Dirty Rotten Scoundrels and Casting Choices (Spoiler-Free Review)

My posts can get a little didactic... I always end up wanting to get on the same page before reviewing the actual movie. Movies are subjective, and what each person extracts from any given film experience will be different and based on varying values. As a film-fan and filmmaker myself, I tend to talk in operational terms(how to make movies) and so I try to get everyone on the same page before I even start into a movie review. It doesn't mean you need to agree with me, or that my opinion matters more somehow. It just means that's how I've come to understand those experiences.

But today, I don't need any of that.

Recently I revisited Dirty Rotten Scoundrels, and I just love that film. This time I was particularly struck by the genius of the casting. At it's core, Scoundrels is a buddy picture - and fits well within that genre when you consider it in those terms, despite the fact that Steve Martin and Michael Caine are actually rivals rather than friends for this story.

Good buddy pictures are built on the ideas of interacting opposites. Two characters that are so different their mere proximity breeds comedy. Whether it be pairing of straight-laced and carefree, old and young, or fat guy and llama.  But the genius behind Steve Martin and Michael Caine is that they are fundamentally different people. They can both have similar back stories, occupations, and can even be striving for the same goal, but they are incapable of being the same.

On top of that, the clashing opposites in Dirty Rotten Scoundrels is often more subtle than in other buddy pictures. The two of them aren't reluctant partners or forced to be friends in order to get through some ordeal. Instead, the film recognizes their differences and uses them against each other in their ongoing duel. Also, their differences are obvious, but not cliche. They stem from the fact that these two characters - and more especially the two actors and comedians playing them - are just really different people who act in really different ways. And the source of that difference doesn't even really matter.

To illustrate my point perfectly, there is one scene after Steve Martin learns that Michael Caine is making significantly more money, wherein Steve Martin's character asks to be tutored in Caine's refined ways. Throughout the scene, Martin tries to imitate Caine's behavior, adopt his interests, and even tries to take on his mannerisms. It's so hilarious because Martin ends up looking like a child, pretending to be a grown up without knowing really what to do with himself while he goes through the motions. Part of this is due to the fact that Martin is a remarkably talented physical comedian, and part of it is just the plain fact that Martin couldn't become Caine if he wanted to.

In fact, part of the genius of Dirty Rotten Scoundrels is that these characters have the same occupation and are pursuing the same goals. We get to see them chase after their muse, but using completely different strategies, strengths, and perspectives. And all this characterization is wonderfully conveyed within the first ten minutes of the film, without an exposition dump, before the central plot has even begun to unfold.

In summary, several directors have remarked at the necessity of great casting in film, and I just wanted to point out one of my favorites. Go see Dirty Rotten Scoundrels, it's a fun and hilarious film.

P.S. I also realized while writing this that Frank Oz has directed 3 of my favorite Steve Martin films. Guess he does more than pig, monster, and alien voices.

Field of Dreams, Emotional Logic, and The Destiny Trope

I apologize, right up front. This one is longer than I originally wanted my pieces to be. This article contains a full exploration, and you'll be better for reading the whole thing.
------

To kick this off: two seemingly unrelated stories.

1. The Oculus Rift

Eight or so months ago I was evaluating the viability of using a new product - the Oculus Rift. I wanted to get a good feel for what it did well and where gaps in the product still existed. More than any product I've looked at in a long time, this thing had been hyped beyond recognition for almost a year prior to my getting one to test. It's a pair of goggles that fill your entire field of view, and track the movement of your head. So when you turn your head, the camera within the game you are looking at also turns, and you feel immersed in the experience. Basically, it's taking another crack at virtual reality. I tried test after test, and game after game trying to figure out what all the hype was about. More than anything else, I got really motion sick. Finally, I pulled up a test app where someone had recreated the final scene from Close Encounters (the alien's landing).

I tinkered around in the scene with my new toy, poking at corners and waiting for the aliens to arrive. That meant I heard the incoming ship before I saw it (I was facing the wrong way), and I turned just in time to see it come in over the mountain top. My. jaw. dropped. open.

As the alien ship, fake-looking and pixelated as it was, filled my entire field of view, I felt a sense of its vastness in my gut and tensed up all over with suspense. For just a moment, I understood all of the hype. For a split second that ship was real to me.

2. My Contentious Girlfriend

When I was in my first year in college - and deeply infatuated with film - I dated a girl who argued constantly with me about the merits of different films and stories - or the lack thereof. She thought that writers of drama in general were people seeking to turn anything into its most extreme form, and would often forsake logic and basic reasoning in favor of opportunities to make an audience laugh or cry. I'm not saying she's wrong, and that she hasn't touched on a major problem in entertainment media, but we always fought because she insisted that dramatic classics were some of the worst offenders, and often used them as her token examples for the central flaws in storytelling as we know it. Her favorite example was Romeo and Juliet - and she loved to trash Shakespeare in general.

I also just happened to be on a huge Shakespeare, and especially Romeo and Juliet, kick at that point. Besides, how could I allow her to badmouth the Bard? So we fought... a lot.

Emotional Logic

The first thing I want to tackle is a blanket term I apply to multiple individual phenomenons or experiences, and how we use them to assess our enjoyment of or empathy towards a film. I gave examples of two of these experiences (or thought  processes) - that I will explain in a minute - in the above stories. But, the big idea behind emotional logic is that when you as an audience member evaluate (even subconsciously) a piece of media, your methods for doing so do not necessarily follow patterns of logic or rational thought. You do not use the same methods as you would to evaluate an argument or research article. There is an emotional and empathetic component that takes over your mental processing, oftentimes even inhibiting rational thought, and sweeping you away. You begin to feel along with the characters on screen (assuming the film has helped the two of you build a relationship) and assess whether or not the narrative feels realistic rather than whether or not it actually is realistic.

In the first story, I told an experience where the emotional aspect of an experience completely overpowered the intellectual conversation I was having with myself. The psychology behind this gets a little complex (and would make this article even longer than it is), but the important part of this is that unless you have years of intense training in controlling your own emotions, this is true of just about everyone. It's a large part of what makes narratives so transportive, and also what allows them to take us to so many places. Sure, suspension of disbelief is part of it, but no audience member is willing to suspend disbelief entirely, accepting fiction on trust or face value. Suspension of disbelief pays off to the audience when they are rewarded with a rich experience that feels real in return for their willingness to believe it could be plausible. And then, when the audience is given those rich emotional experiences, suspending disbelief is no longer a chore, because the emotional assessment of the fictional reality is more powerful than our rational mind can keep at bay. It's why telling yourself that Bambie doesn't exist can't save you from crying when his mother dies. And the clarity, power, and familiarity of those emotions become our basis for assessing how believable or emotionally valuable a story is - regardless of how well it adheres to physical realities.

In the second story, I brought up another aspect of emotional logic: the actual assessment of films based on emotional (rather than logical) evidences that they are realistic or believable. A proper logical assessment of Romeo and Juliet would require that you remember both protagonists are 15, and at that age every emotion feels like the strongest and most real emotion you have ever felt in your life EVER! Both protagonists are motivated by pure, hormone-catalyzed emotion, and you can sit back from your logical high tower and contemplate how crazy the protagonists are. But no one ever thinks of the story in such detached terms. Romeo and Juliet is called one of the greatest romances of all time because we identify with it and empathize with it (at least those who like it do). It's not because we all think those tweens are so fascinating and silly, or because we distantly refer to it as a 'teen drama,' or a 'coming of age' story. We have an entirely separate ruler by which to measure our enjoyment of stories like Romeo and Juliet, and it's largely emotional. Romeo and Juliet is a classic because it captures an emotional rawness towards love that so many people can remember or relate to, and distills and displays it in its purest and most concentrated form - two teenagers that think there really is nothing else to life than that emotion. In this context, every kiss does actually feel like the world is spinning, and each moment is full of fireworks. We empathize with how that feels, and when the characters act irrationally, we evaluate the emotions they must be feeling, their history that informs their emotions, and our own history or understanding of that emotion rather than the reality or logic of the situation. Are the feelings of this character consistent with what I know about him or her? Are his or her actions consistent with their feelings?

In that context, Romeo doesn't kill himself just because he wants you, as an audience member, to be sad. He kills himself because his emotions make him feel as if there is no other option. And that - it turns out - is valuable to us because it is an emotion so many of us recognize. It's certainly not because it seems like realistic behavior.

Think about the return home plot in Wall-E. Logically, the autopilot has a much stronger argument for staying out in space than the captain has for returning to earth. When the evidence is weighed, you have a planet that has been deemed too toxic for humans by scientists, and orders that the crew can never be entirely sure that it has fully righted itself, versus a single robot that found a plant. But we don't care. So emotionally intoxicating is the idea of going home that we ignore the more rational argument in favor of what feels right. That robot steering wheel doesn't want to go home. What kind of monster wouldn't want to go home? (This is also a common tactic in political rhetoric, but I'm certainly not going to discuss that here.)

------

A Quick Sidenote about those "Fanboyz"

Before someone has a chance to jump in and say, "Wait a minute, I assess films logically and point out their flaws to all my friends and family so that they don't enjoy their experience," and think that they are either an exception to this rule or proof that it just isn't true, I want you to know I call people that do that fanboyz - and that's not a good thing in this case.

Everyone has different things that they value in movies, and everyone has a line of believability they won't let movies cross. My mother-in-law worked as a nurse before she first saw Thor. She loved the movie, except for the fight in the hospital, because she knew there was no way you could have a fist fight in a hospital gown without it falling off and exposing the nether regions. That was her line, and the movie crossed it. She was fine with rainbow bridges, ice giants, and the entire united Marvel universe, but that hospital gown was too unrealistic for her. But again, that's not really what bugs me about fanboyz.

Fanboyz actively seeks to rip apart their own and other people's experience solely for the purpose of proving that they are more knowledgeable than another person. They come up with theories about or attacks on movies based on surface details that don't matter to how the story is perceived or enjoyed. And for a multitude of reasons, fanboys ruin everything. Not only are their millions of them spreading their hate all over the internet at this very moment, but movie companies are beginning to think they actually have to listen to that garbage. Therefore, they feel the need to take an extra 30 minutes of Superman's runtime explaining what a codec is - even though it's an extraneous detail to the characters or emotional plot line of the film. They did it to make sure the film was more scientifically accurate and logical just so no one would complain.

Don't get me wrong. Being realistic, in fiction, is a huge plus. But it's not at the core of what actually matters to us, and with all the other dramatic missteps of Man of Steel, it obviously kept them from doing other, more important, things.But that's not really what I meant to talk about. 

So, my advice to fanboyz is twofold, (1) don't ruin other people's experiences over little details that you were only able to notice because you were watching a bad movie. And (2) those things probably aren't actually what made the movie bad in the first place, so maybe you should take a deeper look. Logistical accuracy has never been a requirement for fictional narratives.
------

Finally, let's look at one more aspect of emotional logic in for a deeper analysis - Familiarity. Asian "superheroes" differ greatly from western superheroes, and that difference tells us a lot about what people value, and what feels real to them. American superheroes are given their powers through accidents outside their control, magical coincidence, or just by being from somewhere else entirely. Asian heroes, on the other hand, are often normal people who have a whole lot of the right kind of training. Asian heroes are something that you can become by your own power rather than force majeure. So, for westerners to believe that a man can stop a sword blade with just his hand, we have to invent an elaborate story about how he became so powerful by existing within a faux reality - while any old martial artist can do it in Asia if they've trained enough and have the right mindset. And remember, this is all on an emotional level - that is what it takes for our superheroes to feel real to us. And that makes sense - western superheroes match the pattern of stories that we surround ourselves with, where people triumph based on their ingenuity, knowledge of science, and luck. Contrastingly, Asia has had super humans doing insane things out of sheer willpower, practice, and a still mind for thousands of years - and it is a one cultural staple that informs their world views. So, audience members evaluate those stories on a subconscious level by comparing them to the feelings of agreement and assurance that they have had while consuming other stories. Iron Man is Elon Musk - with science and ingenuity on his side, while Katayama Gorobei can sense a blow to the head before it comes, just as many thought Bruce Lee could in real life. It feels right because it feels similar to what we experience around us, even though it may not actually be linked to reality in any other way. So it might just be that Field of Dreams matters to us because it leans on the familiarity and nostalgia of classic baseball. But I'm not really ready to talk about Field of Dreams yet.

The Destiny Trope

Understanding emotional logic is important to our discussion because next I want to talk about the Destiny Trope in movies, and how completely enraptured movies and audiences are with the whole idea. Understanding why we - as audience members - consistently value this kind of story is much more important than understanding why moviemakers continue to create this kind of story, but it is also a lot harder to answer. Especially when it neither seems logical or helpful to us in the long run.

While there are many forms which destiny can take in films, the specific flavor of the unavoidable fate that I am referring to treats each person's life as a river - flowing toward a predetermined point. Trying to make any decision contrary to destiny is not only futile, but makes the character unhappy and unsuccessful. However, should the character finally face their destiny and give in to what was always meant to be, they will find that life has already lined up everything for them to be successful and happy if they can just accept what they were always meant to do. once they accept their destiny they need only go with the flow, and success is assured. This type of destiny is decided by the universe and completely outside the control of the character - and the character need only accept their destiny to be happy and successful, or run from it and be forever unhappy.

This is subtly, but importantly, different from Strictly Ballroom's "A life lived in fear is a life half lived." destiny - wherein destiny is a destination, but the character must choose whether or not that is the life they intend to pursue. With this version of destiny, sometimes the character believes in their heart that is where they want to be, but fear or some other obstacle prevents them from getting to it. No. Instead, the destiny trope I'm talking about would say that the universe demands that the protagonist fulfill their destiny, and he or she has an illusion of choice whether or not to accept, but trying to deny destiny is painful, and giving into fate in inevitable.

A perfect example of the destiny trope I'm getting at is in August Rush (2007). Within the first act of August Rush, we learn that lover characters must love each other, must have a son, and they all must make music. Then, everyone but the boy spend the entire plot of the film trying to duck and dodge their destiny until the final act when they accept it, and VOILA, everything falls into place. (P.S. Spoilers!) This piece was largely panned by critics for being so predictable, but it was lauded by audiences for being touching and meaningful (I didn't make that up - those are real reviews and to clarify I'm not making fun of them). But what about this trope and this approach to story universes is so meaningful to us? As discussed before it is not because of how true to life it is, or how well it matches our perception of reality, but instead we value it on a deeper, more emotional level. So why? Is following destiny to a magical land of happiness a reality that is familiar to us? Or is it just a familiar story?

Rather than sitting around talking about a more obscure use of this trope, let's tackle the big kahuna - why is Field of Dreams, that timeless classic, a wonderful and poignant story? It's based on a construct of reality that even by emotional terms doesn't seem like how things are, but we still love it. We can all agree that the universe doesn't actually arrange people's lives for them and give them no choice but to fulfill a specific destiny, right?

Oh wait, I didn't actually want to talk about Field of Dreams yet. My bad. I promise we'll come back.

On one level it is extremely easy for me to understand why moviemakers write, shoot, and edit films with this trope - it's a group of driven people who broke into a tight-knit community, usually just by sheer hard work and patience. This is a group of people who spent a good amount of time going to sleep at night hoping that destiny had something in store for them, feeding their own motivation on the story that working in the movies is where they belong. And many of those who make it, don't necessarily love their jobs more than other people, but my experience has been that they continue to feed themselves the story of it being "meant to be" in order to help make the hard times easier. It's an emotion that I can really empathize with. So, of course moviemakers want to continue to tell that kind of story, but why do we as audience members continue to want to hear it? Are we all waiting to realize our "real" destinies and hanging onto a psychologically unhealthy hope that one day the universe will align and give us our due? I can't actually believe that's true. Are these movies only appealing to passionate youth (like Romeo and Juliet mentioned before) who haven't had their dreams completely crushed by the world? Still not buying it.

Which bring us to my last major point of emotional logic: it's completely self-reflective. It is tainted by our self-centered perspective on reality. You see, of the two types of destiny I mentioned -  unavoidable destiny decided by and driven by the universe and the destiny of a character deciding to set their own path and driving on - both feel the same when we reach our goal. In that moment, our selfish perception is that the world aligns for a moment to bring us unimaginable joy. So, a story that gets us there in more natural or healthy means would have the same emotional outcome as one that actually included the world bending over backwards to solve the protagonist's central issue - they both feel the same once we actually get to that point.

This emotional perception changes throughout our life. As our emotions mature, some stories lose their allure because we no longer identify with how they portray this emotional reality. So I'm not saying this is all subconscious and beyond our control - quite the opposite. What I am saying is that without persistent monitoring our natural reactions betray how emotionally mature we really are, and in some cases we find that we are more mature than the filmmakers trying to construct the emotional experience that we are consuming, and sometimes we find the opposite is true. That's why some films feel immature to many people, but appeal to others. It also helps explain, in part, how so many immature movies claim such large crowds and make so much money - one of the primary demographics for blockbusters is teenagers. And science tells us their brains are out of whack, and their emotions are full-strength without being fully matured.

Either way, the larger point is that neither our (nor the teenagers') emotions are concerned with the larger reality of the world and it's turning. They are completely self-centered. When we meet a huge goal in life it feels like the universe arranged it. It may not be true, but to our emotional experience the world does in fact revolve around us. So when we feel the great triumph of closing a big sale, or a lost loved one reclaimed, or even a high score in a video game - it feels like our entire life up to that point was meant for that moment. And so, films with narratives that move heaven and hell to make the destiny of the protagonists come to fruition end up feeling real by our own emotional logic, and don't seem as far-fetched as they are. Thus, the completely unreal twistings of the vast universe feel personal and poignant, as they do in Field of Dreams.

Field of Dreams

Well, you've made it through the book prior to the actual movie review. And if you are now wondering why I focused in on the destiny trope in this film, while completely ignoring the other themes that the film addresses, there are multiple reasons. First, I don't actually think there are as many themes in this movie as the movie itself seems to think there are. It mentions themes of alienation, 60's aftermath, estrangement, and the tension between following one's dreams and fulfilling responsibilities towards those around us - but these are never explored. The tension between the financial and emotional needs of Ray's family versus this crazy destiny-chase he goes on are a strawman at best (the final argument/decision before Karin is knocked off the bleachers) - and an obligatory reminder that there is a conflict in this film at worst (the phone call scene before picking up Archie on the side of the road). The real themes of this movie are father-son relationships, destiny, and baseball.

I really don't have much to say about the father-son relationship bit or baseball. This movie makes me nostalgic towards America's pastime in lots of ways that I didn't think were still pertinent to me as a person (since it's been over 15 years since I last picked up a mitt). What the film does show and talk about it does well, and that's a big part of what I like about it. Also, I still get choked up at the end when Ray meets his father as he's never met him - young and wide-eyed. Sure, the father-son theme in the film gets significantly less time than the other two, but it serves to make the final payoff much more personal as well.

Which brings me to my third reason - I focused on the destiny trope because it was the theme that took up the majority of the time, but I had the most problem with. Like a doctor, I ignored the entire body that was healthy and just kept staring and poking at this one strange and puzzling mole.

And Field of Dreams is so inundated with the destiny trope it is practically the price for admission. the first real scene of this movie is Ray hearing a voice that thrusts him unwillingly into the plot. We don't even know who he is (besides his charming but unnecessary narration of his life up to that point) at this point in the film, but we do know that the universe wants him to get to work fulfilling his destiny. I say "unwillingly," but that attitude is only true of this first "destiny push." From then on, any time destiny calls Ray is there taking orders like he's Raymond from the Manchurian Candidate.  He loses all agency and power as a character, and is only there to do what destiny bids. Destiny commands he build a baseball field and he does it; destiny bids he find a lonely, antisocial author and kidnap him, fine, whatever you say; and then destiny tells him to find a dead doctor, and he doesn't know how to do that. But never fear, destiny will ambiguously send him back in time so that he can fulfill his goal. All of this shows that, thematically, this movie isn't telling us anything about Ray - if it were Ray would have some control over the story, his reactions would matter, or he would at least have something to say as the victim of this event. No, instead this film is telling us about karma and the cosmic spinnings of the universe that set events in motion so that Ray can reunite with his father - whether or not he actually wants to. Destiny demands that he act, he does, and he is ultimately rewarded for it. That tells us more about destiny than it tells us about Ray.

And yet it still works on some level. I still got a little choked up when "Moonlight" Graham lost his chance to play baseball, and when John finally got to meet his granddaughter. Especially since our responses are self-reflective, that tells you something about me, and how I resonate with themes and situations. But no matter how effective the moments that do work are, they can't communicate what the film could have been if it had treated this theme more maturely.

Every time I talk this point with people, I get a few eye rolls. I understand that it is kind of silly to compare a film to a hypothetical version that is way better. But ultimately, doing so is about the act of finding where a film fails for you, understanding how you think it could've done better, and drawing conclusions about film in general based on your ideas. And I'm not going to try and support that position, I'll just let Steven Spielberg do it for me.

There's an interesting BTS section on the Close Encounters special features where Steven Spielberg opens up and says that he would never make Close Encounters today; he thought it represented misguided ideas he had as a youth. In the film, Richard Dreyfuss is inexplicably drawn to discover what is at the top of a mountain - no matter the costs. He obsesses about it and ultimately abandons his family in search of what it all means. Sound familiar?

What Spielberg said about that situation was that it skipped over the real story to chase a contrived one. If the protagonist were obsessing about something, what would it take to get so under his skin to uproot or cause him to neglect the things in his life that were most important to him - like his family? How would having a family create conflict and add meaning to that experience? Ignoring the social and familial relationships to chase after the contrived situation of learning the meaning of someone's life and the purpose of their destiny is not only selfish (and yet rewarded in both Encounters and Field of Dreams), but it misses the point of where most people find meaning. In both situations the protagonists ignore their family in order to find the meaning of life. And, by my standards that's just counter-productive.

In summary, I think my wife said it best when, as we were watching Field of Dreams a brief shot came on of Ray pining over his empty field while Christmas happened in the background, "Wait, he's skipping Christmas for that dumb thing?"

And that's an emotional evaluation based on emotional values, and has nothing to do with how well Field of Dreams matches reality. Which is good, because it doesn't do that either. 

An introduction into what it is like to make a film.

I love this video so much. While the content is very abstract, this has been my experience with every video and film I've ever had the precious opportunity to work on.

Film Analysis and "Striking While the Iron's Cold"

One of my all-time favorite films

The title this week comes from a comment of one of my favorite film critics on a reddit AMA. I read it ages ago, but the sentiment of this comment has stuck with me, especially since it resonates with my approach to writing posts.

I never review or discuss current movies.

I can even remember multiple times (in my more pretentious days) going to see movies with friends, and then when they asked whether or not I liked it, I would just tell them that I couldn't say yet. I understand now that's not really what you do in social situations, but I really like to dissect a movie before I feel I can say anything beyond my surface feelings.

So, let me just stop there for a moment. Surface feelings are valuable. I know that now, and it took me a long time to learn.

However, striking while the iron's cold allows you to analyze a movie and ask why you feel the way you do. You get to dissect the jokes, dig into the subtext, research cinematography, and anything else you need to do to understand what elements are at work behind what you are seeing. And the best part is that you don't have to hang your feelings on the patterns you do or don't find - because those surface feelings are still there and they still happened. Even if you realize that a movie you love is a terrible film, by certain standards or according to certain major theorists or critics, you can still love it.

Besides, learning about films more, diving into the emotional and intellectual responses that come so naturally while we're watching them is the kind of experience that enriches us as human beings. And doing so while the emotions are not so fresh in our memory allows us to analyze them without returning to or being consumed by them again.

Plus, it also helps you to avoid telling everyone else that they are wrong (Refer to sentence that reads "Surface feelings are valuable").

Editing for Pacing and Scott Pilgrim vs. The World

So, I'm going to start this one with a confession. For every one post I put up here, there are at least three that never happen or end up on the cutting room floor. It's common for me to write something, and then read through it, hate it, and throw it out. But this topic - pacing and video editing in general - has been on my mind a lot lately, and as I've written it I've been very pleased with how it's turned out. Video editing is near and dear to my heart because it is my role of choice (outside the director's chair) when working on video crews. In my mind, editing is when a few unrelated shots become a movie.

Sure everyone knows what editing is, and how to do it, but not a lot of everyday moviegoers understand what makes it good, how editors set themselves apart, or where the "art" side of the art and skill coin comes into play. The barrier to entry for video editing is so low that now ANYONE can do it for absolutely free, but still people don't seem to grasp the path to becoming a good editor or how to spot(appreciate) one in the average summer blockbuster.

Editing is like cinematography in that, sure, anyone can have a camera, anyone can learn the rule of thirds, but some few true artists just seem to make really stellar images (i.e. there is an art there above and beyond skill). But how does that break down for editors? Where does the skill end and the art begin? Don't video editors just (1) do whatever the director tells them to, and (2) find the best takes, and arrange them in linear (or non-linear, depending on the story) order?

That would be a resounding no.

If you were to break down a film editor's task list, you would definitely see some things that are very cut and dry, and very skill-oriented - like making sure a film comes in with the right runtime. Film editors do in fact have many rules of thumb, tips and tricks that govern how they do what they do - and there is really a lot there that we could dive into there. But there are also some tasks that are vague and difficult to execute - like using pacing to create tone, or constructing a scene to properly cover the action. However, the important thing for this discussion is to remember that at the end of the day, everything a film editor does operates on two major principles: gestalt and pacing.

A Quick Overview of Gestalt

While I could (and I hope to) devote an entire post on gestalt in video editing, let's just get the definition out of the way so that we can get into pacing. Gestalt (in film) is the understanding that the audience doesn't view any portion of a film in isolation. Audience members don't think to themselves that they are hearing creepy music and seeing someone walking down an alley, they think that this person is walking down a creepy alley. Audience members don't see a shot of a man licking his lips and then see a close up of a burrito, they see a man who is hungry and wants to eat a burrito. While you are watching a film, your brain integrates all of the elements into one, and views them within the context of one another - so the less they mesh the less clear the message of any given moment will be. More powerful moments are created when everything increases your understanding of everything else in a clear and meaningful way. This works in all directions too, you relate things that happen before to things that happen after, you relate things that happen at the same time together, and you relate things that follow a pattern into a single psychological construct. That's gestalt.

Check out this clip from Scott Pilgrim, and notice how everything is related. You know where all of the characters are in relationship to one another, the cuts allow you to understand their communication and reactions with each other because each shot gives context for the shot immediately afterwards, and the action is grounded in the narrative because the cuts let you know why and how things are happening. Besides, I just love this scene.

Pacing

Now that we've covered gestalt, let's get into pacing. Pacing is a term for how editors manage the psychological state of the audience over the course of a scene, sequence, or over a full film. It refers to how the editor times and transitions cuts, music, movement, and effects to (1) create a reaction in the audience; (2) use those reactions and emotions to affect other contexts and situations; and (3) transition from one emotion, thought, or reaction to another. Pacing refers both to how fast or slow a film is AND the process or rhythm the film uses to transitions from one feeling to another. Amateur filmmakers will often let the pace of a film be determined by the delivery of the actors or the action that has been captured in the camera, leaving the scenes, performances, and action to run the full length, including every unnecessary pause, movement, and extraneous blocking. Pros, on the other hand, leave hours of footage on the cutting room floor so that only the necessary amount of information is conveyed, and at a pace and rhythm that matches the emotion and desired reaction of the scene. Each scene should take the minimum amount of screen time necessary to tell it's bit of the story, you don't want to waste a frame. Then, on top of that, editors have to consider the emotional context, visual language, and audio flow between any two scenes. If you've seen the Ang Lee's Hulk (2003) the transitions between scenes are both very apparent and very fluid, with a visual element from the previous scene always bleeding into the next. That is all done to set the pacing of the film. It's also why the most common special feature on any given DVD or Blu-Ray is the "Deleted Scenes." Frequently, when editing a final film, directors or editors decide that an entire scene is dragging the pacing down, changing the emotional tone too much, or just plain out of place, and so it is cut - sometimes even when it contains information vital to the plot of the film.

For an excellent example of how a film uses pacing to set the tone and transition from one emotion to another, check out the works of M. Night Shyamalan - especially Unbreakable, Signs, or The Village. Shyamalan holds his shots for a long time without cutting to build the tension, and then suddenly speeds things up for a few minutes for scares and excitement, and then goes back to slow to let the audience catch their breath or build to the next release.

Or, if you want an example that is hilarious, fast-paced, and created by one of the greatest comedic directors of our time, you could check out Scott Pilgrim vs. The World.

Scott Pilgrim vs. The World

I highly recommend Scott Pilgrim vs. The World. But, let me just start out by saying that if you are ready to run to the movie store (they still have those, right?) to get Scott Pilgrim just off of my suggestion, it's not really a film for everyone. The story is slightly incoherent (I'll talk more in-depth about what that means in a later post - I promise), it can be kind of difficult to track, the pacing jumps frequently from fast to slow, and the narrative doesn't follow the typical emotional logic that we are accustomed to. It's a hard movie to categorize in your brain. But I think it is definitely worth watching just for the pure skill in execution, and even more so if you fit in the generation and demographic that will get the inside jokes from sitcoms and video games.

Also, I do think that the movie deserves a little leeway because it tries to adapt SIX graphic novels into a single film, the team didn't know exactly how it was going to end when they started production, and is a heavy-handed comedy (which always means taking time for comedic payoff, even if it comes at the expense of time for characterization, plot, or action). That's really hard to fit into less than two hours of video. The whole film has kind of got a "bite-off-more-than-you-can-chew" vibe to it. But even with all that, it is a genuinely entertaining and well-crafted film.

So let's go back to what I said before about how Scott Pilgrim jumps around a lot. The pacing in this movie is outright insanity - with some scenes being slow and thoughtful, others fast and frenetic, and some with the drive, rhythm, and repetition of a music video. There's not a wasted frame.

Take a minute to look at the clip below - which starts at the end of a somber scene. Notice how the pacing transitions from one emotional tone to the next, and how the editor keeps ramping up the speed til we make it to the end of the clip. Notice how your emotional state as an audience member is being manipulated by the rhythm of what you are seeing, and how the editor maintains that rhythm by holding visuals and audio the exact amount of time that matches the pacing of the scene. It's really quite brilliant.

Check it out here.

So, not only is this clip dealing with two different scenes, a shift in emotional tone between the two, music and sound cues that are both stark and subtle, swinging camera transitions to add octane to the pacing, and generally ramping up the speed of all the takes, but it also takes a moment - just as the speed of the pacing reaches its apex - to use the pacing for a joke and to get a laugh. If you missed that, it was the shot of the shoe.

All of Scott Pilgrim is like this. The whole film moves at a breakneck pace, that only pauses for emotionally poignant moments before it takes off again and doesn't wait for you to catch up. It has to cover a lot of ground, visually and stylistically as well as within the narrative. Each scene has it's own pacing - setting slightly different tones for each Evil Ex, that bare a stark contrast from the quiet moments between just Scott and Ramona. But the place where Scott Pilgrim vs. The World really shines is in the transitions. To understand what I mean and for bonus points, go back and watch the Katanyagi Twins fight, but pay attention to the pacing and rhythm this time instead of gestalt. The final section ("Getting a life") is a transition, but a different kind I'll cover later.

With the vast number and variety of scenes used in Scott Pilgrim, it would be easy for the film to feel jumpy, disjointed, and like a collection of separate vignettes. Instead, each scene has a cohesive entry and exit point, linking it all together and helping the audience understand how each scene relates to the one after it. Even the opening credits transition from one logo to another, naturally flowing from the setup right into the rest of the film and setting a precedent for pacing and transitions that will be followed for the rest of the picture.

And it works flawlessly.

So while your chowing down on popcorn in your next flick, watch out for pacing. It's something that takes awhile to catch at first, because most films aren't as obvious about it as Scott Pilgrim. If you want to know what type of stopwatch a movie ticks to, you usually have to slow it down and take it shot by shot. But that's not so bad - it makes for a great experience, and hey, that's what the editor had to do.

MI:4 and Why I Still Believe the Auteur Theory

There's a brilliant quote from the film Nine about directing:

Directing a movie is a very overrated job, we all know it. You just have to say yes or no. What else do you do? Nothing. “Maestro, should this be red?” Yes. “Green?” No. “More extras?” Yes. “More lipstick?” No. Yes. No. Yes. No. That’s directing.

But that's not really what I want to talk about. 

When I was a young, dumb film student, my professors taught me the meaning of the Auteur theory and told me outright that it was evil. Not that the theory itself was evil, but believing it sure was.

In a nutshell, the auteur theory of film says that the director is the ultimate author of the film, that they have the most creative control over the final look and feel of the film, and that they are more responsible for its success and failure than the screenwriter, cinematographer, editor, or any other contributor on the film. See, in creating a book or painting, it is easy to decide who the "author" of that creative work is - it's the person who did all of the work. J.K. Rowling is the author of Harry Potter and the Sorcerer's Stone because there is no part of that story that didn't come from her. 

But movies have hundreds, and sometimes thousands, of people who contribute to the final product of the film. It takes an army to make a movie. Peter Jackson is incapable of constructing and animating a CG model of King Kong; James Cameron didn't utter the timeless line "I'll be back."; and Frank Miller had never even made a movie before he directed his first big-budget picture. How, if these people are not the major content contributors, could I possibly call them the author of the film's final form, creative concept, success, or even failure? 

I'm getting ahead of myself - let's do a story first. 

Over the shoulder shot

One of the first short commercials I ever directed featured two people talking to each other. I wanted to do an over-the-shoulder shot for each person - because I love frame within a frame shots. (Sidenote: if you love frame within a frame cinematography too, check out Stranger than Fiction - that movie's gorgeous). I talked with the DP, and he said that with the location we had chosen, he tested several camera setups and didn't think it was possible it get a well-composed over-the-shoulder shot. It just didn't work at the location and with the lighting setup we had already selected. So we did a different type of shot and moved on. 

Then, a few weeks later I was assisting on the set of a student short film, run by one of the most talented directors I've met. Lo and behold, he wanted an over-the-shoulder shot too, and his DP told him the same thing - it just wasn't practical for their setup. But that wasn't good enough for him, the shot had to happen. Setbacks are temporary, film is forever. So, they began to modify their setup. Finally, they got the shot he wanted by putting the chair of the actor whose back was to the camera  on top apple crates. Sure, his feet were 2.5 feet off the ground and he looked completely ridiculous to everyone in the room, but the shot looked great. 

My professors told me the auteur theory was evil because it engendered a false idea that the director is king of the castle, and everyone else mere peons that exact his will - and that's just not true. In reality, the exact work that a director does do varies from film to film, but one thing remains the same: Every single frame of every shot has been approved by the director as what he or she intended it to be. Directors are not in charge of making everything within a film, but instead are the filter through which all content must pass - and they exact their creative will by only accepting items that forward the creative agenda of the piece. They are the single interpreter between script and the final reality of the finished film. Thus, the same script given to different directors would produce vastly different films. It is their job to make sure the final film is what they want it to be - and we trust them to produce films that we as an audience will enjoy. 

Ridley Scott puts it a little differently, but I think he means the same thing. 

And it's important to remember that this approach does not devalue the work of the rest of the filmmakers on any project. Adam Savage, of Mythbusters once cheerfully lamented that his tenure at ILM only allowed him the opportunity to work on movies that were ultimately not great. But he still got work, because his part in those films was amazing and very respected in the film community. For each, the special effects were great, but the entire film was unsuccessful - and we blame that aggregate success or failure on the director because it's his or her job to take responsibility for the film as a whole. 

MI:4

Sorry, this post has gone way too long without getting to the movie I wanted to talk about and I promise less than half the stuff I wanted to cover made it in. 

The Mission Impossible series is not only a great collection of films (with one less successful entry), but also a perfect illustration of my point - and Ghost Protocol is my favorite of the set. You see, each of the 4 MI movies so far has had a different director, and they are all completely different movies. There have been screenwriters that have carried over, actors (obviously), music, editing, etc., but the directors were different every time.

I would really love, at this point, to go through each of the Mission Impossible films and talk about the directorial styles of the different directors for each and how you can see them evident in the final product - but I just don't have the time or the space. The MI's have had some impressive names take the wheel, and you can see in the look, feel, and overall tone differences between each of the films. The difference between De Palma's tone and Woo's are almost night and day, while Abrams' Mission Impossible feels like the original, but still made some subtle (and some not so subtle) changes. But I'm not here to talk about them, I'm here to talk about Ghost Protocol and Brad Bird. 

So what about MI:4 made it so successful in my mind? It was two major firsts for Brad Bird: directing his first live action movie and directing his first film that wasn't a comedy. If you look at Bird's track record before MI:4 you can tell he is a master at animated comedy - with tenure on The Simpsons, and as one of what I call Pixar's 'core directors'. He seems (to me at least) like the least likely pick for a convoluted action thriller, but that's exactly what's brilliant about it. Ghost Protocol shines as a thriller because Bird uses his comedic instincts to inject humor into specific moments, and change the tone to allow the audience to feel great contrast between the emotional highs and lows of each moment. He uses the same tactics to build tension and release it by pumping up the drama, and then allowing the audience to exhale with a comedic payoff.

Take for example the scene where Ethan is climbing the skyscraper. Sure, it's an amazing stunt; sure, we can see that it's actually Tom Cruise doing it; sure the scene builds tension throughout in both comedic and non-comedic payoffs - BUT THEN at the end when Ethan jumps into the open window he misses, and smashes his head on the top. It's pretty hilarious. But more than that - it is an emotional button, a comedic payoff after a dramatic buildup that lets the audience take a moment of rest before we dive back into the tension of the following scene. And it's a self-aware, comedic moment that I believe very few (if any) directors would make in that scenario. 

As a story decision, it's unprecedented in a Mission Impossible film. It was the first that didn't take itself too seriously; it's even the first to recognize how ridiculous it is that the secret organization is called the Impossible Mission Foundation. And it's odd how few directors recognize that adding comedy actually enhances the thrilling and dramatic moments of the film. Brad Bird makes this and other comedic choices (the scene in the hallway with the projector "wall" is one of my favorites of all time) that none of the previous MI directors would have ever had the guts to try. 

On an emotional level, close calls are more relieving when we can crack a joke afterwards; major plot twists are more surprising when we thought we were entering comic relief; and painful realizations are more painful when we all thought we were just having a good time; and the richness of each moment is enhanced by adding a smoothie of multiple emotions and expectations. 

Ghost Protocol takes a narrative and tonal departure from the Mission Impossible norm. One through three are all dark action thrillers, with high-stakes spy vs. spy plot lines that all feature major twists, but only 4 makes comedy, the absurdity of the circumstances, and the personal failings of the main characters central tenets of the story. So why do I put this major change on Bird? Because all of the movies he had done previously featured the same tenets. It is such a welcome breath of fresh air in the Mission Impossible series, and only serves to make the impressive stunts, cinematography, and narrative tension even more interesting to the audience.

In the end, I understand that it takes a lot of people to make a movie - and so does the entire filmmaking community. And I think it's silly to glorify the director's chair as the throne of the industry and the art form. However, I still believe the auteur theory because that is the job and the trust that belong to the director's title. He or she does not need to be the best artist on set, or even have any experience making films before, but instead is in charge of the final product. Kind of like a caretaker for the entire film, a director makes sure that at the end of the day it is the best representation of all the piece could be.

That's why I still believe the auteur theory. 

Superman Returns and The Difference Between Theme and Messages in Subtext

Awhile ago I talked about my love for subtext, and how narratives of all types use it to convey messages about the world outside the limited scope of the immediate story. But, not all films want to say something definite about the larger topics they touch on - in fact that is one of the beauties of narrative as an instructional tool: it need not make a clear statement about something. Filmmakers often talk of their stories as an "Exploration of <insert broad topic here>." By meandering through a topic, and connecting the audience emotionally to the many realities that inspire it - without focusing the entire effort of the film on a single message - many films feel more emotionally rich, and help the audience connect to the story because the story arouses real feelings that we have felt toward the universal theme that is being dealt with.

Yep, I said it, I call these themes. Themes are a type of subtext in a film, but point to something more vague than the underlying messages I've discussed before. Themes are the most common type of subtext, because they evoke an emotional or intellectual response based on the audience's experience with that the realities (outside the film) that theme represents (within the film), rather than using the story to make a clear statement about life. Themes can include things like loss, betrayal, unexpected joy, willpower. They are real life realities briefly represented in film narrative and form.

Let's quickly compare and contrast two children's films exploring the same real world issues to distinguish between themes and messages in subtext.

Message: Fern Gully
Fern Gully wants us as an audience to care about the environment. The villain is made of pollution, the heroes are protecting trees. At the end of the film, during the emotional climax where the tree grows, the narrative uses the emotion we experience because of the drama surrounding the characters to connect us to the message that the earth is the source of good and healing, and humans just destroy. No matter how you feel about the situation of Earth's rainforest, if you care about the story you feel the emotion.

Theme: Wall-E
Contrastingly, Wall-E paints a realistic picture of a world "destroyed" by pollution, and clearly imagines the damaging consequences of humans living a limitlessly hedonistic life on a deluxe cruise ship for generations. These are details that are sometimes necessary and sometimes unnecessary to the main story, but have nothing to do with the main message. Instead, they are a theme that the movie touches on by trying to paint a situation true to reality - and then we fill in the emotional part by our reaction to it. (In fact, so true to reality were these themes that it turns out a lot of people missed the main message altogether.)

The difference is that a theme is only meaningful to us if what we see on screen matches our previous experiences and current perceptions with that theme. Themes present a fictional reality that is true to aspects of reality we experience and we fill in the emotion. Messages use the plot, characters, actions, and consequences make a definite point by directing our attention, thought, and emotion toward a single statement.

Which brings us back (as most things do) to superhero movies, and specifically Superman Returns.

After his very first appearance on screen, Superman saves lives in a way only he could. What other superhero could face this situation without any casualties or additional property damage?

Hero and superhero narratives have always been about themes and subtexts - they are a way for man and woman to marvel at the things that they have, can, and will accomplish. As far as I can tell, central to every superhero story is the idea that men and women somehow have more power within themselves to do good than the world or outside forces have to put them down. These stories are born of real-life heroes that amaze us - single mothers raising 8 kids, men lifting tractors off of trapped loved ones, or teachers shielding children from falling debris with their bodies - and then we take those stories and we stretch them, retell them, and reinvent ways to feel those feelings. But at the core of every superhero film is this theme that they(heroes) somehow find a way, and have within themselves the ability, to do good in this world - even when it feels impossible. That's why I'm fine when superheroes do things their powers say they shouldn't be able to - that's just the story being true to its central theme.

But its the themes outside the central theme that create the great variance in superhero characters. And because we go into a superhero movie having already bought into the central theme, we tend to focus on the secondary themes more - because they provide more of the detail and emotional difference between superhero films.

 I could write a full post about each superhero individually, but for us the big question is, what are the themes behind Superman as a character? What makes him the kind of hero that he is, and a different hero than Batman or the X-Men?

Superman Returns
If you were here, we could discuss what Superman is really all about, and what connects him to reality and makes us interested in him as an audience - but you're not here so I just need to tell you what I think, and hope you agree.

Just sayin' I'm not the only one who noticed.

I think Superman is about perfection. He is the embodiment of all that can be accomplished by a man without mortal weakness. Like Beowulf before him, Superman is an archetype of the perfect man according to the ideals of the age in which he was conceived - able to do anything except lie and unwilling to accept the evils of the world around him. So incorruptible is he that we can't even believe he is human; his story requires he be made of better stuff than we so that we can suspend our disbelief that such a hero could exist. It's also the source of the countless Superman and Christ parallels that have been pointed out before.

These days, it has also resulted in a new theme - alienation and loneliness. It used to not exist in Superman movies and comics, but todays society finds it hard to believe that kind of man can exist among us without sticking out like a Powerpuff girl at a goth convention. So, now we see him as an alien outsider keeping to a moral code we can't access or understand. But he used to be the ideal, the ideal man.

Superman Returns taps back into that original ideal version of Superman, rather than changing his morality or the appropriate theme to match other modern movies. Even the old Superman films sometimes did that. At this point I should probably let you know that Returns is my favorite of all the Superman movies. And, at the end of the day, the thing that I like the most about it is the thematic elements. Sure, it has some major flaws, but its greatest strength is that it recognizes the theme of perfection in Superman stories and makes a strong decision to stick to it. Where other Superman films ignore or intentionally depart from this theme, Returns doubles down on it - making every detail in the story, form, and production conform to that theme. Curious what I mean? Here are some thematic elements that maybe you missed:

• Returns was supposed to be a remake, but Bryan Singer was a huge fan of the original and didn't want to depart from that aesthetic and narrative approach, so he convinced the studio to make a sequel. "Updates" to the character were then removed from the project or minimized.
• Superman's blue is the most pumped up color in every frame and every shot in the movie. The colorist isolated it and made sure it was the purest and brightest color on screen at any given time - bluer than both the sea and the sky. 
• Brandon Routh has blue eyes, but not blue enough. He still had to wear contacts so that Superman would have perfectly clear, brilliantly blue eyes in every shot.
• While he is bested several times because of his goodness and naivety, Superman never makes a real mistake in this film. 
• Superman's character does not change in any way in this film, it is not part of his arch. Instead, the rest of the world needs to change in order to accept him. 
• There are no innocent injuries or casualties in this film. 
• Even though Lois is in love with and engaged to a wonderful man who is helping her raise her child, she never really gets over "you-know-who."
• Superman is repeatedly bested because of his good intentions and need to save/protect people.
• Superman willingly chooses to die rather than let evil continue to be. 

Had enough? If you haven't noticed yet, I have a high tolerance for heavy-handedness, and this movie has it in spades. But that's exactly why I love it - it bets the entire house on a theme that was passe even back when it was released, and it makes for a better superhero movie that way. By embracing the thematic elements that differentiate it as a franchise, rather than trying to turn everything into Batman, it is elevated to a point where Superman is a real character with real meaning.  

I wish more superhero films did this - but instead most of them ignore the thematic elements that made the characters interesting in the first place and chase after popular film trends/tropes of the time. I guess at least that way they can keep rebooting them for the rest of eternity; this way ensures no one will be making any timeless classics any time soon...

Disclaimer: I should also add, before I go too much further that my true favorite Superman movie has not been made - and I haven't been 100% happy with any of them. But Returns is my favorite because it makes some bold and unpopular decisions to forward the character and the story as they were originally conceived and written. Though I'm really not a fan of that little boy...

P.S. Also, don't forget Returns is the only Superman movie to evoke the imagery of Superman with the world on his shoulders.