In “ The Film Snob’s Dictionary ,” writers David Kamp and Lawrence Levi cheekily chart out the differences between Movies and Films (“It’s a Movie if it’s black-and-white because it’s old. It’s a Film if it’s black-and-white because it’s Jarmuschy.”) They might have added another definition: It’s a Movie if it ends. It’s a Film if it stops. ¶The ambiguous ending has long been one of the hallmarks of the classic art-house film, as reliable a convention of independent filmmaking as guns are to Westerns or fireballs are to action spectacles. (Granted, once in a while a mainstream blockbuster will leave audiences hanging: Was Leonardo DiCaprio still dreaming at the end of “ Inception ”?) ¶This year alone, filmgoers have been provoked (or infuriated, depending on their need for closure) by several non-ending endings: In Kelly Reichardt’s “Meek’s Cutoff,” the band of 19th-century settlers whose trek she methodically follows are on the verge of deciding which path to take just as the movie ends. In “Take Shelter,” Jeff Nichols’s insinuatingly creepy Read full article > >

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‘Martha Marcy May Marlene’ and the art of the ambiguous movie ending