More Movie Trends
A classic storytelling trick is beginning the tale in medias res--starting at some crucial point and then going back and explaining how you got there. You don't see it that often in films because they're probably scared of confusing the viewer.
Yet I seem to be seeing it more and more. Perhaps it's just a coincidence, but at least three films I've seen this month start this way--King Of California, Michael Clayton and Weirdsville. (Into The Wild sort of did it, except it kept cutting back and forth.)
It works in that you get the audience intrigued right off the bat. The danger is when you go back, you can lose them, plus they might get impatient while they wait for the action to return to the "present." If you do it well, they forget about the structure and are pleasantly surprised when you return to the beginning.
posted by LAGuy @ 12:14 AM
6 Comments:
On the other hand, when done poorly, it really screws things up-- this approch was used in one of the worst movies made in the past twenty years - "Tough Guys Don't Dance" (which was odd given that the approach worked fairly well in the Norman Mailer book from which it was adapted- not great literature but a fairly effective page-turner involving hangovers, severed heads and vaguely- remembered sex acts on car hoods). Even after having read the book, I really had no idea of what happened in the movie, what the real sequence was or why anyone would care- seemed more like a disgusting yet dull fever dream. Of course casting aging pretty boy Ryan O'Neal as a world weary drug-impaired p.i. probably didn't help much (Although Penn Jillette as Big Stewie-a bible thumping preacher/wife swapper was particularily memorable)
I'm one of the few people who saw TGDD when it came out. I don't remember what storytelling techniques were used, but I do know that no tricks were gonna save any movie that bad.
Memento may represent this technique taken to extremes. It starts atthe climax of the story, and then proceeds to tell the story of what led up to that moment backwards piece by piece (with flashback interludes between each piece that are moving forward, but eventually meet the backwards parts at the end).
This is one of my favorite films. The techniques fits superbly because the story involves a person who has lost the ability to form long term memories - so he is as clueless as the audience as to what is going on, and the audience thus can share the character's experience in a way that straight narration couldn't accomplish.
DenverGuy hit it on the head -- Memento left me in a contemplative, alienated state of mind for literally half a day. Loved, loved, loved it.
Pulp Fiction sort of fits this mold, too.
I'd put Memento in a separate category in that it tells its story, for the most part, backwards. The climax (SPOILER ALERT) is the original murder that sets the protagonist on the quest that ends in the killing shown at the start of movie.
Other examples of backwards storytelling are Kaufman and Hart's Merrily We Roll Along (later adopted by Sondheim) and Pinter's Betrayal (later parodied by Seinfeld).
Tarantino loves to move around chronologically as well as physically, but I wouldn't say Pulp Fiction is a good example of in medias res. On the other hand, Reservoir Dogs is.
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