For this project, we decided to analyze a movie trailer for the film, The Royal Tennenbaums. In our initial discussion of movie trailers, we realized that films are often misrepresented as they are mediated by the trailer. The trailer, of necessity, must remediate the film in a much shorter time. Now, while there are time requirements that necessitate this remediation, there are also other factors at play having to do with some of the theoretical work we have been doing; in particular, trailers are positioned to sell a product. Accordingly, any mediation that occurs in a trailer will be focused on those economic considerations more than focusing on fidelity to the film—a film trailer is designed to draw in the crowd and, in so doing, maximize profits rather than provide a summary or accurate representation of the film’s narrative.
Before proceeding, it would be wise to look at the following two videos:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=8Eg6yIwP2vs&feature=player_embedded
This is the trailer for The Royal Tennenbaums. Note the lighthearted, funny tone. Now, watch this business:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=9pyBB7y8fDU&feature=player_embedded#at=44
This particular clip from the movie (a more representative clip) shows that the film is not so very lighthearted after all. So, what’s up?
We first approached this trailer through the lens of Adorno and Horkheimer’s (A & H) work. First, we remarked upon how trailers in general must reconstruct movies in a short time period, and, by necessity, narrativity will be effected. In this particular trailer, however, there was a radical reconstruction of the film’s narrative to shift cinematic genres from drama (the film) to comedy (the trailer). According to A & H, one of the functions of the culture industry is to simplify human interactions and responses to human interactions to the point of reification: “The most intimate reactions of human beings have been so thoroughly reified that the idea of anything specific to themselves now persists only as an utterly abstract notion: personality scarcely signifies anything more than shining white teeth and freedom from body odour and emotions.” To locate this more firmly in the trailer, these actors, who tend to play comedic roles, are not presented as nuanced or occupying the dramatic roles that they, in fact, do; rather, they are pushed more towards slapstick in the mediation of the trailer. This calls to mind some of Drucker’s ideas on attention.
According to Drucker, “art is a way of paying attention.” The trailer, in a sense, forces the audience to pay attention to certain aspects of the film. Indeed, the very design of a trailer is focused on grasping an audience’s attention and piquing curiosity in just 2-3 minutes. Through the use of music, editing, character representation, and narrative representation (i.e., the trailer is not a reproduction of the narrative’s linearity of the film) the trailer’s creators capitalize on the audience’s sense of what to expect given the spaces these elements occupy and/or how these elements function in popular culture. Which begs the question, what sort of exchange is taking place if the mediation (the trailer) is so misrepresentative?
In our discussion, we realized that trailers are fundamentally places of exchange (following Peters). Now, since there is a fundamental misrepresentation that occurs when the film is remediated in the trailer, there seems to be a sizable power asymmetry: the film industry basically misrepresents what it will provide in exchange for the price of a ticket. In effect, there is a bait-and-switch because the audience is presented with all the elements of a comedy (they are shown a “comedy” that they will receive in exchange for their money and time). So, the exchange is, ultimately, farcical. What is ironic, and troubling, is that we know that trailers misrepresent films, yet we continue to be seduced by them…
All in all, our application of these theorists’ work has shown us that this is not merely an academic exercise. It is a reflection on our own culture and our place within in it.
Hi Richard (and Adam),
ReplyDeleteFirst, complements on your choice of media object. I've got to re-watch that movie!
I really enjoyed your analysis of the film and trailer.
Would you consider the use of Elliot Smith as soundtrack for the head-shaving scene to be a further example of the reification as per A&H?
(Fans would recall that Smith ended his own life (though, I think after this film was out??), and that knowledge of the artist might lead them to make assumptions about the character's motivation and the direction of the scene before the action plays out.) Kind of "oh boy. if they're playing Elliot Smith, this guy's in a bad place."
I agree with you about the trailer format not being able to display the complexity of a Wes Anderson film. I've always thought of his films as relying on a long arc, with characters developing throughout the plot. It's interesting how closely the distribution company stuck to the genre of 'film trailer' when producing this one (for a rather atypical film). Voiceover from recognizable star, a little humor, chase scenes, possibility for romance. Something for everyone!
I watched the other trailer for Tennenbaums that came up when I played the clip you selected. That one felt more authentic to the tone of WA movies, to me, and not quite as clear an example of the comedy aspects as yours was. It's obviously quite difficult to distill a 2 hour film to 2 minutes. Yet, as you stated, it's become the standard criteria for movie-goers.
Back to add this: Could Barthes also contribute to the Elliot Smith reference? I thought the myth as metaphor might also help support this.
ReplyDeleteAhhh I had this really long, brilliant comment and then the page reloaded and it was gone... so, this is a condensed versions. I'm interested in agency and media. So, how do you think agency and context comes into play with the way a viewer receives a trailer like this? How do you think the film industry could predict or manipulate that reaction?
ReplyDeleteAccording to McLuhan's definition of cold and hot media, would this trailer be cold or hot?
I had one question and one comment about your analysis.
ReplyDeleteQuestion; Did y’all know or at least suspect that these particular trailers effectively performed a bait & switch before analyzing this particular trailer and film? In other words, were you looking for trailers to prove that which you already knew? Don’t get me wrong….I’m not saying that any of this is wrong. (I think this is a great piece of work that you produced!) Rather, I’m now wondering about the prevalence of this *bait & switch via remediation* idea. Do you see this as being a common characteristic of trailers?
Comment: Since we didn’t read McLuhan until this week (after we did this assignment last week), I was thinking about that which McLuhan said about movies and films when I was reading your analysis. So, I did a “search and find” for the words “movie” or “film” in the McLuhan text. Following are the McLuhan passages that I thought were interesting or perhaps useable for this analysis:
“It is a peculiar bias of those who operate media for the owners that they be concerned about the program content of radio, or press, or film. The owners themselves are concerned more about the media as such, and are not inclined to go beyond ‘what the public wants’ or some vague formula. Owners are aware of the media as power, and they know that this however has little to do with ‘content’ or the media within the media.” Of course, you’re discussing movie trailers here and their relation to the movie itself, but one might see McLuhan as backing-up your bait & switch analysis.
and
“To a highly literate and mechanized culture the movie appeared as a world of triumphant illusions and dreams that money could buy.” The funny thing about this McLuhan passage is that it speaks exactly to the content of the Tennebaum movie itself, in many ways, I think. And that’s kinda cool.
Adam and Richard,
ReplyDeleteI think your analysis was really fantastic and eye-opening to the way trailers operate. Great work here! I tend to not watch trailers because I feel like they give away too much of the film, but I never really thought that they would portray an inaccurate depiction (showing comedy versus the reality of a drama).
This line in your post stuck out for me, "What is ironic, and troubling, is that we know that trailers misrepresent films, yet we continue to be seduced by them…"
Do you think trailers then, in their own media genre, are basically all the same as A&H argue about films (and really anything produced by the culture industry)? Is a trailer for a comedy or an action film that different (maybe the content, but not the formula)? I think McLuhan would argue that they aren't. As his "Medium is the Message" goes, I think what's important is the fact that the trailer will seduce us, not what the trailer is showcasing.