So . . . it's been a little more than a week since the series finale of Lost, and now seems as good a time as any to comment on it. It's not so much going to be about Lost itself as our search for answers and explanations in general.
This post will contain spoilers, but not for Lost (too soon). I'll mention plot points or endings of The Exorcist, Star Wars, the Sopranos, and a short student film I made in 1995. Because none of these are current and pretty much anyone who wants to see these already has, I have no guilt about giving things away. Even for the student film, although I'm sure there is an audience clamouring for an unspoiled screening.
There has already been a glut of commentary not only on the episode itself but the decision on the part of the writer-producers to not give answers to the myriad questions that arose during the show's run (see http://www.collegehumor.com/video:1936291 for a funny recap of these questions). As I wrote in my previous post, throughout the show I was concocting, reading, and propounding theories as to what was going on. Those in my circle who watched the show had to endure my insufferable theorizing (and for that I am grateful), but for me it was part of the overall experience of watching the show. In the end, a lot of this was unanswered, and surprisingly (to me), I didn't care. I enjoyed the series and the finale, thought the end was fitting, and was ok that a) a lot of what was included in the show ultimately didn't matter and b) what did matter was not explained.
In fact, I prefered what was not explained to what was. Midway through the last season the writers started providing 'answers,' and it was invariably disappointing, for two reasons. The first is that the manner in which these answers were presented was very direct and not good storytelling - they simply had a character provide an explanation for something. It was almost as if the writers were saying - hey, you want answers, ok, here's an answer, now stop bothering me.
The second reason the answers were disappointing is that they constrained the story. Lost is a fantasy/sci-fi series, and developed a rich mythology; to me, though, the mythology was richest in mystery and became pedestrian when explained. They gave a (half-assed) explanation for what made the island special, and it was profoundly underwhelming. I was fine with the explanation that 'the island is special' without further elaboration. It's like in the more recent Star Wars trilogy, where they explain that The Force exists because of tiny entities called midichlorians. This explanation is unnecessary (the Force can just be, without further explanation) and cheapens the concept. The specificity given to these otherworldly concepts reduces them.
It is the interpretation and thought that individuals put into shows and entertainments like these that matters. For example, the finale of the Sopranos was largely panned because it simply cut to black rather than wrap up what 'happened.' I have since come to believe that the ending represents Tony's sudden death by gunshot (thanks to an extremely lengthly post by TV critic Alan Sepinwall), but at the time I just thought, ok, we watched this character for a while and now we're not watching him anymore. Others thought it was a big eff-you from the creator of the show, or a coded message of some kind, or a joke. But the role of the writer is not to just provide answers, but rather make you think (in this case, about what the hell happened).
Second example: The Exorcist. The director William Friedkin has said that the ending, in which Father Damien offers himself as host for the demon/Devil and then kills himself by jumping out a window, was intended to be optimistic; though Damien dies, he saves Linda Blair (so she could go on to soft-porn, go figure) and defeats the Devil. He was surprised to learn that many people saw the ending as the Devil winning. His take is that people leave the film with what they bring in; if you are optimistic about the world, the ending is optimistic. If not, the ending is depressing.
Last example: a student film I made in 1995. I would like to claim it was a social experiment, but really it was an exercise in laziness that became a social experiment. Year two of film school focused on documentaries, a topic I had little interest in. At the time I had hundreds of photos and posters on the walls of my apartment (all having to do with movies, all cut from movie magazines) so I just filmed a few seconds of a bunch of different pictures. I then 'edited' the film by randomly putting clips together (in some cases really randomly - I cut bits of film, threw them in the air, and blindly spliced them together based on where they landed, a strategy that I stole from how a section of the background music in the Beatles' Being for the Benefit of Mr. Kite was edited).
Up to this point, I had never really impressed my film profs (one film I made about spontaneous cannibalism entertained some of my fellow students, but that was about it) but this one wowed. They thought it was provacative, interesting, and lively. Prof and student alike had theory as to what the film meant, what the message was. The message really was that I couldn't be bothered to put effort into the assignment, but no one theorized this. They got something out of the film because they wanted to, because adding meaning is what we do. I suspect a lot of art is like this - the interpretation of the art reflects more about the audience than the artist.
(A side effect of this incident is that for the rest of second year I made all of my documentary projects in this style, more or less. The others were not nearly as well-received.)
Back to Lost - we add meaning because that is what we do. We expect that people (real and fictional) do things for a reason, that there is motivation behind action, and that there is a (knowable) cause to events. Within the world of Lost (or any fiction), this may be true; an author has onmiscience and can either make every action as the consequent of some thought or attitude, or can ascribe a cause by making one up. In the real world, this is not true. Things happen randomly and by accident (probably more than on purpose). But when we discuss fiction, the audience can add value to the art or entertainment by adding meaning, rather than waiting for meaning to be revealed. Because the revealed meaning will never be as satisfying as deriving one yourself.
It was the answers that were not given that were most satisfying in Lost. And I wish they hadn't provided some of the answers that they did, because I liked mine better.
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