Movies: ignoble deaths
King Lear dies of a broken heart. Willy Loman commits suicide in his car. Antigone hangs herself prison. Macbeth is beheaded by his righteous enemies. These are mostly noble deaths, given the circumstances of the stories in which they happen. But history and literature is filled with its share of ironic and ignoble deaths, too. People don’t always die in the way we want them to, and here’s a list of ten recent film characters who suffer that kind of fate. Thank the The mostly tasteless and sometimes thoughtful Zeitgeist rag called New York Magazine. The list includes Vincent Vega of Pulp Fiction and Donny of The Big Lebowski, as well as someone who’s not quite fictional. Be aware that New York Magazine can be graphic.













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back to top19 Comments to “Movies: ignoble deaths”
Yeah, I’m still mad about Wash. St least Book got a few last words.
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I would also nominate Henry Blake and the Jeff Daniels character from Speed
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The swordsman in Raiders of the Lost Ark who flourishes his blade with elaborate moves … until Indiana Jones shoots him.
I laugh at that scene and then feel embarrassed to be laughing at a portrayal of death, and then laugh at myself for reacting to a movie illusion of death as if it were real.
I am weird, maybe.
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SteveG, that’s a great and memorable scene.
But stop over-analyzing the scene! You sound like me after seeing the ending of “No Country for Old Men”!
Just kidding. If it makes you feel any better, think of the swordsman as getting his “just due” for his prideful display of swordsmanship.
Or, maybe it’s a commentary on Western imperialism soundingly routing Islamic fundamentalism through superior technology. Perhaps it was a commentary on the War on Terror 20 years before the fact! Perhaps if it were released today it would be criticized as being “anti-Islamic.”
See, you’re not the only one who’s weird.
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I haven’t seen any of those on the list except the last one, or even heard of any of the characters mentioned in the others. And whether one considers Jesus’ death noble or ignoble depends on your theology, I guess. It certainly was meant to be ignoble by those who killed him, but the divine power displayed in the resurrection completely alters our understanding (for those who believe he did in fact rise from the dead) of who had the real power at the time of his death.
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It’s difficult to assign the label “ignoble” to the death of Christ (though I am no fan of “The Passion” and would tend to agree with the review that the violence is excessive; the Scriptures do not need to express the horrific nature of the crucifixion in graphic detail and they seem to work fine in getting the point across!), since even liberal views of His death (as well as some non-Christian) tend to assign great significance to the event (I’m thinking of the “death as a great example” school here; the kind of death meant to inspire the masses, that sort of thing). Horace Bushnell comes to mind here, Pauline.
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Since it’s Saturday afternoon and there are no football or basketball games, I watched every one of these except “Passion”. It’s the only one I saw in movie or TV. I agree with TJ that the Passion scene was not “ignoble” because, though all logic and appearences seem otherwise, Christ was always in control. (i.e., the “Last Temptation” was, “come down from the cross.”)
Otherwise, none of them was outstanding. The “Top Gun” took an awful lot of flying and kissing to get there. They could have done it in thirty seconds.
But I said all that to say this.
Nobody could die like Jimmy Cagney. He had the best “being shot” scenes in movies. I know that wasn’t the point of the thread, but it’s a good point anyhow.
Do you know that in all his career, the Lone Ranger never killed a man. (I suspect neither did Gene Autry or Roy Rogers. But none of them had the culprit say, “Shot the gun right outta my hand!”)
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Pauline: With TJ, I think the inclusion of The Passion on that list was a commentary on the gratuitous brutality of that film, not the event itself.
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There were several senseless, ignoble deaths in “The Departed.” I wonder why that movie wasn’t on the list (perhaps too many to count!).
I love this comment by Chas: “The “Top Gun” took an awful lot of flying and kissing to get there. They could have done it in thirty seconds.” I suspect a lot of movies could have told the story in about 30 seconds, but not too many folks would pay to see it!
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KBells – I’m with you on Wash and Book. I didn’t think either of them needed to be killed off. Shame too, that. It will take some major Hollywood hoop-jumping to bring back Firefly or Serenity. (More’s the pity.)
SteveG and TJ – I read somewhere that the scene in Indiana Jones was actually an ad-libed outtake that turned out to be better than the planned shot. Apparently, they were having a difficult time getting that shot right and it was a hot day and it was the umpteenth take and Harrison Ford was just plain exhausted. On a whim, he just pulled his gun and shot the guy and they liked the scene so much that they used it.
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Klasko, and what really bugs me is that Book had a lot of secrets that were never revealed.
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Exactly. Joss had so many places to go with all of the characters, River too. They all had secrets that he could have spent seasons teasing out for us. Fox really messed up when they canceled Firefly.
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Now I have to go and watch Firefly tonight.
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In addition to not viewing Jesus’ death as “ignoble”, I also don’t view a suicide as “noble”.
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Amazed that I have not seen any of these films. I’m heading to bed w/ my book and a glass of tea!
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Klasko, where is it on?
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I’m guessing it’s on Klasko’s DVD player, but if it is elsewhere, I want to know where, too.
(PS if you don’t care to bother with the implications of copyright laws, I’m pretty sure that you can find it on youtube.)
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I can’t believe nobody’s mentioned any of the “ignoble deaths” in “Monty Python and the Holy Grail.” The demises of Sir Robin the Brave, Sir Galahad, and the keeper of the Bridge of Death are certainly memorable ones.
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Sorry for the delay in response, KBells. It’s on my DVD player. My son has the series.
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