Why it’s called “Go,” and not “Call”
IMDb has message boards for every film and every filmmaker. I would strongly advise you to never read them, and in particular, don’t read them for any film you’ve worked on. You will walk away feeling a little worse about yourself and humanity.
But today, while looking up the name of an actor in Go, I ignored my own advice and clicked on one of the message board threads, which brought up an interesting point:
Did anyone else notice that even though the film was shot in 1999 and focused on young people that no mobile phones appeared in the film? Unless I missed something it seems like this was a deliberate decision by makers of the film. I like the choice.
The stripclub guy who Simon shot may have used a mobile phone to call the Riviera to find out which room Simon and his friends were staying in. I don’t recall, it may have been a carphone. It still doesn’t explain why no other characters in the movie use a mobile when they had the opportunity.
The answer, of course: the film came out in early 1999, and cellphones weren’t yet ubiquitous in Los Angeles. They existed, to be sure, but they were relatively expensive and rare. We hadn’t even settled on the lingo yet. Here’s how I describe one early in the script:
Even my mother wouldn’t call it a “cellular phone” today. Later, Simon uses the current term to refer to the Ferrari’s built-in phone:
(There’s still little consistency between cell phone, cell-phone and cellphone.)
Whatever you call them, there are two such phones in the movie: Zack’s and Vic Jr.’s. Ronna uses a pager, which is as much as she could believably afford as a grocery store cashier with rent trouble.1
Nearly ten years later, it seems natural to expect that every character in Go would have a cellphone. Their modern-day equivalents would. And the story would have had to change. Some examples:
Todd would have called Simon to check on Ronna before selling her anything.
Claire would have called Ronna, rather than paging her, while stuck at Todd’s apartment. Todd would have insisted on knowing why there was such a delay.
The conversation between Todd and Simon wouldn’t have necessarily happened in the hotel room.
Todd would have called Simon the moment he realized the pills were swapped.
As originally scripted, Ronna was conscious after being hit by the Miata. She could have called Claire, Manny, or 911 to get help.
After the shooting at the strip club, Simon and Marcus would have called Tiny and Singh, warning them to pack up.
Simon could have (but might not have) called Todd to warn him about the Vics.
Claire would have called Ronna after being ditched at the rave.
Ronna and Claire would have tried calling Mannie when looking for him.
Looking at this list, I’m really glad there weren’t a lot of cellphones when making Go. None of these changes are horrible, but they demand extra work to explain why characters aren’t just picking up the phone. Getting people face-to-face in movies is crucial, and cellphones work against that.
But cellphones are better than texting, which is what these characters would have been doing if the movie were made in 2008. Texting is not just uncinematic, it’s anti-cinematic: characters sitting still while twiddling their thumbs. I’ve yet to see it done effectively in movies or TV.
- I can’t find the link, but I recently read an article about how bad we are at remembering when technologies started. How long have fax machines been around? How about DVDs? When did television go color? If it happened during our lifetime, we can often match it up to a specific purchase; the first DVD I owned was Go. But my three-year old daughter will have no idea whether the fax came before the telephone. In fact, she may never really understand a fax. It’s been six months since we’ve sent one. ↩
Articles
July 29th, 2008 at 5:43 pm
Not even The Departed?
July 29th, 2008 at 5:46 pm
There’s a great bit on the fax in Almost Famous. Only 18 minutes a page!
The 2004 movie Cellular is a very good matinee actioner, even though no one calls ‘em Cellular anymore.
The thing that makes texting so socially valuable — they don’t interrupt anything — is what makes them so dramatically useless.
July 29th, 2008 at 6:08 pm
ReGenesis seems to make fairly good use of cell phones, but they make even more use of video phones. What do you think of video phones?
July 29th, 2008 at 6:11 pm
I agree about the departed. The texting scene with Dicaprio giving info to Martin Sheen was really good
July 29th, 2008 at 6:27 pm
I still don’t get the fax thing. How the hell do they get the paper to go through the wire?
July 29th, 2008 at 6:31 pm
I moved out to L.A. the beginning of 2000 and got a cell phone in anticipation of the relocation. Cell phones were fairly new, but becoming fairly ubiquitous by then. What a difference a year makes!
I was just thinking about how only ten years ago, the internet (as we know it with IMDB and Wikipedia, Amazon, etc.) was still in its infancy. Gopher? Archie? Infoseek? Wow. It’s pretty amazing!
July 29th, 2008 at 6:37 pm
I think I recently came across the concept you mention in the footnote about not being able to remember when technologies became widespread. It was either in Malcolm Gladwell’s The Tipping Point or Clay Shirky’s Here Comes Everybody. Unfortunately, I can’t remember which because I read them back-to-back and they had overlapping themes. I still have a copy of Here Comes Everybody from the library – I’ll try to check if it’s in there. (If not, I’ll bet it’s the Gladwell after all.)
July 29th, 2008 at 6:49 pm
Yeah, it seems like there was this whole wave of films that just stubbornly resisted incorporating cell phones and the havoc they would wreck on traditional plot causality. Wish I could think of more examples–in the second X-MEN movie the characters spend a lot of time not knowing the school has been attacked. There’s some business with a broken X-communicator that Logan keeps trying to call them on, but cell phones would have solved this problem pretty handily. I guess it would be weird to see Wolverine pull out a Sanyo. But still, people really need to stop building plots on misinformation and communication failure now that cell phones are around. You don’t want to me mumbling things about “radio interference” every time a character tries to call another.
July 29th, 2008 at 7:01 pm
I don’t think you should feel too bad about criticism from someone who calls himself TimeLord97.
And was the actor William Fitchner?
July 29th, 2008 at 7:12 pm
I was gonna say The Departed, but Joe beat me to it!
July 29th, 2008 at 7:13 pm
I was 14 when The Matrix came out. That was when I first looked at cell phones as cool gadgetry.
July 29th, 2008 at 7:18 pm
I noticed on tv ,procedurals especially, they use cell phones a lot
July 29th, 2008 at 7:23 pm
You visited the IMDB message board and THAT’S the worst ting you could find? I completely agree about having less hope for humanity when reading many of the messages. It’s sad. I checked out a few screenwriter websites and the some of the venom directed at some of the more successful screenwriters was amazing. And from many of the comments, it’s obvious many of the commenters don’t know a thing about the film business. Or basic logic. An example was accusing William Monahan of stealing directly from Infernal Affairs, which it’s a remake of. I don’t know whether many of them are failed screenwriters, but you’d be amazed at how many of the top screenwriters in Hollywood are also the “worst screenwriter in Hollywood.
As for the cell phone problem. They have become so ubiquitous in any big city, that someone like myself, who doesn’t have one, would be an unrealistic character.
My kids are growing up in an age where you take a picture and then immediately can see it. We didn’t even have one before my oldest was born.
July 29th, 2008 at 8:03 pm
I remember a friend of mine had a DVD player in early 1998, but I wasn’t impressed. There was still a lot of pixellation in the blacks….much like some movies and TV you download from iTunes now if you blow it up to full screen.
The first cell phone I saw was actually in 1993 (yes, in Los Angeles) but its owner had problems getting it to work and finding a signal.
And if you want to see this topic applied retroactively, check out this spoof: “24: the unaired 1994 pilot.”
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=JMLH_QyPTYM
July 29th, 2008 at 8:24 pm
I remember being amazed around about 1987 or 1988 when my Dad got one of those gigantic Motorola brick cellphones.
It seemed so small then (and probably cost about $1,000), compared to the ones we had before that were installed in cars and took up a good bit of the trunk.
I got my first portable cellular phone in 1992, but I got rid of it not long after because it was still pretty expensive for what it was. I didn’t get another one until 2001.
I still remember cellphones as being relatively rare among my friends and neighbors well into the late 1990s (there was always a few people I knew who had them, but the vast majority still did not). And then by 2001, it seemed like suddenly everybody had one.
July 29th, 2008 at 8:40 pm
Dr. Horrible’s Sing A-Long Blog has a pretty good “texting” gag.
It’s used to set up conflict. The main character needs to do something on his PDA, vs. talking to the girl of his dreams. Which will win out?
July 29th, 2008 at 9:41 pm
In IMDB forum is just people (teenagers, I guess) calling themselves “morons” and ” you a f**** stupid”, so I think we should believe in their opinions.
Doesn´t matter how god awful was the movie, there is someone defending it, and doesn´t matter how good, there is someone thrashing it. Most of the times writers obviously didn´t saw the whole film, and don´t have any logic.
So, it´s about 2 points better than comments in “aint it cool news”, and 1 point below the comments in you tube ;-)
Well, I think teenagers are the future, aren´t they ? Hopefully global warming will kill them all.
July 29th, 2008 at 11:26 pm
characters texting in movies = the downfall of humanity
July 29th, 2008 at 11:29 pm
I remember using one as a reporter once – which means it would have been in 1994 at the latest. Big, clunky Motorola. I think the newspaper had only about three cell phones in those days (or mobile phones as we call them in Australia), and you had to sign them in and out. I was covering a murder case in the middle of nowhere and I still recall how cool I felt pulling it out and using it.
July 29th, 2008 at 11:43 pm
Not to long ago my cell got disconnected for a day (damn you, monthly charges!) I was surprised to look around and find that pay phones have all but disappeared. I guess Superman will have to resort to restaurant bathrooms now. Anyone here feel like taking off their shoes in a restaurant bathroom? Kryptonite pales.
July 30th, 2008 at 1:08 am
Ha. I’ve got one. Alfred sent Commissioner Gordon a text in the Dark Knight, which, in the scene, was obvious for both secrecy and the ability to send the message in Batman’s name. I remember because in the theater I was like, “A text? Batman sends fucking texts? You’ve got to be kidding me.” It almost kind of worked. Almost.
Also, as to payphones, my friend had to use one the other day, but, due to the cell phone craze (I swear, everyone has one, even the people that don’t need one), they’ve largely vanished. Good thing we were at a movie theater, because I can’t think of any other place we would have found one. (Oh, in case you were wondering, I’m not some crazy old coot with a thing against cell phones, just a minor with a thing against cell phones.)
July 30th, 2008 at 1:27 am
A critic here in the UK recently pointed out that the ubiquity of cells/mobiles is one reason why modern dress Shakespeare “can’t” work any more: either Romeo and Juliet can clear up the whole misunderstanding with a single text (JUST PRTNDING 2 B DEAD), or the actors have to go through the whole ‘no signal’ ploy, or make up some similar piece of extraneous business.
July 30th, 2008 at 1:56 am
The best use of texting in a movie is in “Shaun of the Dead”, where a character does it during a zombie attack. And he’s not texting about the zombies, either.
July 30th, 2008 at 2:03 am
Wasn’t Scream a reaction to Kevin Williamson being told that it was impossible to write horror movies now that mobile phones had been invented?
July 30th, 2008 at 2:33 am
What about Quentin Tarantino’s Death Proof as an example of texting done well ? We look at the messages and thre’s the whole romantic music. The leitmotif he used for the texting bordered on the Arrested Development abruptness (almost unintentionally hillarious), but I think it conveyed the message without being boring.
July 30th, 2008 at 2:34 am
funny that this topic comes up..
I was writing my current piece yesterday and the scene involved a cellphone extensively. The scene reads great to me and couldnt be done any other way ( this cellphone is the epicenter of the action) , but I m kinda annoyed because the previous scene also involves a cellphone for unavoidable reasons (classic “gottareachyounow” while driving) and later in the storyline the damn thing is used again, in a never-seen-before way, for its video features
Each time it HAS to be there and although each of the 3 scenes are totally different interesting and relevant (to me at least :D ), the use of cellphone feels redundant to me. Hell, this I-thing nested in our pockets can do anything those days!
July 30th, 2008 at 2:44 am
On the “when did technologies come in” thing, mobile phones and texting seemed to catch on quicker in the UK than America (although I am judging America purely by American TV). By 1999, mobiles (as we call them here) were pretty ubiquitous.
July 30th, 2008 at 3:32 am
I remember talking to a lot of British people about The Blair Witch Project (where mobile phones were already ubiquitous and getting a signal is never an issue). Many thought the idea of getting lost in an era of mobile phones was ridiculous, so couldn’t get the film.
This Joe Queenan article addressed the issue:
http://www.guardian.co.uk/film/2008/jan/08/features.joequeenan “Why are so many dramas and thrillers now set in the past? Is it because, in a world of mobile phones, satnav and Google, suspense is impossible? Joe Queenan on the menace of gadgets”
July 30th, 2008 at 3:33 am
The IMDB messageboards and cell phones (in movies) could very well be two of my least favourite things. Now a days it seems you spend an annoying amount of time and energy explaining why people don’t just call each other. It’s boring.
And yes, cell phones did break in Europe way earlier than they did in the States due to the fact that European carriers started giving the phones away for free if you signed up.
July 30th, 2008 at 3:48 am
I was just thinking about this issue yesterday and how to integrate texting and cells into a story. I do kinda think it ruins story for the same reasons you pointed out and for others as well: ie, a young character has fewer and fewer instances in which he is forced to make a decision on his own–after all, he can always call SOMEBODY for advice. (This is the same reason that helicopter parents abound in this day and age.) And what about IM’ing? That’s even worse. And these technologies are not only anti-cinematic–you can’t really use them in books, either, can you?
July 30th, 2008 at 7:36 am
Can you imagine “24″ without using cellphones???:)
July 30th, 2008 at 7:59 am
I have to disagree about the non-cinematic nature of cell phones. I think they fit fine with the “anyplace whatever” theory of neo-realism. Even though two people will be in different places, you can have them reacting to both their surroundings (quieting, looking for listeners,etc.) but you can also use the reactions during conversations to evoke emotions.
Plus, sometimes it’s easier to say something from a distance than face-to-face. Imagine a timid wife like in “Enough” or any other domestic violence movie. You can get a lot out of an unexpected phone call and you can also pay off the person’s fears and give them undiscovered bravery being separated by distance or even knowledge of location – which cell phones afford.
I enjoy a pacing phone conversation as you can show kicking, swallowed words, etc while giving the audience the superior position (they know the other person is lying or buttering them up).
And with a thriller, slasher or horror movie, enough is happening for cell phones to be destroyed or characters can be in a position where they can’t recharge.
How suspenseful would waving around for a signal be when combined with a life or death chase through the woods?
And you can also cancel the “mad rush to the airport” so ubiquitous in rom coms.
I mean, as someone mentioned, the Matrix was totally based on the use of a telephone to get in and out.
Just my feeling.
July 30th, 2008 at 8:59 am
Re: texting. I haven’t seen Deathproof, and only vaguely remember the scene in The Departed. Yes, it’s obviously a way to send a message to a character in a scene without others knowing, but this will become a cliche in about four minutes.
In The Matrix, it was hard-wired phones that allowed you get into and out of the world. You had to physically get somewhere. If any cell phone could do it, there would be no jeopardy.
Cellphones are key components of procedural shows like CSI and 24, where one person needs to pass along some clue or story development. But I’d argue that the preponderance of cellphones in these shows is another reason to think twice before using them in features. Cellphones feel TV.
One other thing to consider: Cellphones date badly. Even more than wardrobe or hairstyles, people’s phones tell you exactly when a movie was made.
July 30th, 2008 at 9:00 am
Cell phones in general, ok, but he’s specifically talking about text messaging as being anti-cinematic.
But, although I agree with the Departed to a fault, I think that even though there are exceptions, we should still consider it a cop-out. Especially for a writer. If you have an intense chase scene or something, and there’s a key plot or character element that forces you to have characters texting crucial info, I’ll bet you can top that. I challenge all writers who frequent this site (as if I had the power to do so) to find more interesting ways of solving those problems than with a cell phone.
A call is one thing, but texting is lame. And I have NEVER been on the edge of my seat in a movie during a suspenseful moment where a character’s phone suddenly says “No Signal” or “Low Battery”… I personally think it’s lazy and that, as writers, we can top that.
Can’t we…?
July 30th, 2008 at 9:29 am
long time reader, first time commentor. If you havent done so already, check out south korea’s “take care of my cat.” i thought they used text messaging in a pretty clever way. and that movie is old… but then again, koreas communications technology far outpaces america’s.
great site/blog, btw.
July 30th, 2008 at 9:32 am
You could have wrote it like the end of Collateral.
Oh my, the cell phone battery has died at the most crucial part of the movie. How horribly inconvenient!
July 30th, 2008 at 9:33 am
There was an episode of How I Met Your Mother where some people used the fact that Barney’s brother was texting to deduce that he was in a relationship. Although in that case, the contents of the text were irrelevant – all that was important to the scene was the act of texting.
July 30th, 2008 at 9:46 am
@Alex Andronov:
I emailed Kevin. His answer: “Nope. Not at all.”
But I’d agree that cellphones make certain horror movie aspects more difficult. These movies generally rely on isolation, and when 911 is in your pocket, it’s hard to believe characters wouldn’t call for help.
July 30th, 2008 at 9:51 am
A key plot point in the third part of The Nines is that a car breaks down in a mountain valley outside of cell range, prompting the father to run back to a main road. We can believe that now, because we all have experience with the inability to get a signal.
But that might not make sense five years from now. It probably doesn’t make sense in parts of Europe, where signal strength is generally much better.
July 30th, 2008 at 9:54 am
You should watch the japanese “Densha Otoko” mini series. They found out the way. Not only to make texting cinematic and climatic, but online chat and forums too…
July 30th, 2008 at 10:53 am
I’m ashamed to admit that I saw Brendan Fraiser’s “Journey to the Center of the Earth” (my nephew made me, I swear) which features the most atrocious use of cellphones in movie history.
As John and many in this thread have pointed out, one of the biggest problems with writing scripts today is figuring out how to get the “why don’t they just call for help on the cellphone?” out of the equation. You’d think, JttCotE is a perfect story to avoid this problem since, well… they’re thousands of miles underground.
Despite this, for some reason, the writers have Fraiser’s son (or nephew or whatever he was supposed to be), actually get a cellphone call from his mother — (wait for it) — IN THE CENTER OF THE EARTH! Yes, that’s right, they went out of their way to make the cellphone work in a situation in clearly wouldn’t.
Then, immediately after they stuck themselves in this completely unbelievable and anti-dramatic position, they immediately have a killer fish jump out of some water and eat the phone… so that it’s gone and they don’t have to explain why they don’t just use it to call for help.
Sigh.
July 30th, 2008 at 10:58 am
I keep telling my actor friends that they haven’t really made it until their sexual orientation is being violently argued by teenagers on imdb.
July 30th, 2008 at 11:05 am
For the national film challenge a team used texting to make a silent movie. http://filmchallenge.org/2007films/video.php?id=234 I thought it was pretty creative.
July 30th, 2008 at 11:07 am
@rick-
WOW lol. I’m so glad you shared that, and so sorry for you that you saw it.
July 30th, 2008 at 11:49 am
I’ll prove you all wrong with my badass thriller, titled ROFL. I even have a sequel idea aptly titled ROFL: BRB.
July 30th, 2008 at 11:51 am
Some movies just NEED to be dated. Witness the accidental classic that is Hackers. EVERYTHING in that movie is pseudo-90’s. Cyberpunk-90’s. As one of my friends puts it, “An accurate portrayal of a culture that never actually existed in real life.”
July 30th, 2008 at 12:07 pm
“Most of the times writers obviously didn´t saw the whole film”
Heck, much of the time people are complaining about or praising movies they haven’t seen at all. Regardless of whether the movie has been released, and anyone has seen it.
The whole cel phone thing does lead to some awkward setup to get people to not have their phones. I recently saw an episode of Ugly Betty (I know, not generally an example of great writing) where two characters are out riding and one throws the other’s phone out the window and then leaves her own purse (and phone) in the cab.
But I think my favorite bad cel phone use is on a TV show when someone is on a stealth mission and they have their phone set to actually ring instead of silent or even vibrate. Ridiculous.
July 30th, 2008 at 1:38 pm
Quick question —
John, it’s understandable to avoid imdb and any forums in general, but do you read reviews of your movies? Why or why not? I’d imagine your thoughts on reviews might change whether you’re the screenwriter or the director.
As for cell phones, it’s just another challenge we have to deal with. There’s a way to deal with them.
July 30th, 2008 at 2:17 pm
“I emailed Kevin. His answer: “Nope. Not at all.””
That’s funny. Reminds me of the scene from Annie Hall. See, if it took place today, it would probably be done with a cell phone. Not nearly as funny. Now do you know Marshall McLuhan, too?
July 30th, 2008 at 3:47 pm
I think John has a good point that cell phones can date the movie…I mean, you could watch an early episode of the X-Files and say, “Yeah, I can see this happening today rather than in the ’90s,” and then Mulder whips out his gigantic cell phone, and you can’t help but think, “You know, they don’t even make normal phones that size anymore…”
I tend to stay away from writing cell phones even to the point of pretending they don’t exist.
July 30th, 2008 at 10:10 pm
Several of my favourite movies from last year featured at least one prominent scene involving a cell phone. Michael Clayton, Bourne Ultimatum (both written by Tony Gilroy), Superbad. However looking over my top films, I am amazed at how many period films there are. American Gangster, There Will Be Blood, Zodiac, 3:10 to Yuma, No Country For Old Men, Breach, Hoax, The Hunting Party, Atonement, Charlie Wilson’s War all were in my top 25. No cell phones in those movies. I think if it’s present day, it’s hard to get away with not using cell phones. Juno didn’t have one (that I recall) but it kind of had a retro feel, so it worked.
July 30th, 2008 at 10:25 pm
I am young writer who just sold his first script, and it features mobiles and texting fairly prominently in a few scenes.
To be honest, I didn’t even think twice about it until now and whether mobiles hinder/help the story…it’s just a reflection of my reality.
From the time I was 13/14 people have had phones and used them to text, so it seems natural for my characters to do the same.
July 30th, 2008 at 11:08 pm
Well that’s that one cleared up! Thanks!
July 31st, 2008 at 12:07 am
Regarding Journey To the Center of the Earth Cell phone scene; I feel like they put the cell phone in there simply to mimic the exact same scene in Jurassic Park 3 when they are on the river, right down to the exact same Nokia ring tone.
Moving on, has anybody seen ‘Cellular’? The whole plot was driven by the protag getting a wrong call on his cell phone while Kim Basinger is being held hostage, and he can’t let his cell phone run out of power. I actually thought it was a clever way to incorporate new technology, and it was a fun popcorn flick.
July 31st, 2008 at 5:34 am
I’m pretty sure I had a cell phone as far back as 1998 as a college student. It was a big brick of a thing and it would accidentally dial people all the time, even with the keypad locked.
Of course if you were making Go today you could avoid the cell phone problem by setting it in 1999 (or maybe 1995 just to be safe). Everyone loves a good period piece! :)
July 31st, 2008 at 7:12 am
The Indie film Cavite is all about mobile phones. The bad guy communicates to the protag only on mobiles.
July 31st, 2008 at 7:23 am
Andy @45…god that’s funny.
I can see the reviews now: “ROFL…WTF?”
July 31st, 2008 at 9:54 am
I saw “Cellular”, and enjoyed it quite a bit. I was very reluctant to believe it could be pulled off.
MJBUtah: awesome review. I was aiming for “xoxo”, but I’ll take what I can get.
July 31st, 2008 at 1:19 pm
It’s funny how cellphones have become this new issue to overcome for every movie that puts its characters in jeopardy… 30 DAYS OF NIGHT opened with all cellphones having been destroyed… THE RUINS makes a big (plot) point of getting a signal and the evil vegetation even uses a ringtone to lure in its victims… which was incredilbly hoaky. I think the way to make a horror movie these days is either A) setting it ten years ago (few people had cells and signal coverage sucked) or B) setting it in a really remote area, like the moon. Or the center of the… er, nevermind.
August 1st, 2008 at 1:33 am
Ahaha, wow. In rewriting an old screenplay I’d started in college (about ten years ago), I realized that none of the characters used cell phones. In fact, one of the plot points depended on someone using a pay phone. It was killing me because, as in “Go,” a lot of conflict could have been avoided had the characters used cell phones. I made minor changes in rewrites — for example, the pay phone character explicitly mentions why she cannot/will not use her cell phone — and it all works. At least, that’s what my team of readers tell me.
I’ve noticed that I don’t allow my characters to use cell phones very much. But then again, that’s probably a personal quirk I unconsciously inject into my stories because I do not like talking on the phone.
August 1st, 2008 at 8:15 am
I think this is just a generational problem. The next generation of filmmakers will find these techless movies so alien they’ll just find solutions to these problems without even thinking, because they have probably passed through a situation where even ubiquituous and correctly cellphones, GPS etc didn’t help them at all. They’ll find the limitations of the technologies and make that scary, instead of just ignoring them all together.
No doubt it will provoke tiny revolutions in genres, but i think it will occur quite naturally.
August 1st, 2008 at 7:35 pm
The recent home-invasion movie The Strangers dispatched with the cell phones pretty effectively. Writer Bryan Bertino even cleverly manages to give you a moment of hope when a voicemail left early in the film ends up bringing help much later. The trick with this kind of horror movie is not necessarily overcoming the technology — it’s making it convincing for the protagonists not to make the call until it’s too late.
Generally, I agree with Rafael — this stuff will blend into the background pretty soon now, the way that computers and the internet have. I love going back and seeing early, well-conceived onscreen uses of computer network technology, like WarGames and Jumpin’ Jack Flash. (Then there’s the car phone — ??!! — in the original Sabrina.) Those films don’t feel dated to me, although you can certainly date them, because their uses of technology are accurate for their time. Films that seem dated are the ones — can’t think of a good example right now — where the filmmakers made a fake interface rather than using a normal one (usually with big blocky letters that took up the whole screen), or where they made “computer experts” or “computer hackers” out to be magicians. “Gosh, these computers can do anything nowadays, can’t they?” “Yes, sir, now just give me thirty seconds to break into the NSA database….” — that kind of thing.
August 1st, 2008 at 8:19 pm
Maybe L.A. had the jump on everywhere else, but to me, cell phones are even newer than we’re talking about. When I started going to NYU in Fall 2003, about half of my friends had cell phones and I didn’t. I didn’t get one until the end of my sophomore year — Spring 2005. By then I was way behind the curve and everybody had had one for a while. So in my experience they didn’t become truly ubiquitous until probably early 2004.
August 1st, 2008 at 8:41 pm
@ Rafael:
Agreed. I think movies should reflect the culture they are exploring, and technology is a huge part of our world. To ignore it would be just wrong. Even if it looks “dated,” who cares? The whole point is you should be able to look back and say, “Yup. That’s what it was like.”
In terms of thrillers, I’m sure in a few years we’ll realize we were all just limiting ourselves in the way we think we can break or bend the rules to accommodate technology. Some movie will come along that will find a fix, which will open up several doors to new, creative ways to use say, a text message, in a movie. Everyone says you can’t do something until it happens, you know?
On the other hand: Though I believe it was a wire, and not a phone, a great movie that avoided the “just use technology!” scenario is “Ransom.” The bad guys are one step ahead, know Mel Gibson will have a wire on him, and send him to a pool where he’s forced to jump in, therefore ruining the tech. So it doesn’t always have to be battery/signal problems, and the solution can actually come from — wait for it! — character!
Very interesting topic here.
August 2nd, 2008 at 3:31 am
I agree with Rafael about Death Proof’s effective use of texting. Those short scenes showed us a side of Jungle Julia’s character that she suppressed in her interactions with her friends.
But generally, texting on screen presents a challenge similar to scenes of computer use. I wrote an episode of the old Disney Channel show “So Weird,” which was about a girl who had a website about supernatural phenomenon. I was proud of myself for finding a way to visualize an IM conversation that didn’t involve making the audience watch words being typed onto a screen. But of course, my “solution” would have required additional location work and extras casting, so in the final version we see — words being typed onto a screen. Sigh.
August 4th, 2008 at 8:02 am
Yes, very interesting topic! I wrote a couple of papers on this subject as an undergrad (changing use of tech in film)…. am looking forward to seeing the Tarantino film and other suggestions here. My first thought was the Korean movie “Take Care of my Cat” which I saw at the Toronto fest. I loved how the characters communicate thru cell/text/e-mail (Jason@35 beat me to the recommendation).
August 5th, 2008 at 12:41 am
I’ll take the FAX machine.
First primitive designs: 1843 – Alexander Bain 1865 commercial FAX system Lyons to Paris (metal plate type)
1902 – Arthur Korn (Fore-runner of modern type) 1907 – Arthur Korn (Commercial system)
1925 – AT&T (Wirephoto) (you still see this with AP Wirephoto) 1935 – William Finch Fax Newspaper 1948 – Twentieth Century-Fox movie (Call Northside 777) with Jimmy Stewart 1953 – Finch’s Company goes bankrupt attributed to TV news.
1980’s – When they became ‘popular’for business. Early 90’s modem/fax boards for PC’s come into their own.
BTW, The first Cell phone I can remember is in-car. 1960’s Batmobile Bat-phone. During the 80’s there were the in-car ones and the portables (powered by a lawnmower battery) By the 90’s there were the ones that are Big Bricks that are similar to a modern Sattelite phone. Then the late 90’s the mini-bricks were out (Which I miss). Pagers were popular in the late 80’s to early 90’s.
As for the web, I used E-mail back in 1990 or 1991. I also played text adventures (Hitchiker’s Guide to the Galaxy ruled), and also things like Pong. You can date any movie that had (at the time) modern elements. Princess Bride is a good example: great movie, but the atari baseball shows it’s age.
An example of dating for me was when a few years back a friend bought me some Christmas videos: Die Hard, of course. He is smoking at the airport. Well it struck me because I remember when : you could smoke on a plane which changed to you could smoke only if the flight was over 2 hours. That later changed to, only in the airport, then to outside, and now you probably get charged as a terrorist if you light anything within a mile of an airport.
August 6th, 2008 at 4:08 pm
Okay, not that anyone cares at this point, but I found the reference I mentioned back in http://johnaugust.com/archives/2008/cellphones#comment-153307.
It’s Clay Shirky’s book HERE COMES EVERYBODY, chapter 4 (“Publish, Then Filter”), in the section “Revolution and Coevolution” starting on page 104.
If you look for the book in Google Book Search, you can search for the heading “Revolution and Coevolution” and it should show you the relevant excerpt. I recommend the book, however, not only for that particular discussion, but for the larger examination of where the culture of online social communities is taking us.
August 8th, 2008 at 4:07 am
Tim W: I saw an interview with the Coen brothers, talking about No Country For Old Men. They explicitly pointed out that one of the reasons that the movie was taking place in the eighties was because it is nearly impossible to tell a good present-time crime story. This because every aspect of crime fighting today is very hi-tech, and it is also very hard for criminals to evade the law. Thus it is hard to create a plot that can enthral in the same way as No Country For Old Men did. Technology would have killed the suspense or made it very unbelievable.
August 8th, 2008 at 1:16 pm
It’s called GO because that’s the title of the British book you ripped off:
http://www.amazon.co.uk/Go-Simon-Lewis/dp/0552147176/ref=sr11?ie=UTF8&s=books&qid=1218230122&sr=8-1
August 9th, 2008 at 7:50 am
@Anonymous (#70):
You mean this book…
…which was published on 27/03/1998, more than four years after my first WGA registration for the short film that would become the movie, and a year after the original spec script, which you can read in the Library? That book? Because I just looked it up off the link you provided, and beyond the title, I don’t see the connection. In fact, most of the reviews tend to focus on the book’s similarity to the work of Alex Garland. Maybe he’ll write into Lewis’s blog and hurl accusations.
Anonymous, you’re accusing me of ripping off a book that didn’t yet exist, which I guess involves some sort of time travel.
But if you’re in fact Simon Lewis, maybe you’re hoping to sell a few copies of your book.
September 30th, 2008 at 7:04 am
I think the person who made the original comment on IMDB was from the UK. They use the British term ‘mobile phone’ instead of the American ‘cellular’.
Being from the UK myself, I remember in 1999 ‘cellular’ phones were being used everywhere here in England. Pretty much all the kids had them at school and all the businessmen used them at work.
I also know that mobile phone technology was probably the only technological area where Americans – a few years back – were still lagging behind the British. Just like we lag behind the Japanese.
Not sure about the present catch-up rate. But perhaps this lead to the original poster’s confusion.