If I were doing my job properly, I would be spending this time instead singing the praises of another great feather in Kaufman's cap, my favorite thing he's been involved with since Synecdoche, New York. (So, er, better than Anomalisa, I guess that means.) If you want to read those praises, check out my review here.
Truth is, whenever I review something for ReelGood, it takes the wind out of my sails in terms of writing about it here. Not that I regularly write proper reviews for this blog anyway, but I definitely like to think of myself as coming here to gush if I see something I love. Eloquently gush, I should say.
Unless I find a new angle that I couldn't possibly cover in my review, though, I feel all talked out on the movie once I get to this blog.
Hence, seatbelts.
In truth, it's actually an excuse to bring out of mothballs a post I had started a few weeks back and never posted. I've recently had plenty of opportunities to return to it, because the phenomenon I'm going to discuss seems to be everpresent in the movies.
Namely: Movie characters never wear seatbelts.
Don't think it's true? Next time you watch a movie where characters are driving in a car, check their shoulder area for seatbelt straps. You won't find any.
I suspect it's all about the appearance, that you want the actors to appear free and unencumbered, and not restricted by a safety harness. Lack of a seatbelt may also help with some movement they have to make during the scene.
But there are very few other things in today's movies that register as so out of sync with reality. In reality, most people gave up on whatever rebellious stance they had toward the wearing of seatbelts. Even with idiots who don't wear bike helmets or -- in 2020 -- masks, they recognize that a seatbelt is a useful life-saving device. They don't think it's some kind of liberal hoax to restrict their freedoms.
But movie characters, whatever their political persuasion, are almost never seen wearing seatbelts. Unless the plot itself strictly calls for a seatbelt, like they're about to stage a crash and the wearing of a seatbelt -- or, I suppose, the lack of wearing one -- is a plot point meant to contribute to why they survied or didn't survive the crash.
In I'm Thinking of Ending Things, it was particularly egregious. The characters played by Jessie Buckley and Jesse Plemons spend a good third of the movie driving back and forth from his parents' farm in a driving snowstorm. It's a good thing Kaufman didn't see it as a necessary part of the plot to have them spin off the road in slippery conditions, because they would have been right through that windshield.
I first drafted this post while watching the MIFF movie The Killing of Two Lovers, which could have been about two lovers killed by seatbelt neglect for all the time spent in cars without minimal safety precautions. I noticed it again in the final movie I saw at MIFF, Ema, in which the title character gets into the back seat of a car with a child, and does not strap either of them in.
In a way, it's akin to the screenwriting shortcuts William Goldman talked about in his book Which Lie Did I Tell?, where he explains to us why the protagonist can always find a parking spot outside the courthouse, and why a character paying for something always has exact change. The movie does not need to waste time on the logistics that would actually accompany these transactions in the real world, like someone rooting around for change, or circling until an elusive spot appeared.
In a way, though, it's not. You never have to show characters putting on a seatbelt. This can almost always be done off screen. But not even wearing one? You don't lose any time on this. You only lose some kind of intangible aesthetic, the importance of which eludes me anyway. I guess I'd have to see a version of I'm Thinking of Ending Things with seatbelts, alongside a version without, to really know which one I preferred from an artistic standpoint.
And it's kind of dangerous because you are modeling behavior here. Viewers of all ages watch movies, and though the three examples I've listed are geared toward adults, I'm not willing to assume that this preference in the blocking of the scene doesn't extend to movies for kids. You may not be doing anything so pronounced as disregarding the importance of seatbelts, but I think you could be sending subliminal messages to people.
It's not just the seatbelts, either. I still see movies made today, with modern characters, where no one wears helmets on bikes. In some cases, this is also true of motorcycles. Of course, in movies like whatever recent Mission: Impossible movie it was where Tom Cruise rode a motorcyle helmetless, the character did not expect to be riding a motorcyle that day. He commandeered a motorcycle as part of a pursuit, if memory serves, so no, he would not have a helmet. But there are plenty of other examples where the character should have a helmet and just doesn't.
With a motorcycle, I get it -- you've got your star here, and if she or she is wearing a helmet, you can't see his or her big moneymaker during that scene. But what's the excuse for no bicycle helmet? Because they make you look dorky?
I guess everything related to bicycles is a bit dorky, if you are talking about an adult. It's the main reason there has been nary a bicycle in a single season of The Walking Dead, even though that would be one of the most useful forms of transportation to survivors of a zombie apocalypse. I guess I can see why. The climax of the movie The Cure for Wellness involves Dane DeHaan on a bike, and it's absurd.
Okay now I really am getitng sidetracked.
I suppose it is dangerous to put movies in loco parentis, because viewers should know that they cannot do everything they see in a movie. But I do think there has become almost a casual disregard for safety for an infinitesimal gain. If you're reading this and you're about to go into production on a movie, just use the damn seatbelts. I don't want my kid going through the windshield because he saw your movie.
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