The wall of newspaper clippings
Gary Whitta wrote in with his proposed moratorium: the wall of expository newspaper clippings. They’re a movie staple, but I’ve never seen one of these in real life.
However, I have in fact seen parents’ shrines to their children’s accomplishments, which is why I’m (barely) able to give myself a pass for this moment at the end of Charlie and the Chocolate Factory:
Part of the difference may literally be the framing. Newspaper clippings pinned to the wall reads as crazy/obsessive. Clippings nicely mounted and hung reads simply as pride.
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October 23rd, 2009 at 11:20 am
It works for me, I think. I liked it in films like The Incredibles and Halloween H20. Made perfect sense in both contexts.
October 23rd, 2009 at 11:36 am
And speaking of making perfect sense: they gave Cal McAffey (Russell Crowe) in ‘State of Play’ a nice desk with a lot of newspapers hanging off the wall.
October 23rd, 2009 at 12:03 pm
It’s perfect for The Usual Suspects. No spoilers here.
Also, definitely for the crazy vs. the determined.
October 23rd, 2009 at 12:05 pm
the reason you’ve never seen them in real life is because they’re the sign OF A CRAZY PERSON. the same way i know whenever i see a decapitated doll’s head in a creepy place i know someone is going to die.
October 23rd, 2009 at 12:23 pm
Another forgivable variant is the photos from Rear Window.
October 23rd, 2009 at 12:48 pm
I actually have a friend who’s occasionally veered dangerously close to the paranoid who, at various times when i lived with him, did in fact have newspaper clippings on the wall (or more often, perhaps because he is also slightly lazy, entire pages from news papers). Generally these were just related to things that interested him, or articles about political issues he was angry about, so it wasn’t like he was trying to find connections indicating the Illuminati were in league with the Masons to cover up the aliens in charge of the Department of the Agriculture or anything. But it is definitely something I’ve seen real people do.
October 23rd, 2009 at 12:49 pm
Actually, I’d read that wall full of framed clippings as crazy/obsessive pride. What you get when a mildly crazy mom really loves you.
Though I’d also be happy to see the wall-o-clippings go away.
October 23rd, 2009 at 1:39 pm
It may be a cliche, and you may not see it often in real life, but how many people do you know that suffer from severe paranoia and/or another mental disorder. You would be surprised what you can find.
October 23rd, 2009 at 1:40 pm
Actually, I have a board on my office wall with clippings, pictures and things that I think are cool and don’t want to forget … it’s to the left of my desk … I put notes up there when I’m working on a project, etc.
I’ve known other writers who have done this.
October 23rd, 2009 at 2:10 pm
My old cubicle was basically wallpapered, but it was clippings from movie and video game magazines, not newspapers. Surrounding myself with hundreds of words and pictures that I enjoyed was the only way I could keep sane working in a tiny box all day, every day.
October 23rd, 2009 at 2:25 pm
@ Josh…..so writers are crazy?
haha, couldn’t resist….
October 23rd, 2009 at 2:33 pm
People carrying around newspaper clippings as well. Who the hell does that anymore? For that matter, who ever did it? It’s a cheap device to direct the viewer’s eye to that one particular article/headline … because, god forbid you’d have to do a CLOSE-UP on one section of the newspaper to get the point across. No, that would be cheating.
October 23rd, 2009 at 2:54 pm
Seeing the clippings almost brings around a sense of dread- is he really proud of these things, or is he just twice as obsessed as the next crazy person, you know?
October 23rd, 2009 at 3:49 pm
lol! spot on!!! ;-)
October 23rd, 2009 at 3:59 pm
The guys written one produced film. His moratorium is a bit premature.
October 23rd, 2009 at 6:50 pm
Jason – maybe one produced film but Gary’s been a writer for many years and has written several screenplays
October 23rd, 2009 at 7:51 pm
My argument is that it’s a lazy and often false expository device which I suspect gets perpetuated by newbie writers largely because they’ve seen it in other movies. Ultimately it depends on how it’s used but I for one am a little tired of hackneyed slow panning shots across walls of newspaper headlines as a way to dump a load of backstory on the viewer. It wouldn’t bug me if it was something I even occasionally saw in real life but, like JA, I never have.
October 23rd, 2009 at 10:01 pm
I cried like little bitch when Charlie saw that Wonka’s dad had been saving the clippings.
October 23rd, 2009 at 11:19 pm
I just don’t hate the clipping boards…
Couple reasons:
1) Flash Forward. – Its cool when you’re deciphering them backward… from an understanding of what you know you’re going to build in the future. (Or for any other temporal imbalance for that matter, whether it be amnesia & daily re-positioning like the tattoos in Memento or the bullet-wounded James Cole photo in 12 Monkeys.)
2) I, am a crazy. – Not only do I have an equally, if not more neurotic cork-board on my wall for every project I’m working on… but they’re actually stored in vertically stacked boxes in the garage. – (With iPhone pictures of them on my person so I can look back into them and reference my global position on the screenplay map when I’m waiting in line #0 at the DMV.) – (The same goes for countless other socially question outpatients. — I call them screenwriters.
3) – You didn’t hate it in Se7en.
Even in a straight forward, “Hi, I’m a serial killer and here’s my crazy-people wall of mispositioned bodies” application, (like in UNBREAKABLE) if a thing can be done right, a thing can be done right.
HOWEVER! – I would LOVE to see an end to it’s insidious little cousin, the, “Fact that I’m a serial killer means I feel an incessant need to SCRAWL DAMNATION AND CRIES FOR HELP in blood on my apartment/basement walls in a quasi-traditional Carrie font”. I mean, come on. Some of my best friends are serial killers, and their lives are all but constantly bombarded with the imposition these tacky, ridiculous, caricature images of what the 1970s stereotypes TELL them they’re supposed to be!
That’s right. — Blood-Scrawlers are the Village People of Serial Killing. :P
October 24th, 2009 at 3:48 am
I don’t mind newspaper and magazine clipping behind the credits – as in The Wrestler, say – because there it’s a kind of abstract device to bring us up to speed. But if they’re pinned up in the scene and we’re supposed to read them, that’s just kinda lazy.
October 24th, 2009 at 5:03 am
I’d say the Willy Wonka scene is double-excused for being set in a world that’s pretty surreal anyway, and because like Nick it was really unexpected tearjerker for me.(The second one in the film after Charlie wanted to sell the ticket to take care of his family.) Even the oldest tropes can still be used effectively.
October 24th, 2009 at 7:03 am
I’ve gotta say, newspaper clippings hung nicely, framed and mounted strikes me as way more crazy and obsessive than clippings posted to a wall. I know a lot of journalists and scientists, and both have piles of magazines and papers, plus clippings taped or pinned haphazardly to their walls.
But I agree with Dave, if clippings are pinned up and the audience supposed to read them, then that’s annoying.
October 24th, 2009 at 9:38 am
Completely agree on the Usual Suspects front…probably the greatest reveal in movie history facilitated completely through the police newspaper clippings. That said, it can’t seem forced and I think the norm in movies, or at least when we enter the territory of it being an annoying trope, is when people become upset. The reveal or bit of information garnered from the wall must be earned, not happen by mere coincidence. Just my thoughts…
October 24th, 2009 at 11:08 am
I’m okay with the wall of newspaper clippings. It can be a very powerful visual if you don’t cliche it to all hell.
October 24th, 2009 at 12:04 pm
I also haven’t surveyed enough crazy/obsessed people’s homes in worlds where there actually are UFOs/vast men-in-black conspiracies to proclaim that the wall-of-clippings is unrealistic.
However, I think the wall of clippings works more as set dressing than as expository device.
When you’re writing, slapping down a few CAPITALIZED KEY HEADLINES that we pan across on the wall might seem like a convenient way to get across some key plot points.
But when I watch that on screen, typically all I see is a blur of text and miss all those key points.
In general I’ve come to think that showing any clipping or web search on screen faces a real problem that the limitations of the medium are such that people will just miss the point you’re trying to make.
And if it’s a really key point then it’s best to have some character also read what you want to highlight out loud.
October 24th, 2009 at 3:22 pm
Of course tvtropes also has a page on this trope, with countless examples… http://tvtropes.org/pmwiki/pmwiki.php/Main/StalkerShrine
October 24th, 2009 at 4:54 pm
Post-intro credit sequence for Red Dragon featured an excellent montage of newspaper cuttings accompanied by a chilling score, made for a superb introduction to the film and later became the content of Ralph Fiennes’ character’s scrapbook. Brilliant.
October 24th, 2009 at 8:34 pm
This seems appropriate:
http://www.theonion.com/content/news/protagonist_scrolls_intensely
October 24th, 2009 at 10:56 pm
As long as we’re doing tropes, I’d like to add one that has really started to get to me. It’s the “Oh, and uh, one other thing…” trope.
As in, detective goes to talk to suspect. He knows something that the guy is going to lie about. He asks questions around the topic and the suspect predictably lies. Then the detective thanks him and gets up to leave. Just at the door, he turns back and says, “Oh, and uh, one other thing. You don’t happen to know anything about [the thing I know you know] do you?”
The other way this works, a politician or power-broker goes to talk to a rival who has just wronged him. He keeps the conversation light, then gets up to leave. Just at the door, he turns back and says, “Oh, and uh, one other thing. The next time you [do that thing you didn't think I knew you did] so help me, I’ll [hurt you in a colorful way].
No one ever does “oh, and uh, one other thing” in real life. Never. Not in any circumstance.
October 25th, 2009 at 1:56 am
John still doesn’t get a pass for suggesting that the best way to meet creative people is to live in Silverlake. That’s the best way to meet people who WANT to be creative.
October 25th, 2009 at 2:11 am
“Uh, and one other thing” – well, that’s Columbo’s shtick and he used it brilliantly to rattle his prey – er, suspects. And it fitted completely with Columbo’s whole softly-softly turn-of-the-screws approach. But I agree with Andy, the politician version is totally fake. Then it doesn’t come from character, it’s just the writer playing for effect.
October 25th, 2009 at 9:25 am
My boss used that ALL the time: “Oh, and uh, [insert assistant's name here], one more thing!”
But it wasn’t friendly, usually just adding another anxiety causing item to my to-do (or not-to-do) list.
October 25th, 2009 at 1:09 pm
How unpopular are bulletin boards these days? Doesn’t everyone have them? I know in college I did. Maybe with pcs it’s just as easy to bookmark favorite articles rather to print, cut them out and post them on your wall.
Any text in a movie is a bit of a cop-out, right?
October 25th, 2009 at 6:55 pm
As long as we are inducting things into this moratorium, I would like to suggest something that is common in movies & extremely common in television (usually for a quick/cheap laugh). When someone is talking on the phone & they make some snarky comment, they immediately follow it with, “hello, hello?” & then all we hear is dial tone. I am tired of this. Anyone else?
@ #17-Nick — Ditto. :)
October 25th, 2009 at 11:20 pm
When I worked in a newsroom, I taped up clippings of the stories and pages I was proud of. But I quickly learned actually expecting anyone else to read them was asking too much.
October 25th, 2009 at 11:23 pm
I do “oh, one other thing” all the time. In network tech in a busy office, everyone wants to run before you can lay down everything they need by the numbers so you have to grab them again as they turn and head out the door. And managers tend to do it because they often have at least one thing that was least remembered and it comes to them after you think you’re safe and heading away from them.
As far as newspaper clippings go, I used to keep clippings regarding the Voyager missions and would still have them if not for flooding in the basement storage area.
Though it looks obsessive when it is about someone you have an emotional entanglement for other than kids. When it is your kids, go clipping happy. Being proud of them and desiring reminders is entirely normal.
October 26th, 2009 at 2:46 am
I was just watching the episode of Dollhouse where Agent Ballard has shut himself away behind a triple-locked door for a full-on obsession fest about the Dollhouse. And yep, there’s the wall of clippings. (The multiple locks on the door are kind of a cliche too, but Joss and co get a funny line out of those.)
Thing is, it the computer era it’s easy to be a closet obsessive. Nobody can see at a glance how many crazy conspiracy websites you’ve bookmarked. And if somebody shuts himself away like that in real life you’re going to have the smell of unshowered sweat, unwashed dishes… sensory cues that the movie/TV audience can’t get. So we need some good visual alternatives to the hoary old wall of clippings.
October 26th, 2009 at 7:34 am
Uhhh, newspapers? They still have those? When I go crazy paranoid I just post the internets to my wall.
October 26th, 2009 at 9:05 am
I worked on a film earlier this year in the art department… my main job was to fabricate old yellowed newspaper clippings. There were four sets, one for each critical motivational event in the characters’ life, or the cultural history of the setting.
“Town Has Long History of Relevant Events”
“Valuable Artwork Found, Worth Millions”
“Character Arrested for Heinous Crime”
“Character’s Difficult Life a Plausible Explanation for Heinous Crime”
In addition to being asked to tweak the headlines so they carried more narrative juice (rather than sounding like real headlines) I was also asked to carefully craft the narrative of the news story, as the camera would languorously drift down so the audience could read the details.
Very lazy storytelling. But I must say the clippings looked great. Thanks, tea-stain.
On a related note, what about the occasional insert of a tv news story? Moves the plot along, give a reasonable purpose for exposition, and if inserted a few times can illustrate building public perception of primary plot? Just askin’, not that I have any real reason or anything… cough
October 26th, 2009 at 9:21 am
Clark worked at the Daily Planet for a reason man… and remember the Batman SPINNING Newspaper Wipe? – Its not a pro-or con… just a memory. – Like the Dotted-Red-Line-Airplane-Travel in Indiana Jones and Casablanca. (Could be called moratorium-worthy cliche crap at the drop of a hat… but its really just our roots.)
October 26th, 2009 at 12:11 pm
Can we have a moratorium on a team of gunmen opening fire on our hero, but the hero never gets hit? It’s fine in silly stuff like old-school Bond or even 24, but when you’re striving for verite it strains disbelief (cf “Taken”).
P.S. It doesn’t count if your hero is shot once near the end just to give him one last obstacle before killing the last baddie.
October 26th, 2009 at 9:31 pm
I stand corrected on the “One Other Thing” thing (which I’ll gladly rename “The Columbo”). Apparently it does happen in real life. I still cringe at it in movies and tv shows.
October 28th, 2009 at 11:46 pm
We used the newspaper clipping wall cliché in our first movie, but we upped the craziness factor by having red yarn tied to push pins connecting the clippings. Nothing says insane stalker like a red string wall.
October 30th, 2009 at 4:46 pm
Why not have some fun with this? Like, reveal the wall of a serial killer to be full of inkjet nozzle-cleaning printouts… (could even be part of his motivation :-)
November 2nd, 2009 at 2:15 pm
The problem with moratoriums, is that there are always well done exceptions. The newspaper pages in Children of Men are used to block out the glass in a subway station, but if you look closely they give out all kinds of fun headlines.
December 1st, 2009 at 7:36 pm
Crazy man clippings are still alive and well:
http://io9.com/5416482/four-new-iron-man-images-show-the-softer-side-of-whiplash/gallery/
December 4th, 2009 at 1:04 pm
My wife and I call it the “crazy wall”. Bonus points are given when little bits of yarn “connect the dots” between headlines, photos, and maps.
Lots of culprits with this cliche: Life, Lost, Fringe, Heroes. It’s even more out of place now, with the decline of newspapers. The only people buying papers are people with a fixation or time travelers trying to find out the current date.