That moment at the end?

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The final three minutes of "Fat City" may be the saddest scene ever filmed. Like John Huston's final masterpiece "The Dead" and also Jean Renoir's "Le Carrosse d'Or" the final minutes force you to rethink the entire movie, not as a narrow tale of a few characters, but rather as a universal revelation of the human condition.

In the frozen "moment at the end", Tully sees two things that he has never truly seen before: Himself and the world around him. Until then, he has lived in a tiny corner of existence, absorbed in his own delusions of regret and percieved missed opportunity. Now, at last, he sees that he is no different from the tragic character behind the counter and the table of gambling black men. They have all been born and will eventually die. In between they will experience many disappointments and hollow victories. This scares him to his deepest core.

We are left then, with some questions. Regarding Tully, there are only two directions that he can go. In fear, he can return to his old delusions which have always, and will always, fail him. Or he can try to use this new view to rethink himself and how he relates to others, in order to restart his life.

Last, we are also left with a question about ourselves. Just before his epiphany, Tully looks with pity on the old man and says "How would you like to wake up as that guy". But remember, the movie began with Tully rolling out of bed and we may have felt that same kind of pity for him. What delusions do I carry?

I just figured, when he looked at the men gambling he realised he had no one. They were all gambling together, and he had become a wash up no one that people don't want to be near, hence Ernie trying to drive off before Billy noticed him, and also refusing a drink, then also trying to leave quite early. Other than that, I didn't see there would be much more than that in the scene.

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Tully has acquired epilepsy as a result of a brain injury, a common cause of epilepsy.

Although there are several "maybe" hints of mild seizures earlier, the first deffinite seizure happens in the ring. He gets knocked down, the bell rings, he goes to his corner, sits down and blanks out.

The second deffinite seizure is depicted "in his perspective" kinda of, as we see his world freeze temporarily. Twice.

He has several more as we watch him from across the counter. We see his eyes go blank and his expression becomes a meaningless mild smile. Meaningless as it's not from any feeling or thought he is having, he's in "nowheresville" during his seizures.

Chronic epilepsy is usually a result of chemical or blunt trauma to the brain. What's happening is the normal communication between the different organs of the brain become irratic, confused, disoriented. The brain has an internal stoppage as it tries to reclaim an orderly line of communication within itself. We probably all have them (as when a person is bombarded with several people talking to us at once) but in the injured, epileptic person, it's a more frequent, much deeper, immersed, uncontrolable experience often with no outside trigger needed to bring the seizure on.

I like waking up in the morning not knowing who I'll meet or where I'll end up: The Titanic

Anybody notice that the first group of gamblers sitting at the table are predominately younger than the group at the second table...The panning shot between the tables acts as a comparison, young and old stuck in the same place. After the talk of age related to the old man behind the counter, I saw this moment at the end as a continuation of that theme.

There are a lot of insightful interpretations here. Mine is simply that for the first time in the movie, Billy stopped and looked around, took a few seconds to see things clearly. What he'll do with that vision is anybody's guess.

I loved the first scenes of the movie. Billy leaving the shabby hotel room and hitting the street, very "Sunday Morning Comin' Down".