For real, actually. If you have not seen Psycho, The Wicker Man, Planet of the Apes, The Crying Game, The Sixth Sense, The Village, Citizen Kane or The Empire Strikes Back, stop reading, because I’m about the spoil all of them (which is entirely against the point of this article. Ironic, no?).
Several years ago, I had a pleasure I never thought I would have. I sat in a room and watched one of my favorite films, Psycho, with a group of people who had never seen the film. Not only that, they did not know the ending. They knew, at most, the shower sequence, but some were unaware of the context of that excellent piece of filmmaking. It was an incredible moment when the killer was revealed; a moment of shock and terror, and for me, exhileration. For when I first saw Psycho, I already knew the end. And as shocking as the film can be, I nonetheless had felt somewhat cheated that I was already aware of the conclusion. I was pleased that I had not gone and spoiled it for all of my fellow viewers by assuming that they knew how it ended.
Some films are so ingrained in our culture that we automatically assume that everyone in the Western world knows the twist. Darth Vader is Luke’s father. That girl in The Crying Game is a dude. The planet of the apes is Earth. Norman Bates is his own mother. Bruce Willis is dead. Soylent Green is people. Rosebud is a sled. And so on and so on. But every once in awhile, you run into someone who does not know that ending, the twist, the conclusion.
I had that experience with The Wicker Man – the original 1973 British film, not the ‘Nic Cage gets drowned in bees’ one. I knew next to nothing about it when I rented it my last year at St. Andrews. I only knew that it was supposed to be a great British horror film. So when I was presented with a very nice story about a nice island where everyone seems all paganish and happy, I felt slightly surprised. Surely this is not the movie that everyone talked about as arguably the greatest British horror pictures ever made? Sure, there’s a sense of danger and foreboding, but it seems to all come from the nasty cop who really needs to loosen up, not those lovely natives. And then … the last ten minutes happened. It shocked me more than A Clockwork Orange, which I expected to be dark and weird. Because the fact was that I liked these people. Hell, I wanted to be a part of that community! And then they burnt the Wicker Man.
What was nice about the experience with Psycho and with The Wicker Man was the sense of seeing something totally fresh, almost the way it was seen in 1960 or 1973. The brilliance of both those films really does not lie in the twists. In fact, I have found Psycho more enjoyable every time I watch it. Still, there’s pleasure in the twist ending, particularly when it seems to respect the feelings of the audience. What I despise about most of M. Night Shyamalan’s films is that the film seems to think it’s smarter than the audience and so the twist, when it comes, does not produce an ‘aha!’ moment or nervous laughter, or shock, but annoyance. Ten minutes into The Village, I thought I had it figured out, but the conclusion was so stupid that I believed it could not possibly end that way. Then it did and I felt like I had been fooled, that something had been put over on me. Far from being pleased or shocked, I was angry. No one wants to leave a movie with the sense that the director was having you on for the majority of the film.
So I think it’s time to take a step back and not let our assumptions about certain cultural moments (like Star Wars) spoil it for others. I mean, wouldn’t it be wonderful to watch The Empire Strikes Back for the first time and not know that Darth Vader is Luke’s father? To get to have that experience that the first viewers had? To come out of the cinema laughing, or babbling on about how you knew it all the time (when, of course, you didn’t?) There’s so much joy to be had from not having it all spoiled.
Wayne (6)
Mette (4)
Nic Cage (4)
Sebastian (4)
steve (4)
John (3)
Nick (3)
Chip Lary (2)
Dan (2)
Bravo and touche! Viewing great film through the eyes of others is such wondrous and rare gift that I personally set it up and revel in it at any opportunity since it is the direct connection between us and why these films are great …
revelation and epiphany, there is nothing better.
I did a write-up similar to this in my blog awhile ago, but the general tone was this: How nice would it be if we, as a society, agreed to never discuss plot twists in public, so they are never spoiled for anyone else? (big finger pointed at the press and those buffoons in marketing: ‘with a shocking twist ending that will have you gasping for air!’) I’ve only been able to have that moment of genuine shock and awe with The Sixth Sense because I saw it in theaters opening weekend, before the masses could spoil the ending for me. I miss that feeling.
I’m with you, Wes. It drives me crazy when people say “oh, wait for the twist!” because just KNOWING there’s a twist ruins it b/c it colors my experience of the film.
There are so many movies that I wish I could watch again blind, like Fight Club or The Usual Suspects. Obviously, The Wicker Man is another.
Bruce Wayne is Batman. Sorry.
Yep. A good twist is something special, something unlike anything else. And when you discover that the director has left you bread crumbs throughout the film so that you could have unraveled it had you been paying closer attention, it’s even better.
Sadly, losing the mystery is one of the consequences of the internet.
Last week (podcast plug!) I watched Parents for a guest appearance on The Lair of the Unwanted. It’s an odd duck of a film that works really well with a shock reveal, but the reveal is spoiled in the NetFlix write up. How depressing.
Twitter: agracru
February 29, 2012 8:26 am
This year, I’ve had the joyful experience of seeing Kill List and The Grey blind, and I think I’m better off for it. There’s a reason they’re already holding onto spots in my top 15 for the year; largely it’s just due to enormous quality in filmmaking and performance, but the endings that they lead to are magnificent in their own fashions. Nothing beats a good sucker punch or emotionally cathartic climax that you didn’t quite see coming.
With that said, I think it’s possible to enjoy a movie even having absorbed spoilers. Seeing a movie blind is always best, of course, but I think the circumstances where foreknowledge of a film’s resolution completely kills the film are rare. (Though I’d identify The Wicker Man as one such case, along with Oldboy.)
Twitter: NeverTooEarlyMP
February 29, 2012 9:50 am
Great post. I usually try not to completely give away an ending, and at least give those spoiler comments when I am getting “too close”.
But I do wonder if there is a certain point after which it is up to the viewer (or soon to be viewer) to take responsibility if they don’t want to be spoiled. I do think it gets harder though when something seeps into the general culture.
Twitter: manilovefilms
March 1, 2012 1:58 pm
It would be ideal if not only did said “BIG” spoilers not get spoiled, regardless of how long since the release date, but we could avoid spoiling the fact that there is such a spoiler to be had (even in lesser-known films), but sadly, I don’t think our current pop culture landscape is set up for that. With so many things chomped down to bite-sized reactions, the presence of such things might be the ONLY thing that we know about a film going in. It’s a shame, but I don’t see it changing any time soon.
Couldn’t agree more. I also knew the twist in Psycho when I first saw it, and even though it remains one of my favorite films, I always wish I’d had the experience of seeing it while knowing absolutely nothing about it.
Planet of the Apes is one where I didn’t know the ending at all, and it was awesome. I spent the whole movie speculating on how this other planet had evolved differently from ours and had all these hypotheses, but I never guessed the twist.
And I like that you spin this towards older films as well – a lot of times I hear people say things like “oh, we don’t need spoiler warnings on this, it’s like sixty years old.” You almost need them even MORE on that – the chances of someone these days having seen Psycho or Planet of the Apes are far lower than them having seen The Sixth Sense or The Usual Suspects, and the delicious surprises in those films ought to be held with just as high a regard. When speaking about non die-hard film buffs, even the cultural osmosis regarding twists in a lot of older films is waning significantly.