Literacy is a word that in out lexicon is usually tied to just the reading of literature. However, the term really can go further beyond that and encompass all the abilities we have to interpret and understand what we see. Movies operate on that aspect of literacy. Everything that is presented to us on film is done with a particular vision of the director. He works with his staff to figure out how they can position things to convey the theme or mood for a particular scene. Often though by the time that film has hit theaters our own individual ability to create meaning is stolen from us, and you may not even be aware of it. It's not a completely overt thing, and it's not something you catch until it's happening, but it's happening. Sadly, the person thieving our ability are the same movie studios that want us to support their product.
One of the many ideas they teach you in education is that when students perform a task they are operating under a predisposed notion. That notion is the knowledge base they have forged over the years. We are at the mercy of our own experiences anytime we are introduced to a concept. The same holds true for anytime you go out to the movies. The first film I reviewed on the site here was The Last Exorcism which was the story of a man grappling with his faith. Being that I'm a practicing Christian I went into the film with my own internal feelings about God, Jesus, the Devil and faith. It's not something I can help. Even if I don't consciously engage the movie on the metaphorical battleground it's creating, I engage it subconsciously. In some ways, one could possibly argue that the grade I gave it is based in some respects to how the film progressed wrestling with that issue. I don't think it is, but I can't say that for certain. It's easy to say that I'm not applying my own belief system to the viewing of the film, but somewhere inside I'm sure I am. If the battle with you and film stayed on that level there would be no problem. But we live in a world where you have to get people excited for films, and that means we get trailers.
Trailers are as basic an advertising tool as you will ever see. The people who create them- usually commissioned by the movie studio- are asked to condense a feature length film into an appealing 90 second video. As you know that means you get to see a bunch of scenes that loosely give you an idea of the story and introduce you to the main stars of that picture in an effort to get you to see it. They wrap this up with a roughly three act plot and set it to some song designed to amp you into seeing the film. Often the trailers are misleading. Because you are reducing a long film to a short piece you are stripping away all the bad and focusing on the good. The old adage in advertising is, "Don't sell the steak, sell the sizzle." Movie trailers are all sizzle. I'm sure at some point in your life you got sucked into a bad film based off the trailer. One of the main ones I remember is that awful movie adaptation of the Miami Vice television show. The trailer featured a ton of cool looking stunts with Colin Farrell and Jamie Foxx while the Jay Z/Linkin Park mash-up blared and I was hooked before the title card was shown. The movie turned out to be a hot mess. However, that trailer was simple, it did a good job of selling something that wasn't there. The problem occurs when trailer makers go overboard in presenting the story to the viewer, to the point of ruining it.
In horror movie you get this a lot. One of the most popular movies of last year was Paranormal Activity. It was genuinely creepy, and did a great job of creating maximum fear out of minimal parts. But for many the film was ruined once they saw the trailer. Why's that you ask? If you've never seen the clip- follow the link and then come back (I'll wait):
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=OSSqxrh5kp8
Now if you saw the trailer and then went to see the movie- the ending was effectively ruined for you. At the 1:30 mark of that clip there is a shot of the guy being thrown towards the camera. When you went to see that movie in theaters that shot doesn't come until the second to last act on film. That's not the only time this has happened in horror movies though. Here is a link to the trailer for the 2008 film Quarantine (again I'll wait):
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=KoBh5S_aWwk
The advertising people for Quarantine went one step further though. Here is the movie poster for the film.
The problem here is similar to the one we had with Paranormal Activity
The movie Orphan was out last summer and revolved around a couple adopting a little girl from an orphanage. Because I have a weird obsession with seeing all horror films in theaters I was ready to watch this one. However, in the two days before the film opened the dialogue in the advertising commercials on television changed. The voice over man at the end of the promo said, "Watch the movie with the ending you'll never see coming." Immediately that signals the warning bells in the viewers mind that whatever the film purports to be for a majority of the running time is not what it will end up being. At some point, the rug is going to be pulled out from under the viewer and they will be forced to reassess what they watched prior to that change. But, why ruin that idea? It's as if the studio doesn't think people will be able to make those connections without being prompted to make them. In all three of these cases the studio has essentially ruined the ending by telling viewers- either implicitly or explicitly- what the ending of the film will be. But it's not just horror movies.
Last weekend at the movies I saw a trailer for a film getting some pre-release Oscar buzz, Ben Affleck's The Town. It looks like a gritty crime/coming of age drama that features a ton of great acting talents and a lot of powerful exchanges. The film revolves around the aftereffects of a bank robbery. Ben Affleck's character is hitting on this woman and she asks him at one point if he loves her. He responds that he does. However, while he is saying this the trailer shows a clip of Affleck pulling off his mask during the get-a-way and we realize that he is one of the guys who took the woman as hostage during the robbery. I assume that this is a fairly pivotal moment in the film, but there it is a little after the halfway point of the trailer designed to get you into the film. So when I go to see this film (probably this weekend) I'm now going to be waiting for that scene to come up.
These are all problems and I didn't even get into the aspects of trailers featuring people prominently who shouldn't be featured (Every time I've seen the previews for Devil in theaters the mention that it is from the mind of M. Night Shyamalan has elicited groans) or featured a lame joke over and over (Easy A looks like a quality little comedy but the featured joke in the trailer is Amanda Bynes character telling Emma Stone's character that she will meet a person who will judge her for her sins. Stone responds with, "Tom Crusie?" That exchange is almost enough to turn me off to the film).
What I'm imploring to the studios and advertising people is simply this: Have some faith in the audience, have some respect for the audience, but most importantly- have some faith in the people that you have hired to direct your films. Viewers do not need the end of the movie spoiled for them. They are going to sit there and watch your film until the credits roll so they will see everything filmed. Also, viewers can draw connections in the films when they watch them. They don't need the plot points laid out to them to the point where they can connect all the dots without even seeing the film. But above all else- show some respect to your directors. They bust their ass for months at a time trying to make it so you can get a return on your investment in them, and the actors. To ruin their hard work by giving the viewers everything with no investment is entirely disrespectful. Films are a communal experience. Showing them what is going to happen before it happens isn't playing within the spirit of that experience.
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