The Restless Consumer Explores What Happened Next . . .

by JustEd

There is a scene in the movie Stand by Me that takes place when Gordie has just finished recounting his epic and hilarious revenge fable about Lardass and the pie-eating contest. His three friends are laughing and cheering, completely taken by the story and its telling, then one of them says, “So, what happened next?” Gordie is completely nonplussed and mumbles something about Lardass going home and celebrating. Teddy, of course, helpfully suggests an alternate ending involving guns and ammo. The boys settle down, offering that the story was great but the ending needs work (this is all from memory, and may be a bit off). I’ve always thought that was a slyly placed commentary about movies and movie-goers. Now, it’s been more years since I’ve read the Stephen King novella (“The Body”) that was the source material for the movie than it has been since I’ve seen the flick, so I can’t vouch for whether the sentiment is King’s or the screenwriter’s, but I can easily imagine it in King’s voice. We’ll come back to that.

Let’s briefly offer another subject for discussion: the movies and concomitant reputation of M. Night Shyamalan. Because Shyamalan broke into the public consciousness with a hit movie with a significant plot, and because he continued on the outskirts of that theme, movie-goers developed certain expectations. Thus his audience was summarily primed for disappointment when he inevitably released a film without a twist. This may or may not have been his own fault, but that is not the point: what I’m getting at here, and what I’d like to explore a bit in this column, is two interrelated points: the creator’s responsibility to his or her audience and our approach as movie-watchers and book-readers to that content.

I’m not the type of consumer who analyzes content incessantly as I watch or read: I’m the biggest devotee of total suspension of disbelief and total immersion in the world the author or director is presenting, forgiving of minor plot holes and issues that might cause diminished enjoyment upon repeat. If it’s made well enough and holds my attention I’ll happily watch it again and willingly indulge in all kinds of deconstructionist discussions regarding the meaning or import of minor plot points and throwaway references. But that first time through, my trust and attention are completely given over to the director, the author, the milieu as established by the creative force presenting it. I don’t try to figure out the twist, or if the story even has a twist; I don’t question the truth as presented, I simply listen to the story as told by the storyteller.

This is why I liked The Sixth Sense; indeed, the movie was made for viewers like me who watch without a critical eye on first pass. But the movie is also cleverly layered with clues and hints throughout that bear witness upon repeat viewing to the truth of the story as finally revealed. And yes, all of you who figured it out beforehand are entitled to your opinion that it was clumsy and obvious — but I’d wager that those of us who didn’t try to gainsay Shyamalan’s vision had a better time while watching.

Maybe a better illustration would be to compare and contrast two “sci-fi” blockbusters of the ’90s, one I find an enjoyable mess and the epitome of the big dumb popcorn movie and one I find a completely transparent mess and the epitome of the overblown, really dumb popcorn movie. The two movies are Michael Bay’s Armageddon (1998) and Roland Emmerich’s Independence Day (1996). Can you guess which is which?

Independence Day is the enjoyable mess. It has huge plot holes, it’s completely implausible, it makes no literal scientific sense — but it also has Will Smith having a blast, Jeff Goldblum at his geeky best, and Bill Pullman, Mary McDonnell, Judd Hirsch, Randy Quaid, and even Margaret Colin and Robert Loggia all having fun with the material. Even though they don’t break the fourth wall they don’t seem to be taking themselves too seriously, and it’s a fun ride if you don’t over-analyze it. Or analyze it at all, I guess.

Armageddon, on the other hand, has Bruce Willis, Ben Affleck, Billy Bob Thornton, and a doe-eyed Liv Tyler all acting like they’re in an Important Film. Sure, Steve Buscemi is on hand for a little comic relief (“Get off the nuclear warhead”), but the tone of this one is all too serious. Worse, and unforgivably (in my eyes), it telegraphs its ending almost from the opening frame. Aha! Yes, see, this is where it breaks down for a movie-goer like me. If I can see the end coming and I’m not even trying, it’s bad. And if you’re also pretending your movie is a deep, serious, romantic, epic story of redemption and sacrifice, when I can see all of that coming before the first act ends, well, then, you’ve failed on all counts as a storyteller.

“Now, hold on,” I hear some of you saying, “You can’t tell me you didn’t see the end of Independence Day coming, can you?” And you’re right: it’s not like that movie didn’t telegraph its ending, too, but it also held my attention by making the telling of that story fun. Emmerich did his job as a storyteller because even if he’s retelling a time-worn trope, he’s doing it in a way that makes it fun to watch. Bay, on the other hand, brought nothing new or enjoyable to his re-telling of an even more time-worn trope, and failed as a storyteller.

Let’s revisit Stephen King’s fiction. King has explored the writer’s responsibility to his readers in at least a couple of places. In The Dark Half, his main character, a writer, is literally split in two, but perhaps more famously (though the screen adaptation got this completely wrong) in Misery his main character, another writer, comes to realize his aspirations to more “important” fiction writing are bunk, his pulp-fiction heroine stories (featuring Misery herself) are fine writing, and, furthermore, the novel he has been forced to write is actually his best writing ever. Misery’s creator has a hard time writing his heroine out of the corner he’s painted her into, and with a little goading from his Number One Fan (“He never got out of the cock-a-doodie car!”) he deliberates painfully over what, exactly, his responsibilities are to his reading public; what he owes his readers as a storyteller.

As a consumer, my approach is to give my trust to the creator without qualification: the storyteller presents his or her world and acts as a guide on my sojourn there. The storyteller’s responsibility is to tell a good story and tell it well; the listener’s responsibility is to listen, and listen well. (And never ask, “So what happened next?” when the story is clearly over.)