season building upon the previous season are very highly regarded.

The big difference between Lost and The Leftovers and especially Fringe are that the latter two were underwatched and less hyped than Lost. Not that Lost is more highly regarded critically. It’s more highly regarded by an avg person, but that’s just pop culture fame.

The hype and credit you’re giving to Lost for outlining and having lore from the outset is over done as well. It is doubtful chat Lost stuck to much more than a loose outline by the end of the series. It felt much more like its contemporary Battlestar Galactics where it had its lore and story down early on, but lost that for various reasons after the early seasons.

On the other hand, there were shows back then too that had their lore and content planned out in advance. HBO’s Carnivale is one contemporary example coming out a year earlier that had its lore written out in detail as well.

mattmanser 2021-08-18 21:47:14 +0000 UTC [ - ]

Why do you think it's highly regarded by critics?

Final season's got a relatively low rating on rotten tomatoes.

It's referenced as a joke series in my circles, if you want to refer to something pointlessly convoluted with no pay-off.

Personally, I stopped at the beginning of season 3 when I realized the writers didn't have a clue where to go with the plot.

dhosek 2021-08-19 02:31:58 +0000 UTC [ - ]

I made it to the end, but it was hard. Partway through, I was thinking that it would be cool to re-watch the whole series after it was done to see everything fit together but after that final season, I had zero desire to watch anything to do with the series at all.

prawn 2021-08-19 01:35:07 +0000 UTC [ - ]

I dropped it at a similar point after working out how many hours I still had to go and asking myself if, later in life, I would view having seen it through as a good use of my time or not. It was then a very easy decision!

handrous 2021-08-18 21:34:24 +0000 UTC [ - ]

Whoa, we must follow very different critics. My impression is that it's usually referenced as a joke, or as an example of how not to do things. I'm not sure I've seen it unironically praised since back when it was still airing.

xsmasher 2021-08-18 23:39:52 +0000 UTC [ - ]

> Abrams and the writers were planning from the outset to do that many seasons and wrote a story bible outlining all the lore and mythology referenced throughout the writing.

Citation? There's a PDF floating around somewhere of the pitch for season one or the pilot; it specifically says that the SHOULD plan the mystery in advance... but then they failed to do that.

WalterBright 2021-08-18 23:22:47 +0000 UTC [ - ]

> Abrams and the writers were planning from the outset to do that many seasons and wrote a story bible outlining all the lore and mythology referenced throughout the writing.

"lore and mythology referenced" is not the same as having a plot outline.

dragonwriter 2021-08-18 20:52:35 +0000 UTC [ - ]

> The “Lost” miniseries

Is this different than the Lost series of 6 seasons and 121 episodes?

Or is this just an unusual use of the prefix “mini-”?

jcrawfordor 2021-08-18 21:09:40 +0000 UTC [ - ]

I've heard a joke along the lines of "I loved LOST, it's a shame they only made one season" from multiple people. Whether they allow one or two seasons of the show to actually exist in their memory depends on the person.

WalterBright 2021-08-18 20:56:25 +0000 UTC [ - ]

Yes, that Lost.

anigbrowl 2021-08-18 20:51:01 +0000 UTC [ - ]

I don't remember enough about Welles' life and career without checking to be sure, but there's a good chance that the flaws are the result of welles' running out of money or having control of the film taken away by other producers due to his inability to meet deadlines.

mikhailfranco 2021-08-19 07:21:50 +0000 UTC [ - ]

I highly recommend the BBC radio versions of Chandler's Marlowe books, starring Ed Bishop as Marlowe. The collection contains 6 x 1.5hr plays, including The Big Sleep.

https://play.google.com/store/audiobooks/details/Raymond_Cha...

The plays are rarely rebroadcast on the BBC:

https://www.bbc.co.uk/programmes/b007k360

rwmj 2021-08-19 10:14:09 +0000 UTC [ - ]

Ed Bishop out of UFO? (Checks Wikipedia, and yes it is!)

BatFastard 2021-08-18 22:21:07 +0000 UTC [ - ]

Primer has got to be the most baffling movie ever made, impossible to keep track of the timelines! Still an awesome movie!

munchler 2021-08-19 01:30:04 +0000 UTC [ - ]

The great thing about Primer is that most of its important events don't even appear in the movie itself.

If you like Primer, I highly recommend Shane Carruth's other movie, Upstream Color. Very different from Primer, but similar in that both movies let viewers figure things out for themselves.

blowski 2021-08-18 18:50:34 +0000 UTC [ - ]

Was it really that baffling? As a genre, film noir tends to have a twisting storyline and this was a particularly good one. But compared to, say, a Christopher Nolan or Charlie Kaufman film, this was a walk in the park.

chippy 2021-08-18 19:16:58 +0000 UTC [ - ]

Now realise that, compared to movies from the last generation, its the bafflement is the actual story, not the twists and turns. In other words, 40 years ago, this news article would bizarre! Everyone who saw the film would have grokked the way the movie was told.

Its like the amazing difference between medieval and modern art works is the difference in how metaphor and meaning is represented rather than the actual story represented. However some might say that it's the story that counts and thats whats interesting.

To be a cultural historian today must be very frustrating.

monkeyfacebag 2021-08-18 19:45:44 +0000 UTC [ - ]

Do Christopher Nolan films have a reputation for being baffling? I've never had that experience with them.

On the other hand, we just saw The Green Knight and that one will throw you.

lotsofpulp 2021-08-18 20:13:08 +0000 UTC [ - ]

They are certainly baffling without subtitles since the speech is not audible.

bmitc 2021-08-19 04:54:52 +0000 UTC [ - ]

Nolan's films are not baffling in the sense of creating true mystery or intrigue. They are baffling because they truly are a mess and have inaudible dialog, and that's despite being famous for having tedious monologues.

handrous 2021-08-18 21:37:17 +0000 UTC [ - ]

> On the other hand, we just saw The Green Knight and that one will throw you.

I think I'm going to need at least two more viewings to get from "OK, I see it saying a lot of things about several themes or ideas, and I can tell what at least some of those themes or ideas are, but I have only the vaguest idea what it's saying about them" to "ah, now I get it."

Great movie.

tclancy 2021-08-18 20:01:35 +0000 UTC [ - ]

Same, but have you read the book? I really like Chandler and have read it a number of times so I feel like there's a leg up. For instance, the Sean Reagan character doesn't really exist in the movie and barely registers when I watch it whereas his story is perhaps the biggest thing in the book.

leephillips 2021-08-18 19:02:27 +0000 UTC [ - ]

I love it and have seen it several times, but I still don’t know what’s going on. I believe you, though, because my girlfriend in college tried to explain it to a friend and me after we had all watched it. She had been able to follow it, but we were lost.

jbgreer 2021-08-18 22:18:02 +0000 UTC [ - ]

I'm a big fan of 'The Big Sleep', Kubrick & Lynch. I also enjoy nonfiction literature that dumps you in the middle of the story. I find encountering unfamiliar words, characters, etc. interesting, and the extra work to figure out the context is satisfying. My wife, on the other hand, hates that sort of thing, such that I recognize there are works I cannot recommend to her, or movies we can only watch with my finger on a pause button, ready to explain. She's not dumb, but she certainly has less appreciation or patience to put up with that sort of thing.

chadcmulligan 2021-08-18 23:09:44 +0000 UTC [ - ]

There was a story I heard that the actors couldn't follow what was going on either, there was a large blackboard with arrows and scenes to help them figure out where they were.

For anyone who's thinking of watching this weekend, the Maltese falcon is another great Bogart movie, and not quite as complex as the big sleep, and my personal favourite.

LarrySellers 2021-08-18 20:11:33 +0000 UTC [ - ]

When I realized that The Big Lebowski is The Big Sleep + bowling it blew my mind

AutumnCurtain 2021-08-18 20:17:22 +0000 UTC [ - ]

Definitely very inspired by. The whole Jackie Treehorn element in particular

2021-08-19 03:23:33 +0000 UTC [ - ]

zabzonk 2021-08-18 19:49:46 +0000 UTC [ - ]

I remember watching it (I'd seen it before) with an audience of stoner undergrads at St. Andrews University (not the brightest of people - I was at Edinburgh) and having to explain what exactly was going on, not helped by being somewhat stoned myself.

But do films (or any art) have to "make sense"? For example, I've never really worked out what the original "Solaris" is about, but it doesn't stop it from being both scary and moving.

themodelplumber 2021-08-18 20:11:43 +0000 UTC [ - ]

> But do films (or any art) have to "make sense"?

In a lot of ways I think it depends on your role, and the role of the film in your experience. If your role is to enjoy, then I hope the film was created with your preferred perceptive style in mind.

If your role is to write a paper on a film, maybe the make-sense films make that whole assignment much easier.

Solaris is a tremendous sensory experience on its own. You can pick up on a lot of the implications by interpreting the film's sensory output as metaphor. From facial expressions to positioning, texture, and sound / music.

A lot of people find that relaxing because the metaphor-extraction process is like a background process for them and it feeds their intuitive grasp of what's unfolding in the "big picture" of the film. They tend to take in and process much of life in the same way.

At the same time, not everybody enjoys that, and it will make some people downright uncomfortable. To be comfortable with a film, maybe they need to be able to piece it together logically for example, or at least be able to create by themselves an explanation/exposition of the contents where one didn't exist before.

Incidentally, I find the sensory-experiential/metaphorical approach (my go-to) much less fulfilling while watching films created by people who are more logical and detail-driven.

For example, I was rewatching _The Spanish Prisoner_ the other day and it was painfully clear that Mamet really wanted viewers to track his labyrinth of aphoristic details.

From a sensory-metaphor perspective there wasn't much to work with, and the film didn't seem to "make sense" from that intuitive standpoint.

But it's less painful IMO, and maybe even more pleasurable, when you know the kind of gifts and preferred perspectives the director is working with, and at least you're aware that you can make a decision to change your perceptive focus, or watch something else. That aspect makes sense to me, and helps me watch films that wouldn't otherwise make sense in this way or that one.

wrp 2021-08-19 01:18:29 +0000 UTC [ - ]

For anyone who had trouble understanding the plot of The Big Sleep, I would really like to hear what the difficult points were for you. It's one of my favorite movies and while the plot was convoluted, I never felt it was confusing. I see this as an opportunity to understand how some other people process narratives.

okareaman 2021-08-18 20:34:49 +0000 UTC [ - ]

Whew! I thought it was just me.

georgeecollins 2021-08-19 01:47:08 +0000 UTC [ - ]

If you have ever read the book-- and I recommend it-- the movie is very much like the book and the book makes sense. Partly because you are reading and you can take the details in. But it makes sense to me.

jedimastert 2021-08-19 00:09:14 +0000 UTC [ - ]

If you wanna talk about baffling movies (or just a fun story) check out The Terror

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=P3Qo-bntEZc

exabrial 2021-08-19 05:30:52 +0000 UTC [ - ]

I don't know... you probably haven't seen Sharknado. The real mystery is why does this film even exist

meijer 2021-08-18 21:33:06 +0000 UTC [ - ]

The young Lauren Bacall somehow looks very contemporary. No idea why...

Causality1 2021-08-18 18:52:41 +0000 UTC [ - ]

arguing that we should embrace ambiguity.

This is probably my most despised media trend of the 21st century, and that's saying something.

"You decide how it ended"

"You decide if she lived or died"

"Their motivations for doing that are up to you"

"It means whatever you want it to mean"

It's an excuse for lazy writing and for being too cowardly to make decisions.

ubermonkey 2021-08-18 19:20:38 +0000 UTC [ - ]

This is a deeply predictable (and pedestrian) take, and I 100% expected to see it here (as I expect to see it in any technical forum).

Highly technical people -- developers, engineers, etc -- are much more likely (at least in my experience) to react negatively to nonlinear storytelling. Further, the reaction is almost never "wow, not for me" but instead "THIS IS STUPID".

It's essentially the equivalent of walking through, say, a Mondrian exhibit and spouting "my kid can do that."

I do not know why this correlation exists. I could make guesses, tying the exacting nature of programming with an attraction to well-defined and explicit storytelling, but it is what it is.

THE BIG SLEEP is awesome. MULHOLLAND DRIVE is a tremendous (and award-winning) film. Ambiguity and vagueness are integral to art (and life!).

Years ago, I saw a play by Maria Irene Fornes called THE DANUBE. It's a bizarre, baffling, and beautiful piece, and you cannot really approach it like you would (say) a Marvel film expecting a traditional narrative. That's not what it's FOR. It's an experience. You have to let go of the desire to tick off plot points and characters like players in a football program and just experience the art on its own terms.

Creating something that includes, or even hinges on, ambiguity is challenging in the extreme. It's like when jazz musicians break the "rules" of music and melody; you can only break the rules and have it work when you have really mastered the underlying craft.

Exploring these kinds of challenging works can be incredibly rewarding. I encourage anyone reading this to do so. I long ago decided that if I only ever saw plays/read books/watched movies that I liked, I wasn't branching out enough. Find things that challenge you, and engage them on their own terms. Figure out why (for example) a host of professional movie critics loved Lynch's film when it left you cold and maybe even angry. What do they see that you don't?

thom 2021-08-18 21:52:24 +0000 UTC [ - ]

It's true! I awake each morning, enraged at the lack of rigour in my dreams. I turn to my wife to tell her I found it hard to suspend my disbelief. She transforms into a crab. Every night it gets worse.

ubermonkey 2021-08-19 00:01:35 +0000 UTC [ - ]

You. I like you.

yupper32 2021-08-18 20:11:31 +0000 UTC [ - ]

I really dislike this take.

Listen, it's fine if people enjoy nonlinear storytelling to make it an "experience" or a canvas with a few straight lines painted on it. But it is stupid, to follow your quote.

If you're using devices to make a story more difficult to follow, just for the sake of making it more difficult to follow for the "challenge", then that's stupid. I'm not claiming The Big Sleep is even in this category, because I haven't seen it, but plenty of films and books are.

If a canvas painted a solid color or with a few straight lines sells for millions, then that's stupid.

People enjoy "stupid" things all the time, and that's fine. There's nothing really wrong with that.

But the important part of my point is: only artists seem to think they're above it.

BoiledCabbage 2021-08-18 20:29:36 +0000 UTC [ - ]

> If you're using devices to make a story more difficult to follow, just for the sake of making it more difficult to follow for the "challenge", then that's stupid.

I don't know you, and even I know you disagree with your own statement. If not, the only thing you'd enjoy are media targeted at pre-schoolers and young children.

Anything targeting and age beyond that is made more difficult to follow, by design to make it more challenging than what a young child can grasp. That allowed the creator to explore deeper subjects.

Maybe you don't like things more challenging than your comfort zone, maybe you don't like more less linear depictions but do like them somewhat. Unless you can tell me you only consume media targeted at young children. Even you average Marvel film leaves plenty unsaid that needs to be infered, plenty unspoken to be felt. Non-linear narrative's to evoke a response in the viewe, false imagery, deception, feints and direct intuitional/emotional appeals.

Now those might be targeted at just where you like them, but thats admiring you like them and you agree with the approach and that it's not stupid. It's just when thing slave your preferred zone you begin to dislike them.

yupper32 2021-08-18 20:46:55 +0000 UTC [ - ]

> If not, the only thing you'd enjoy are media targeted at pre-schoolers and young children.

Oh come on, you know I wasn't talking about that kind of challenge.

There are two things:

1. Pieces that are more challenging to read/watch because the story is deeper and the challenging read is required to tell that story.

2. A piece that purposely makes it the story harder to follow, or is otherwise really difficult to follow, without adding much depth.

I was clearly talking about #2.

"In fact, the plot isn't impossible to follow – it's just extraordinarily difficult without a pen, a notepad and a pause button to hand." - The article

That's just stupid, and absolutely falls into #2. It's a crime drama.

Firadeoclus 2021-08-19 15:25:55 +0000 UTC [ - ]

The article makes the argument that the plot being hard to follow is in fact to the film's benefit. So unless you require "depth" to be plot depth, that doesn't match #2.

There are qualities other than "plot depth" that can be enhanced by ambiguity. Most people don't watch a film solely for the plot.

> It's a crime drama.

Is that prescriptive or descriptive?

ubermonkey 2021-08-18 23:57:56 +0000 UTC [ - ]

...and we all know that a genre film cannot also be challenging!

ubermonkey 2021-08-18 23:57:01 +0000 UTC [ - ]

You're mistaking the point of a (notionally) narrative medium. It doesn't HAVE to be linear storytelling.

Difficult texts are their own reward. Not everything has to spoon-feed you the plot. And enjoying things like a Lynch film doesn't mean you don't also enjoy highly conventional narratives like the aforementioned Marvel films.

>If a canvas painted a solid color or with a few straight lines sells for millions, then that's stupid.

Thank god we have you here to explain how the experts are all just plain wrong!

nwienert 2021-08-18 20:19:38 +0000 UTC [ - ]

Only you are claiming it’s only purpose is to make it more difficult to follow. There are a hundred valid reasons to have non-sequitur or ambiguity beyond the literal first-level surface analysis of just making it harder to understand.

nl 2021-08-18 22:54:56 +0000 UTC [ - ]

> Listen, it's fine if people enjoy nonlinear storytelling to make it an "experience" or a canvas with a few straight lines painted on it. But it is stupid, to follow your quote.

Why?

Mondrian painting are the most beautiful, calming pieces of art I know of (just look at Composition C (No. III) with Red, Yellow and Blue)

> If you're using devices to make a story more difficult to follow, just for the sake of making it more difficult to follow for the "challenge", then that's stupid.

Why?

Other things use devices to make them more challenging, and this is generally accepted as entertaining. Think harder levels in video games, rules in sports and games etc.

Why should stories be any different?

And it should be noted there are different levels to this. For example, Shakespeare tells one story on the surface, but if that is all you understand then you miss the glory of Shakespeare: his use of literary devices to tell other, hidden stories underneath what you think you are reading.

You seem to be using the word "stupid" to mean something like "non-obvious". That isn't what "stupid" means.

yupper32 2021-08-18 23:28:36 +0000 UTC [ - ]

> Mondrian painting are the most beautiful, calming pieces of art I know of (just look at Composition C (No. III) with Red, Yellow and Blue)

And it sold for $50 million, which is the stupid part here. The value is not in the piece itself. We're getting a bit distracted talking about paintings though.

> Think harder levels in video games, rules in sports and games etc.

The equivalent here would be a nearly impossible game. One that doesn't tell you the goal or the controls. And you randomly jump from level 1 to level 400 to level 33.

And then some silly pretentious person says "Well why does the game need to be linear?" "You know just like real life you have to figure out the controls!" "It's not actually meant to be played" "The challenge is figuring out what's going on"

That'd be stupid. Is there a niche of people that would like it? Probably.

> You seem to be using the word "stupid" to mean something like "non-obvious". That isn't what "stupid" means.

Stupid isn't a great word for this, I just used it to follow the person I was responding to.

"Extremely Pretentious", maybe? "Ridiculous"?

Causality1 2021-08-18 21:09:50 +0000 UTC [ - ]

There's a difference between ambiguity that's integrated into a story and ambiguity that's forced on the viewer. If the only thing that makes the movie ambiguous is that the final shot of the film isn't five minutes longer, then that is the type of film I hate. All Is Lost, The Grey, Save Yourselves, etc. If it's woven into the story from the beginning then I have no issue with it even if it may not be for me.

lmm 2021-08-19 03:37:49 +0000 UTC [ - ]

> Years ago, I saw a play by Maria Irene Fornes called THE DANUBE. It's a bizarre, baffling, and beautiful piece, and you cannot really approach it like you would (say) a Marvel film expecting a traditional narrative. That's not what it's FOR. It's an experience. You have to let go of the desire to tick off plot points and characters like players in a football program and just experience the art on its own terms.

> Exploring these kinds of challenging works can be incredibly rewarding. I encourage anyone reading this to do so. I long ago decided that if I only ever saw plays/read books/watched movies that I liked, I wasn't branching out enough. Find things that challenge you, and engage them on their own terms. Figure out why (for example) a host of professional movie critics loved Lynch's film when it left you cold and maybe even angry. What do they see that you don't?

I've had that experience. But I've had it in response to many phenomena, artificial and natural, not just critically respected artworks. If you approach other things on the same terms, you can find the same depth and reward - even when there's no there there.

> Creating something that includes, or even hinges on, ambiguity is challenging in the extreme. It's like when jazz musicians break the "rules" of music and melody; you can only break the rules and have it work when you have really mastered the underlying craft.

Citation needed. The effectiveness of GPT etc. suggest that poetic ambiguity may be the cheap trick that many of us have long thought it was; similarly I've seen a few cases where when a critic takes schizophrenic writings seriously and has much the same response as they do to respected artists. Has anyone actually done a double-blind trial comparing "good" and "bad" high-ambiguity works? (e.g. if you make those professional movie critics write their responses independently, without knowledge of the creators, and then compare those responses in an objective way, are they actually more correlated than chance?)

In a world where ambiguity didn't actually take a lot of artistic skill, and whether a high-ambiguity work was perceived as good or bad was more a function of art-community politics (e.g. who the creator is), what would you expect to be different?

ubermonkey 2021-08-19 12:38:29 +0000 UTC [ - ]

>Has anyone actually done a double-blind trial comparing "good" and "bad" high-ambiguity works?

Peak HN comment right here.

ryandvm 2021-08-18 19:31:09 +0000 UTC [ - ]

Programmers are generally unhappy with fuzziness or else they wouldn't be good programmers.

Joeboy 2021-08-18 19:56:28 +0000 UTC [ - ]

The enjoyment of figuring out what's going on in something like Mulholland Drive is rather similar to the enjoyment of debugging a complex bug. There's a frustration about it not immediately making sense, but there's also a pleasure to working it out.

Primer on the other hand, I think all you can really do is accept that there are big unexplained gaps in the story, and no amount of debugging is going to help. I personally take that as a fun hint of a larger story you're not seeing.

Never seen The Big Sleep so not sure which it's more like.

klyrs 2021-08-18 20:15:53 +0000 UTC [ - ]

You're describing a mediocre programmer. How do you choose between two algorithms: small-scale runtime, large-scale runtime, effort to write, effort to maintain, etc. Folks who can't cope with ambiguity will make a single-measure heuristic and pull the trigger immediately. It's great for their 'goal accomplished' statistic, which mediocre managers love, but that isn't what a good programmer would do.

TigeriusKirk 2021-08-19 02:18:46 +0000 UTC [ - ]

No one is more aware of the ambiguity of reality than someone whose job it is to explain it to a machine.

legerdemain 2021-08-18 21:58:12 +0000 UTC [ - ]

You must be one of those art snobs that liked Last Year at Marienbad!

ubermonkey 2021-08-19 00:00:38 +0000 UTC [ - ]

Never seen it, but always wanted to!

I'm not sure if you're being sarcastic or not, but I do want to point out that there definitely ARE a lot of people who immediately ascribe snobbery to folks who enjoy complex film, or art that requires thought, or wine above two-buck-chuck, or beer other than Miller Lite, or whatever.

It's a pretty silly thing to do (and one that I'm pretty sure you're doing only in jest, let me be clear).

legerdemain 2021-08-19 01:37:58 +0000 UTC [ - ]

It's a unique film. The best word for it is probably "hypnotic."

nonameiguess 2021-08-18 19:22:01 +0000 UTC [ - ]

It's interesting that you're citing a film made 60 years before the 21st century as an example of a 21st century trend. If anything, we seem to be moving in the opposite direction. Star Wars tried to explain where the force comes from. Christopher Nolan includes ridiculously detailed exposition dumps explaining everything (in spite of the ambiguous ending of Inception, everything about how the world worked was explained in meticulous detail). Even the canonical mystery box master himself, Damon Lindelof, took to heart all the backlash about the non-explanation ending of Lost. Nobody expected The Leftovers would ever give an explanation of what caused the Sudden Departure, but it did.

Heck, even David Lynch himself gave Laura Palmer an origin story in Twin Peaks: The Return! And even where he tried to preserve some mystery, the companion book by Mark Frost explained all of it.

psychomugs 2021-08-18 21:23:57 +0000 UTC [ - ]

I really root for Nolan; I very much liked Interstellar and enjoyed Tenet, but I think he's a clear example of someone who excelled so much at a commercial medium that the get-the-most-butts-in-seats factor necessitates the exposition diarrhea. There's just enough ambiguity for the common pseudo-news-site or vlogger to make "the ending of $FILMTITLE REALLY explained" content.

I think Lynch, who's learned to "rule over small films than serve large corporate ones" [1], probably bent over a little bit to get The Return made, but I still left with as many, if not more, questions as I had coming in.

[1] https://youtu.be/GopJ1x7vK2Q?t=567

stuart78 2021-08-18 19:18:01 +0000 UTC [ - ]

Like any other technique, leaving on a question can be a poor substitute for a more fitting ending, but when done properly it can reinforce a core theme within the work.

I am not a huge Inception fan, but I do think the cut at the end is an important part of the movie and a good example of effective ambiguity. It might scratch an itch to show the top falling of hold longer (to confirm he is in a dream), but what value comes from that resolution? Ending the film before the answer allows us to think about what we've seen earlier to try and answer it for ourselves. Even though the movie is over, the audience is left with a part to play as they leave the theater.

jerf 2021-08-18 19:01:19 +0000 UTC [ - ]

I feel similarly about the "twist" that "it was just a dream!" or something similar. It's already fiction. It's already made up. If I wanted to be stuck with just the stories & endings and such I could make up, I wouldn't be coming to you for a story. Not that there isn't room for ambiguity or complexity or anything, but, I already know what I think. I'm here precisely to find out what someone else thinks, and "well, what do you think?" is not very helpful.

Joeboy 2021-08-18 20:06:49 +0000 UTC [ - ]

"It was just a dream" only works if it suggests an actual ending. Eg. Brazil, Occurrence at Owl Creek Bridge. I don't think it's a viable twist in itself.

recursive 2021-08-18 21:13:47 +0000 UTC [ - ]

"Scenic Route" is another movie that does this. I like it.

earleybird 2021-08-18 23:09:56 +0000 UTC [ - ]

Which ending of Brazil?

Joeboy 2021-08-19 05:42:39 +0000 UTC [ - ]

Not the Sid Sheinberg "Love Conquers All" ending, if that's what you're getting at! I did watch it once, hard to believe that seemed like a good idea to anybody. Makes me wonder how many other great films we lost to that kind of studio butchery.

chowells 2021-08-18 19:36:41 +0000 UTC [ - ]

Exactly none of those are what ambiguity means. Ambiguity means that there are multiple resolutions that fit the existing evidence equally well.

That doesn't mean you get to decide. Ambiguity isn't choose your own adventure. You aren't having agency assigned to you in order to be the ultimate arbiter.

Ambiguity is the opposite. You are having agency withheld and being told by the author that you don't get to know.

It's an exercise in accepting that some things are unknowable and a challenge to you to find enjoyment in the story despite that.

Maybe you fail at that challenge. That's ok. Some people demand their art be unlike life, in that everything is always fully explained. But some people enjoy the construction, the ride, and the occasional recollection and reconsideration as time goes on. Ambiguous art is for for them.

But it's not a choose your own adventure story for anyone.

ghaff 2021-08-18 19:44:54 +0000 UTC [ - ]

It depends on the film. Without getting into a long rambling film analysis, there are certainly films (Inception is probably one), for example, in which the ending really is ambiguous and those assert otherwise are probably looking a little too deeply into discerning patterns in the tea leaves. There are others (probably including Total Recall) where there is a logical argument to be made as to why the film actually ended in a particular way.

wccrawford 2021-08-18 20:50:09 +0000 UTC [ - ]

I absolutely agree.

I love being made to think during a movie. I despise the movie ending without an ending.

It's incredibly easy to set up a scenario that could have multiple endings, but it's hard to see what the ending actually is before it happens.

It's a lot more entertaining and satisfying to view that scenario to the end and then have the tale end in a satisfying way.

Any idiot can come up with an ending to those tales. (And they do, because you'll find them posted on the internet afterwards, even if the movie already has one!) Only good writers can come up with good endings.

recursive 2021-08-18 21:15:37 +0000 UTC [ - ]

Sometimes I enjoy not being satisfied. On a few occasions, I've even not watched or read the end of a work, just to keep the possibilities open in my mind. Stories with big open questions have the ability to stick with me longer. Sometimes I like that.

leephillips 2021-08-18 19:05:09 +0000 UTC [ - ]

Ambiguity, the planting of multiple possible interpretations, has been a part of art forever. All art: literature, painting, etc. I would even say it’s an integral part of the best art.

dang 2021-08-18 19:17:11 +0000 UTC [ - ]

Yes, but not ambiguity about the basic facts of a story. That's a modern thing as far as I know. It's also a risky artistic move because it thwarts one of the main satisfactions in a story, the resolution of tension. If you're going to take that away, you'd better 'give' something that's equally satisfying, or else the reader/viewer will feel cheated.

technothrasher 2021-08-18 19:48:50 +0000 UTC [ - ]

> but not ambiguity about the basic facts of a story.

Really?? The "unreliably narrator" is a classic literary device that introduces ambiguity about the basic facts of many well loved stories. See "Wuthering Heights" as an almost 200 year old example, or "The Handmaid's Tale" as an extreme example of factual ambiguity from about 40 years ago.

dang 2021-08-18 20:56:48 +0000 UTC [ - ]

Unreliable narrator is something different. How do you know the narrator is unreliable in the first place? Because the story includes enough information to contradict them. The narrator is unreliable, but the author is not—you're relying on the author to subtly inform you that the narrator can't be trusted. That's a device which goes back much earlier, at least to the romantics. What we're talking about here is different. "Unreliable author" might be a good name for it though.

tsimionescu 2021-08-18 19:29:38 +0000 UTC [ - ]

I think this has become a modern trend especially in long-form art (television, book series), where it's been noticed that mystery plots are a good way of attracting and maintaining an audience with much less effort than crafting a satisfying narrative takes. That's how we get things like Lost, Battlestar Galactica, or the Game of Thrones TV show (perhaps the ASOIAF books as well, but time will tell), as two prime examples of captivating the audience without a clear plan.

leephillips 2021-08-18 21:15:45 +0000 UTC [ - ]

This may not be a counterexample, because they are probably classified as modern, but people carry on disputes about the basic elements of the plots of Nabokov’s novels. There is no general agreement about the actual plot of Transparent Things, and a lot of argument over what really happened in Lolita. In many of his works, such as Pale Fire and Bend Sinister, you have to think a lot just to apprehend what the plot was, and when you get it, it is as if the author has emerged at the end to consume the story from the beginning, in a glorious spiral of invention. The ambiguity itself is the main element of the plot.

Pardon my EDIT: The Prisoner, from 1967-8, was when ambiguity came to American TV, and with it Art (although there were precursors). To this day people argue about the plot of that one. People were so distressed at what they perceived, at the time, to be a lack of resolution (or their inability to deal with metaphor) that McGoohan had to go into hiding for a while. Really, the problem is that most people just don’t pay attention.

dang 2021-08-19 06:10:41 +0000 UTC [ - ]

Nabokov was most certainly modern and veering into postmodern at the end.

I was totally thinking about The Prisoner as an example when this came up today! It's clear that McGoohan had gotten bored with neatly constructed thrillers, and wanted to create an allegory and explore deeper themes. The great thing about that show is that every individual episode was a neatly constructed thriller in its own right, even though it always ended back at ambiguous-square-zero (why is he in the village? will he escape or won't he?).

At the same time, it's pretty clear that he had no idea how to actually end the thing, and he told Lew Grade that shortly before they filmed the ending. I think the fiasco of the unsatisfying ending was only partly that people wanted an explanation which McGoohan didn't want to give them because it wasn't the point of the series. It's also that he kind of winged the ending and it just wasn't that good, compared to the high level of the previous episodes. So in a way it did fail the audience, even if at the same time the audience was failing to 'get' the art.

Edit: this is fun: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=zfXqtDgvpL8

leephillips 2021-08-19 15:12:56 +0000 UTC [ - ]

That was fun.

EDIT: Although, for those who haven’t seen the show, the video contains a massive spoiler.

telside 2021-08-19 11:06:44 +0000 UTC [ - ]

I was so into art film in college because of the cheap weird art film video store down the street.

Having digested so much and having 30 years to think about, I just don't think the medium lends itself to art well. The medium lends itself to cohesive pedestrian narratives. Going beyond that mostly just ends up with bad art and nonsense.

Big Sleep has nothing on Warhol's Sleep. I mean I actually rented Warhol's Sleep before...

graposaymaname 2021-08-18 19:03:49 +0000 UTC [ - ]

Well it might be at times.

But there are movies/stories where it adds a whole different layer upon leaving that decision to the viewer.

For me the final scene in Inception is a really good example of using the above said ambiguity.

bazeblackwood 2021-08-18 19:05:20 +0000 UTC [ - ]

The art understander has logged on.

dang 2021-08-18 19:22:18 +0000 UTC [ - ]

Can you please not post unsubstantive/flamebait comments to HN, and especially not snarky ones? We're trying for something different here.

https://news.ycombinator.com/newsguidelines.html

nimih 2021-08-18 19:16:08 +0000 UTC [ - ]

Ah yes, the famously lazy and cowardly filmmakers Stanley Kubrick and David Lynch.

dang 2021-08-18 19:31:32 +0000 UTC [ - ]

Please don't post snarky comments or shallow dismissals. If you know more than other people, that's great, but then please share some of what you know so the rest of us can learn. That's more in the intended spirit of this site.

https://news.ycombinator.com/newsguidelines.html

https://hn.algolia.com/?dateRange=all&page=0&prefix=true&sor...

(Btw - re Lynch - I watched Blue Velvet after many years and was surprised at how satisfyingly the plot did line up. I'm not saying that's true of his other work. But I had had the impression that BV was in the fashionably-ambiguous style and when I saw it again I realized I got that wrong.)

ratww 2021-08-18 19:27:37 +0000 UTC [ - ]

I don’t think those two are a good example of the trend. Especially Lynch. While he leaves a lot of small details for interpretation, he does it from the beginning and doesn’t ask the viewers to decide between a story-changing yes/no answer like Inception. It’s like Hitchcock’s McGuffin: would be fun to know but it doesn’t detract from the story.

Even Twin Peaks second season famous cliffhanger leaves no doubt about what happened to Bob and Agent Cooper.

nimih 2021-08-18 21:41:59 +0000 UTC [ - ]

Admittedly, Kubrick is the better example here than Lynch: 2001 is a stellar example of both "Their motivations for doing that are up to you" (w/r/t HAL's behavior) and "It means whatever you want it to mean" (Kubrick quite famously refused to provide any sort of guidance whatsoever as to how it should be interpreted)

For Lynch, Mulholland Drive was on my mind--probably since it was mentioned in the article--as the ending (and, honestly, the narrative structure as a whole) requires the viewer to bring quite a lot of assuming and surmising to the table in order to arrive at something coherent. Perhaps the OP meant to purposefully exclude explicitly surreal and abstract works from their critique, but that's certainly not the tone I got from their post.

Perhaps a better counter example could've been Kelly Reichardt's filmography, as she is also quite clearly a meticulous and thoughtful filmmaker (I remember hearing a profile of her on some NPR show a number of years ago that talked about the amount of time she spent getting even the ambient bird songs in Certain Women accurate, or reading her comments about how she would've filmed First Cow in a different aspect ratio if she had known COVID was going to keep it from being widely seen in theaters), but typically cuts off the narrative abruptly, leaving plenty of loose ends dangling: Meek's Cutoff and First Cow are probably the best examples.

As an aside, I feel like the point of Nolan leaving the ending of Inception with an open-ended yes-no question is intended to highlight that, from the character's perspective, the answer no longer matters. I dislike the film for other reasons, and don't particularly like Nolan's screenplays in general, but that particular choice seems pretty reasonable in the broader narrative context of the film.