Cinematic life lessons

By MARC WOLLIN

Doesn’t matter if it’s a movie or a TV show or book, there comes a time when you say “Wait a minute ... that can’t be.” It’s that point where, regardless of the world you have taken at face value, something in it strikes you as implausible. To be fair, the whole thing might be implausible to begin with: dragons zipping around, cars that don’t need to stop for gas, hundreds of bullets flying while the hero emerges unscathed. But if you try and put too fine a point on it the entire thing falls apart and there’s no point in watching or reading. Look at it this way: to be disturbed by the fact that the gun gets through the metal detector while you accept that the guy in the cape can fly seems to be a quibble at best.

It’s a concept articulated by English poet and philosopher Samuel Taylor Coleridge in 1817 in his autobiography “Biographia Literaria.” He and colleague William Wordsworth talked about how you had to have “poetic faith” wherein realistic persons and characters had to be imbued with a semblance of truth sufficient for the reader to go along for the ride. Beyond that, however, you can push the envelope a bit. While the technique had been practiced by writers dating back to the ancient Greeks, Coleridge gave this approach a name: “suspension of disbelief.”

This basically means that whatever fictional world is created, it is incumbent upon the reader or viewer not to get too hung up on the details. As long as there is an internal logic to the scene, for the sake of the story, we don’t look too hard at any discrepancies. Still, if you watch enough films or programs it is hard not to come away with some life lessons that, while in our own experience may seem ludicrous, seem to be cinematic reality. I recently came across a list of these truisms: see which ones square with your own experiences.

Once applied, lipstick will never rub off, even if scuba diving.

If staying in a strange house, women always investigate any unusual sounds wearing their most revealing underwear.

If you are being chased through town, you can take cover in a passing parade, which will be happening on any day of the year.

It’s easy to land a plane as long as there is someone in the control tower to talk you down.

If you need to hide in a building, the ventilation system is the perfect place. No one will ever look in there and you can travel anywhere with no one finding you.

If you wish to pass yourself off as a German officer, no need to speak the language, a German accent will do just fine.

A man will show no pain when taking a ferocious beating, but will wince when a woman tries to clean his wounds.

When paying for a taxi, no need to actually look in your wallet. Whatever bill you pull out will be the right fare including tip.

During any police investigation it is mandatory to visit a strip club at least once.

Any car crash results in the entire car bursting into flames.

A lighter or single match will light up an entire dark room.

When you turn out the lights in a bedroom, everything will glow blue and be visible.

All single women have a cat.

One man shooting at 20 attackers has a better chance of success than the 20 men shooting at him.

Dogs always know which is the bad guy and will bark only at him.

A detective can only solve a case once he has been suspended from the force.

If you start dancing in the streets everyone you meet will know the steps.

You see this stuff constantly, a little slip in the conceit you are asked to swallow. Most recently we were watching an episode of the series “Reacher” about an itinerant ex-Army cop who floats around dealing with trouble. At one point he has infiltrated a mega-estate run by a wealthy crook with an arsenal and a private security force. The place has walls and fences and camera systems galore. Yet when Reacher arranges for a power failure as a distraction, all the gates swing open and there is no emergency backup generator ... the guards all curse the dark and walk around with flashlights and lanterns. C’mon ... even we have a backup generator, and my criminal enterprise is but a fraction of this guy’s.

For sure you can lament the ridiculousness of it all. But how much fun would that be? Or as someone posted online, “At a certain point, it’s a deal with the audience where the director basically pauses the movie and says, ‘Look, if you want to see some more cool action scenes, just initial here that it’s OK that the alien computers run on MacOS. And then we can go back to blowing things up for you.’” 

Where do I sign?

Marc Wollin of Bedford tries to live in the world that is on the screen. His column appears weekly via email and online on Blogspot and Substack as well as Facebook, LinkedIn and X.