6. What Did Bill Murray Whisper At The End? - Lost In Translation
The Cliffhanger: Sofia Coppola's hugely acclaimed drama has Bill Murray playing a downtrodden actor named Bob who comes across Charlotte, a young girl who is herself expressing doubts over her marriage. Over the course of the film, Bob begins to fall for Charlotte, but when he has to fly back to the States, he embraces her one last time and whispers something inaudible in her ear, leaving us to ponder what exactly was said. Did he tell her to meet him at a given location on a given day, Before Sunrise style? Or did he give her a piece of sage advice?
The Answer: Bob's utterance doesn't appear in the film's script because Sofia Coppola wanted Murray to improvise the line, but it does state that Bob wants to tell Charlotte how in love with her he was, yet relents, finding himself unable to. However, the real answer didn't come from anyone related to the production, but some net nerds using audio manipulation software; they discerned that while the first part of the sentence is hard to hear, Bob probably ended by saying, "...go to that man and tell him the truth, OK?" What does that mean? Is he talking about Charlotte's husband, John? Or another man she might get with in the future? Until this recording surfaced, most assumed that Murray probably didn't actually physically say anything on the film's soundtrack, so while the meaning may not be clear, it
is within the DNA of the film, rather than some fancy that we're left to ponder forever more.