What's the meaning of the performance of I Will Survive at the end of Man On The Moon?
Man On The Moon is the story of the career of <PERSON>.
One of the personas that <PERSON> sometimes adopted was <PERSON>, an obnoxious and terrible lounge singer. <PERSON> is an alter-ego for <PERSON>. In early scenes, when <PERSON> is not famous, audiences believe that <PERSON> is what he appears to be; but later, when <PERSON> is a celebrity, audiences understand that <PERSON> is a character played by <PERSON>.
In one scene, <PERSON> is on stage before an audience, and audience are enjoying the performance as a satire of some sort, thinking that the "<PERSON>" that they are seeing is really <PERSON> in disguise. But then <PERSON> joins <PERSON> on stage. The audience IN the film, as well as the actual audience OF the film, are confused how this could occur. A few moments later the film discloses that when both <PERSON> and <PERSON> are on stage together, <PERSON> is played by <PERSON>, a friend of <PERSON>'s.
As you might expect, <PERSON>'s funeral occurs fairly late in his career. 295
We see the funeral in the film, and in the next scene we see crowds standing outside a theater, and the message "One Year Later" is superimposed. The crowds cheer as someone arrives in a limo and emerges, clad in tux and with a bag over his head, and enters the theater. Then we see (obviously) this same person perform the song "I Will Survive" on stage -- and it's <PERSON>. Again the audience in the film is reacting happily as <PERSON> does his performance. Since we just watched <PERSON>'s funeral we suppose that <PERSON> is again being portrayed by <PERSON>. But then the camera moves around the room and we see <PERSON> in the audience.
What is this scene about? Are we supposed to understand that after all this is the real <PERSON>, not played by <PERSON> or <PERSON> or anyone else? Did this event occur? Were this scene in the film, and the event it depicts, both supposed to feed rumors that <PERSON> was still alive, as the choice of the song "I Will Survive" obviously suggests?
My hunch is that this scene does not correspond to any real event but was intended as the sort of scene that <PERSON> would have wanted in the film, another attempt to bewilder the audience and destroy any understanding what is real and what is imaginary. 918