Exposition

I've been thinking about third act expositions--you know the end of mystery movies where everything gets tied together. A bad example would be Tim Burton's Sleepy Hollow. I remember watching the long exposition at the end thinking "will this thing ever stop?" A good example would be the ending of The Sixth Sense in which the exposition is fast, to the point, and part of the story. The narrative of Citizen Kane is the building of an exposition bit by bit. Then there are expositions about expositions like Neil Simon's Murder By Death (there goes Estelle Winwood again!) in which the final exposition is a commentary on Agatha Christie's expositions.

There's something about a long third act exposition that seems so artless. There's one in our film and it's important to understanding the narrative. I think we have an interesting way of presenting it, but it's a bit embarassing to put it there in the first place.

Postscript: I found out why Estelle Winwood keeps popping up in so many films. Her career as an actress lasted 71 years (including the theater). She was 101 years old when she died in 1984. Murder by Death was her last film.