Not an illustration from the scene itself, but an image from one of the films under discussion.
For a prior scene, see here.
SCENE: The Carroll Gardens apartment that the proprietor of this blog, “GK,” shares with His Lovely Wife (“HLW”). Living room.
(GK, sitting on the sofa, closes his laptop computer and sighs. HLW, who’s been straightening out by the entrance to the kitchen, raises her head.)
HLW: What’s wrong?
GK: Nothing…jeez, these knuckleheads over at Wells’ site, complaining about The Town, how the central romance between the Rebecca Hall and Ben Affleck characters isn’t “plausible.” Goofy. I mean, granted, it’s a genre convention, but…(shrugs)
HLW: Yeah, why go to the movies in the first place, right?
GK: Yeah, I left a comment…if these yo-yos put their money where there mouth was, they could make Frederic Wiseman as rich as George Lucas…because, you know, Frederic Wiseman movies, they’re really plausible…
(GK gets up from the sofa, starts getting his gym bag packed)
GK: And of course these guys, like everybody else, only pull out the plausibility card when it suits them to…in this case, The Town is a pretty easy target, since you can nitpick from the accents down if you’re so inclined. Of course you have to be so inclined, really have it in for the picture.
HLW: Right. Like you were with Notting Hill.
(GK looks up.)
GK: What?
HLW: Notting Hill. You said it was “implausible.” You said no way would a famous actress ever fall for an obscure book dealer, even if he did look and speak like Hugh Grant.
GK: I said that?
HLW: You did. I think you were having some sort of Julia Roberts problem at the time.
GK: I don’t think I said that. I think I said that nobody would give that stupid speech…
HLW: “I’m just a girl…looking at a boy…and asking him to love me?”
GK: Right. Which is a stupid speech. And, you know, I like a lot of Richard Curtis’ writing…
HLW: I know, I know. ‘He wrote ‘The Skinhead Hamlet.’ ” Yes, that’s very fair-minded of you. Anyway. You did say that. But you also did say that no way would a famous actress fall for, etcetera.
(GK clears his throat, finishes packing gym bag, zips it up.)
GK: You ready?
HLW: (smiling enigmatically) Yup.
(They exit,and go down three flights of stairs in silence, then out the front door. On the stoop, GK pauses.)
GK: You know, there’s a difference between being merely implausible, and dealing in pernicious bullshit.
(HLW considers this pronouncement.)
HLW: That may be so.
GK: And I think Notting Hill might have crossed that line.
HLW: Perhaps.
GK: So there you have it.
HLW: Okay.
GK: But I’ll admit, you almost had me there.
HLW: I could see you getting a little wobbly. The knees were going.
GK: Yes. Very nearly a TKO.
HLW: (smiling enigmatically, again) Yeah, you really pulled a rabbit out of a hat there, sport.
(They descend the stoop stairs. And, scene.)
Ahhhh, ain’t that the truth! “Plausibility” (or “bullshit”) is a cudgel we whip out when we dislike a movie, but rarely an actual reason to dislike a movie.
The only time “implausibility” bothers me in an onscreen romantic relationship is when it’s really just a disguise for ego – all these star-driven vehicles where we’re supposed to believe that, oh no, of COURSE that incredibly lovely and intelligent young woman is going to fall for a 70-year-old comic/75-year-old-action-star/triple-chinned slacker. Who WOULDN’T?
But implausibility in offscreen relationships? In which even a cranky critic can find someone to love? I’m grateful for that kind of far-fetched idea daily…
The main “plausibilty” problem with ‘Notting Hill’ is that it ethnically whitewashes what is in fact an area of London with a long and strong Afro-Caribbean association.
As I’ve never seen a picture of YLW, I like to imagine Nick & Nora in these sorts of things. And when I do, I tend to either forget or stop caring about what they’re talking about, and just enjoy the wonderful couple-specific banter that married people can have.
http://www.nybooks.com/articles/archives/1988/mar/31/pushkin-or-the-real-and-the-plausible/
That was really very sweet, Glenn; it brightened up my morning considerably. Thank you very much for sharing it.
I’ve been reading the book (and why it’s taken me so long is something between me and my creator) and my problem isn’t that she’d fall for MacRay, but that MacRay would pursue her in the first place. It’s a pretty dumb thing for a guy like him to do.
But this hasn’t impeded my enjoyment of the book at all, really. Initially, a little bit, but the implausibles have played out with a lot of tension and even logic, so why bitch?
I’d say that anything that takes you out of a movie is a reason to complain about it. The question then becomes, was that something an irritant specifically for you (as most of Wells’ are) or something deeply ingrained within the film that the filmmakers should have known better to include.
@ Jeff: Point taken. And with a picture as setting-specific as “The Town,” those Bostonians who are so inclined will likely discover a lot of nits. On the other hand, there is the willing refusal to suspend disbelief at work with a lot of the complaints you see in certain venues. And for all that, it’s more legit to complain about what’s taken you out of the completed movie than to bitch about how many takes somebody told you a director made his actors go through, which is such TOTAL bullshit that my wife and I never disagree on it…
“…it’s more legit to complain about what’s taken you out of the completed movie than to bitch about how many takes somebody told you a director made his actors go through, which is such TOTAL bullshit that my wife and I never disagree on it…”
Whoa, twitter crossover. 😀
The main suspension of disbelief issue in Notting Hill was Anna Scott’s excessively thin-skinned reaction to tabloid headlines about her love life, around which crucial plot points turn. Given how long Anna has been famous, she would be inured to foolish tabloid stories – it would be near-impossible for her to function at her level of fame otherwise. The romance itself was fine.
Aside from the wince-making “I’m just a girl” speech, it’s quite a nice movie, and if you’re looking for true perniciousness and unbelievability you have only to look to Love Actually, or Curtis Unchained.
I tend to think a film is allowed one major conceit (a man has superpowers, etc.), but after that the conceit police come out – especially if the authors have written themselves into a hole and change the rules to dig themselves out. But the conceit can be questioned if it becomes too easy to imagine the better movie and/or what the conceit says about its makers. The conceit of Pretty Woman is that a rich businessman falls in love with a hooker (with a heart Glenn Beck could hawk). My problem isn’t the meet cute, it’s the story they tell out of it.
I don’t remember calling you “Sport.”
Doesn’t it make a difference whether plausibility is a movie’s major concern/selling point in the first place? I never get worked up about it in genre pieces – romances, crime flicks, whatever – unless something happens that violates the rules of the movie’s world, not the one we live in. And people who have “plausibility” issues with INCEPTION, say, just mystify me.
On the other hand, I can go on about the inaccuracies, short cuts and misrepresentations in the sainted SAVING PRIVATE RYAN – a movie ostentatiously claiming to show us How It Really Was – until the cows come home. At times, this has reduced anyone in the vicinity to imitating mooing.
@ Claire K: Poetic license, dear. And perhaps an implied suggestion that you call me “Sport.” Although why I would suggest such a thing is beyond me. Might as well ask you to call me “Butch” or something. THAT doesn’t make sense…in fact it’s downright implausible…
Okay, I’m officially procrastinating now…
How about “Champ”? Or “Boy‑o”?
Is it plausible that a film critic would be addressed as “Champ”?
I would wager it all depends on what kind of “Sport” you are. The obvious association is Harvey Keitel in TAXI DRIVER. I’m certain that wasn’t the kind of “Sport” you were thinking of.
I’d like to think of the John Glover’s Alan Raimy used the name in 52 PICK-UP. Raimy’s “That’s mighty white of you” line is one I use at random quite often. Usually no one has a clue what I’m talking about.
Well, Fuzzster, my self-esteem these days is even more obnoxiously off the hook than it’s been in a while, which is saying something. (Sample exchange from NYFF screening: Some Dude GK Met At A Party Back In June: “How have the past couple of months been for you?” GK: “Awful! But I LOOK GREAT!”) And you know, I may not be a film critic forever!
I’ve read that ‘every story can have one fantasy premise and no more to be successful’ line before from some famous filmmaker or critic – does anyone know who?
I agree with Tom Carson’s point earlier – each movie has, shall we say, a tone or pitch of ‘realism’ that it’s attempting to operate under, which allows the filmmakers more or fewer degrees of latitude in how much disbelief the audience can suspend. With Cloverfield, I didn’t have a problem with the basic concept, ‘a monster attacks NYC and it’s recorded on a video camera’, I had a problem with the disconnect between the video verite premise and the utterly retarded, boneheaded, only-in-a-movie things the characters were doing. But I don’t have a problem when the same things happen in, say, Scary Movie.
Oh, and another movie that had the ‘too many premises’ issue for me was Hancock, where we first got used to the ‘real-life superhero’ concept, and then they tossed in a really strained ‘origin’ story.
On the other hand, to somebody like myself who’s not aware of the many inaccuracies and misrepresentations in Saving Private Ryan, I still have no problem enjoying that movie and calling it one of Spielberg’s best. Ignorance is bliss, maybe?
“I’ve read that ‘every story can have one fantasy premise and no more to be successful’ line before from some famous filmmaker or critic – does anyone know who?”
Must’ve been De Sica…
TLW is a good’er. You’d be well advised to keep her, even if she doesn’t take Geritol.
Oliver C, Curtis mentions the melanin-deficient portrayal of Notting Hill in the commentary of “Love, Actually.”
He says this DJ approached him and complimented him on the special effects in NH. What special effects? That you made a movie in Notting Hill with no black people in it.
Curtis said touché and cast him as the wedding DJ in “Love, Actually.”
I thought “sport” was often used as a dismissive term towards short people.
Also, Jeff, I’m not sure that one has to be very informed about WWII to see how awful that flag-waving, weepy bookend in SPR is, or how one-note the characters are throughout the film.
All romance is implausible. That’s the beauty of it. Your sweet-souled better half understands this very well.
The sad souls over to Wells’ bullshit emporium would probably complain about Bogart and Bergman, Bogart and Bacall, Bogart and Audrey Hepburn (well, maybe that one’s a tad implausible), but as a card-carrying romantic I rarely have such problems. I found the romance in The Town perfectly appropriate and the film a bracingly professional job of filmmaking, especially the Fenway shootout. My Better Half, not previously a fan of Ben or Becky, teared up at the tend.
Glenn, it looks like you might have to start a thread on how Spielberg’s SAVING PRIVATE RYAN is a piece of shit. Maybe time it to the upcoming Blu-ray Criterion release of THE THIN RED LINE. You know how much I love it when film criticism gets broken down to my-WWII-movie-masterpiece-is-better-than-your-WWII-masterpiece “discussions.”
I’ll admit that the framing device of SPR is a little taxing, but the first and last shots of the movie should be enough to let you know what Spielberg is really getting at.
I would agree with you, Aaron, that SPR doesn’t deserve much of the abuse heaped upon it – its portrait of the American GIs seems pretty serious to me, as do Spielberg’s intentions – but I wonder if the complaints about the framing device don’t arise from, and aren’t often applicable to, Spielberg’s work as a whole?
It’s always seemed to me, in fact, that MOST of Spielberg’s films –Schindler’s List, A.I., Munich – could have ended a scene or two earlier than they did. It’s almost as if Spielberg distrusts his own audience, and so insists on repetitively hammering home his point (and providing some sort of resolution)just to make sure everyone “gets” it.
But then I always thought “Jaws” should have ended with Richard Dreyfus six fathoms deep, and Roy Scheider sitting there, alone, on the top of that slowly sinking boat…
I see no reason to expend energy on yet another discussion of ‘Saving Private Ryan’ given that Willian Goldman has already expressed, on record, what is pretty much my own opinion.
William Goldman, isn’t he the guy who wrote DREAMCATCHER? Take away ALL THE PRESIDENT’S MEN and you really don’t have much to stand on.
BUTCH CASSIDY AND THE SUNDANCE KID is popular but not a really great American film. It seems to coast on charm. (THE STING is the better Redford-Newman showcase.)
MARATHON MAN is good but hardly a great movie. Speaking of plausibility, how come no one ever mentions that the then 40-year-old Dustin Hoffman looked a little old to play a graduate student?
I’ve always found THE PRINCESS BRIDE to be a tad overrated. Its snarky approach to fairy tales always seemed to undercut the romance of the story.
As for the GOOD WILL HUNTING rumors? I actually think Affleck & Damon are better writers than Goldman.
I remember Goldman’s takedown of SAVING PRIVATE RYAN in Première Magazine. Even the snot-nosed 20-year-old version of myself thought he was full of shit. All he did was take cheap shots and complain that the wrong guy was at the cemetery. I actively hated those holier-than-thou takedowns of the movies nominated for Best Pciture that Première would run.
Glenn, seeing as you don’t have anymore loyalty to Première, care to shed some light on Golman’s contributions to the mag?
The general problem with Curtis is that he consistently patronises and plays down to his audience (the excrutiating Vicar of Dibley segment for Comic Relief is the most jaw-dropping example of hammering a ‘message’ home in the most unsubtle manner possible) but, what do I know, it seems to be hugely successful.
If I remember correctly, one of the big criticisms Notting Hill had in Britain was that it portrayed one of the most multi-cultural areas of London as almost exclusively populated by white people. Interesting that this film turns up now as Channel 4 are doing a new reality show at the moment Seven Days, in which ‘ordinary’ people in Notting Hill are filmed over the week running up to transmission, including an estate agent who talks about the Curtis film radically changing the landscape of the area (basically all the rise in demand, and therefore house prices, following the film drove all the ‘authentic culture’ out).
My own personal gripe with the film is mostly that blatant plug for Captain Corelli’s Mandolin at the end, which always sends me out of the film with the taste of product placement fresh in my senses.
@ Aaron A.: Whoa, hold on there, my friend. I still have PLENTY of loyalty to Première. A Première that doesn’t exist anymore, I grant you. But it’s there.
And no, you’re not going to get my lack of association with the brand compel me to tell tales out of school about Mr. Goldman. Sorry to disappoint you, but there aren’t any such tales to tell in any event. The man spoke his mind, and delivered copy that was clean as a whistle, on time, every time. I myself had only very limited dealings with him, but they were always pleasant and professional. So he hated “Saving Private Ryan.” So what? That doesn’t make him a bad person, or a bad writer.
@Aaron, re: Goldman. I’m not going to disagree with you regarding his comments about SAVING PRIVATE RYAN, as I’ve neither read them nor yet seen the film (I know, I know). And I’m not precisely a Goldman fan or apologist: I disagree pretty strongly with his dismissal (and fundamental misunderstanding) of the auteur theory. But I did want to say a couple things with regards to his work, as you’ve presented arguments against them that I think are a tad bit unfair.
To start with: “Take away ALL THE PRESIDENT’S MEN and you really don’t have much to stand on”, I don’t think it’s quite cricket to remove someone’s best work from the table when trying to argue that they or their opinions don’t matter. Example:
“Take away STAR WARS and George Lucas doesn’t have much to stand on. AMERICAN GRAFFITI is kinda schmaltzy and overrated, innit? And THX is interesting but it’s not a great American movie.”
Or:
“Take away CITIZEN KANE and Orson Welles doesn’t have much to stand on. MR. ARKADIN’s really disjointed. TOUCH OF EVIL, isn’t it implausible for Charlton Heston to play Mexican?”
The thing is, George Lucas made fucking Star Wars, Orson Welles made fucking Citizen Kane, and William Goldman adapted fucking All The President’s Men. Those are the works upon which much of their critical and cultural reputation are built. I’m kinda with Joyce Carol Oates on this one: you’re as good as your best work. And Goldman, at his best, adapting a seemingly impossibly dry book and making the ballsy move of jettisoning the second half, crafted a screenplay that’s absolutely riveting.
And while his other work might be less remarkable– this I’ll grant you– it is almost always expertly constructed. The man understands structure like nobody’s business. So the idea that he gave Affleck & Damon’s loose-feeling dialogue and story some needed structure isn’t so far-fetched (needed as far as, in order to appeal to the Academy and mass audiences in the way that it did).
Finally, I don’t think THE PRINCESS BRIDE is snarky. There’s a sense of humour, yes, and a certain puckish playfulness regarding the act and pleasures of storytelling, but it’s not snarky, it’s not considering itself to be above its genre. Indeed, one thing that’s explicit in the novel (but still implicit, I think, in what I find to be a very good-natured film) is an argument for the genre; Goldman’s conceit is that the book is a translation of a satirical novel, and that he’s removed all the boring socio-economic satire so that we can enjoy “the good parts”– i.e., the actual story buried underneath indeterminably long descriptions of clothing. That’s the very opposite of being snarky towards the genre, and I think that sensibility (if not that method) carries over into the screenplay and film.
I hope I haven’t come across as too combative here; again, I’m not exactly a Goldman fan, and I don’t dismiss or challenge your argument against his SPR piece– as, again, I’ve not read it. I just disagree with you rather strongly about those two films, and Goldman’s abilities on the whole.
“I just disagree with you rather strongly about those two films, and Goldman’s abilities on the whole.”
To clarify: I disagree with you regarding THE PRINCESS BRIDE, and about the way your argument started by shoving aside ALL THE PRESIDENT’S MEN (not about your opinion of the film itself, which you implicitly give its due).
And (sorry for spamming the comments here, Glenn!) in case it was unclear, I adore THX, MR. ARKADIN, TOUCH OF EVIL, etc., but was only making my facetious arguments against them to prove a rhetorical point.
Re: Lazarus’s way-back comment to me, I think the bookends of SPR, sappy as they are, are essential to the film’s intent, and deepen the meaning in an important and meaningful way. I think Mr. Aradillas and I agree on that aspect – they’re schmaltzy, but they’re not _just_ schmaltzy, there’s more going on there.
And I’ll give you the ‘one-note performances’ thing as far as Ed Burns or Vin Diesel are concerned, but Hanks and Davies have fully-rounded characters, and even though everybody else in the movie is based on a single character trait (the dour guy, the religious guy, the wiseass, the sarge) per war-movie genre conventions, they all do such a good job that I can’t complain.
Oh, and Dreamcatcher is a delightful film. It has Morgan Freeman staring at an Army concentration camp full of people and saying, “Those poor schmucks… they drive Chevrolets, shop at Wal-Mart, never miss an episode of Friends. They’re Americans…” which Goldman, not Stephen King, wrote.
@Glenn: My bad. Poor word choice with regards to “loyalty.” You have every right to still be loyal to one of the finest movie publications that ever graced a magazine rack. You know my affection for Première Magazine is limitless. I just thought you might have an opinion on Mr. Goldman’s rather level 1 approach to criticism.
@Tom: Point taken. I am a big believer that some creative people might just have one or two bursts of creativity to offer the world. (Cimino? Shyamalan?) I just feel Goldman has been dining-out on his New Hollywood triumphs for far too long. I’ve always found his “Nobody Knows Anything” take on Hollywood to be rather glib. Surely somebody has to know somethihng once in a while. I mean, how else would the place still be in business?
Legend has it Goldman wasn’t too happy with the way ALL THE PRESIDENT’S MEN came out. Something about Bernstein and Ephron wanting to contribute to the script. (His lack of participation on the Special Edition DVD is quite telling.)
Has anyone ever listened to his commentary on the PANIC ROOM DVD? He comes off pretty abrasive on the track. At times, you can sense screenwriter David Koepp struggling to remain diplomatic.
You bring up an interesting “whatif” question regarding George Lucas, though. What if he hadn’t made STAR WARS? First, David Thomson might actually have something nice to say. Taking GRAFFITI and THX into consideration, would Lucas have become his generation’s Darren Aronofsky? He seemed to have a taste for both big-scale spectacle and intimate character studies.
“Taking GRAFFITI and THX into consideration, would Lucas have become his generation’s Darren Aronofsky? He seemed to have a taste for both big-scale spectacle and intimate character studies.”
One thing that’s always piqued my interest that I’ve heard a lot of is that Lucas has this desire to do really weird, stringently uncommercial little movies. I think he even said that he would finally get to do them after the second STAR WARS trilogy. And I, for one, really wish he would– I love STAR WARS as much as the next guy, and even enjoyed (most of) REVENGE OF THE SITH, but I’d love to see more films as alienating, idiosyncratic, and full of steely, unsentimental intelligence as THX.
“really weird, stringently uncommercial little movies”
I prefer astringently uncommercial little movies. Fresh and cleansing, like witch hazel!
5 will get you 10 that Mr. Goldman has never stepped foot in a Wal-Mart or seen an episode of FRIENDS. Yet he seems to think people who do are…sheep?…zombies?…Americans?
Yes, Ed Burns is the one weak link in the cast. He’s not a bad actor. It’s just he seems too modern for the character he’s playing.
Oh, I remember Goldman taking offense to the story Damon’s Pvt. Ryan tells about he and his brothers catching one of the other Ryan brothers making out with an ugly girl. Who knew Mr. Goldman was such a gentleman?
I wouldn’t call Burns ‘too modern’ but rather ‘too bad of an actor’. But that’s just me.
That Dreamcatcher line is intended as a joke about the Jack D. Ripper-ishness of Freeman’s character.
And Lucas has been talking about making ‘weird little movies’ for more than 30 years now, right? I don’t think Radioland Murders counts.