Most GRIM endings in film

Chinatoon is superb, dinnae get me wrong, and Ah think Jack’s nose bandage deserves allotae credit fer that but it wiz more sad than grim in the end.

The thread title is most GRIM endings in film and hoo many things are grimmer than being burnt tae death whilst Christopher Lee in a skirt leads an army o’ dancing, singing hippies celebrating yer demise. Noo that’s GRIM in ma book.

 

That's the manner in which I want to depart this Earth...

 

I'd say it's the second best movie of the 70s, behind only GF 1.

 

Bad Lieutenant (the original with Harvey Kietel) has a grim ending.

There Will Be Blood has a grim ending, but a very satisfying one. It was quite great to see DDL slaughter Paul Dano's incredibly unlikeable character.

 

The Wicker Man is a great movie.

 

Avengers: Infinity War
Don't ask why yet...

 

Godfather 2 was rather grim as well.

 

GOD DAMMIT

 

LOL

 

Godfather ii. Surprised nobody's mentioned it

a.i, elephant man and the conversation come to mind too

 

I didn't find Godfather 2 all that grim to be honest, although I understand the argument. Fuck Fredo! Glad he got wacked. He was an idiot and a liability. Sure you kinda felt for Michael after the fact when he was reminiscing on life with his brother and you could see that he was tortured about his decision. Still I didn't find it grim per se.

 

Lol he murdered his own brother after conning him into a false sense of security... that's absolutely grim

 

"You know who else murdered his own brother? SCAR! When he killed Mufasa!" - Sly

 

I felt Fredo deserved it, so for me it was justified. Objectively it was grim, for the reasons you mentioned sure , but for me it was a good ending. Fredo’s Stupidity and disloyalty had put The lives of Michael and his family in jeopardy. I’d have killed his stupid easily influenced naive disloyal big liability ass as well.

 

I think you might've missed the thematic arc of those movies, man

 

Just a tad

 

Enlighten me

I can assure you that haven’t missed anything.

 

An idiotic juvenile poster here once suggested that Michael Corleone was a villain. I disagree completely. Anti-hero at best (worst). When heading a powerful mafia family one must make tough choices. In the first film, killing Carlo and Tessio was necessary. In the second film, killing Fredo was necessary. Sure, Michael was surrounded by death and destruction with even family members and close friends left in his wake, but st the end of the day these were choices he had to make in order to preserve the family. It left him a broken man...but there aren’t easy choices in war.

 

Michael is a villain (just not in the comic book way you're thinking)

the gradual corruption and consumption of his soul is the key focus of the films..... from straight arrow determined to make his own way and avoid the sins of his father and shun his way of life to a conflicted young man consumed with vengeance on behalf of the father all the way to a ruthless and cold blooded killer well in excess of the father

The murder of Fredo is the moment in which Michael's soul is finally and completely consumed. The tragedy, the irony of the saga is that Michael - smart and self-sufficient, independent minded actually winds up being perfect for the mob while Fredo - dutiful and kindly but far too naive for such a world would've made a terrific civilian.

The murder of Fredo is supposed to strike the viewer as shocking and cruel and it is ultimately the moment in which Michael is no longer redeemable without divine intervention

 

Which is of course the focus of Part III... Michael seeks redemption for his ultimate sin... but he pays a terrible price (his daughter... and had a proper actress played her, the film probably would've been held in much greater esteem... still there's no denying that Pacino's wail of despair is superbly done... it's hard to imagine a more realistic interpretation of a father seeing his daughter die in his arms consumed with the weight of decades of guilt)

 

For me...

The evolution of Michael's character wasn't one of corruption of his soul, rather it was evolving into having the strength to make the tough choices that a mob boss has to.

Again, killing Fredo was necessary as a chain is only as strong as its weakest link. Fredo proved to be a liability..and the chain was weak because of him. The enemy would always know that the way to bring down the Corleone family is to do it through Fredo. As such a guy like Fredo had to be eliminated. Secondly, what added to Fredo's stupidity as a liability was the fact that he was jealous of Michael and felt passed over or stepped over as Michael's younger brother. This resentment coupled with his stupidity made him make fatal choices and be manipulated easily. Either way, brother or not, such a weak link needed to be eliminated. Michael evolved from someone who didn't have the temperament for the family business to being the perfect person to run the family business. I saw it as a positive evolution actually.

I am not like most viewers I guess but I didn't see it as shocking or cruel at all. IMO, it had to be done. It was a ruthless act but with logical motivations (revenge for being betrayed, and security for the family). People are clouded by the emotion that this was his brother but I think we have to detach ourselves from that. Proponents of the bombing of Hiroshima have decided to detach themselves from the loss of life of thousands of innocents and look at the greater good and we have to do the same here.

 

Part 3 doesn't exist as far as I am concerned.

 

I'd say the main theme is the moral compromises made when your ultimate moral value is family. Every choice of both Vito and Michael was to preserve or benefit their family yet michael's, in conjunction with things outwith his control, lead not only to his total moral degradation (despite starting his journey more virtuous) but to the total disintegration of the very family that degradation was in aid of; the gunshot on the boat being its literal and metaphorical death knell. Michael on the shore, congnizant of all of that, his mind traversing between the beginning of the journey at the family dinner table and the knowledge he's gonna die alone. Proper bleak.

 

Bleak from his perspective but as a viewer I was satisfied. This is the life of a family boss and most of the choices he made were justified due to him having to deal with betrayal and weakness. War doesn't have a happy ending and being a crime family is being in continual war. Vito understood this and Michael learned this in his journey.

 

Considering that it confirms that Coppola's view of the character and mirrors what I've just described, you might want to give all three films a rewatch

You're not supposed to see Michael as a man evolving and growing stronger... he's not meant to be heroic, but rather the fulcrum of repeatedly tragic events including but not limited to the death of one wife, the complete disintegration of his other marriage, the death of his brother and eventually the death of his daughter...

 

The Godfather saga is a tragedy

 

This is all biblical stuff... sins of the father (Vito) visited upon his sons and daughter and then in turn on their children

 

Agreed, but I see Michael as one of the victims of this tragedy but not the cause of it. He had to be cold and calculated or suffer the same fate as Santino he would have. He had Vito's complete confidence and proved that this confidence was justified. However due to some events outside of his control he had to make the hard choices which eventually lead to the destruction of the family.

 

word.

No disagreement here.

 

This is a good discussion by the way. It's good to converse with intelligent people. If a certain other poster had been in this topic I'd be reading stuff like "But does Vito have Cars" or some shit like that by now.