For you Murnau people

[laughingrat]

OK, this is kind of a weird question. At the end of "The Last Laugh," there's a title card that comes up saying, effectively, that Murnau was forced by convention to add a happy ending. (It's been a while since I saw the movie, so I remembered it as saying the studio forced him into it--but this review says otherwise.) The title card sounds really cynical, which would be understandable if Murnau really did feel forced to add a false ending, and Roger Ebert, in the link above, refers to the act as "dimwitted," as if it were a crummy artistic choice.

Did Murnau really feel this way, though? Can anyone who's a little more familiar with the guy himself, or with how he worked, tell me what they think? My personal response as a viewer was that the happy ending was a really masterful stroke, one that was a deliberate and cunning choice. The happy ending is so patently impossible that it makes the "real" ending, the one that would have occurred in real life, that much sadder. When I watched it, it was like there were two stories running in my head at the same time--one where the old man died alone and miserable, and one where he rather improbably ended up just fine. The difference between the two was staggering.

Anyway, I've been wondering about this one for a while and wanted to see if anyone had some info or just a point of view about the movie and its ending.

Comments

[laughingrat]

Ohhh yeah, Powell and Pressburger, of course. :-D And, like...Thelma Schoonmaker and Martin Scorsese, which I know they don't work as equal partners exactly, but she's his editor, right? IMDb says she's done every film of his since "Raging Bull," so yeah, that's a powerful relationship right there.

I think it might be about letting other people keep you honest, or something. I'm not sure.

[my_daroga]

Or sometimes it's something ineffable. I mean, I don't think Garfunkel contributed much to the songwriting, but I do know that I like Paul Simon's work pre-solo career much better. Did that have anything to do with Garfunkel? Or is it just coincidence, getting older, etc?

[laughingrat]

That makes me wonder about musicians I like who just don't do so great anymore (in my opinion, not necessarily in others'). What about Jethro Tull? Did they just run out of steam? Cos Ian Anderson wasn't the only creative force in that group.

Of course, then you have Bob Dylan, who as far as I'm concerned exemplifies the whole "artist in a bubble" thing. Although I have to say a lot of folks seem to like his current stuff.

As you said earlier, we're not really saying anything in the sense that we're coming to firm conclusions, but I do think these sorts of discussions are great for working out a better, if also fuzzy, understanding of how people work. :-D Isn't that part of why we like movies anyway?

[my_daroga]

With anything creative, I think you have to admit that you'll never truly uncover all the motives, or the correct concoction of them. Because on top of that creative input, you've got personal issues and relationships and interests waxing and waning.

Oh, I do think this is great fun! Thanks for creating the community.