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100 Things #3
100 Things: 100 favorite scenes from anything (books, movies, TV, fanfic, etc)
Day 3: The ending of The Sixth Sense
I suspect this is probably one of those "you had to be there" things (like watching The Matrix when it first came out, rather than later when the bullet-time f/x were no longer cool and exciting, but a joke that was appearing in everything from cartoons to commercials). And the end of The Sixth Sense has become a sort of cultural icon of a twist ending, which means that even if you don't know how it ends, you already know that there is something that you need to watch for.
But it so happens that I saw it at exactly the right time. One of my co-workers went to see it the week it opened, and he came into work the next day and said, "![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png)
sholio, you have to see this movie. YOU WILL LOVE IT. Do not let anyone tell you anything about the movie. Do not watch trailers. Just go see it." So I went to see it without the foggiest clue of what it was about in any way, except it had Bruce Willis and it was some sort of suspense/horror thing.
I have always liked having a story surprise me, and I was really into surprise!twist!endings at that time, a lot more than I am now. The Usual Suspects was another movie I really loved around the same time, and I was watching a lot of horror and suspense that tended to have unexpected endings. I still enjoy being surprised, I just think I've gotten a whole lot harder to surprise, because I've seen so much twist-ending stuff and have gotten so good at anticipating where it's going. (Learning the mechanics of writing has also contributed to this. Connie Willis once said in the introduction to one of her collections of short stories that the price of learning to write twist endings herself is that she can no longer be surprised by anything.)
But 1999-era me was still unjaded, plus I had no idea that there was any kind of twist to the movie at all, so I wasn't expecting it. And the last 2 minutes of the movie hit me like a ton of bricks. I still remember the chills and the gasping surprise as it all fell into place. A couple days later, I went back to see the movie again because I wanted to see it from the beginning, knowing how it ended, to see how the clues had been laid out. (I ultimately ended up watching it 3 times in the theater, which is something that I NEVER do. It's hard enough to get me to go out to a movie once, let alone multiple times!) And rewatching it impressed me even more, because they laid the groundwork for the ending really really well. Even at the time, that particular twist wasn't a new thing (in fact, it was already sort of a cliche), but the movie did such a fantastic job of obfuscating it in a ton of little ways -- by making it appear that the kid (not the narrator) is the main issue; by supplying subtly plausible reasons for all of the little ways in which Bruce Willis's behavior and his relationship with his wife is slightly "off" ... while still planting all of the necessary clues that will make you look back from the end of the movie and go OH.
The very best twist endings are the ones you don't see coming at all, but feel completely inevitable once they get there. I absolutely love that mental shuffling feeling of the whole plot rearranging itself in your head as the pieces snap into place. And this movie did that for me to an extent that very few other things have done before or since.
Day 3: The ending of The Sixth Sense
I suspect this is probably one of those "you had to be there" things (like watching The Matrix when it first came out, rather than later when the bullet-time f/x were no longer cool and exciting, but a joke that was appearing in everything from cartoons to commercials). And the end of The Sixth Sense has become a sort of cultural icon of a twist ending, which means that even if you don't know how it ends, you already know that there is something that you need to watch for.
But it so happens that I saw it at exactly the right time. One of my co-workers went to see it the week it opened, and he came into work the next day and said, "
sholio, you have to see this movie. YOU WILL LOVE IT. Do not let anyone tell you anything about the movie. Do not watch trailers. Just go see it." So I went to see it without the foggiest clue of what it was about in any way, except it had Bruce Willis and it was some sort of suspense/horror thing.I have always liked having a story surprise me, and I was really into surprise!twist!endings at that time, a lot more than I am now. The Usual Suspects was another movie I really loved around the same time, and I was watching a lot of horror and suspense that tended to have unexpected endings. I still enjoy being surprised, I just think I've gotten a whole lot harder to surprise, because I've seen so much twist-ending stuff and have gotten so good at anticipating where it's going. (Learning the mechanics of writing has also contributed to this. Connie Willis once said in the introduction to one of her collections of short stories that the price of learning to write twist endings herself is that she can no longer be surprised by anything.)
But 1999-era me was still unjaded, plus I had no idea that there was any kind of twist to the movie at all, so I wasn't expecting it. And the last 2 minutes of the movie hit me like a ton of bricks. I still remember the chills and the gasping surprise as it all fell into place. A couple days later, I went back to see the movie again because I wanted to see it from the beginning, knowing how it ended, to see how the clues had been laid out. (I ultimately ended up watching it 3 times in the theater, which is something that I NEVER do. It's hard enough to get me to go out to a movie once, let alone multiple times!) And rewatching it impressed me even more, because they laid the groundwork for the ending really really well. Even at the time, that particular twist wasn't a new thing (in fact, it was already sort of a cliche), but the movie did such a fantastic job of obfuscating it in a ton of little ways -- by making it appear that the kid (not the narrator) is the main issue; by supplying subtly plausible reasons for all of the little ways in which Bruce Willis's behavior and his relationship with his wife is slightly "off" ... while still planting all of the necessary clues that will make you look back from the end of the movie and go OH.
The very best twist endings are the ones you don't see coming at all, but feel completely inevitable once they get there. I absolutely love that mental shuffling feeling of the whole plot rearranging itself in your head as the pieces snap into place. And this movie did that for me to an extent that very few other things have done before or since.
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