You say goodbye and I say hello

They don't teach cinematic grammar in elementary schools, though they ought to. But somehow kids understand it anyway -- even before they understand spoken and written language. David Bordwell ponders this mystery in a post about final shots called "Molly wanted more," in which he describes a friend's three-year-old daughter crying out for "More!" as Snow White and the prince ride off into the sunset at the end of Disney's 1937 "Snow White and the Seven Dwarfs."

"How could she know, on her first pass, that the story was ending?" he wonders. Using examples from "Snow White," "The Wild One" and "The Silence of the Lambs," among others, DB examines one of the conventions for entering and exiting movie stories, in which we move in on the characters (or they approach us) at the beginning and pull back (or they move away from us) at the end:

Thanks to the visual nature of movies, the widening or closing-off of the story world can mimic the act of our entering or backing out of a tangible situation. That's what we see in "Snow White" and my other examples. In a sense we greet the characters, and after spending some time with them we bid them farewell. [...]

... The entry/ leave-taking pattern mimics our activities as perceiving, socially inclined people. For creatures like us, to encounter a new situation or setting simply involves approaching it or letting it approach us, then becoming part of it and fixing our attention on its details. At a party, we amble closer to a knot of people we want to talk with, or someone comes up to us. Sooner or later that encounter ends or trails off, and we withdraw or turn away or watch when others depart. More poignantly, the extreme long-shot option can recall moments when a car or bus or train carried us away from our loved ones. In any case, thanks to moving images the salient features of this very common experience can be made tangible for viewers.

This convention, we might say, is just natural. Molly, who had already logged three years of social experience, could plausibly make the analogy with ease. She recognized that her encounter with the world of Snow White was coming to an end-the characters were leaving her-and could express her regret.

You can see why I, as the creator and proprietor of the Opening Shot Project (devoted to examining the various ways, conventional and unconventional, that movies set up their stories, and often suggest how they will end), would find all this fascinating. (And I can't resist the opportunity to remark that the series of dissolves that move in on Xanadu at the beginning of "Citizen Kane" were inspired by the similar approach to the castle at the start of "Snow White.")

What are some of the other cues Molly might have been responding to? I can think of a few possibilities:

1) As DB notes, the ending of the movie mirrors social conventions Molly is already familiar with. Indeed, after the Prince awakens Snow White with a kiss (to the swelling music of the movie's most recognizable song, the waltz "Someday My Prince Will Come"), he places her on a horse and she says her goodbyes, kissing each of the dwarfs, waving, and repeatedly chirping, "Goodbye!" Molly no doubt knows what kissing and waving goodbye means. And, sure enough, the "camera" stays behind as Snow and her Prince recede toward the distant castle in the clouds. Bye-bye!