Leonard Maltin is one of my favorite movie critics. Every 10 years or so, I purchase his updated review guide, which sits trustily by my TV (the 2002 copy even has a broken binding from overuse). Although most of his reviews reflect my taste, I not surprisingly find myself disagreeing with him from time to time. For example, it positively eludes me how anyone can give the original Ben Hur only 3.5 stars because it is overlong. At other times, Lennie and I agree on the rating, but our rationales differs. I’m thinking here of the original Death Wish with Charles Bronson. We both give it three stars, but Maltin disparages it somewhat as “audience manipulation.” My only thought on that? “Isn’t that what directors are supposed to do?”
Oliver Stone manipulated audiences into believing that there was a conspiracy behind JFK’s assassination – can you say dreck? John Frankenheimer had people believing that the Birdman of Alcatraz was a poor, misunderstood soul who deserved a second chance, and thanks to the movie, Bob Stroud was granted a special parole review. Fortunately for all of us, Stroud said that his first job once paroled was to kill a few more of the people who needed killing. Lennie didn’t have any problems with these cases of audience manipulation.
I only took one screen-acting class, but the thing that stuck in my head is that film is a director’s medium. The actors are important, but directing and editing trump the acting ace. I recall that the class instructor, a retired second-assistant director, showed three simple still photos, all innocuous when alone. Then he showed them in different orders and they told very different stories, engendered very different moods. That’s the director’s job – to create the impressions they want you to have. In effect, to manipulate the audience.
Writing is much the same. By the way you tell the tale, build the characters, setup the situations, you manipulate the reader. Stephen king is a master of this, using character development to make you love people in his world so much that you even cheer when death ends their suffering. Hardly something to disparage, Lennie. That being said, once the tale is told, a reader or an audience member should recognize that they were being manipulated.
Caveat Emptor!
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