Rob I really like reading you write about writing. The stuff you mention happening in movies and shows is actually happening in books, too! Here’s an excerpt:
“Maybe the octopus isn’t the only one who leads a solitary life. How did the joke go in her book? Ah yes:… More inclined to cannibalize its own kind than band together with them. Doomed to a senescent death after a haphazard sexual encounter … sounds like one or two scientists I know.”
The character there is remembering a quote from her own book. That’s just one example. I had to stop reading it when I read that. This book won awards! I couldn’t believe it when I read that.
The new Captain America movie starts with Harrison Ford about to go out to give a victory speech and there is nobody there with him except some lady with a headset who tells him he’s about to go on. He goes “Do I have any messages from Betty? From my daughter?” I got so mad. This is just one of many groaners from a groan-worthy movie.
I am going to watch The English now. I had never even heard of it. There’s too much to watch.
I wouldn’t find it a problem. The audience needs to know. In context of the story, what basis do you have for assuming headset lady knows all about Captain’s family? If the message came from Betty, and he said my daughter, how would she know? If message giver said my father, how would she know that’s Betty? To know for sure she’s been heard from, he needs to say both terms, and I don’t find the phrasing unrealistic. I would say exactly that unless we’d been close colleagues for years. What is radioed while unstated is that he’s anxious. TLDR; to me it’s unrealistic nitpicking re: show vs. tell.
This movie over and over again lays everything out in increasingly obvious ways and has characters telling each other things they already know just so that information can be told to the audience. There are much better ways to communicate that while also telling the audience who that is. For instance, he could say “any messages from my daughter?” And then when he leaves a message for her on her phone voicemail he could hear her greeting and in it she says “you’ve reached the voicemail of Betty Ross and if you’re a reporter and somehow got my number then I don’t have anything to say about the father I no longer speak to.” Simple. But no.
I appreciate your response, whether or not I would agree. It’s civil, complete, and relates to the question. Too much of Substack commentary is falling away from that standard. But the aspect that is still well thought out is a big part of the reason it’s taking all my time, and thus in truth I don’t read a lot of books OR see a lot of movies. I chimed in because you said this took place at the *start* of the movie, which I took as enough background to speak.
FWIW I not infrequently react to things differently from other commenters. For example many folks disliked the explosions that went on in “Oppenheimer” when he had an insight. I liked them and thought that were an apt way to represent the experience of a brilliant mind. But then they kept it up so it got tiresome. For Captain America I can believe they overdid it.
So the narrative is really telling a story about the characters’ perspectives and the plot is just the vehicle for showing that perspective, which is the interesting part?
I think that can definitely be the case. People talk a lot about the difference between literary fiction and genre fiction, and how the latter emphasizes plot over character, while literary fiction does the opposite, it's more about realizing the characters as fully fleshed-out people than it is about the momentum of a story. I'm not representing that way of seeing things well, and I've never completely bought into there being a stark difference between varieties of fiction. I change my mind about this stuff every other week.
Rob I really like reading you write about writing. The stuff you mention happening in movies and shows is actually happening in books, too! Here’s an excerpt:
“Maybe the octopus isn’t the only one who leads a solitary life. How did the joke go in her book? Ah yes:… More inclined to cannibalize its own kind than band together with them. Doomed to a senescent death after a haphazard sexual encounter … sounds like one or two scientists I know.”
The character there is remembering a quote from her own book. That’s just one example. I had to stop reading it when I read that. This book won awards! I couldn’t believe it when I read that.
The new Captain America movie starts with Harrison Ford about to go out to give a victory speech and there is nobody there with him except some lady with a headset who tells him he’s about to go on. He goes “Do I have any messages from Betty? From my daughter?” I got so mad. This is just one of many groaners from a groan-worthy movie.
I am going to watch The English now. I had never even heard of it. There’s too much to watch.
I wouldn’t find it a problem. The audience needs to know. In context of the story, what basis do you have for assuming headset lady knows all about Captain’s family? If the message came from Betty, and he said my daughter, how would she know? If message giver said my father, how would she know that’s Betty? To know for sure she’s been heard from, he needs to say both terms, and I don’t find the phrasing unrealistic. I would say exactly that unless we’d been close colleagues for years. What is radioed while unstated is that he’s anxious. TLDR; to me it’s unrealistic nitpicking re: show vs. tell.
This movie over and over again lays everything out in increasingly obvious ways and has characters telling each other things they already know just so that information can be told to the audience. There are much better ways to communicate that while also telling the audience who that is. For instance, he could say “any messages from my daughter?” And then when he leaves a message for her on her phone voicemail he could hear her greeting and in it she says “you’ve reached the voicemail of Betty Ross and if you’re a reporter and somehow got my number then I don’t have anything to say about the father I no longer speak to.” Simple. But no.
I appreciate your response, whether or not I would agree. It’s civil, complete, and relates to the question. Too much of Substack commentary is falling away from that standard. But the aspect that is still well thought out is a big part of the reason it’s taking all my time, and thus in truth I don’t read a lot of books OR see a lot of movies. I chimed in because you said this took place at the *start* of the movie, which I took as enough background to speak.
FWIW I not infrequently react to things differently from other commenters. For example many folks disliked the explosions that went on in “Oppenheimer” when he had an insight. I liked them and thought that were an apt way to represent the experience of a brilliant mind. But then they kept it up so it got tiresome. For Captain America I can believe they overdid it.
So the narrative is really telling a story about the characters’ perspectives and the plot is just the vehicle for showing that perspective, which is the interesting part?
I think that can definitely be the case. People talk a lot about the difference between literary fiction and genre fiction, and how the latter emphasizes plot over character, while literary fiction does the opposite, it's more about realizing the characters as fully fleshed-out people than it is about the momentum of a story. I'm not representing that way of seeing things well, and I've never completely bought into there being a stark difference between varieties of fiction. I change my mind about this stuff every other week.