“Forget it, Jake. It’s Chinatown.”
While those five words that close the movie Chinatown have been widely recognized as one of the great closing lines in motion picture history, to me the power of that final scene underscores the challenge facing authors of works of fiction, where fashioning a compelling closing line is a critical element of a successful novel or short story.
The book critic Ron Charles of the Washington Post explains the importance of a great closing line:
For the Olympic gymnast, success comes down to how well she sticks the landing. A flubbed dismount sullies even the most awe-inspiring routine.
Stock-still at their desks, novelists face a similar demand for a perfectly choreographed last move. We follow them across hundreds of thousands of words, but the final line can make or break a book. It determines if parting is such sweet sorrow or a thudding disappointment.
I’ve been doing research on great closing lines in literature–and there are plenty of contenders–but my efforts have only underscored, at least from a writer’s perspective, the unfair advantage Hollywood holds here.
Take those last five words in Chinatown. They don’t do much on paper, but you will be blown away by the transformative effect that the cinematography, acting, drama, and music have on that closing set piece. Jake Gittes, the private detective played by Jack Nicholson, has been pursuing a trail of corruption and murder that all comes to a climax in the Chinatown section of Los Angeles. In that final scene, Evelyn Mulray (Faye Dunaway) is shot and killed in the car she was fleeing in with her daughter Katherine, who is screaming as she is lifted from the car and taken away by her evil father (played by John Huston). Evelyn had wanted to eliminate her father from their lives, since Evelyn’s daughter is the result of Evelyn having been forced to have sex with her father. Gittes had tried to save them both. Now, in the aftermath of the fatal shooting, all he can do is stare at the carnage in disbelief, prompting one of his associates to pull him away from the bloody scene and utter those iconic final words. Now watch and experience the true power of those five words in the movie: the final scene.
Another example is The Wizard of Oz:
The 1939 motion picture starring Judy Garland as the young Dorothy Gale is based on the L. Frank Baum novel, The Wonderful Wizard of Oz, published in 1900. The novel and the movie both end with the Good Witch Glinda magically sending Dorothy back to Kansas from the Land of Oz.
Here is how Baum ended his novel:
Aunt Em had just come out of the house to water the cabbages when she looked up and saw Dorothy running toward her.
“My darling child!” she cried, folding the little girl in her arms and covering her face with kisses. “Where in the world did you come from?”
“From the Land of Oz,” said Dorothy gravely. “And here is Toto, too. And oh, Aunt Em! I’m so glad to be at home again!”
But then there is the movie version.
It ends with Dorothy uttering the movie’s iconic final words, which the screenwriters had edited slightly from the novel’s version: “Oh, Auntie Em, there’s no place like home.” But once again, as powerful as those words may appear on paper, look what Hollywood can do with them on film.
And while I still have been able to find–and will discuss at another time–several of the greatest closing lines in literature, Hollywood is tough to beat. The best evidence of that is this wonderful closing line from one of the greatest films in motion picture history. Enjoy!