This post contains spoilers. Just thought you'd like to know....
At the end of Wag the Dog, is Dustin Hoffman's character dead or was it just a set up by the secret service. Because the newcast about Albanian terrorists and the closing shot of the conference room, lead me to question how dead Dustin Hoffman is.
Any clarification would be nice.
I'd say that he is in fact dead. You'd like to believe that the final story is just one of his productions, but I think that final shot of the empty conference room is there to show us that there is no one making up this story. Everyone involved has left, which leads me to believe that the final news bit is real and not a fabrication, despite my wish for the otherwise.
shareDustin Hoffman's character was so adamant about taking the credit that there was NOOOO chance he would survive. None. DeNiro even said it.. "You're playing with your life"
People are looking too much into it.
I think Stanley is dead. Why? Because that scene at the funeral, they were upstairs talking. He said he wants credit for all of that because it was the best work he has ever done -- he wanted to tell the world that he was a genius. And being a Hollywood producer, he wants the fame and the glory, seeing that he keeps blabbing about not ever winning an Oscar, and there should be a Oscar for producing (which I believe is the Best Pic award). He was the wrong person for Conrad to ask, though ... he was someone who just wanted everything and that was his personality.
He was definitely murdered. Maybe by Conrad's order, maybe not. But he was dead at the end of the movie and he was unlikely to kill himself -- judging by his character, suicide is not an option. I think he went blabbing about it to some other people. I believe that Conrad really liked the guy and they developed a nice friendship throughout the movie so I don't believe *he* was the person who planned the murder. I think it has to be someone else, one of the president's men.
But the whole ending is open to interpretation -- that is what makes this movie so interesting.
he is alive!!!
when we see stanely forced into the cia car..we all thought they killed him so there was no need to show the funeral sequence!
but since they did the funeral sequence we realize that somethin else in goin on there
they got a fake war a nun-raper hero and a re-elected president and with all that they didnt kill a single person in the whole movie
so they can have a dead producer too without killing him,,I think this fake funeral has became a warning to stanley
conrad tells him: see? this is your funeral and if you wanna be real dead you make a mistake twice!
the point is they could fake anything they want no matter what is it..they could fake it!!
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-Have you found Jesus yet,Gump?
-I didn't know I was supposed to be looking for him,sir.
I think the movie is up for interpretation. If they wanted the audience to know if he was dead or alive they would have shown us. Personally I think he is not dead. Hoffman always wanted the credit that he was deserved. Since they wouldn't let him go public about the war he had to be silenced. But faking his death accomplishes both of these things. He finally gets the credit and he now has no need to talk.
The Human Fund. Money For People
How about listening to the DVD commentary instead of wondering if he is supposed to be alive or dead? According to Barry Levinson in his commentary, Stanley Motss (Dustin Hoffman) is dead.
When there is a question such as this, it's usually best to go to the source instead of going on and on about what you think is true.
<< How about listening to the DVD commentary instead of wondering if he is supposed to be alive or dead? According to Barry Levinson in his commentary, Stanley Motss (Dustin Hoffman) is dead. >>
Of course it's always great to get info 'from the horse's mouth' so to speak...
Yet, it still remains that they never showed Hoffman's death on screen -- and that much of it should not even be a debate.
They deliberately avoided showing any real concrete evidence of the death (i.e., just showing him being led away and some news 'reports' of his death is NOT concrete proof that he is dead).
There must have been a reason why it was done that way (avoiding showing the 'killing'), and so the 'open to interpretation' angle still seems to be valid...
This is a particularly important point for this movie, because, after all, most every other event that the public was presented with by the propaganda team was not true.
So why does this point HAVE to be true?
Perhaps Levinson himself was 'playing it up' during the commentary, i.e., just becoming another link in the BS-ing that was one of the main premises of the movie in the first place...
Hitchcock and several other directors (e.g., see the documentary about John Ford, by Peter Bogdanovich) had 'also' been known to give 'false' info during commentaries and interviews, as a ruse or whatever... (it seems they loved to 'play' with peoples' minds -- continuously)...
Such info given by these directors was often disputed by other members involved in the very same production (therefore, there definitely had to be someone who was 'wrong' or lying -- but who's story do you choose to believe, and why?)...
The bottom line is: I don't understand why people can't live with other peoples' interpretations -- and why can't both these interpretations (debated here) coexist as possibilities...
As far as I'm concerned, there is no definitely he's dead OR definitely he's alive -- that's the whole point of leaving an indefinite or ambiguous ending...
If they wanted it to look definite, they would have shown it that way.
Personally, I like that 'artistic' ambiguity because it almost compels the viewer to actually think about things, instead of just passively being 'told' something.
AND by the way, the concept of alternate endings to a movie is NOT -- by any means -- unknown.
Precisely!
<< think the movie is up for interpretation. If they wanted the audience to know if he was dead or alive they would have shown us. Personally I think he is not dead. Hoffman always wanted the credit that he was deserved. Since they wouldn't let him go public about the war he had to be silenced. But faking his death accomplishes both of these things. He finally gets the credit and he now has no need to talk >>
Schuman was shot twice with a shotgun and was killed
shareHave you heard of Occam's Razor?
Why push for a far-fetched explanation when the literal one is much more plausible and simple?
Hoffman's character is definatly dead. It was the hard, cold reality behind it all. The entire movie was dark comedy, laughs, and the underlying threat (that people would nervously laugh at) that if someone talked they'd be killed. The ending brought that threat back and made all too real. The entire movie was about illusions over reality, but in the end, the truth behind the politics is deadly.
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i agree. it sums up the whole film.
the government will do anything to cover up their own wrong-doing.
they knew he would spill, so they got rid of him; for good.
I fully agree with the, He's Dead, camp! However, now I want to watch it again. This is an intriguing debate I never considered.
Why do they have to show him being killed onscreen to prove he'd dead? It doesn't seem necessary at all or add any sort of ambiguity in my opinion.
Dead no question about it.
"You're too short for that gesture."
http://imdb.com/mymovies/list?l=5642503
<<...Dead no question about it...>
It's still all opinion... just the same as saying 'Alive, no question'...
Furthermore, it's based only on heresay...
Wouldn't stand up in court: 'I didn't see it, but they told us he was dead'...
Since ya didn't see it happen, ya can't say with authority that there couldn't still be a question (no matter how small of a question you personally feel -- there would still be a question); we were NOT witnesses to Hoffman's character's murder based on what we see (or rather DON'T see) or hear in the movie, nor do we EVER see or examine his dead body.
[deleted]
Wow. If you were shown -- throughout the movie -- all sorts of scams, schemes, and hoaxes, showing things to be NOT as they were presented to the general public, why would you automatically take for granted a killing that was NEVER shown on screen?
Perhaps this is the true power of the movie:
They show you the inside workings of elaborate scams, designed to fool the entire mass public, but at the end they DON'T show you what happens, YET you believe it sight-unseen -- in a media report on TV no less (the same media where the other things previously and hilariously presented, were really untrue).
Brilliant.
Think about it a little deeper.
If you don't realize or understand what I just wrote above, then it's understandable that you didn't comprehend the film.
Furthermore, it's NOT my position that he is DEFINITELY alive, but rather that we can't know IF he is alive or not -- based on what we are shown in the movie...
I have no position on whether he is alive or not (I have repeatedly said this in prior posts) because I never did see his death on-screen, and never saw his dead body -- therefore a doubt remains...
ESPECIALLY after watching the rest of such a movie.
Maybe you were watching another movie in your head and had seen something I didn't; if you did, please give the details about what you SAW.
I don't have that version of the movie.
Personally, I think he was killed by the secret service. If he's not, it takes away a lot of the power of Hoffman's final scenes. His murder at the end makes those scenes work. That being said, after watching an entire movie about lies and deception, I would not shoot down the idea that Hoffman's character is still alive. I don't think he is, but I can respect that if you do.
- Don't tease me about my hobbies, I don't tease you about being an assh*le.
THANK YOU!
Finally, a really well-thought out reply...
I also totally respect the notion that he may on the other hand be dead...
My position is simply that it can't be absolutely determined from what is shown in the movie (and that this shouldn't even be an argument)...
<<... That being said, after watching an entire movie about lies and deception, I would not shoot down the idea that Hoffman's character is still alive. I don't think he is, but I can respect that if you do...>>
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I had to read through so many stupid arguments about the Dustin Hoffman being dead or alive, but finally, someone actually gets the real message out of the ending of the film. Bluejackets, I couldn't have said it better myself. This ending is superb in that the whole film sets up the thought of "Could this really happen"?, or, "Would I fall for something like that"?, and then, bam, the director does it to you, and what happens? You get a ton of people who do fall for it and start arguing about if Hoffman is dead or not. Most of this thread is the whole point the filmmakers were trying to make.
shareStanley (Hoffman) is dead.
1. The DeNiro character warns the girl earlier that she cannot tell anyone what's going on, or she will be killed. The same applies to Stanley.
2. DeNiro's character keeps telling Stanley that he can't take credit for producing the war, that no one is supposed to know.
3. Once DeNiro realizes he can't convince Stanley to keep quiet, he tells the Secret Service to go ahead and kill him. He regrets having to do so (as shown by the expression on his face), but knows there are no other options.
4. The news report of his death. It may not be true that he had a heart attack, but he was killed.
Why does it matter that DeNiro's character was seen at Stanley's house after he died?
How would faking his death accomplish anything?
I agree with what someone else said - "How could someone watch the movie and not realize that Stanley had been killed?"
yeah, he's dead. In the scene where he and the white house guy are talking, after the producer guy walks out, the white house guy nods to the secret service guy telling him to go and kill him. then they tell the media it was a heart attack. The are the media, they can make it seem like a heart attack, just like they invented the albanian war. it's not that hard.
shareActually, he's alive. If you watch closely at the end, where white house staffers are cleaning out their office, you can see him in the corner.
shareIf you're referring to the scene as they leave what I like to think of as "the war room", there is no one in the corner. If you're referring to the lone figure in the cemetery scene playing on the TV in the war room, that's the bugler.
My take on the whole thing:
Clearly, this is a work of fiction. Anything unseen is open to interpretation up to and including suspension of disbelief (if you want to get technical.) So debating THAT is not the point. Debating the intentions of the director/writer/producer/whatever, is a valid matter. I believe we are supposed to conclude that he is, in fact, dead.
Many issues have been addressed as to WHY he'd be dead, why he SHOULD be dead, and there's simply no support to believe that he's still alive. It is reiterated time and time again that they need only hold out until the elections are clinched. Period. There is NO point in resurrecting an unneeded war, and nothing to be gained by faking his death. Even if the film was all about deception, it breaks the mold to not have a motive. In all the other ruses, we're behind the scenes, in on the secret. With his death, we are not.
The movie as a whole is certainly designed to mess with conspiracy theorists. It aims to, I imagine, turn our attention to our own government and administration (not just Americans, perhaps), and to question the things we see on the REAL media. So why wasn't the murder shown? Simple answer: it's cheaper not to show it, and it sparks silly debates like this. They didn't show Schumman's murder either, probably for the same reasons. Also, they probably didn't want to have the "violence" rating. This movie is easily made TV ready!
I believe the end of the movie is a double dose of "The Boy Who Cried Wolf." The death is real, but some of you are afraid to believe it. The same with the real war hinted at the end. Yes, I believe we're to conclude that it is also real, but to at least question it. They didn't need a real war. They wouldn't spend the resources nor the risk. The empty "war room", I believe, is symbolic to show that there IS no one "behind the curtain" running the show. That's the biggest clue that it's real!
I don't think it would make much sense to have a movie showing ALL lies. Then the supposed "lesson" is to just distrust blindly. No point in questioning if you can just "assume" it's all lies. You have to mix truth with the lies to keep them guessing. The ensuing war provides a convenient plot point, and another lesson. It demonstrates the consequences of deception, but it also answers the final question of "will anyone ever find out?" Well if a real scuffle DOES break out, it validates the lies!
So Stanley dies, Schumman dies, real war ensues, and everyone gets away with it. There's no solid proof, but there's little to no credible evidence to support or claim otherwise.
"So Stanley dies, Schumman dies, real war ensues, and everyone gets away with it. There's no solid proof, but there's little to no credible evidence to support or claim otherwise."
I agree except about the real war. I always thought it was the closure to the whole war, so to speak, also orchestrated by DeNiro's character. Nothing we've seen on the tv in the movie was real, why this bit? Because for once we don't see the people who are behind it all?
Also note how the tv image suddenly fills out the whole frame, unlike before, putting us, the audience, in the position of a regular tv audience, eating up what they present us with on a daily basis, which - again - was never shown to be real in the movie.
"We're all of us sentenced to solitary confinement within our own skins."
-- Tennessee Williams
remember when Hoffman was talking about getting credit, and DeNiro said that his life was on the line. well, as he walks out, notice they show the SS agent whisper something into his wrist-mic. now, somebody else said that the SS had him killed and made it look like a heart attack, and looking at that line from denior, and that scene with the agent, it makes complete sense.
"you're a handsome devil. what's your name?"
--grosse pointe blank
[deleted]
That ending left a sour taste in my mouth.....I just could not believe that after all that, they can be responsible for his death...I think it was a sorry way to end the film, cause how else can anyone interpret that ending ?.......he dies & he was fine not too long ago ?!
sharewell, rarely do you want to see the main character die, but i wouldnt say it was a "sorry" way to end the film. it was actually quite logical--dig this: you're a civilian, you do a classified government job, you try to publicize it. BAM, you're dead. it makes sense. it was a key element in the satirization as well. it shows the capabilities of an unjust government AND the greed of hollywood--which were the two things that the film aimed to satirize.
"you're a handsome devil. what's your name?"
--grosse pointe blank
sorry but Hoffman is dead. The way DeNiro tell him 'were talking about your life now' and Hoffman says 'f my life' or something like that. hes a threat. its actually pretty stupid to claim hes alive & trying to take credit because hes dead. he still looks like him! it got really cold at the end of the movie and the shot of DeNiro with the flag over him in reflection is a great shot to show this is what he does. sucks but its his job.
shareLet's look at the theories.
DEAD
- The director said so in the commentary. C'mon, if he wanted an open ending he'd have said: "Well, it's up for interpretation"
- It's the only way silence Motss
- De Niro played the "I don't wanna do this but I have too" beautifully well before he nods to the SS agent. Why would he be upset if he's only faking a death?
- De Niro actually liked the guy, and goes to his funeral or whatever the gathering was. He didn't like haivng to off him. Why would he attend a fake funeral?
- It's a piece of cake for these guys to fake a heart attack
- As many have pointed out, gives a sense of reality and danger to the otherwise satirical movie
ALIVE
- Definitely wouldn't silence Motss. Waste of time and effort.
- Why was De Niro upset before giving the SS agent an order?
IT DOESN'T MATTER AT ALL, NOBODY KNOWS, THEY WANT US TO SPECULATE
- Why would the director go and ruin the speculation in the DVD commentary?
Sure I love open endings, but here it just seems there's only one that fits.
As for the final newscast:
IT'S REAL
- Plausible. The fake war stirred up the Albanian terrorists, and now that it's real, either America won't care, or the newly re-elected President already has trouble in his hands due to his own campaigning. Either way, it's funny and deliciously ironic.
- There's no one in that secret room planning the media tweaking.
- It just sounds real, unrefined and un-Hollywoodesque. There's no beautiful girl with a kitten, no war hero...
IT'S FAKE
- Why would the President, already elected, want more fake war?
- Why show the empty room? (To give us a clue that the implausibly alive Motss is doing this all on his own? Why, if he still doesn't get credited for it? Sorry, don't like it.)
Again, I know which theory I prefer.
Basically, we've seen all the faking in a funny and light-hearted manner. It's like the real war and the real death in the end bring us back to the harsh reality of what this corruption is all about. It's not funny anymore, it's dangerous. It's a much better ending, and this coming from someone who loves happy endings.