"It's not about the movies"
“Signs”(2002),
directed
by M. Night Shyamalan (sha-mah-lahn)
“Signs” is M. Night Shyamalan’s attempt to redeem himself with the movie-going public after his disastrous exercise in self-indulgence, “Unbreakable”. Gone is the heavy-handed direction and plodding exposition. Instead, he has presented us with an exercise in minimalist terror. The movie stars Mel Gibson and its plot revisits the phenomenon of crop circles, strange spontaneous occurrences rooted in antiquity (in this case the mid 1980s). I’ll will have to say right here that anyplace Mel wants to visit, I am happy to tag along.
While
watching the final moments of the film unfold (I don’t think I am revealing
too much if I say it involves, to a certain extent, a snowfall), I was struck by
the use of a common plot device, “The Pre-Planted Revelation”.
You know how this works. Early
on in the film (usually in the first half-hour) a seemingly unrelated bit of
information is woven into the story, which turns out to be the hook on which the
climax hangs.
Let’s
take a common movie genre, the murder mystery, for instance.
The main character, let’s call him Bob, is seen writing a check in a
supermarket to pay for a bag of chips. The
checkout person remarks. “Gosh, Bob, I didn’t know you were left handed.”
To which Bob replies, “Yes I am. And
I have a nasty impacted wisdom tooth too.”
Naturally, the viewer forgets about this minor, “unimportant”
diversion until the end of the movie when the murderer is revealed.
All eyes are on the disheveled, but wise, detective when he exclaims.
“The evidence points to the fact that not only was the murderer left handed,
but he had an impacted wisdom tooth too. You’re
under arrest, Bob.”
This
started me thinking of other well-worn plot conventions commonly seen in films.
I’m sure you’re familiar with them also:
 |
|
| When
the question, “Is this some kind of joke?” is asked, it usually isn’t
a joke at all. |
|
|
| The
surprise witness in a trial, introduced at the last minute and always
objected to by the prosecution (only to be overruled by the judge),
invariably saves the day and exonerates the defendant. |
| Whenever
a wildly successful thief decides to “do one more job” before he
retires, you can be sure that something will go wrong during the heist and
he will be caught. |
| The
blind street beggar usually turns out to be an undercover detective. |
| If
the character is short, bald, wears glasses and is on a power trip the actor
playing him is usually Bob Balaban. |
| Outdoor
fruit carts are always crashed into during a chase, ditto that pane of glass
being carried by those two guys. |
| Whenever
the main character has an important meeting to attend the next morning,
there will be a power outage during the night that prevents the alarm clock
from waking him up. In a
comedy, this is usually followed by a slapstick “panic” scene of him
rushing to get dressed. |
| Dogs
always sense danger before their masters do.
The same thing goes for their ability to sense the “inner
goodness” in people. |
| Fireworks
always mean sex and tall buildings are almost always phallic symbols. |
| If
the main characters are seen doing a variety of fun things, especially if
music is playing over the scene, they are falling in love. |
| If
characters are backlit, they are good, alternately, if they are in the
shadows they are evil. |
| If
a character in a scary movie is alone and the camera moves in for a close up
of her face that means something is about to pounce on her. |
| People
never get into a car using the driver’s side door.
They will enter through the passenger side door and slide across the
front seat. |
| If
a character, particularly a woman, has to have a simple medical test done,
that means she is going to die (especially if she has just found true love
for the first time in her life). |
| The
Movie Lady rating always includes a corny reference to the movie being
reviewed. |
“Signs”rating:
3 thumbs and two severed fingers (see what I mean?)