The Benefits of Bad Movies - Part 2

The Sandlot: another not-so-great movie that is nonetheless one of my favorites.  I'm sentimental that way.

A few weeks ago I opined on a viewer's ability to derive the general quality of a film based on the reviews (and meta-reviews) from a variety of websites. Today, I want to focus on the somewhat more ethereal world of evaluating a film based on its trailer. This is, other than general hype and perhaps some early reviews, the only real exposure you can have to a film before you see it. It's amazing to me that no one seems to write about this much! Think about it - how many times have you left a theater after seeing some new trailers and said, "That movie looks awesome!" or "That's gonna be a piece of shit!" I've said it many times. Both versions. And think about how trailers work: they're several million dollars of advertising under any circumstance, so what is the production company using them for? TO MAKE BACK THE MONEY THEY SPENT ON THE FILM. It's a vicious cycle. So the way I see it, you can evaluate the advertising of a movie in four ways, listed below.

But first, an unnecessarily detailed explanation of the single most prevalent failing of trailers. I apologize in advance for this. In many ways, I think trailers are inversely and paradoxically related to the narrative arc of a story, in that the most effective trailers reveal very little. Now, film narratives rely on two interconnected concepts: the fabula and the sjuzhet.  Those are scary-looking words for pretty simple concepts. A film's fabula simply means the film's events, in sequential order (A B C D...), whereas the sjuzhet refers to those same events in the order they are presented in the film (potentially A C D B...). For most stories, these two plot setups mean roughly the same thing, with some key exceptions (such as Pulp Fiction, Memento, and others). But by and large the fabula dominates perception of a film, and we can think about its narrative arc in the same way we do that of a novel. To throw more jargon at you, that means that we are looking at five main aspects of narrative: exposition, rising action, climax, falling action, and denouement. I have a theory about this. My theory states that the more overtly a trailer presents the first two parts of this narrative, the more desperately the producers and distributors want you to connect to the trailer. That desperation shows. And it sucks. No one wants to feel like they're being conned into seeing a movie. I wish I had more bad examples of this, but it's just easier to point to trailers that get it right. Take a look at the teaser trailers (the 30-second ones) for The Dark Knight and The Dark Knight Rises. Yes, these are comic book movies, but damn, do they make you want to see the film! And guess what - they tell you absolutely freaking nothing about the movies. They don't even tell you who the villain is!  And yet, the idea of a "trailer narrator" who has to introduce the whole premise of the film in a 30-second TV spot has become so ingrained in our collective psyches that I bet everyone reading this blog could imitate his voice.  This trailer narration is like expository dialogue - it's just bad storytelling!

So now, without further ado, the four types of film advertising, and what the trailers tell you about them (note: these are not hard and fast rules, but they do tend to be true):

FILM TYPE 1 - Big budget, big advertising.  I usually think of this in terms of "blockbusters" - if your movie costs $230 million to make, you're probably going to be willing drop another $20 million to earn your money back, plus some.  This category is a real mixed bag in terms of quality, however.  For every Lord of the Rings, you just might get Transformers, or worse, Ghost Rider.  People will still see crappy movies, sure.  And you know what?  I saw Transformers in theaters.  IMAX, actually.  I expected robots and explosions, and I got 'em.  Terrible film, but decent entertainment.  So why do distribution companies spend the money?  Because they know that schmucks like me will pay to see it.  These are, without a doubt, the safest films that get made.
By the way, there will be a forthcoming diatribe on the MPAA rating system, but as a teaser, take a look at the "blockbuster" films coming out this year, and then count how many of them are rated PG-13.  Just a guess: I bet it's roughly all of them.  Think that's an accident?

FILM TYPE 2 - Big budget, low advertising.  Not too many in this category.  If they're not worth marketing, they're not worth making, especially for a huge budget.  Why would a production company pull the plug on marketing costs?  Well, if a film is absolutely destroying its budget... it might be time to cut your losses.  If another seven-digit marketing expenditure still only puts a handful of asses in seats, why bother?
The only good scenario I can understand is a medium-budget movie that gets low pub and does well regardless, or at least relatively well.  I'm thinking here of films like The Imaginarium of Doctor Parnassus and things of that nature.  This is probably the first category where you might see Oscar-bait, but it's kind of tough for me to swallow that too many production companies will under-pub their best films.  Those are more likely going to come from...

FILM TYPE 3 - Low budget, big advertising.  So many great films here, and a lot of them are award winners.  I guess even more if you say "low- to medium-budget."  The point is that if a film only costs $8 million, and the production and distribution companies overspend the production cost of the film on marketing... they probably have a great deal of faith in the commercial success of the film.  People will see these movies, not because they're filled with amazing special effects and big-name actors, but because they're flat-out good movies.  If you see trailers for a film that looks like it cost nothing to make and it's nonetheless getting huge pub, it's probably a cue that you should see it.

FILM TYPE 4 - Low budget, low advertising.  Here's where things get a little weird, because so many of these films are indie flicks and pet projects.  Steven Soderbergh is kind of the de facto master of this genre.  Twenty-five years ago he pioneered the modern indie film with sex, lies, and videotape and hasn't really let up since; his The Girlfriend Experience (2009) shows that the low-budget end of production still has some enthusiasts.  Along with Soderbergh, some directors have, for one reason or another, moved away from lower budgets, only to return some years later.  Kevin Smith made Clerks. on the money he made selling his comic book collection, and we all know how well that turned out.  After Jersey Girl (a high-budget flop), Smith returned to his roots, so to speak, with Clerks II, for which he had a bigger budget but still directed like an indie film.  Films in this category really run the gamut of "awesome" to "shitty," so there's no good way to generalize, but again, check out the MPAA ratings here: types 3 and 4 are where you see the R ratings.  Coincidence?  I think not.

I won't prattle on too much here (like I did yesterday).  Obviously, I can't predict what you like, and there is no scientific way to separate the good from the bad.  There will always be exceptions.  But I do believe that if you take to heart the advice and guidelines I put forth in the two parts of this entry, you will save yourself from paying $10 to see a movie in theaters that just doesn't deserve your time.  Sure, you could guess.  But how often can you afford to guess wrong?

Drive (2011)

Ryan Gosling, showing about as much emotion as he ever will in this film.

Those of you who know me fairly well may not be startled to learn that I have something of an affinity for dark, depressing movies.  I don't think that this is a function of my personality or outlook so much as the fact that I really appreciate the grittiness of some films.  To me, these sorts of films come off with an honesty, a reality that we are sometimes afraid to confront in our daily lives.  We all want to live in a romantic comedy, but most of us face an uphill fight each time we swing our legs out of bed.  In some ways, tough movies remind us that the bad times could always be worse; no one's come after me a la Anton Chigurh recently.  But in other ways, I wonder if these movies are freed of some of the narrative constraints that so afflict even the great comedies.  More on that presently, but lest we forget, also, it is worth noting the words of my film studies professor, "Comedies are simply tragedies that haven't ended yet."  Cheery stuff.

I suppose the first question worth posing is, what limits do comedies have?  Well, for starters, we need to think of what comedy is.  Like with most things, I like to start on a theoretical level first and work towards the literal, so put Drive on hold for a moment.  Consider for a moment what many people consider to be the world's first comedy, The Odyssey by Homer (by the same token, we can think of The Iliad as the first tragedy).  This is a book replete with death, violence, sex, death, shipwrecks, trips to Hades, and more death.  I mean, holy crap, this book is bloody.  So how can it be a comedy?  Well, the fact of the matter is that the classical comedy (loosely) means simply that the ending is happy for the protagonist (even if that protagonist is kind of a dick, as is the case with Odysseus).  I'm not totally sure when this changed, but we can trace this type of classical comedy through literature into the post-modern era.  How many of you have read Kafka?  If you were reading The Metamorphosis, well, then, you know what I mean.  So this idea is certainly not dead.  But somewhere in the tradition of American cinema (and yes, I think this is largely an American phenomenon, although certainly we do not hold exclusive rights).  I don't want to go through the whole history of comedy (maybe I'll write up The Philadelphia Story one of these days, and I can tackle it then), but suffice it to say that I think the most notable adaptation comedies have made in the past century is perceptive: we think of comedies in an entirely self-contained manner.  Contrast this with Odysseus's plight; as those familiar with the story are well aware, the hero's journey does not end with his nostos to Ithaka - he must set out on foot with an oar, until he finds someone who does not recognize it.  (This is fast becoming a ridiculous tangent.  I promise this is going somewhere.)  You remember what my film professor said?  Yeah, keep that in mind.

So why is this a problem for comedy film?  Well... time limits are an issue.  Film has traditionally coalesced near the two-hour guideline, slightly less for most new comedy.  I'm not 100% sure why this is, but I doubt very much that it is incidental - consider that the films of the 1910s and 1920s tended to be either rather short, as with Battleship Potemkin and Chaplin's films, or insufferably long, as with Intolerance (look it up, people, I'm not summarizing that shit).  Essentially, that means that we have developed a cultural expectation that a comedy will wrap up neat and tidy, all things will be happy for the main character(s) now and forever, and we don't have to consider the long-term effects of the film's sjuzhet.  This isn't a bad thing, necessarily - consider The Hangover, a film which was sadly overlooked for Oscar contention.  How many of you honestly left the theater thinking, "Man!  They sure did a lot of damage to that hotel room!  And Ed Helms totally paid with a credit card!  They're going to get arrested again!"  No.  You're a liar.  You didn't think that.  And yet, it's a totally logical reaction, given the movie.  But the truth is, we just don't think about things like that.  It's just not the expectation we have, especially when a movie is goofy.  We expect the story to be over in two hours.  This is what I will call a "modern comedy."

So what is the obverse?  I tend to place non-"modern comedy" flicks in three categories: dramas, documentaries, and art films.  Original, I know, but give me a break, here; I'm trying to classify 110 years of movies into three categories.  Obviously, it's not going to be perfect.  Most dramatic films are clearly one or the another (Warhol really didn't do "drama" all that well, and James Cameron really hasn't exploited his artsy side so much as his money-grubbing side), although I do think many great films straddle that line fairly effectively.  Think of Citizen Kane - an ironic tragedy, sure, but also an artistic statement (especially for its era).  2001: A Space Odyssey is probably the zenith of this blending.  And I think that most cinephiles would agree there - the great movies tend to incorporate a strong measure of art (advice: pay attention to Best Cinematography and Best Art Direction at the Oscars, then watch all of the films that are nominated).

So I'm going to do something really revolutionary here: I'm going to split dramas into two categories.  Tragedies and Comedies.  "But what?" I hear you say.  "We already have comedies as its own category!"  To you I say: some men just want to watch the world burn.  Also, do you remember that whole diatribe about The Odyssey?  Yeah, that wasn't an accident.  I think what we've started to do as a culture is to confuse the classical comedy with the traditional tragedy, because what we now think of as a comedy didn't exist in 1500 B.C.E. (times were tougher then) and what we usually call "Drama" they would call "Hilarious," at least in comparison to their terrible, non-indoor-plumbing-filled lives.  (Years later, the Romans would invent indoor plumbing... with lead.  Making it possibly a step backwards.  Then they scrapped theater and just threw people to the lions.  So... yikes.)  Wowza, so if that's their comedy (and yes, I have read Aristophanes, and that's like Hellenic slapstic, but I'm generalizing here), what was their tragedy like?  Spoiler alert: EVERYONE DIED.  But no, seriously.

Whew, almost there.  Almost to the actual discussion of the film.  But first let's look back over the Best Picture winners since 1990 (totally arbitrary cutoff line) and classify them, just so we have a bit clearer image of what I mean by comedy and tragedy, and explanations when I had some questions (or if I haven't seen them - don't judge me, I watch a crapload of movies, but I haven't seen everything):
1990 - Dances With Wolves - Haven't seen it, Costner is a terrible actor, but not as bad as Nicolas Cage.
1991 - The Silence of the Lambs - Comedy; no real winner but the principles are alive and well at the end.
1992 - Unforgiven - I could make a good case either way.
1993 - Schindler's List - I'm saying comedy, with reservations.  Obviously, the setting is tragic.
1994 - Forrest Gump - Still one of the biggest mistakes the Academy has ever made.  Travesty, but no tragedy.
1995 - Braveheart - Haven't seen it.
1996 - The English Patient - Haven't seen it.
1997 - Titanic - I'll call it a tragedy, but it's mostly a tragedy that this won best picture.
1998 - Shakespeare In Love - Another huge mistake.  Comedy.  Fifth-best movie that was nominated that year.
1999 - American Beauty - The first real tragedy on this list.
2000 - Gladiator - Tragedy-ish, but God, do I hate Russell Crowe's acting.  Weak year for film (truth; check the nominees).
2001 - A Beautiful Mind - Comedy.  About schizophrenia!  Ha!  Ha!  (Shut up, Ben!)  YOU SHALL PERISH.
2002 - Chicago - Comedy, and just not a good movie.  Certainly not "Best."
2003 - The Return of the King - Comedy.
2004 - Million Dollar Baby - Tragedy.
2005 - Crash - Comedy (sort of) and the third-best movie nominated that year.
2006 - The Departed - Hmm... I'm going tragedy.
2007 - No Country For Old Men - The purest tragedy on this list.
2008 - Slumdog Millionaire - Comedy, third-best film nominated that year.
2009 - The Hurt Locker - Haven't seen it.
2010 - The King's Speech - Haven't seen it.
2011 - The Artist - Uh, comedy.

That was a lengthy definition, but you get my point here: the genre of movies we tend to embrace is not actually what we think it is.  We like to laugh and we like our movies to have a happy ending (modern comedies and dramatic comedies).  It turns out that not that many people seem to like irredeemable tragedy, so we redefine it: dramatic comedies usurp the title of "drama," and tragedies are increasingly relegated to the realm of "art films," where, with a few exceptions, they simply don't belong.  You doubt me?  Find someone who dislikes No Country for Old Men or A History of Violence and ask them why they feel that way.  Notice how their argument might be couched in the rhetoric of bad art criticism: "I just didn't get it" or "It was too 'out there'" or "What was the point of that movie?"

But once in a while we come across a film that really does blur the line between a drama and art for art's sake.  It's a rarity in American cinema, I concede.  But it is with this in mind that I (finally) come to Drive, as I believe it is in that rarest of categories, the true hybrid of tragedy and art.  This really is a difficult film to wrap my head around, and I confess that it's taken me almost a month to write this review because I didn't even know if I liked it or didn't like it.

And with that, if you don't want spoilers, stop reading, immediately.

Drive is an incredibly violent film.  Let's just get that out there to begin with.  It very well might be the most violent movie I have ever seen.  Now, what distinguishes Drive from other violent films, I believe, is that the violence truly is not gratuitous.  By that I do not mean that the director, Nicolas Refn, could not have chosen to mitigate the on-screen impact of the violence; he certainly could have.  But when I say that Drive is as much performance art as it is film, I grant it the authority to manipulate my emotions.  What impressed me about the violence in Drive is that my reactions to it universally mirrored what one or more of the characters felt about it.  For instance, take the scene where the Driver (Ryan Gosling) and Irene (Carey Mulligan) share an elevator with a hitman.  This turns into one of the most violent scenes in the film, punctuated by the Driver killing the would-be assassin by, quite graphically, stomping his face in.  I was horrified, watching it.  And so was Irene, and I think at that moment (a little more than halfway through the film) both principal characters understood that their story, at least together, could have no happy ending.  That's the plot of it.  The art of it is that both have incredibly powerful emotional reactions, and that we empathize with both, although they are wildly different.  Irene feels repulsion and a shattering of her (relative) innocence; the Driver (although he is harder to read) seems to feel a horrifyingly alone.  His is a life of desperate isolation, and as he symbolically loses Irene by saving her life, that is brutally, poignantly apparent.

I like to draw comparisons between films in this blog, because I hope that it might help my readers find great films that are similar to things they may enjoy.  I think the best I can do in this case is to reference The French Connection.  Both are films that are completely dominated by plot, but I think where Drive is a tragedy, The French Connection is probably a comedy.  And really the biggest difference is that with The French Connection, I feel like there's no "there" there.  It's a gripping plot, but nothing more; as critic Roger Ebert points out, none of the characters really have much depth at all.  Drive, however, has nothing but strong, well-rounded characters, and so we can connect with it at a much more visceral level, and our interaction with it provides, I think, a much more difficult yet rewarding experience.

No matter what else I say about Drive, it won't do it justice.  I don't know if I liked it, I don't know if I enjoyed it, but I will say this: Drive is an incredibly beautiful, terrible film.  It is gripping and powerful film.  And yes, it is violent.  If you can handle it, and if you're willing to sit and stew over it as hard as I have for the past month, I guarantee it will be worth it.  What a haunting experience.  Some of you will hate it, and that's fine.  But then I just ask you to try to figure out why.  And think about your culture, as well.  I think we like our movies happy-go-lucky, and this is the antithesis.