House of Eratosthenes

We were watching a Michael Bay film, one that’s better than most of ’em in my opinion. And suddenly like a bolt of lightning, it hit me why I (for the most part) don’t like his movies. This one in question is 150 minutes — two and a half hours — nightmarishly long.

Now bear in mind, I have already opined on the rules that should be followed by three hour movies if they want to be great, and this one doesn’t follow any of those rules…or it follows very few. And granted, it isn’t a bad movie, and a failure to follow the rules won’t make a movie bad, it’ll just keep it from being great. So straying outside of my three-hour-movie-rules is just fine.

But there are more obvious shortcomings. Actually, there’s just one. And it is consistent across a great many Michael Bay movies; so consistent, that I’m convinced, without knowing it for sure, that he is the common denominator.

Mr. Bay, I hope you’re reading. Here it comes.

The answer lies in the “deleted scenes” option behind just about any reasonably long movie you can get on a special-edition DVD. Out of, oh, ten to twelve deleted scenes, there are going to be a couple where the director’s commentary will clue you in to the fact that the guy really hated to ax this one, and tried like the dickens to keep from doing it.

But the rules are very simple here. With all these successful directors having their different styles, there isn’t too much variance on this.

You have a scene; it’s easy to define. There isn’t too much debate about where exactly it opens, and where it closes. The scene gives something away with regard to the story, a character, or both of those. And I’m afraid that is Mr. Bay’s problem. By-and-large, every scene that makes it into the final script, should change the story. You see this in the director’s commentary pretty often. The scene opens — the hero thinks so-and-so might be a traitor, but he isn’t quite sure…and he’s looking for the maguffin, he knows that’s what he should be trying to find, but he hasn’t found it yet. The scene closes — he still suspects the traitor but still isn’t sure, he’s still looking for the maguffin but still hasn’t found it. If that’s the case, the net story-change is — zero. So it goes. Kabloowee. It doesn’t matter if it was the first scene imagined out of the whole story, it doesn’t matter if everyone had to roast out in a blazing hot sun for two days trying to film it.

If the scene doesn’t change the story, out it goes.

The one exemption is for a scene that defines characters instead of adding elements to the story.

And Mr. Bay’s bad habit, I’m afraid, is to abuse that exemption. Scenes unwind at an inartful, leisurely pace, and they do nothing to change the story. Scene begins; we’re pretty sure we’ll blow up the asteroid, but we don’t know for certain, and a lot of things are going wrong. Scene ends — nothing is changed. Somehow, it was allowed to stay in.

But it just goes to show some new things about these characters, so supposedly that’s alright. And I agree with that. Or I would…except the characters so defined, are part of a primary set of — oh, no more than about four or five. That’s alright too. Except the things we’re learning about these characters, are exactly the same things, over and over again.

Bruce Willis is astonishingly brave.

Ben Afleck is brave too, and really smart. And he’s desperately in love with Liv Tyler.

Liv Tyler is swelteringly worried about her father and her boyfriend.

Billy Bob Thornton would love to be up there with them, but he needs leg braces. But boy oh boy this mission’s gonna succeed under his watch…unless it doesn’t.

Steve Buscemi is really funny.

Peter Stormare is one wild and crazy dude.

The script unwinds before us, all 150 minutes of it, as if someone in the front row was heckling the movie and saying “you know, I’m not quite sure about Bruce Willis’ character here…I’m not quite convinced yet that he’s brave, I think he might be a big pussy.” And as if Michael Bay felt some primal urge to prove it AGAIN, about Willis’ character. Or Affleck’s or Tyler’s. And he’ll have to prove it yet again in five or ten minutes.

Through it all, these scenes pop in there, like zits on a teenager’s face. Say, that’s an apt analogy now that I think on it. They’ll pop up without warning. You have no idea when, except that you won’t have to wait too long and there they’ll be. There is nothing that can be done to prevent them, and when they go away you know that isn’t the last you’ve seen of ’em. After awhile they get to be a nuisance…scenes that just show how worried Liv Tyler is, and exist for absolutely no other purpose at all.

You know what would make these things so much better? It’s already an idolized textbook lesson in Hollywood. And we love to talk about it a lot here, because it’s an example of truly great moviemaking.

There really aren’t too many things you can say, good or bad, about Sonny Corleone but he is an exceptionally well-defined character. He’s hot-tempered, impulsive, somewhat cunning and clever but overall can do some very foolish things.

Now, think back on it; rent the movie again, if you have to. How many scenes are there that take the time to explain this about Sonny Corleone? He rips the film out of that guy’s camera; he runs his mouth off in front of Solozzo; he yells at Tom Hagan, he beats the stuffing out of Carlo, he drives off to beat up Carlo again, and that’s the last thing he ever does. Five. Arguably four, since the last one exists to advance the story by building on attributes of the character already defined previously. So there are four scenes that define Sonny, and a fifth one that makes use of this.

No two of these four scenes define exactly the same things about him. The same goes for all of the characters, and in this way a three-hour movie is made to feel like it lasts less than one hour. The audience is left begging for more.

The logical conclusion to draw is that Michael Bay could learn something from this, and his movies would be more fun to watch — or shorter — perhaps, both. But maybe I’m being too hard on him. Maybe he is not the catalyst; maybe it’s Ms. Tyler. I’m recalling all the movies I’ve seen her in, and I almost dread seeing her pretty face one more time because I know there will be no point to it. At times, I wonder if she has it written right into her contracts: “None of the scenes in which I appear can have any purpose to them at all.” Yeah, yeah, she gave up immortality to be with King whats-his-face; she feverishly hopes her Dad comes back to earth; she’s worried about Bruce Banner and she’s mad at her father, the General. I get all that. Get on with the movie already.

I do not mean to imply by all this that character development is easy. That would be an ignorant statement, since I’m not tasked with doing it. In fact, I can tell it’s a delicate balance and there must be a lot of tricks to it.

But I can also tell that dragging the mower over exactly the same swath of grass again, is a grievous sin. Doing it half-a-dozen more times, is much worse.

It seems that your critique is that Michael Bay doesn’t put the time into subtle plot or character structure. It may be unsettling, but the truth hurts: he did not make this movie for you. A good rule of thumb is: if the movie didn’t come from a book, expect little. If it came from a book, check who did the adaptation, and proceed accordingly.

I have grown impatient about it (meaning that which is offered for public consumption on a grand scale) myself, but I refuse to put on airs about it. I know you can too. Remember, nowadays folks all around the world will be buying these DVD’s – you can’t please everyone, but you must please the largest percentage of them.

It is each of our goals in life to find in our entertainment something that meets our needs. Your problem is that you expect it to come from popular culture. It probably worked for the first several years of your life, and so you expect it to continue.

It is nice to be able to like popular culture, because of the number of people who can talk to you about it. The internet creates the connection easily. And, fortunately, it can help you find those who can talk to you about some new form of entertainment that meets your evolving needs. I have often wondered about movie reviewers, both professional and internet amateurs, because they choose to dwell on that which doesn’t speak to them. Plus, they are talking to people who don’t care that the plot dragged, or the characters’ acts were hypocritical or introduced too late in the movie, etc.. I question their motivation, especially the ones who do not get paid.

Personally, I think that netflix and amazon (to some extent) are the tools to finding what you crave. I don’t have the time or energy to waste on watching a movie that, by my input of preferences, someone should have alerted me I wouldn’t like. The internet should be providing more of these things.

You have three options: find what you like, live with what doesn’t satisfy, or make up your own. I vote for door #3.

If it helps, sometimes something popular can speak to you, too. So relish those times. But do not stop looking for that which “works”, and then when you’ve found it, let us know. If you choose not to search for it, I won’t blame you. It may be due to laziness, of which I am not immune.

Something tells me there was a much more succinct way of saying all of that, but did I mention that I was lazy?
- wch | 06/20/2008 @ 14:16
Something tells me there was a much more succinct way of saying all of that, but did I mention that I was lazy?

Yes, it seems to boil down to “don’t waste time writing about it if you don’t approve of it.” And an impressive essay it is, too. 😉

One thing is left unexamined by this, though: It should be profitable to make a movie people want to see a whole bunch of times (like The Godfather, although there are others), over and above the profit made making a movie people just want to see once.

Where’s the system falling apart?
- mkfreeberg | 06/20/2008 @ 15:16
Thanks for the thoughtful response. To answer your question: safe profit exists without the artistry. I am starting to avoid that which has none, so as to not encourage the trend. Enough of us doing that, and……

I applaud your attempt to steer “those who create” toward a better path. From what I’ve read, you should be showing them instead.

I know (I’m an accountant) that movie creators (those who “green light” a project, I belive it’s termed) are the key; they need to lose their fear of failure. What we have been offered over the years is “bankable.” Art (to succinctly call what you’re after) is high risk, and high reward. The investors don’t want a maybe.

Look on the bright side: it’s this lack of risk that’s made the internet so popular. Folks like you and me are so turned off by the predictability, to fill the void we “go out and discover” across the internet superhighway.
- wch | 06/20/2008 @ 15:33

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