A Bomb for All Ages
Who knew the kids' movie The Sandlot would owe so much to Hitchcock?
At least-- it was Hitchcock who articulated it most memorably: if, in a movie, you've got a bomb under the dining room table, you've got to show us the bomb before it goes off. This is what creates tension, suspense, fear, dread, and anticipation, as opposed to the audience merely being shocked when the bomb goes off. The bomb can be big (and take a whole movie to pay off) or small (and be set up and pay off within a scene).
What I didn't realize was that, when we know there's a bomb, you can get away with almost anything in the meantime. The Sandlot is mostly comprised of sequences involving a bunch of boys in 1962 and the trouble they get into. But while we're watching sequence after sequence of playing baseball, the boys getting sick on chewing tobacco at the fair, the boys getting kicked out of the public pool for tricking the hot lifeguard into giving "Squints" mouth-to-mouth... we're also constantly reminded that it was that summer that Scotty Smalls got into "the biggest pickle of his life". And we know this pickle is probably going to involve "The Beast"-- the monster-sized, man-eating dog chained up in the backyard next to the sandlot.
We know something big is coming. And so, we wait patiently through events that are totally unrelated to one another. We're given permission to sit back and enjoy them, random though they might be, because the bomb's coming... eventually.
It's a pretty good pickle --er, bomb-- too.
Who knew the kids' movie The Sandlot would owe so much to Hitchcock?
At least-- it was Hitchcock who articulated it most memorably: if, in a movie, you've got a bomb under the dining room table, you've got to show us the bomb before it goes off. This is what creates tension, suspense, fear, dread, and anticipation, as opposed to the audience merely being shocked when the bomb goes off. The bomb can be big (and take a whole movie to pay off) or small (and be set up and pay off within a scene).
What I didn't realize was that, when we know there's a bomb, you can get away with almost anything in the meantime. The Sandlot is mostly comprised of sequences involving a bunch of boys in 1962 and the trouble they get into. But while we're watching sequence after sequence of playing baseball, the boys getting sick on chewing tobacco at the fair, the boys getting kicked out of the public pool for tricking the hot lifeguard into giving "Squints" mouth-to-mouth... we're also constantly reminded that it was that summer that Scotty Smalls got into "the biggest pickle of his life". And we know this pickle is probably going to involve "The Beast"-- the monster-sized, man-eating dog chained up in the backyard next to the sandlot.
We know something big is coming. And so, we wait patiently through events that are totally unrelated to one another. We're given permission to sit back and enjoy them, random though they might be, because the bomb's coming... eventually.
It's a pretty good pickle --er, bomb-- too.
posted by Jennica at 8:58 a.m.
2 Comments:
Yeah, I was reading a book that T lent me on comedy in stories, and one of the setups was to know a doorbell's going to ring and play things around that fact, until it happens. One of my thoughts regarding movies of kids go-cart racing and some sportadic pyromoania during their summer holidays, is that kids may try to match their own holidays with these events (similar to how adults may try and achieve a romantic encounter similar to a movie settting) and come up short, trashing the efforts of their youth, when what the movies depict is rarely possible to simulate. Now I'm off to build that Rocketship I saw in Flash Gordon . . .
I know what you mean, C. I'm not usually worried about kids and the family movies they see, but anyone who knows me knows I have huge problems with love stories in the movies. I think it's really disturbing that people in real life see certain stories and might believe their own relationships, loves, and passions have to live up to what they see on the screen (i.e. that it requires zero effort to maintain love and passion).
One could argue movies are just fantasies and wish fulfillment... fine. But when kids in the movies do dangerous things, they often get hurt or punished. Characters who search for their "one true soul mate" usually find them. It's unhealthy!
Yes, I have a manifesto, if you're interested.
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