The end
What is the end ? Thank you I don't understand.
shareAt the beginning of the film there was a debate about whether what one says is as important as what one does.
At the end of the film, Maurice tells Clive about him and Scudder... when Clive tries to ask questions about what he intends to do next, Maurice says " I came to tell you what I've DONE... I will not tell you anything more".
He then goes to meet Alec in the boathouse, where they declare their love and Alec says "It's finished" - meaning the waiting and worrying is finished... now they can get on with their love of one another.
The last scene shows Clive with his wife. He is seen closing the windows and shuttering them off from the outside world - just as he has shuttered himself off from true love by refusing to give himself himself completely to Maurice. He looks out the window into the gloom... where he can see nothing more of Maurice. His wife asks what he had been saying a few moments ago on the terrace (when he was talking with Maurice, but his wife doesn't know Maurice was there.) Clive lies to her, saying he was "practicing a speech"... which brings us back to the begiinning of the movie. Clive is all talk... Maurice is action. Clive's wife Anne places her head on his shoulder, but he seems remote and lost ... true love is out there somewhere in the dark... not in that room with Anne.
Well done, pogostiks.
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Wow! You are very good to described a scene, very poetic. Congratulations Pogostiks! Acctually was better than the end of the movie that I remenbered!
shareVery nicely said :)
Also, the way I saw it, Clive is reluctantly closing the windows on any homosexuality/'true love'; earlier in the film we see Maurice sticking his head out of the window, embracing it, and Alec Scudder looking on from afar in admiration.
Beautifully told. My experience of it, however, having JUST watched it, is that - although you totally got the FACTS right, much to my shock, especially for a James Ivory film, it was VERY clunky. Boom, the end. I was a little stunned with the artlessness of it. There may have been a method to the madness, but it was WAY too jarring an ending for me. (Jarring can be good, obviously, but it didn't work for me here.)
shareI agree with you Craig-Parton - the ending was rather jarring considering how "poetic" the movie was up to that point. However, the alternate ending of them living in the country (which Forster actually wrote and decided not to use) and sister Kitty came to visit and then the happy couple had to move again for fear Kitty would possibly report them to the police... I don't know if that would have been any better. Or maybe you mean if they had at least talked about the future for a while? (In other words, what sort of ending did you have in mind?)
shareLovely interpretation, pogostiks. I hadn't considered linking the ending to the conversation in the beginning.
And in the end, the love you take is equal to the love you make.
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It is interesting to read different opinions about something that I thought could not have been made more clear. The court case against the Viscount caused Clive to have a mental breakdown, when he realized that the same thing could happen to him. While recovering, Clive made the decision not to risk his name, his freedom, his social and future political positions. Although he was homosexual, like many politicians and people of position today, he chose to marry and live an imitation of life. The scenes with his wife, especially the last scene with her, showed that he had no emotional or sexual interest in her. His looking out of the window in the last scene, plus the flashback of Maurice, showed that Clive knew that he had given up any chance for happiness in his life. He would just live out his days and do what was expected of him, while Maurice and Alec shared love and life together, perhaps in Italy...
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