At the very end of the film, the movie flashes forward from the 1930s to 1952. Manny walks his young family around Hollywood after years of being away. Eventually, he takes a solo trip to a theater and catches, you guessed it, "Singin' in the Rain." Then something fairly odd happens. The movie Manny's watching suddenly turns into an extended montage of clips of famous films including "A Trip to the Moon," "The Wizard of Oz," "Terminator 2," and even "Avatar." Eventually, the montage devolves into simple colors. Critics are divided on the ending, to say the least.
Eagle-eyed viewers may notice one shot that simply reads "Fin de Cinema." It's a title card from the end of Jean-Luc Godard's 1967 work "Weekend." It's a revered black comedy about the horrors of consumerism and human indifference to suffering. What exactly Godard was thinking while using this final placard we'll never know.
However, Chazelle may have given audiences a hint about why he included it in the montage. In an exclusive interview with SlashFilm, Chazelle explained he wanted the montage to show "the life cycle of cinema" because he feels movies are always dying and being reborn. In this respect, a placard translating to "end of cinema" makes sense in Chazelle's final montage. Clearly the director felt Godard's work had a place in the ongoing evolution of cinema. Whether there is a specific reason for the placard's placement in "Babylon" or not, it's a nice shoutout to a true master.
