Trailer Trash
© 2009 by John Varley; all rights reserved
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Trailer Trash © 2009 by John Varley; all rights reserved |
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(This little essay has quite a few links to movie trailers. I doubt that many of you will want to watch them all in one reading, or sitting, or whatever. But they’re mostly worth watching, so if you’re a cinema buff like me I suggest you take them a few at a time. But whatever you do, don’t miss the trailer for Psycho.)
When we went to see Julie & Julia, we were treated to the usual trailers before the movie. One of them was for District 9, which is currently being relentlessly advertised with signs on most LA buses and bus benches that read THIS BUS FOR HUMANS ONLY. As I sat there watching the trailer, bored out of my mind, it suddenly struck me that I’d seen this trailer before! What I mean is, this cinematic abortion is almost exactly identical to approximately 1000 trailers for 1000 recent crappy action films. (Actually, most of the early reviews for District 9, which opens tomorrow, are very good. I’m speaking of the trailer here, which stinks, not the film, about which I will reserve judgement.) (Later: I’ve seen it. It stinks.) Here, take a look. Notice that it starts out with a couple shots that last maybe three seconds. Then it moves to one-second shots, most of which fade to black, punctuated with percussive sounds and slow background music that might have come from “Law & Order.” Pause, for a two-second shot of an alien’s face. (This is a money shot, like the White House blowing up in Independence Day.) Then it quickly moves to even faster cuts, 10 frames, 6 frames, maybe 4 frames. More percussion. Then back to the really quick cutting. Now take a look at this trailer for G.I. Joe: The Rise of Cobra. Notice that it starts out with a couple shots that last maybe three seconds. Then it moves to one-second shots, most of which fade to black, punctuated with percussive sounds and slow background music that might have come from “Law & Order.” Pause, for a three-second shot of the Eiffel Tower falling over. (This is the money shot, like the White House blowing up in Independence Day.) Then it quickly moves to even faster cuts, 10 frames, 6 frames, maybe 4 frames. More percussion. Then back to the really quick cutting. Getting a sense of déjà vu? That’s my point. It’s the same trailer! It’s like they have a template, and assign a computer to plug scenes from each movie into it, with the same percussive sounds. It’s generic. It’s completely devoid of talent or imagination. It’s boring. (A few weeks later: Just saw the trailer for Whiteout. It’s the same trailer, with snow.) Who makes this shit? Whoever they are, they can make even a good movie look just awful. Others have noticed this. (Maybe everybody’s noticed it, and I’ve just been slow on the uptake.) In fact, there is now a whole genre on YouTube of amateurs re-cutting well-known movies as action or horror trailers. Here’s a movie you might have seen. You will observe that, aside from a very slightly slower pace (this is horror, not action), and a few shots that linger for a wee bit longer … it’s the same trailer! I think most people would agree with me that these trailers are awful. There is one place, however, where people gather and actually watch—and applaud!!—these abominations. I’m referring, of course, to San Diego Comic-Con International, the 39th of which was held just recently. Here, around one eighth of a million idiot fanboys (oh, the horror! The horror!) gather each summer, slobber dripping from their pimply chins, to hear the latest news about the celluloid cream-of-wheat they will be spoon-fed in the coming year. Stars and directors show up. This year the Big Name was James Cameron, and the flick he flogged was Avatar. Fanboys are, in fact, largely responsible for the look of action film trailers these days, just as they are largely responsible for the look of 90% of the films themselves. I’m sorry to say, too, that I have finally and irrevocably decided that “fanboy” is an exact synonym for “shithead.” Now, you probably are expecting me, in my frequent role of Grumpy Old Man, to bewail the sorry state of film trailers today, and to wax eloquent about how in my day, grump, grump, trailers were good! Well, you’d be wrong. I noodled around for a while, looking for trailers for classic movies, and confirmed my memory: They were astonishingly bad. They were also as generic as today’s trailers, just with different conventions. So the fact is, movie trailers have always been shitty, it’s just that today’s trailers are shitty in a different, more pretentious way. Even in our most recent “Golden Age” of cinema, the 1970s, the trailers were bad. Take a look at this one for Chinatown, which, in my opinion, is one of the top five movies ever made. You’d never know it from this trailer. Chinatown had wonderful, moody music. The music here is overdone, though it incorporates some of the main themes. The “Dragnet,” Raymond Chandler narration is cheesy. And believe me, after you’ve seen this trailer, you will have seen at least part of every action scene in the movie. You’d think it was a shoot-‘em-up. And actually, this is one of the better trailers, in that it doesn’t give too much away. It’s rather sad, because I see no reason they have to be bad … but what’s the alternative? How do you get butts in seats (which is what the damn things are for), without cheap sensationalism or giving too much away? Well, there was one guy who know how to do it. Take a look at the trailer for Psycho, which runs an astonishing six and a half minutes, and is worth every second of your time. This is the epic of trailers, the Gone With the Wind of trailers. What genius, to take us on a tour of the sets, telling us about the story but not really telling us very much. There is only a few seconds of film from the actual movie, and I have a feeling there were some wet theater seats when that scene came up. This may be the best motion picture trailer of all time. Hitchcock did it again in the trailer for Frenzy. My God! That tie! But don’t think that all of Hitchcock’s trailers reached the level of inspiration of those two. Here’s the trailer for Vertigo.
Awful! Just awful! And it gets even worse. I came across this video, which is sort a primer on trailer construction. There are four of them, all for Notorious. The first one is the “classy” version, two minutes long. There is no obnoxious narrator. It tells you little about the plot, except that Cary Grant and Ingrid Bergman are in love … and what more do you really need? There is a hint of menace in two scenes with Claude Rains. Then another kiss between Grant and Bergman, a mention of that master of suspense, Alfred Hitchcock, and we’re outta here, and I’m on my way to the box office. Then we go rapidly downhill from there. Trailer #2 starts right out with the laughable narration. Did they really sell stuff with idiotic trash-talking like this? “Guarded eyes, guarded lips! Guarded secrets!” Very little dialogue. Less than a minute long. I guess this one played in the neighborhood theaters. #3 “Notorious! Notorious! Notorious! She was a notorious woman of many desires! He was an adventurous man of purpose!” What does that mean, a man of purpose?! I dunno! This one screams at you! It’s in your face from frame one! It like the late (hurray!) Billy Mays was selling Hitchcock movies! This one must have played in the urine-smelling third-run theaters in the bad parts of town! The only good thing you can say about it is that it’s short! #4 The only good thing you can say about this one is that it’s even shorter, about fifteen seconds. I can’t imagine where this one would have played. I pondered. Is there anyone today who could sell a movie as Hitchcock did, making a personal appearance to introduce it? Well, not today, maybe, but recently. Just putzing around, hoping to find a good trailer, I happened on one of the best ever. Stanley Kubrick. Jack Nicholson, Stephen King. Now, I ask you, what more needs to be said? And the single image, the single action, is one that will be in my head forever. And the scene wasn’t even in the movie! It was either cut from the final version, or filmed just for the trailer. (There are some who would say that this trailer is better than the actual movie!) But this approach would only work with people of the stature of Kubrick, Nicholson, and King. James Cameron might be able to do something similar, and Martin Scorsese. After them, the only other person I can think of who can pull off a good personalized trailer is Woody Allen. He did okay with this one for Bananas. And there was the personal touch in this one for Sleeper, too. This one for Manhattan is also not too shabby, though it would have been smarter and more intriguing to use only the first minute of it. I also recall a brilliant … it was really more of a teaser, but I guess it would qualify as a trailer. I can’t find it on YouTube. It was for The Addams Family. The screen was dark, and it consisted just of those familiar four notes: da da da dum. (I’ll bet you can sing them, just as—if you’re a certain age—you can sing the first four notes from “Dragnet.”) Then the finger snaps, the four notes, the finger snaps, and then the final twelve notes before the song lyrics would begin with the TV series. But the lyrics never began. The screen stayed dark. Then COMING NOVEMBER 1991. The audience I was with erupted in applause. At no time was the Addams Family mentioned. They didn’t have to, everybody knew that song. Sheer genius. Other than that, my search for good trailers was largely in vain. Can anyone think of any others? Addendum: Some Internet genius has cobbled together some very amusing trailers for contemporary films, done in the style of the 1940s, and ‘50s. Here’s one for Raiders of the Lost Ark. And here’s Ghostbusters.
October 19, 2009 Hollywood, California |
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