Parts Unknown Director Explains the Unusual Way He Used Anthony Bourdain's "Uncanny" Final Words
Bourdain's last words are haunting — and Parts Unknown director Morgan Fallon wanted to avoid "confusion."
Since his death, Anthony Bourdain has seemed to channel many meaningful messages to the living world. CNN is airing his Parts Unknown, for its last season, and the season premiere in Kenya, with guest W. Kamau Bell, includes a powerful final moment with Bourdain’s last-ever written words.
First, the credits roll. And then Bourdain can be seen on screen again, sipping beer as he ponders the landscape.
“Who gets to tell the stories? This is a question asked often,” Bourdain says.
“The answer in this case, for better or for worse, is I do — at least this time. I do my best. I look. I listen. But in the end, I know it’s my story, not Kamau’s, not Kenya’s, or Kenyans’. Those stories are yet to be heard.”
During a panel over the weekend at the Tribeca TV Festival cited in People, the show’s director Morgan Fallon called the scene “uncanny” — and the choice to run the monologue after the credits a meaningful one.
“I think after lying on the floor for about 20 minutes after seeing it, it was an ‘ah-ha’ moment of like, this is important and it needs to be separate in its own thing and not burdened by credits and confusion and stuff like this, it needs to be set up this way."
