Cut to Black
Monday, June 11th, 2007Ronald Moore at the BSG Blog comments on the Saprano’s finale kerfluffle:
For weeks, the speculation has centered around a simplistic black and white question for a show that revelled in never providing monochromatic answers: would Tony live or die? The prosaic nature of the question and its anticipated answer was itself was the most disappointing thing about the lead-up to the finale. Either Tony was going to get whacked, or he wouldn’t. “The Sopranos” would end with either the bitter little pill of the “bad” guy finally getting what he’s got coming or with the vaguely false relief of family affirmed and life goes on.
Instead, Chase managed to do the unthinkable, the unbelievable and the unprecedented: he yanked us out of their lives without any resolution whatsoever. We were torn away from Tony, Carmella, AJ, Meadow, Paulie, Sil and the all the rest without any idea what happens to them tomorrow or even later that same evening. In real life, when you lose contact with someone, you seldom if ever have the satisfaction of knowing how the myriad threads of their lives resolved themselves. They are removed from your circle of knowledge and yet their lives go on unbeknownst to you in ways you can only imagine. The Sopranos are gone from our lives, but their lives go on without resolution, much like ours. None of us have tidy, revelatory endings that are the culmination of our “story arcs” and neither will they.
Having never been a Saprano’s fan, I don’t have the emotional involvement in the finale that some people have. But I am invested in the outcome of Battlestar Galactica, because for us Sci-fi nerds, it’s our Saparano’s and I’m curious as to how Ronald Moore will end the series. Also, as a writer, I’m interested in how other writers handle the little technical details that come with storytelling. Endings are hard and deciding at what point to fade out, walk into the sunset or just cut to black is just as important as that first sentence or opening scene. I’m also a big fan of ambiguity and ambiguous endings. Sometimes the horse throws a shoe, the hero and heroine loose interest in one another, and neither the empire nor the rebellion wins, they just keep on fighting. That’s life and art should reflect life whenever possible.
