The Lure Of Cliche

I was just re-watching Searching For Bobby Fischer, a 1993 film written and directed by Steve Zaillian, based on the book by Fred Waitzkin about his son Josh, a chess prodigy. It reminded me of the lure of cliches in Hollywood.

The movie was well-reviewed, and does have plenty to recommend it, including fine cinematography by Conrad Hall and an excellent cast, including Joe Mantegna, Joan Allen, Laurence Fishburne, Max Pomeranc (as Josh) and especially Ben Kingsley. Furthermore, while it's not a big-budget item, I'm sure it was tricky for Zaillian and his producers to get any money to make a film about chess.

Still, to turn it into a story that works as a movie, Zaillian had to take what was an exciting real life tale and, essentially, falsify it.

I'm not trying to single out Zaillian. There's a reason for cliches. They work. The final battle has to be the toughest, or your climax will fail. And it has to be won by the protagonist, not his helper, or we'll wonder why we were wasting our time following the wrong character. But it all becomes tiresome formula unless you can do it differently, rather than repeating what we've seen countless times.

Here are a couple examples of Hollywood Screenwriting versus real life:

Hollywood: Josh combines the agressive "street" moves he learned from Laurence Fishburne, with the stricter, conservatory style he learned from his instructor Ben Kingsley, to become a better, more-rounded player.

Real Life: There's no replacement for serious study (especially with someone like Bruce Pandolfini, Josh's real-life instructor, who is nothing like Ben Kingsley), and shortcut tricks that may go over playing speed chess in the park will ruin you in real competition.

Hollywood: In the climactic game, Josh sees a tricky combination and realizes he will win. He gallantly offers a draw--a shared championship--which is turned down. This demonstrates not only external growth in Josh as a player, but internal growth as a human being.

Real Life: Josh screws up and barely holds on for a draw, which wins him the championship. If he had seen a winning combination, he would have grabbed at it.

This got me thinking of the low-budget Hustle & Flow, out now. The basic story has problems (without even getting into the misogyny)--beneath the grit, it's got one of the hoariest of all movie plots, about trying to make it in show biz. And it seemed to me that everyone surrounding the pimp (who wants to be a rapper)--the producer, the musician, even his pregnant whore who sings on one of the tracks--has more talent than he does.

But I'll give it points for one thing--maybe the toughest thing--the ending. The story leads up to a showdown: will DJay the pimp meet Skinny Black and sell him on his demo tape? To the film's credit, they resolve it in a way that is neither obvious nor ridiculous.