I just looked up the most recent box office grosses for Judd
Apatow’s This Is 40. The movie’s domestic profits are about
fifty-five million dollars, which is pretty good, since the report said This Is 40 cost thirty-five million dollars
to make. This, however, does not include
the marketing expenses for the movie, which can often equal the total cost of the production.
A fifty-five million dollar box office – and counting; the
movie is still playing in theaters – is nothing to sneeze at. But with Apatow’s lengthy string of
successes, there is also the question of expectations. Apatow’s 2011 outing (as a producer) was Bridesmaids. And its
domestic gross was a hundred and sixty-nine million. As Jon Lovitz said in A League of Their Own, “That would be more then, wouldn’t it?”
Considerably more.
True, Bridesmaids is
about a wedding and This Is 40’s about
a bickering married couple, the two premises traditionally unequally popular with moviegoers.
The conventional wisdom is, “If we wanted to see a couple fight, we
could have stayed home and saved the money.”
This has generally been the case, but not always. A married couple bickered in The Thin Man movies. Though they also solved murders, so I guess
that’s not the same. It does, however, show how far you have to
stretch to find a successful “Squabble Picture.”
Though This Is 40
is hardly a breakout smash, it is doing better than the last movie Apatow wrote
and directed, Funny People, which was
about death, a subject even less appealing than squabbling couples, and
arguably every other subject as well.
Generally speaking, “death” is death
at the box office.
“Fourteen-fifty to be reminded that I’m going to die? And the ‘small’ popcorn is five-seventy
five? And it’s dripping in butter, which
also reminds me I’m going to
die? I’ve got to give this some serious
thought – NO!”
Let us shed no tears for Mr. Apatow. He is currently preparing an Anchorman sequel, so he’ll be back topping
the cha-ching charts soon enough. It is possible that this is actually Apatow’s
game plan, following in the footsteps of many savvy moviemakers before him,
like Barry “Rain Man (big box office) but also Avalon (not so much)” Levinson – the strategy being, “I make one (highly profitable)
movie for them (the studio), and one (personally satisfying) movie
for me.”
A movie fails to take off at the box office, and its less
than sure-fire commercial subject matter is blamed for it. I, as is not unusual, have an alternate perspective.
As I mentioned when I discussed This Is 40 earlier, an issue also
related to its commercial possibilities is the manner in which the movie is
put together and presented.
Judd Apatow has been quoted as saying he does not want his
movies to, in effect, feel like movies. As a result, he deliberately arranges his
story in an unstructured, non-linear manner, mirroring, to his thinking, the unplotted
messiness of everyday life.
In theory, I like that idea.
I am no fan of movies whose storylines are formulaically predictable. (Though, as we shall see, this is the “Straw
Man” bad version of the alternative.)
The problem is, there’s a tradeoff. For its acknowledged benefits, the price of Apatow’s
favored storytelling approach is the sacrifice of – for want of a more artful
description – trajectorial momentum.
A “naturalistically structured” movie seems to be going in
every direction but forward. When the
events are delivered, call it – to be generous – idiosyncratically, the writer
surrenders narrative flow, build and a cathartically satisfying
resolution. Such are the rewards of
classical storytelling. You do things
the other way and the payoff is
diminished. If you feel any at all.
Does the audience know the difference? I believe they do, though they may not
verbalize their reaction beyond a vague, “I don’t know. It just didn’t get to me.”
Think about music, the type I and those who share my culture
are accustomed to. Sitar music from
India? To me, it sounds like the
plucking of rubber bands. That could just be because I’m not used to sitar music. Though I am
familiar with bagpipe music, and it still sounds like they’re performing an unspeakable operation on a cat.
Without going all Leonard Bernstein “Young People’s
Concerts” on you – because I am not knowledgeable enough to do so – a well-made
song (or its classical musical counterparts) hits the right notes at the right time. The music gets us snapping our fingers and
tapping our toes because it’s been calculated, consciously or unconsciously, to resonate with our
innerest expectations.
Ditto, I believe, with good storytelling. The structure does not have to be visible; in
fact, it’s better when it isn’t.
Skillful story construction – in contrast to hackwork – is like
“Invisible Mending.” It holds things beautifully
together, but you never see the stitching.
Despite the box office disappointment, my guess is that Judd
Apatow will continue structuring his stories with the same “true to life”
loosy-goosiness, and simply steer clear of death issues and bickering married
people.
In my humble opinion, however,
the problem is not that Apatow’s
telling the wrong stories. It’s that he’s
telling the stories…not the best way.
--------------------------------------------------------------
Bonus Feature:
The “First Annual Earl Pomerantz Award For Pretty Darn Good Storytelling”
goes to...
Argo.
Written by Christ Terrio.
Congratulations, Chris. I will see you at the "After Party."
Leftovers at my house. Any time you want.
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