ABSTRACT
F in. French and Saunders, one of the top British TV comedy duos fromthe 1980s and 1990s eponymous show, once did a parody of Ingmar Bergman films, in which they occupied an isolated clifftop house and moaned at one another about alienation, death and damnation. The skit – shot, naturally, in black and white – concludes as the two women look out at the dismal grey seascape and see the letters ‘FIN’ appear amid the waves. One turns to the other and asks, ‘What does it mean?’ As with all witticisms perhaps, amusement here depends on a force of recognition: ‘fin’ is not a dorsal fin or an abbreviation for ‘Finland’ but is immediately recognizable as a word (rather pretentiously taken from the French language) meaning ‘The End’. And we all know what ‘The End’ means. It’s obvious. Or is it? What is an end?
