MacGuffin With Cheese

All right, I’m going to upset Scott a bit. Sorry, my friend. I’m going to talk about MacGuffins and why the Sankara stones in Temple of Doom are not a good MacGuffin.

You may have heard the term “MacGuffin” bandied about at the site or at other film sites or even in interviews with directors or writers. The term is generally attributed to Alfred Hitchcock, though it actually is older than that. A MacGuffin is the object that motivates the characters’ actions in a story. In a heist film, it’s the money the heroes want to steal from the bank vault. In a spy story, it’s the film the hero needs to retrieve. But there’s more to it than that.

Being a MacGuffin also implies that the object itself is actually irrelevant to the story. In other words, it doesn’t matter what the object is, all that matters is that it motivates the characters. Indeed, most MacGuffins could actually be swapped out for something else without a change to the plot. For example, in a heist film it doesn’t matter if the characters are trying to steal cash, or diamonds, or an envelope or a giant poodle; all that matters is that the protagonist is interested in the object enough to steal it.

Quentin Tarantino made great use of this idea in Pulp Fiction, when he made the film about the pursuit of a briefcase but never let the audience know what’s in the briefcase. That’s actually the ultimate MacGuffin because it doesn’t even exist, yet it’s driving the story. Another good example is “the process” in David Mamet’s Spanish Prisoner. All you know is that this is something secret and scientific, which will bring tremendous opportunities to whoever has it. It is important enough that an elaborate scheme is created to steal it. . . yet, you never even get hints about what it is.

Both of those examples prove what Hitchcock said about the MacGuffin because they motivate the plot but the fact we never even find out what they are proves that they are actually meaningless.

Interestingly, the Maltese Falcon is a MacGuffin, so is “Rosebud” in Citizen Kane, so is the nuclear weapon in Thunderball. Again, in each case, those objects motivate the characters to act but what they are is irrelevant to the plot itself. Some have suggested that the Ark of the Covenant in Raiders is a MacGuffin. I don’t agree with that, however, because the Ark eventually kills the Nazis and frees Indiana Jones, i.e. it causes plot apart from the characters’ motivation and thus cannot be a MacGuffin.

That brings me to the Sankara stones in Temple of Doom. Are these a MacGuffin? Yes, but they’re not a good one. The problem with these stones is that while the nature of the MacGuffin doesn’t matter, it is important that a MacGuffin seem important enough to motivate the characters’ actions. Thus, for example, a heist for an undisclosed amount of money makes sense to us, but a heist for $1.50 or for a wallet full of bills does not make sense to us. The Sankara stones are that $1.50.

If Indiana Jones doesn’t retrieve the stones. . . well, nothing really horrible happens. According to Jones himself, these fabled stones promise fortune and glory, and we don’t care if the villain has stones giving him vague promises of greater wealth and success. We also know Jones isn’t interested in that either, so what does he really care about retrieving the stones for a meaningless village in the middle of nowhere? In other words, this doesn’t seem like a worthy goal to motivate his actions... “kin you get my lucky rabbit foot back from them thieves?” In fact, I suspect Spielberg recognizes this because he also gave Jones a secondary motivation of freeing all the kidnapped children to motivate him. So while this is technically a MacGuffin, it’s not a good one.

So what are some of your favorite MacGuffins? And do you think the Death Star plans are a MacGuffin?

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Film Friday: Ronin (1998)

Most action movies are utterly mindless. They offer little more than adrenaline highs, triggered by big explosions, fast motion and loud soundtracks. Ronin, directed by John Frankenheimer and essentially written by David Mamet (credited as Richard Wiesz), is different. It’s brilliant. Ronin is gripping. It’s got fascinating twists and turns. It’s got characters that are both deep and deeply interesting, and it presents a truly immersive world. How does it achieve this? Minimalism and realism.

** spoiler alert **

Ronin Uses Minimalism To Make Us Build The Story

From the beginning, Ronin deliberately uses minimalism to pull us into the story. Little is said, less is shown and we know almost nothing. How does this pull us in? Because our brains don’t like information gaps, and will fill in those gaps with information that we consider appropriate. Thus, by carefully rationing information, Ronin actually co-opts our brains to get us to fill in the world with details that work for us. In effect, we personalize the film by assembling the characters, giving them backstories, and explaining the dispute.

For example, we know Ronin is about a group of mercenaries hired in Paris by an Irish woman named Deirdre (Natascha McElhone) to steal a briefcase from a man surrounded by expert security, but we don’t know what’s in the briefcase. It could be blackmail material, diamonds, nuclear material, computer code, counterfeiting plates or anything else. If the writer chooses one of these, there is a good chance some portion of the audience will decide this isn’t worth fighting for. But by staying silent on this point, everyone in the audience will mentally fill the briefcase with something they personally think is worth fighting for. Thus, the audience satisfies itself that the premise is justified and makes sense.

Ronin uses this same technique to build incredibly rich characters. We know almost nothing about the mercenaries, though we are given clues. In assembling these clues, we ourselves create backstories for the characters that just don’t exist in the writing. For example, we know nothing about Sam (Robert DeNiro), except that he’s an American. We also know nothing about Gregor (Stellan Skarsgard), but his accent tells us he’s probably German. When Deirdre tells us they were all referred to her by “the man in the wheelchair,” we infer that they are mercenaries of some sort. When Gregor asks Sam how the man ended up in the wheelchair, Sam says, “I was under the impression that happened in your neck of the woods, during the late unpleasantness.” From this, we can infer that they were spies during the Cold War and that Gregor and Sam were on opposite sides. We don’t know any of that, but we can infer it. We can also infer they no longer work for their countries. And when we infer these things, we simultaneously fill in their pasts with an appropriate backstory for spies who have become mercenaries. Thus, with only a few words from the writer, we ourselves create extensive backstories for the characters which satisfy us as to their credentials.

Sometimes we are even given specific hints to guide our newly-created backstories. To understand what I mean, consider this. At one point, a Russian asks where he’s seen Vincent (Jean Reno) before. Vincent responds with one word: “Vienna.” And when he says it, his voice is seething with hate. With that one word, a whole chapter in Vincent’s past is revealed to us and this whole imaginary chapter becomes part of his character even though nothing more is ever said than the one word. Seriously, when you hear him say that single word, you can literally imagine the entire Vienna incident. Similarly, we are told that Deirdre’s boss Seamus (Jonathan Pryce) was tossed out of the IRA for some reason, which again we aren’t told. But our brains fill in his backstory by coming up with some horrific deed that we personally believe would make the IRA kick this man out. Again, without coming up with a single word about his past, the writer tricks us and now we see Seamus as an evil man of the highest order.

In this way, Ronin causes us to build these characters and to generate the world that surrounds them within our own minds, and that makes the story all the richer for us.

Ronin Uses Realism To Make Us Care About The Consequences

Having gotten the audience to build the characters and fill in their world, Frankenheimer then uses realism to give the story meaning. Why? Because the more real a story feels to us, the greater we will perceive the consequences to be and the more we will care about what happens. In this case, the realism involves both the characters themselves and the physical laws of their universe.

Consider the characters. These men are highly competent. But unlike Tom Cruise movies, where someone needs to tell Tom that he’s “the best,” we learn this in Ronin by observing these men. They are fast and smart and clever. They make no mistakes. They are fearless, but not reckless. They display tremendous experience, critical knowledge and sound judgment. In other words, they are highly believable as spies or mercenaries because they display the exact traits we assume a top spy would need to survive. Moreover, their low key but determined approach immediately gives them an authenticity that a flashy James Bond character or an invincible Jason Bourne character can never achieve. This makes them real to us and draws us in because we feel like we are seeing something with real-world consequences.

The sets add to this sense of realism too. Everything happens in Paris and Nice, which lends an exotic touch to the story, but the characters spend their time in dingy apartments with blacked-out windows, i.e. places they would really stay. They don’t rent impossibly large hotel rooms overlooking the Eiffel Tower and advertize themselves to the world.

They use real weapons too, rather than the super-weapons preferred by most action heroes. What’s more, the action itself is much like we would expect it to be in real life. For example, when these characters empty a clip into a crowd, innocent people die. When they get shot, they bleed or die. Indeed, throughout this movie, you have the feeling that every time a gun is fired, something very real and very terrible can happen, and that keeps you on the edge of your seat in the fight scenes. Further, when car chases happen, there are no Dukes of Hazzard jumps, they don’t ride on two tires, and no one climbs out onto the roof and tries to jump onto another car. What they do instead is push their cars to the limit of losing control, a place that most of us have been at one time or another with our own cars. And because we remember what it felt like when our car started to skid out from under us, we recall that feeling when we see it happen to Sam or Vincent and we add it to the experience. Thus, by staying within our real world frame of reference, they pull in our own angst to heighten the danger. Compare that with the nothing you feel when two characters are fighting on top of a moving car.

The bad guys are believable too. They all have motivations: some want money, some are in this for the politics. Yet, they don’t see themselves as bad people (nor do they delude themselves that they are angels) and none of them are maniacal. They just are what they are and they’ve come to terms with that, and that makes them horrific to us because they’re cold-blooded and inhuman. Indeed, unlike most Hollywood villains who need to kick puppies or shoot henchmen to prove they are evil rather than just prancing fools, the bad guys here need no such proof. Everything about them tells you these men think nothing of killing and do it quite efficiently. But just as importantly, they don’t kill for fun or because they are sadists; they kill because it’s required to get the job done. This keeps them from seeming cartoony to us. It also heightens the tension because we know these people are truly serious and will not mess around. That’s never something you can be sure of with the comic book villains, who seem to distract themselves at all the wrong times.

Conclusion

This is why Ronin is such a fantastic action movie. The story is great and the film is well shot -- excellent sets, soundtrack and scenes. But even more importantly, we are co-opted into creating ultra-rich characters that we care about personally because we made them. Then they are put into seemingly real danger, under real world rules that keep us from knowing that everything will work out in some improbable way. I cannot recommend this film highly enough.

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Film Friday: The Spanish Prisoner (1997)

Can a movie be too intelligent? Not really. But it can try too hard to seem intelligent. That’s the case with The Spanish Prisoner. Written and directed by David Mamet, The Spanish Prisoner has many of the hallmarks of great films: intelligent plot, fascinating twists and turns, smart dialog, and an interesting atmosphere or mood. It also has staying power, as it’s on television all the time and I find myself drawn to it. I like this film a lot, but I can’t call it a great film because Mamet tries too hard to prove he's clever.

** spoiler alert **

Without spoiling too much, The Spanish Prisoner involves a confidence game. It centers around Joe Ross (Campbell Scott), an engineer who has invented a secret process that is about to make his company rich. As the story opens, we learn that Ross’s boss Mr. Klein (Ben Gazzara) is talking to wealthy investors about backing the company’s new invention. At the same time, Joe starts to realize that he has no protection should the company claim the invention and stiff him. His attempts to get such protection place him in an adversarial position vis-à-vis his company. While this is going on, Joe runs into a mysterious man named Jimmy Dell (Steve Martin). Dell is a wealthy man who befriends Joe and starts to advise him regarding the issues with his company. Beyond this set up, all I will say is that Joe soon finds himself way out of his league as various people around him may or may not be trying to manipulate him, and he has no idea who he can trust.

I really do enjoy this film, but it also disappoints me every time I watch it. What bothers me is not the story or the characters, but a dozen small moments in the film. And what each of these moments has in common is they try too hard to prove how smart the film is:

The Macguffin

Right out of the gates we’re presented with the Macguffin. This is a term coined by Alfred Hitchcock to mean the object/thing that drives the plot and motivates the characters' actions, i.e. what the characters want -- like a necklace in a robbery story or papers in a spy story. But there's an interesting aspect to the Macguffin, which is that it's also irrelevant what it actually is. In other words, the necklace could just as easily be a diamond, a work of art or a pile of money. This realization has led some of the more clever filmmakers to play around with the Macguffin. A perfect example of this comes from Pulp Fiction, where the characters are chasing a briefcase that shines gold when it opens. Despite this titillating clue, we never do find out what's inside the briefcase because Tarantino is intentionally teasing us, knowing that it doesn’t actually matter to the story.

Mamet tries the same thing here by never telling us what this formula is or how much it's worth. Unlike Pulp Fiction however, where this was a clever tease, here it feels more like showing off. For example, Mamet does things like blatantly turning the camera away from a blackboard as the dollar amount is written upon it. And he repeatedly finds ways to highlight that he’s not telling us what the formula is, such as when FBI Agent McClure (Felicity Huffman) makes a huge point of telling Ross not to tell her what the formula is. Once or twice would have been fine, but this quickly becomes like the annoying acquaintance who explains over and over how something they did was clever.

The Dialog

Next comes the dialog. Mamet is famous for his dialog, which is typically an intelligent noir style. Generally, his characters speak in sharp, abrupt, and yet complex sentences that leave important details unsaid and which say something larger about the characters no matter what topic they are discussing. Thus, in Ronin, every word uttered by Robert DeNiro tells us he is a man with vast experience and incredible skills. Mamet’s characters in Glengarry Glen Ross detail their failed lives as they beat around the bush about revenge they'll never take and disguise their real concerns in fake talk of insults to their dignity.

The Spanish Prisoner is different. The dialog used by these characters lacks the depth and vision of Mamet’s other characters. Other than the things they tell us specifically, we know nothing about these people. But that’s not the real problem. The real problem arises when Mamet tries to insert depth by having his characters utter cryptic sounding but entirely ridiculous quotes. “I put a thief in my mouth to steal my brain.” What does this mean? It means he's hung over. When Susan the secretary says “my troika was pursued by wolves,” what do you think she's referring to? Nothing, she's just delivering snacks. The script is littered with these lines. It’s like Mamet sat around coming up with cryptic lines and then dumped them into the dialog at random.

Indeed, with characters passing these kinds of quotes back and forth, none of the relationships seem real. In real life, the most common response to these kinds of lines would have been “huh” rather than the firing back of a counter line. This makes the whole story feel “acted.” And forget emotion because it’s hard to show anger or passion when you speak in sentences like: “beware of all ventures requiring new clothes.” Even characters like the FBI agents speak in riddles when more common word usage would be appropriate. In the end, this feels like Mamet is trying to show us how clever he can be at writing lines, but in the process he fails to write effective dialog.

Arrogant Casting

Finally, we come to the cast. Different issues drive casting. Money plays a big role, as does the desirability of the parts and the tastes of the director. In this instance, however, the casting feels arrogant. I say this because Mamet includes several actors who are playing against type, and it feels like Mamet did this just to prove that he could make it work. For example, Ed O’Neill (Married With Children) is called upon to play an FBI team leader, but he lacks the gravitas to escape his Al Bundy role. Rebecca Pidgeon is cast as Susan Ricci, the secretary/love interest/temptress, a role for which she is entirely unsuited. Felicity Huffman is similarly miscast as an FBI agent. A Japanese actress is cast to play a character with an unbelievable, ultra-heavy Texas accent for no apparent reason.

Steve Martin plays Jimmy Dell. Now, in truth, Martin is brilliant. Prior to this film, I viewed him as a rather poor actor who could only play the “put-upon guy.” Yet here he plays a suave and brilliant businessman, and he does it incredibly well. But his success doesn’t change the fact that like the others, he was cast in a role for which he appears unsuited. It was as if Mamet decided to cast inappropriate actors just to show he had the skill to pull this off. And the problem with this is that several of these people are jarring in the roles they play and that makes them difficult to believe, and I'm constantly left feeling that Mamet is basically telling me how great he is.

Conclusion

Let me stress that you should not read this review as a condemnation. I really like this film and I highly recommend it. But I feel the film artificially limits my ability to love it because of these entirely avoidable flaws. Had Mamet stopped telling me how intelligent he is, then this could have been a great movie. As it is, it’s a good movie which wasted its potential to become a great movie. In fact, it’s probably screaming out for a remake.

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