Open-Ended Narrative Quotes

Kubrick never explained the ending to us, or what his intentions were. He didn't intend for it to be a predictable film.

From my very first movie, what was my concentration, my inspiration, was I didn't want to narrate something, I didn't want to tell a story. I wanted to show something, I wanted for them to make their own story from what they were seeing.

I don't like to read novels where the novelist tells me what to think about the situation and the characters. I prefer to discover for myself.

The pattern of the narrative never of necessity wants to end, it never has to.

Film is subjective, and we must be careful with that. The kinds of films I love are those that observe, and I give possibility for people to talk. No need for me to tell people what to think - even when I make a film like 'S-21.' It's only one point of view. It's still a film; it's not a tribunal.

I was taught that poems don't end, they just kind of stop. There's never an ending to a poem; it's a continuation for later. When I write, I write for me, and I write in poetic form.

Games, by nature, have more plot options and non-linear qualities than TV and film.

I'm not in the business of telling people what to do. I'm much more in the business of describing things, situations and stuff like that and leaving them out there, and you can make up your minds about them.

I like leaving a space hollowed out, where as I change I can inject new meaning in the shell of the songs all of the time. Where anyone who listens can hopefully inhabit them in their own way.

I like it when stories are left open.

The moment you start dictating content/themes/story vs. allowing the player to be a participant in the story and carve their own path, you're doing the player a disservice.

I find most American films annoy me because their third act tends to be tying up loose ends and returning to moral values and killing the monster. I think most of the scripts I read to tend to go in that direction and I find that very, very unsatisfying. I want the stories to have loose ends and to pose some questions - or even say things that aren't too comfortable.

I don't see novels ending with any real sense of closure.

You have to let the viewers come away with their own conclusions. If you dictate what they should think, you've lost it.

I love books that give you space to climb inside there. And you have to run to keep up in places, and you have to fill in a lot of blanks yourself. So it almost becomes your story.

I feel really strongly about not wanting to overly guide the reader about what he or she should think. I really trust the reader to know for themselves and not to need too much. You have your own imagination, your own experiences, your own feelings, and a novel wants ultimately to ask questions. It doesn't assert anything, or shouldn't, I think.

It's just so much more exciting to have no limits and to be able to take your character as far as you want or need to get where you want to go.

Some films are aspirational. But there is room for stories which don't have a beginning or end.

It's precisely the disappointing stories, which have no proper ending and therefore no proper meaning, that sound true to life.

I'm interested in making films that ask questions and don't particularly provide answers.