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A friend of mine recently pointed out something about LIT to me. She is a regular visitor to Tokyo and lived there for several months. She told me that the camera shots at the end of the movie are coming from 2 cars, one leaving Tokyo for the airport and then turning around and then another car leaving for the airport at the same time. She knows I am a fan of this film but I learned to keep my obsession private. Is this true about the cars? Does Bob try to go back or does Charlotte try to get to the Airport?

I'm not sure what you mean.

"[quote:e3edecc51e="josh"]Does Bob try to go back or does Charlotte try to get to the Airport? [/quote:e3edecc51e]

Actually, you're right on both counts. Bob turned around to go back and to claim Charlotte and to take her to Spain to live, but Charlotte, in the meantime, had dashed in a cab with Charlie Brown -- who she told the whole story too, as he was really her friend and not John's -- to catch Bob at the airport, who wasn't there. So Charlotte takes a sleeping drug to pretend to be dead, but when Bob sees her "dead" body, he kills himself, and she then does likewise. Then the nurse ran off with Charlie Brown!"

HAHAHAHAHAHA YOU SO FUNNY

johnmonkey: Trying to be funny or are you normally so witty?

josh: That's the thing we don't know, we don't know if they meet each other again, or try for that matter.

First off, johnmonkey: WOW what a story!
Second: I believe those shots were done just to show the path he went through to get to the airport. The shots are allowing you to see the city but from the view of someone who is leaving it, not like in the beginning where the shots were from a view of a person who was arriving Tokyo (Bob). It's great you meantioned those shots, Josh, because I think they are increadibly effective in the end...I am glad Coppola chose to show you a lot of the city in the whole film, and instead of concentrating on Bob or Charlotte(think about it, where did Charlotte go afterward, we don't know) she chose to let us see the way to the ariport so that we become Bob at the moment. This is when I found out Bob was the main character of the movie, no matter how many times they say its the tow of them. I wanted to see what happened to Charlotte after she left smiling, that is something I wish would have been shown... ...that and simultaneously Bob on his way to his fam.

Josh, your friend might be right about the directions of the cars, but the shots at the end of the movie are intended to illustrate Bob's leaving Tokyo. I would assume that the camera crew took any number of ambient shots around the city just to have plenty of stock for just such a scene as the ending.

I understand the question you are posing, but I don't think that there was an ulterior motive in the way the shots were shown.

I'm confident in saying that those shots were just shots taken, and not meant to be part of the "story".... no one would figure something like that out (unless they're intimate with the city).

man......... thinking about the movie, I have to watch LiT again tonight. I hate you guys! (kidding!!)

johnmonkey wrote:

josh wrote:Does Bob try to go back or does Charlotte try to get to the Airport?

Actually, you're right on both counts. Bob turned around to go back and to claim Charlotte and to take her to Spain to live, but Charlotte, in the meantime, had dashed in a cab with Charlie Brown -- who she told the whole story too, as he was really her friend and not John's -- to catch Bob at the airport, who wasn't there. So Charlotte takes a sleeping drug to pretend to be dead, but when Bob sees her "dead" body, he kills himself, and she then does likewise. Then the nurse ran off with Charlie Brown!

LMAO. Must have been in some mood for that story.

Oh-Oh Josh....

johnmonkey..that is

You are truly awesome,johnmonkey!

why are you annoyed? You have your own ending in mind?

A moment of silence wrote:I am glad Coppola chose to show you a lot of the city in the whole film, and instead of concentrating on Bob or Charlotte(think about it, where did Charlotte go afterward, we don't know) she chose to let us see the way to the ariport so that we become Bob at the moment.

Absolutely! The ending montage is incredibly beautiful, hypnotic and uplifting! (IMO) We do become Bob, and in becoming Bob, we learn more about the character than a thousand words in any screenplay could possibly illustrate. We live vicariously through the medium of film when it's done right ..... and LIT is certainly cinema done right. A sublime ending for a sublime movie! My "absolutely" also extends to your observation concerning Sofia Coppola choosing to show Tokyo throughout the film. It's an ESSENTIAL element of LIT's appeal. In fact, the film simply wouldn't work if it had been done any other way.

Continuity has never been this movie's strongest point, take the ikebana scene for example. The first neon lit scenes of Bob in the taxi are actually shot with the taxi driving in the wrong direction to the Park Hyatt. It'd therefore be very difficult to read anything into that. Let's face it though, any inaccuracies are thoroughly outweighed by the great ambience and cinematography.