Honouring the Horrific

I was having a conversation recently with a friend about hard-to-watch moments in the movies. I'm not talking about peek-through-your-fingers gore shots in horror movies... that's safe in the realm of the fantastical, even when the horror is a somewhat realistic one. I'm talking about scenes -- often inciting incidents -- in films that otherwise appear to be straight-up dramas. They're the ones that pull the rug out from under you.

The movie we were discussing was Nurse Betty -- a fairly good-natured, quirky dramedy about a waitress who, for a while, gets involved with a soap opera actor she believes to be the character he plays on TV.

Fun premise, right? Only problem is laying the groundwork for a character who might possibly think an actor is their character.

Nurse Betty's inciting incident is Betty's witnessing of her husband's scalping. It's horrible... but it has to be horrible, because the whole rest of the story relies on the character's temporary (and somewhat understandable) mental break. Betty's brain can't deal -- so it protects her.

Another example, that I've mentioned in a comment on a previous post, is the curbing scene in American History X. Another unwatchably horrible inciting incident. And yet... if a movie like this is going to attempt a dramatic redemption by a neo-Nazi, the neo-Nazi protagonist has got to start out really, really low. I still don't love the movie; I still love that the movie sets out to redeem a character who, first thing, commits an unforgiveable act. That's a movie that loves a challenge.

So it seems to me that there are sometimes some very good reasons for including horrific acts in your non-horror scripts. You may have your own favourites -- I'd love to hear 'em.

How to Be True

I thoroughly enjoyed re-watching True Romance last night; it remains a sentimental favourite. Now, I'm not so much about Elvis in the bathroom, or the Sicily history lesson, or the kung fu. Most of that stuff typed by anybody but Tarantino just sounds like it's trying too hard.

No, I'm more about plain old storytelling. Here are some True Romance lessons that endure:

1. The characters have colour. I'm not just talking about Clarence and Alabama. I'm talking about guys like Floyd (the stoner played by Brad Pitt). This is a character who has nothing to do except inadvertently lead the bad guys -- twice -- to the good guys. Why does he do it? Because he's so far out of his head that he just wants to be nice and show how helpful he can be. Anybody want a hit from his honey-bottle bong?

2. Speaking of leading the bad guys to the good guys... the structure of this story is predicated on a big coincidence in the inciting incident: Clarence leaves his driver's license in Drexl's (the dead pimp's) hand. Without this "oops", there is no way the gangsters would've figured out who stole the coke, and where he might be. But you know, you buy it... Clarence just shot up the place and killed some dudes and he's just a guy who works at a comic book shop, and he's a bit... stressed, the moment he's actually running out of the place. A good reminder of how you can still make a must-have plot point credible.

3. There's a ton of characters. But we don't meet anybody until we need to. Thank God we don't spend an hour checking in on cops Chris Penn and Tom Sizemore before they come into play, eh?

4. The scene where the gangster (James Gandolfini, who has not been at all typecast in his career) beats the crap out of our heroine Alabama. This scene is so brutal it's hard to watch, but I have to give the filmmakers credit: this scene, unlike how it might be played in another movie, never turns sexual. There's no threat of rape. How refreshing! And why does this beating never go there? I'd guess it's because the gangster is a professional. He's here to do a job. Not all gangsters are psychos, and not all scenes of violence against women must be sexual violence. (Yeah, I said it, Andrea Dworkin! Eat it!)

5. And then, of course, there's the romance: "Baby... you have blood in your eye." Awww.

And those are some of the reasons I still love True Romance. Feel free to share yours.