My daughter Katie and I were watching the Gossip Girls on TV before she went back to London on Sunday. I was getting upset over crazy plot developments and implausible character reactions -- "That couldn't have happened," I would interject into the darkness, "She wouldn't have put up with that."
"Hmmm," Katie would reply, watching the flickering images on the TV.
"No, no, no," I said to yet another turn in the plot. "That's ridiculous; who would do such a thing?"
"Mummy," Katie finally said. "I think you're getting a bit too upset. This is just a TV show. It's not real life."
That observation straightened me out right away, and I enjoyed the program more after that.
You know how bad I am with this problem though? I get upset when characters are served a delicious meal that I would love to tuck into myself but they never get to eat because of plot developments -- the phone rings, someone gets killed, etc., so they invariably have to dash off with the food uneaten, and that bothers me for minutes afterwards. "Why didn't they finish their breakfasts?" I'll ask, like a simple-minded child.
Tuesday, 29 April 2008
Why didn't they finish breakfast?
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8 comments:
It doesn't even have to be anyhing to do with plot development. Sometimes they get up from their meals for no apparent reason after only a few bites.
You never see a clean plate on a TV show or in a movie.
Another thing: I appreciate that chewing and swallowing take time to do properly, and with a specific timeframe to get the plot to the denouement, the director can't waste minutes, BUT---even supposedly genteel characters, when a scene is set at a meal, spear a big bite and say their lines with their mouths full of food. It's as gross onscreen as in real life---worse, actually, as if it's a movie you're seeing their big ol' giant jaws flopping wide open while they deliver that dialogue. That scene in Godfather 1 in which Michael met with Solozzo and the corrupt cop---ugh. It was a relief when Michael came out of the pissoir shootin'---I'd rather see bloody dead bodies than someone's masticated dinner!
I just hate to see it all go to waste when I hate coming home from the office and having to cook dinner. People on TV have beautiful food that they don't even touch. Maybe they could just hand it over to me when we get more advanced technology?
I remember a movie wherein the food was actually eaten! In one of my favorites, *Something to Talk About*---Julia Roberts served her cheatin' husband Dennnis Quaid poached salmon, and added ipecac (an emetic) to the mint-mustard sauce. Ol' Dennis ate every bite, right there on camera, then got so sick he had to go to the hospital.
Remember when you and I toured Jane Austen's house, and I bought that book by Maggie Lane, *Jane Austen and Food*? Ms. Lane analyzed the brilliant way Janie used food as trope, metaphor, emblem (insert any applicable English-major terms here.) The bounteous offering of food to indicate a generous character---the witholding of food, or self-starvation, to indicate spiritual meanness or turmoil---it's a terrific book. Anyway, since reading it, I've often thought that TV/cinema is missing a bet by not using food more effectively as outward/visible expression of psychological stuff. Of course, some directors do it---an example is---uh---uh---well, that food fight in *Animal House* comes to mind. Seriously---*Chocolat* and *Babette's Feast* use food well...but them be furrin films. I think it's American directors that don't get it---they just plop their actors down at a restaurant and say, "Roll camera! Start chewing!"
I seem so sage and wise in this latest blog entry.
Keep it up!
I don't know if this holds true for movie production, but in theatre it's considered terrible luck to have/consume real food onstage. So perhaps all this delicious-looking food is just made out of---oh, whatever---rubber, silicon, resin---and the reason the actors leap up and carry on without eating it is that they'd die or choke. I do remember rebelling against this silly rule in college---I was in a play with a long dinner scene with champagne. The props mistress provided boring ginger ale in the glasses, but I snuck in after costuming and make-up and put THE REAL THING at my place.
Well now I don't feel so bad about my continuous alcohol-related posts... see where I get it from?!
(I have yet to install a Franzia dispenser in my new car. I suppose I could put it in a thermos a la Brenda...)
What is a Franzia dispenser?
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