The Materialization of the Spectacle

The Role of Allegorical References in "I’m Thinking of Ending Things"

Written by Nujhat Tabassum

Through stark alterations of characters and setting, and unreliable narration, I’m Thinking of Ending Things thrives on ambiguity, effectively disorienting first-time viewers. Despite their confusion, enticed by the film’s withholding nature, many viewers feel compelled to return for multiple viewings, in attempts to decrypt its ‘true’ meaning. Ending accomplishes this, in part, through its overabundance of visual and literary allegorical references. Like tantalizing bait, the sources of these references are dangled in front of the audience, either directly stated through philosophical dialogue or noticeably placed in a scene’s setting. Understanding these references as representative of Ending’s narrative details and overarching themes, viewers attempt to use them as keys to crack the film’s coded language. However, stated but rarely elaborated upon, these references instead enhance the barrier to knowledge between the film and its audience, preventing the average viewer from achieving intelligibility of the story. As a result of not being equipped with the foundational knowledge required to gain deeper understanding of the material, these viewers cannot help but feel alienated from the film. However, in line with Ending’s overarching themes, this effect is intentional.

A Not-So-Beautiful Mind

As referenced in the film, David Foster Wallace’s essay “E Unibus Pluram: Television and U.S. Fiction” states, “Pretty people tend to be more pleasing to look at than non-pretty people. But when we’re talking about television, the combination of sheer Audience size and quiet psychic intercourse between images and oglers starts a cycle that both enhances pretty images’ appeal and erodes us viewers’ own security in the face of gazes.” (1:34:21-1:34:42). The perception of intelligence and talent, conflated here as genius, creates the same cycle between Jake and the Girlfriend, and between the references he surrounds himself with. Similar to the principles stated in the essay in relation to prettiness, human beings find appeal in and tend to identify with things they consider genius. Due to Jake’s deep desire to be perceived as genius himself, he diligently absorbs knowledge from those he reveres. Like prized commodity, the quantification of this desire is shown through shots of Jake’s childhood bedroom, teeming with notable works of art and science. Fitting this frame of genius as a material possession, Jake’s fractured psyche constructs the Girlfriend to be an idealized partner to not only carry his breadth of academic knowledge, as a physicist-artist-poet-gerontologist-biologist, but to be earned by him, as validation of his own genius because he appeals to and is accepted by her. The relationship between the film and its audience follows similar logic. The Girlfriend’s genius qualities are presented directly to viewers, through conversations about her scholarly pursuits, displays of her artistic talent (her breathtaking poetry and paintings), and her original arguments (like her scathing review of the film A Woman Under the Influence (1:16:56-1:19:29)). Through this evidence, the Girlfriend becomes established as genius in the audience members’ minds, and in line with Wallace’s essay, they find themselves both attracted to her (and Ending’s) genius, and pride themselves in their ability to recognize the refined qualities associated with genius. Through this ability, they believe they have gained access into the exclusive social sphere of genius, earning identities as at least genius-adjacent.

While Ending does not present direct evidence of Jake’s genius, the audience believes he is one, because the genius Girlfriend believes so. As shown through her monologues, Jake in the Girlfriend’s mind is idealized – for example, she recounts profound words of wisdom he has imparted to her in the past (“Jake once said, ‘Sometimes the thought is closer to the truth, to reality, than an action…’” (1:36-1:48)). Though the withdrawn, inarticulate Jake onscreen pales in comparison to the Jake of the Girlfriend’s mind, the audience trusts her judgement.

By continuously surrounding himself with knowledge, however, Jake simultaneously nourishes his attraction to genius and attacks his own self-esteem, forced to face the realization that in comparison to the geniuses who exist, he is lacking. Jake attempts to protect the Girlfriend and her idealized image of him from this realization by forbidding her from going down to the basement. But she defies him, witnessing prints of the landscape paintings she previously claimed to have created, this time credited to artist Ralph Albert Blakeblock. Furthermore, she spies unskilled imitations of the prints painted and signed by Jake. This revelation not only hints at the fabrication of the Girlfriend’s personhood, but provides a direct visual comparison of Jake’s desired perception of his possessed skill and the actual lack of it. Viewers previously considering themselves intelligent enough to understand the film’s nuances feel ashamed for not having the background to be able to discern the Girlfriend’s (and Ending’s) misleading, derivative nature. By having gaps in their knowledge exposed, viewers feel alienated from the film, kicked out of the social sphere they pr-eviously thought they occupied. With this device of baiting and withholding thematic information, the film lets the audience experience firsthand a crucial part of Jake’s fragile psyche.

A Woman Escaping the Influence

As quoted by the Girlfriend, herself manufactured by Jake’s mind from a hodgepodge of existing people and quotations, “ ‘ “Nothing is more rare in any man,” says Emerson, “than an act of his own.” And it’s quite true. Most people are other people. Their thoughts are someone else’s opinions. Their lives a mimicry, their passions a quotation.’ That’s an Oscar Wilde quote.” (1:10:26-1:10:43) Itself an adaptation of a novel by Iain Reid, the film begins with monologues lifted wordfor-word from the novel (0:51-3:23). The poem and film review the Girlfriend has ‘written’ have been recited verbatim from Eva H.D.’s poem “Bonedog” and Pauline Kael’s review of the Cassavetes film. By cutting and pasting quotes from the minds of other intellectuals and passing them off as the original thoughts of film’s main character, Ending seems to admit it lacks originality, more akin to a plagiarized duplicate than an adaptation. This admission is evident when the couple are discussing Guy DeBord’s The Society of the Spectacle, where they claim that the spectacle (mass media and pop culture) is the materialization of worldviews that creeps into one’s subconscious and personality (1:35:33-1:36:4)) Like a virus, the spectacle one absorbs skews their perception of the world, until the self left behind is one devoid of true autonomy. A stark example of the spectacle subconsciously infecting Jake’s mind and altering his ideals is shown when, not long after the Janitor (elderly Jake) watches a parody romantic comedy film set in a diner (44:41-46:41), younger Jake claims to his parents that the Girlfriend is a waitress he met when she was serving him, a far cry from her previous occupations in academia (1:6:17-1:6:33). As highlighted by the frequency of their appearances, the parody film, along with the musical Oklahoma!, have lodged themselves deep in the recesses of Jake’s mind, altering his thoughts and ideas, perhaps contributing to Jake’s unrealistic ideal of romantic love. As the audience has familiarized themselves with Jake’s mind (and with Ending as a representation of Jake’s mind), mainly through the references cited throughout, it becomes difficult to distinguish Jake’s identity from the pop culture references he hides his truths behind. It becomes clear that while the references depicted can exist separately as original works of their own, Jake and Ending have become so codependent on the references that they cannot be recognized without them. Or so it seems.

Pore Jud Ain’t Daid

Although Ending remains referential throughout its run, the references signal a significant deviation from the primary source material. The film uses completely different references from the novel to symbolize similar themes. Though the references themselves are recited, the characters alter the meanings of the references through the context the film provides, tinging the words to hold new interpretations. The brutal assault on Mabel Longhetti’s character in the Girlfriend’s review transformatively becomes extended towards Jake, who mentions previously that he feels a kinship with her. Under this light, the review and Jake’s subsequent reaction allows viewers to gain insight into the despairing isolation he feels as a societal outcast (1:20:4- 1:21:40). Furthermore, immediately preceding the first appearance of a reference, an episode of Peabody’s Improbable History (5:23-5:34), the Girlfriend’s monologues shift from transcriptions of the novel to paraphrases and unique musings (4:19-1:51:22). These changes in wording and behaviour serve as the precursor to more pronounced changes in the Girlfriend’s and Jake’s characterizations, ultimately leading to major alterations in the conclusion of the film. Mirroring the aforementioned codependency of the references and Jake’s mind, the novel ends when, realizing she’s part of the entity that is Jake the Janitor, the Girlfriend, as the companion personality, ‘helps’ Jake by stabbing themselves, fully integrated in death (Reid ch. 13). However, in the film, the Girlfriend is given symbolic freedom from the prison of Jake’s mind when she speaks to the Janitor, revealing herself to be a creation born out of a lifelong regret of not pursuing the Girlfriend’s likeness in real life. Much like the likeness that lives a life separate from Jake, the Girlfriend is allowed to leave the school while Jake decides to face his suicide alone. By singing “Lonely Room” at the film’s conclusion (2:6:19-2:8:59), Jake signals that he is at the end of his symbolic journey, having shed his pathological need to be rewarded by society for his merits, by embracing his identity not as the musical’s leading man, American cowboy Curly, but as the outcast farmhand that doesn’t get the girl, Jud. Resembling the Girlfriend’s borrowed plein air paintings, the final lingering shot of the snow-covered pickup truck implies that Jake the Janitor has passed away in his car, having reconciled himself with the knowledge that like most of humanity, he was a maggot-infested pig, his life and ideas derivatives of the culture around him. Yet the film subverts expectations even in the final seconds, as a car motor is heard revving to life in the background, leading the audience to wonder if there’s hope for Jake’s survival after all. Freed from the shackles of societal expectations, the allegorical journey did not consume, but rather transformed him, allowing Jake (and Ending) to be reborn from the snowstorm of references, wholly original by the end.

Works Cited

I’m Thinking of Ending Things. Directed by Charlie Kaufman, Likely Story and Projective Testing Service, 2020.

Reid, Iain. I’m Thinking of Ending Things. e-book, New York, Scout Press, 2016.