The way I grew up watching movies at the cinema was kind of odd. At what time I arrived and entered the theater didn't matter to me. I would walk in and sit in the back. I started the movie wherever I happened to. Then stayed past the ending until it started over again and reached the part I had already seen. How the story begins and ends is not in the control of the filmmaker. It is left to chance as affected by any of the innumerable forces that led up to my off-schedule arrival. This has been my relationship with movies for as long as I can remember. And as such, it has never made a difference to me whether I knew about the story's twist or ending beforehand.
Are there feature film examples where the narrative does not rely on a beginning and ending -- the viewer may enter at any particular point? Or is it by definition that a narrative must have a start and end to tell a story? Even so, can an end lead into a start of a story seamlessly? Or do none of these questions really make any sense?
(Photo: Making crude flyers on recycled legal-sized sheets of paper.)
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