Movies, Television, and Mystery

I have two barometers for deciding if a movie is good.  1. I don’t squirm and feel the need to constantly shift in my chair to manipulate the length of my legs into comfort.  2. I’m still thinking about it the next day.  Those are purely subjective elements and undoubtedly something with which no one else shall see the film in exactly the same way.  They are emotional… and not intellectual.  Not even having anything to do with the craft that I still appreciate in the art of cinema.  I will give a movie a lot of props for cinematography even if the plot is lame.  Or sound.  Or costumes.  Or the cleverness of working in a plot device used by hundreds or thousands of writers before.  But if it passes those first two tests, there is a strong likelihood I will spend the money to see it again before it streams on Netflix.

I believe those are both indicative of good writing.  That there is a story that helps me lose myself, intoxicates my imagination so much I don’t focus on anything else.  Then there is a drive to revisit the story and analyze how it all got pieced together with the special effects and glossy, unrealistically beautiful actors.  I know that’s writing by committee most of the time… but it’s still impressive when a money making machine churns out something that compelling.

I feel that way about some television, too.  Although, I’ll change the restless in my seat indicator for the fact I will sacrifice another hour of sleep just to watch that next episode… or in the case of some… the impatience to watch that next episode.  Television, unfortunately does suffer a longevity problem… in that it all too frequently craves longevity… and outlives its usefulness.  But the first three seasons of a tightly written show are usually crack to my storytelling mind.

I deliberately waited until my birthday to see The Dark Knight Rises this year.  I don’t find myself with a lot of spare time to go to movies… but actually I think that’s because earlier this summer I was so beguiled with the show Damages that I wanted to use my un-scheduled nights to go home and voraciously consume the unraveling of its mysteries.

Both were tightly written suspense pieces.  Again, written by committee and featuring high product placement people and ideas.  There was definitely formula to both, stories that I felt ever so clever for determining the outcome before I got there… but the satisfaction came with not knowing exactly how I was going to be led there.

I wasn’t disappointed in either (although I have yet to watch Damages beyond that magical third season, so who knows?).  And I think about that pleasure ride of getting to the end of a story and seeing all the pieces fall neatly into place without seeming contrived or ridiculous.  I think about it as I start to weave together all these various stories of my narrators.  I know their stories from beginning to end… and want to decide what threads to give readers to make the tapestry of the final chapter (if this book actually has chapters) a logical, beautiful picture.  Not a hasty paint by number generic image.

So I think about these most recent viewings… and wonder what kept me in my seat.  What makes me want to go see The Dark Knight again not even 24 hours later?  Even when I found something sort of predictable, I was so delighted when it fell neatly into revelation.  I think there is something like that in this novel.  Maybe it’s only obvious to me because I’ve known it for 15 years.  But maybe I want it to be sort of obvious… and just leave the mystery of how.

Indeed, I sometimes find that question as well as its cousin why, the most compelling mysteries.  There’s no need to proclaim the smug of knowing the obvious.  That’s life.  We know what happened. We know when things happened.  But we can never really understand or grasp the why or how did it get to this point?  Maybe, really, those are the mysteries of plot that keep my legs from twitching and my brain wanting to go back and see it again.

And maybe in movies and television… and books… they are the best mysteries.  Because in books and movies and television we can answer the why and how.  It’s not so easy in real life.