Originally posted by Blinky
Ok, correct me if I am wrong... but as I remember the end (I've only seen this once) :Spoiler:
It was revealed that Teddy is in fact a patient and that his "partner" was really his psychologist.In the last scene Teddy is still referring to chuck as his "partner" and says that he'd rather die a good man than live as a monster. This action can be interpreted in two ways:
a) Teddy knows that he --in reality-- is a US Marshall caught up in conspiracy and refuses to believe the story that was fed to him by Chuck and the others.
b) Teddy REFUSES, deliberately, to cope with the horror of his real life and makes a psychological choice to regress back into insanity, so that in his mind he can die and honorable man. This is what I initally believed happened.I suppose the movie does not really have a clear ending... but I thank you for providing me with an interpretation that I didn't think about when I watched the movie. The ambiguous ending actually makes me like the film even more.
It should be noted that our talks are interpretations, but not fact (for the film). Your guesses are everybit as good as mine and vice versa.
Most people assume a) on the film but his words had a tad more complexity to them, at the end, there, to just assume he reverted back, especially during the artistic "cinematography" moment that focuses for a bit on DiCaprio's face, specifically, his eyes, then to Ruffalo, then back to DiCaprio, and so forth. For me, Scorsese was trying to indicate that the light was still on in Teddy's mind and it was a conscious decision to get the lobotomy before he reverted back to his "monster." One thing I took from that moment was Ruffalo's character still did not realize what Teddy was saying about wanting to die as a good man until Teddy got up and started to walk away: he then MIGHT have with a brief flicker of "realization" as DiCaprio got up to go get lobotomized (that could just be me looking too far into things). That brief moment, for me, resulted in Chuck gaining a new respect for Teddy...knowing, now, what "die as a good man" really meant when Teddy said it.
I do admit that it's possible that I am giving Scorsese too much credit in writing a beautiful ending, like that. However, for me, it seems more likely that that was the intended ending based on how well the scene was executed. My interpretation is not correct, per se, as I see that other people on the internetz are unsure if it's my interpretation or the a) ending.