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Chekhov's Gun

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Re: Chekhov's Gun

#121

Post by pavlov »

wutwutwutwut wrote: post #104
justsomeuser wrote: post #96

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I also think that the rifle can “set the frame” for the character or scenario. E.g. that the character is the kind of person who owns guns. It does not go off or get used, but the viewer will use that as input to make a judgement about the character.

Maybe the rifle/gun is just a bad example today? I watch movies all the time where there are guns or rifles which does not gow off. And I sure don't feel like some promise was broken.

Chekhov used this example of a rifle on the wall in 1889, years before the invention of the movie camera.

It shouldn't be taken as advice on movie production design.

Re: Chekhov's Gun

#122

Post by nicbou »

antattack wrote: post #109
newacct583 wrote: post #106

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> In real life there is nobody enforcing Chekhov's gun. Of course not. Which is sort of the point. We already have real life. Stories are something different. Checkov's gun isn't a statement of some kind of platonic ideal of fiction construction, it's a convention . We like stories with "tight" framing because it's easier to watch and keeps our attention on the things that matter. And that's all it means. You can tel…

Chekhov's gun treatment can remove an element of surprise, or worse, reveal whole plot-line. It's a convention that is an art in itself, too much and too little can ruin the experience.

Properly blending it in is a form of art, and a surprise in itself. For example, [spoilers] the rock hammer in The Shawshank Redemption, or more literally, the rifle on the wall in Shaun Of The Dead. A good gun makes you go "oooooh!"

On the other hand, building up readers' expectations with details that turn out to be irrelevant is just deception. See the last season of Game of Thrones, for instance. All those characters that were carefully built over the last seasons get discarded without any explanation.

There's sometimes stuff like that in Tarantino movie, like the outlaw lady in Django.

Re: Chekhov's Gun

#123

Post by manquer »

ineedasername wrote: post #98

It's not a universal requirement of "good" writing. Contrast it with the shaggy dog style, basically the antithesis of Checkov's gun. https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Shaggy_dog_story IRL is probably more like the shaggy dog.

In art there are no absolutes like in management you can always find good examples proving the principles wrong.

The principle is more a guideline for new writers not to ramble and maintain focus especially if there are word limit restrictions typical to published short stories of the era, you cannot afford to waste words on things that don't matter to the story.

Established authors like Hemmingway or Asimov can get published with shaggy dog stories most regular authors cannot.

Even those authors can get a way once in a while, however most of the time they too have to follow the principle like everyone else too.

Re: Chekhov's Gun

#124

Post by dangerbird2 »

xaedes wrote: post #27

"The Room", by Tommy Wiseau, is a movie where Chekhov's gun isn't applied. It contains lots of small happenings with no further relevance. It has lots of other issues, technically speaken. But together they make this film not only amateurish, but it also gives it a certain kind of realism. In real life stuff happens and still may have no further relevance to the "story" after all. In real life there is nobody enforci…

Same with the Big Lebowski, but in a much more deliberate (and professional) way. The Dude, imagining himself in a film noir story, thinks that every detail is some clue relevant to Bunny's disappearance, but turns out to be completely irrelevant: the guy following the Dude in the VW, the essay in the Dude's car, Jackie Treehorn's note, etc. Instead, basically every single event in the movie after exposition is a red herring when it turns out that the Dude's initial hunch that Bunny kidnapped herself was true all along.

Re: Chekhov's Gun

#125

Post by beaconstudios »

dragontamer wrote: post #102
mbreese wrote: post #92

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The MacGuffin isn’t just there to elicit a response though… it’s a primary motivator for the characters. It’s usually (but not always) a physical object, but that matters less than the fact that the characters are trying to obtain it (usually unsuccessfully). It’s also rarely explained — it is an object that simply exists. Hitchcock loved the MacGuffin, but Psycho isn’t the example I’d use. The money in Psycho is a u…

The Pulp Fiction briefcase is more of a "pure MacGuffin", where the film director / scriptwriters are playing with the concept of MacGuffin more than actually using it as its intended purpose. After all, its a Tarantino film. He basically expects the audience to be familiar with film theory (or at minimum: expects the audience to already be familiar with "typical plotlines"). ---------- Your typical action movie / po…

the Pulp Fiction briefcase is actually a deconstructed MacGuffin, stripped of everything except the plot device itself - no explanation for why it's important, no inherent meaning, no payoff, just a thing that drives the plot. A lot of Tarantino's work has this kind of postmodern element to it.

Re: Chekhov's Gun

#126

Post by scrame »

Chekhov Gun discussions always remind me of this Vonnegut passage:

"I had no respect whatsoever for the creative works of either the painter or the novelist. I thought Karabekian with his meaningless pictures had entered into a conspiracy with millionaires to make poor people feel stupid. I thought Beatrice Keedsler had joined hands with other old-fashioned storytellers to make people believe that life had leading characters, minor characters, significant details, insignificant details, that it had lessons to be learned, tests to be passed, and a beginning, a middle, and an end.

"As I approached my fiftieth birthday, I had become more and more enraged and mystified by the idiot decisions made by my countrymen. And then I had come suddenly to pity them, for I understood how innocent and natural it was for them to behave so abominably, and with such abominable results: They were doing their best to live like people invented in story books. This was the reason Americans shot each other so often: It was a convenient literary device for ending short stories and books."

(from Breakfast of Champions, by an author who often tells you the end in the beginning and puts the journey in the details)

Re: Chekhov's Gun

#127

Post by goto11 »

justsomeuser wrote: post #96
xaedes wrote: post #27

"The Room", by Tommy Wiseau, is a movie where Chekhov's gun isn't applied. It contains lots of small happenings with no further relevance. It has lots of other issues, technically speaken. But together they make this film not only amateurish, but it also gives it a certain kind of realism. In real life stuff happens and still may have no further relevance to the "story" after all. In real life there is nobody enforci…

I also think that the rifle can “set the frame” for the character or scenario. E.g. that the character is the kind of person who owns guns. It does not go off or get used, but the viewer will use that as input to make a judgement about the character.

In good writing, details serve multiple purposes. Just showing a gun because it will be used later will seem ham-fisted to an audience. A good writer will introduce the gun as a character moment and as setup.

Re: Chekhov's Gun

#128

Post by epilys »

dangerbird2 wrote: post #124
xaedes wrote: post #27

"The Room", by Tommy Wiseau, is a movie where Chekhov's gun isn't applied. It contains lots of small happenings with no further relevance. It has lots of other issues, technically speaken. But together they make this film not only amateurish, but it also gives it a certain kind of realism. In real life stuff happens and still may have no further relevance to the "story" after all. In real life there is nobody enforci…

Same with the Big Lebowski, but in a much more deliberate (and professional) way. The Dude, imagining himself in a film noir story, thinks that every detail is some clue relevant to Bunny's disappearance, but turns out to be completely irrelevant: the guy following the Dude in the VW, the essay in the Dude's car, Jackie Treehorn's note, etc. Instead, basically every single event in the movie after exposition is a red…

Well, he was on a strict drug regiment during the whole thing.

Re: Chekhov's Gun

#129

Post by watwut »

How to make stories predictable, part 12. Every time I read these rules, I get closer to understanding why professional storytelling is so often boring and predictable these days.

Re: Chekhov's Gun

#130

Post by whakim »

namelosw wrote: post #48

In most of the best-known classic Chinese novels, like "Journey to the West", "Water Margin" and "Dream of the Red Chamber", there is usually a character that feels very important in the first few chapters, then nowhere to be found in the rest of the book. When people reading these novels, most of them wouldn't think of those runaway characters because there are many new characters and exciting plots. But it just str…

This is a really good insight - the trope of the "frustrated scholar-official" is extremely prominent in the Chinese literary tradition. That being said, the ideal of "becom[ing] hermits and enjoy[ing] their life happily after" was something of a literary conceit; in most of the actual literature written by people who tried to do this, there's an extremely strong tension between the idealized/romanticized apolitical world of the hermit, and the reality that farming was very hard labor and not something most literati particularly enjoyed. Probably the most famous example of this is the poetry of Tao Yuanming. (Note: I wrote my Master's thesis on depictions of eremitism in ancient/early medieval China.)
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