Monday, August 19, 2013

Ask JKM a Question: What destroys suspension of disbelief?


A regular reader, Jason, asks:

When you're watching a movie or TV series, what breaks your willing suspension of disbelief?  What takes you out of the experience?”

Is it bad special effects?  Poor acting?  Plot holes?  Easter eggs?”

Jason, that’s a great question.

I would say that bad special effects are not generally a major stumbling block for me, even though I do register and note them. 

Perhaps this is so because I grew up with 1960s-1980s television, and there were a lot of bad special effects but great stories to go around in that milieu.

I am a huge admirer of the BBC’s Blake’s 7 (1979 – 1981) for instance, but the special effects are atrocious.  After some practice -- I watched the first episode, “The Way Back” three times to get past the cheapness of the enterprise -- I was able to simply enjoy the storytelling in spite of the production values and effects.  Now, I sort of automatically “tune” myself to the visual frequency of something like original Doctor Who, Blake’s 7 or Land of the Lost while watching. 

Poor acting can indeed ruin a moment, but it doesn’t often break my willing suspension of disbelief, either.  Generally, if there is bad acting to reckon with, there are other problems in a film too, so it’s rarely the acting alone that jars me out of the production

I think the answer, for me anyway, rests in dialogue that fails to ring true, or tries to carry too much thematic weight. 

The best example I can think of at the moment actually occurs in a movie I admire deeply, Cabin in the Woods (2012). 

I consider this film an amusing, smart, totally worthwhile horror film.  However, near the climax, a twenty-something heroine, Dana -- who has fought tooth-and-nail to survive up till this point -- says something like Humanity…it’s time to give someone else a chance.”

This line of dialogue is so transparently the work/philosophy of the writer, and not the character that it yanked me right out of the movie, destroyed suspension of disbelief, and actually ruined the (clever) end of the movie for me. 

That line is not Dana talking. 

There’s no way she would reasonably, possibly say such a thing, given what she’s gone through and how she’s reacted thus far.  It’s a terrible, terrible line that should have never been spoken.  Marty could have gotten away with it, but not Dana.  

So for one thing, the line is out of character. For another, it’s crushingly obvious, given the conceits of the film, and therefore pretentious.  The movie would work just as well (and perhaps much, much better...) with the omission of that single line of dialogue.

I shouldn’t give the impression that Cabin in the Woods is the only film that suffers from this flaw.  I remember Mississippi Burning -- a critical darling of 1988 -- ending with one character stating  vapidly “Maybe we’re all bad.”

Maybe we’re all bad?  

This is a movie about regional, entrenched racism in the United States in the 1960s and the effort to overcome it; to beat City Hall, essentially.  And the point that the filmmakers’ want audiences to leave with is “maybe we’re all bad?” 

Really?

Recently in Man of Steel (2013), Superman came up with the idea of opening a singularity over Metropolis to destroy General Zod, and a U.S. General wanted confirmation that this plan was a good idea.  He got it from Christopher Meloni’s character. 

But in this case, what was not said is what bothered me, and had me wanting to address the screen.  Not a single line about the importance of closing the freshly opened singularity.  And why ask Meloni’s character?  

What the hell does he know about opening and closing singularities?

Sometimes, what is said -- and what isn’t said -- in a movie can really harsh my mellow, and shatter that magical suspension of disbelief.

Don't forget to ask me a question at Muirbusiness@yahoo.com

6 comments:

  1. Michael Giammarino8:55 PM

    I had the same issue about that very conversation -- concerning the singularity -- and it irritated me. Not because I had no idea how they'd know of such a thing. Because I did. They must have seen it in J.J. Abram's Star Trek.

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  2. Excellent question Jason.
    Brilliant answer John. I absolutely agree that what is said -- and what isn’t said -- it the catalyst in disbelief ruining the film or television episode. As a boy in the '70s, the scripted dialogue could undermine whatever I was watching much more than the low budget sets, effects or bad acting.

    SGB

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  3. I enjoyed this question and answer. It is indeed a funny business and I agree that writing is the major culprit.

    I fully tolerate bad special effects. Tom Baker Doctor Who is wonderful because the performances are always good, sincere, real and largely because the writing is generally good.

    I saw a full-on special effects film recently and the action sequences became so completely ludicrous I felt that moment overcome my experience. I hope to post it soon because I actually talked about this very point in the review.

    I was willing to suspend my disbelief to a point but then it became so entirely ludicrous it seemed to defy the rules even within its own established rules.

    Anyway, I guess my point is that sometimes it may seem hard to pinpoint but bad dialogue or a visual effect so entirely over the top can sometimes remove me from the moment. I know a lot of people love that Kurt Russell surfing sequence in Escape From L.A. but something like that can do it.

    Cheers

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  4. Completely agree with you on this. I can usually get past bad acting, poor special effects and even silly dialogue. But when it comes to lines or actions that defy the established character, the whole thing seems to fall flat. As you noted, it can nearly derail the entire film (or series). Even if the story goes in a direction I don't like, if the characters remain true to themselves and everything clicks into place, i can appreciate the story.

    Although the whole "it was all a dream" and it's many sci-fi variants is really hard to take in any form.

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  5. Moncynnes7:58 AM

    For me, it's when the filmmakers break the fourth wall by doing something overtly clever.

    My best example: when I saw "Open Water" in the theatre, I was enthralled. I was completely into the drama of two divers marooned in the middle of a shark-filled ocean. I had bought into the premise and the story.

    Then came the scene where someone is cleaning out their diving boat and finds their IDs; we learn the two missing divers (whom we only know by their first names at this point) are named Watkins and Kitner... and the movie just slammed into that fourth wall.

    I cannot tell you how many times I've seen "Jaws"; I know full well that "Watkins" and "Kitner" are the names of the shark's first two victims. To see that in what had been an understated, subtle movie... it was such an obvious wink at the audience that it derailed the whole movie for me.

    Stuff like that kills me. Sometimes it's when a character is obviously named after a celebrity. On a TV series, it's when a show's guest star had previously been in a series or movie with one of the show's regular stars, and they play up on that point. To me, it's a sign that the producers and writers have run out of good ideas and are now relying on gimmicks and jokes.

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  6. Absolutely agree with your CABIN IN THE WOODS example -- I hate it when filmmakers put in those "... and here's what you're supposed to think about all this" moments. I'll keep my own counsel on what I do or do not take away from your movie, thank you very much.

    On the same note, nothing makes me want to pull my hair out more than "info-dumping". It's because of this that I can't watch most cop shows on TV. CRIMINAL MINDS is the absolute worst offender I've ever seen -- one hour a week of supposedly smart people lecturing each other (for the audience's benefit) on subjects in which they're already supposed to be expert. Rule: Any time you have to make your characters look stupid in order to spoon-feed information to viewers, you have officially failed as a writer.

    ReplyDelete

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