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Chekhov's Gun

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Re: Chekhov's Gun

#141

Post by goto11 »

Borrible wrote: post #101

"One must never place a loaded rifle on the stage if it isn't going to go off. It's wrong to make promises you don't mean to keep." Anton Chekhov Reality is full of false promises. So why not in fiction as well, Mr. Chekhov? Why does an author owe his readers consistency or coherence? Make it Lynchian. People love to puzzle over mysteries. Just sell it as one.As a mystery. They'll build in the wrong and unnecessary p…

Especially mysteries need to be coherent and consistent, otherwise the audience will just feel cheated. In a mystery every detail matter.

> Reality is full of false promises. So why not in fiction as well, Mr. Chekhov?

Well, as Mark Twain said: It's no wonder that truth is stranger than fiction. Fiction has to make sense.

Of course a false promise is fine, as long as you subvert the expectations with something more interesting. But just adding details with no purpose is bad writing.

Re: Chekhov's Gun

#142

Post by vinceguidry »

I recall an instance when I was doing improv classes where we were doing freeform scenes with a partner with a given input. When the scene began, I tried to engage with my scene partner, but she kept saying 'leave me' in response to anything I said. After giving it three chances, I exited stage left, end scene.

Our instructor then explained the scene with, "anytime something is talked about three times in a scene or play, it pretty much is immediately invoked into being."

Nothing was better for me in helping me understand the art of storytelling than the 6 months or so I spent there. You hear about the 'rules of stories' and whatnot, but it's not until I was up on stage, grappling with it, that that whole world started opening up. I don't know anything better other than actually studying it in school.

Ignoring the rules just makes for harder-to-watch scenes, you just can't make sense of the why.

Re: Chekhov's Gun

#143

Post by mason55 »

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…

The Coens do it a lot, in fact it’s basically the entirety of Inside Llewyn Davis.

Re: Chekhov's Gun

#144

Post by LanceH »

mrec wrote: post #110
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…

The one that always gets me is Luke's lightsaber in the original Star Wars . It's introduced as a connection to the father he never knew, making it hugely significant. There's a whole scene on the Falcon of Ben training him to use it. And then he never takes it out again for the remainder of the movie.

He has blinders on and is learning to use the force, which he does use again. his lightsaber isn't used again, but they are used again in a master's fight.

Re: Chekhov's Gun

#145

Post by GauntletWizard »

jhbadger wrote: post #117
mrec wrote: post #113

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Lucas definitely had sequels in mind, but it was very much in doubt whether the movie would succeed. There was an official sequel novel by Alan Dean Foster called Splinter of the Mind's Eye released in '78, which was explicitly designed to be filmable on a very low budget if the original didn't do too well. That does feature Luke duelling Vader with his saber.

It also (rather uncomfortably in light of later revelations) features Luke & Leia as a romantic couple! Apparently Lucas signed off on Foster's manuscript, so he hadn't had the idea that they were siblings yet.

Luke and Leia were teased as a romantic couple in Empire, she kissed him on the lips to draw Han's ire, and then it's hinted that she's his sister in the final scene of Dagobah/when he calls out to her via the force. The incest thing is something that Lucas was deliberately playing with, whether Splinter took that into account or not.

Re: Chekhov's Gun

#146

Post by chris_j »

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…

One of the things that made Quentin Tarantino's early films, particularly Pulp Fiction, such a breath of fresh air is that they did this with abandon. John Travolta and Samuel L Jackson would chat away about McDonald's in France or whether or not they were prepared to eat pork and it was of no consequence whatsoever to subsequent events, other than to give characters a bit more depth. Too many films and novels have things happen for no other reason than that the plot is going to require it in the next act and it's great when a writer takes a different approach.

Re: Chekhov's Gun

#147

Post by vlunkr »

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…

The movie that comes to mind for me is Napoleon Dynamite. My first impression was that it was just aimless slapstick, but really it's about a group of misfits becoming friends. The events that lead there sometimes pay off and are sometimes are seemingly random. This really makes it feel charming and realistic.

Re: Chekhov's Gun

#148

Post by doc_gunthrop »

plafl wrote: post #49

Quite dull. That's why I love The Big Lewobski. It's full of irrelevant details. There is a story too but the movie it's about the little things.

You could say that it's the little things that help to really tie the film together (even though they don't really have a significant impact on the main plot). In most cases they aid in defining the characters.

Jesus being a pederast doesn't have much of an effect on the storyline, but it provides context into the background of the character, so he's not just merely a competing bowler.

Another example of an even more seemingly irrelevant detail is when Jackie Treehorn starts sketching something on a pad upon receiving a phone call. When it's revealed to the audience what it is, not only is it surprisingly funny, but it hints at who Jackie Treehorn is. Maybe he's in his line of business because it means more to him than just a lucrative enterprise.

These kinds of "irrelevant details" are fairly common in films by the Coen brothers. When I think of their film Raising Arizona, I'm pleasantly reminded of how it's revealed that the evil nemesis just happens to have that same tattoo as HI.

Re: Chekhov's Gun

#149

Post by iainmerrick »

GauntletWizard wrote: post #145
jhbadger wrote: post #117

Earlier quoted context omitted.

It also (rather uncomfortably in light of later revelations) features Luke & Leia as a romantic couple! Apparently Lucas signed off on Foster's manuscript, so he hadn't had the idea that they were siblings yet.

Luke and Leia were teased as a romantic couple in Empire, she kissed him on the lips to draw Han's ire, and then it's hinted that she's his sister in the final scene of Dagobah/when he calls out to her via the force. The incest thing is something that Lucas was deliberately playing with, whether Splinter took that into account or not.

How do you get “deliberately” from that?

The comment you’re replying to is correct; there’s plenty of evidence that Lucas made up both the plots and crucial details of all the Star Wars films as he went along, rather than plotting it all out in advance. Telling people he had, or at least allowing them to believe so, was just another inspired marketing trick.

Re: Chekhov's Gun

#150

Post by atoav »

I think Chekov's gun should be read more as a "don't give things a heightened importance if they don't turn out to be important for the situation".

What is very bad advice is: "if you show a gun it has to be used". If every gun ever shown in any film was used wouldn't this destroy the tension? Also guns can take on different functions within stories than just a device to kill. They can tell us something about the protagonist (how do they react to the presence of a gun), they can underline powerful moments (e.g. throwing away a gun in a though situation because the character gives up etc).

Functionalizing every element of a story is a good way to rob it of any life. In art a lot of elements work in different, more complex ways than just a functional causal relationship. Think about gazes in paintings etc. Things just signifying themselves and expressing a general mood can be immensly powerful.

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