Why Pixar Works

     Pixar is widely and consistently considered one of the best film making companies in the industry. With a nearly flawless track record and two dozen films under their belt, one has to wonder what makes their movies so darn appealing. Here are just a few of the reasons.

1) Every Character has a Soul

    

     A writing instructor I had once told me that a story is never about what happens, but rather who it happens to. The people that make up the cast of the film should be the driving force behind everything that happens and it should be exciting to experience the plot with them. Pixar is the master when it comes to creating characters that are likeable but still deep. Dory in Finding Nemo is one of the most endearing characters that has come from Pixar. While it's true that she is funny, energetic, and just goofy at times, Pixar doesn't just keep her there as comic relief. She has feelings and emotions, something that they aren't afraid to show near the end of the film as Marlon leaves her when they think Nemo is dead. Many films coming out of Hollywood today have characters that are so obviously there just to add humor to the film and nothing more (Jar Jar Binks, anyone?). But those are the characters I personally tend to get really annoyed with because they lack any depth whatsoever (again, Jar Jar Binks ringing any bells?). Pixar takes these characters that could so easily be an empty shell of jokes and one-liners and makes them three dimensional. In the film Monster's Inc., it's true that Mike Wazowski provides many of the laughs throughout the movie, but that's not why he's in the film. He's so much more than that. He's not there just to get into trouble so the audience can chuckle and shake their heads saying, "oh, that Mike is always getting himself into crazy situations." He's there because the other characters and the story need him to be there. Just like every other character in a Pixar film, he has purpose and a soul.

 

2) The Combination of Characters

     Marlon is uptight and always worried while Dory goes with the flow and doesn't take life too seriously. Carl Fredricksen is a grumpy old man while Russell is full of energy and joy. Woody is a realist and down to Earth while Buzz thinks he's lost on an alien planet. The list goes on and on. The majority of Pixar's films feature characters that shouldn't play well together. They are the type to get annoyed with the other very easily. Lightning McQueen does not like Mater at the beginning of Cars. Why? Because common sense says the two are incompatible. Lightning is a slick, speedy race car and Mater is a slow, bulky tow truck. And their personalities match their outward appearance. So why does Pixar place these two together? Because it adds tension, humor, and a dynamic between the characters that keeps them from feeling truly comfortable with the other. Instant conflict. In Ratatouille, a rat and a human are the main characters. Does that sound compatible to you? Nope. But by the end of these films, the characters grow to appreciate the other's point of view and way of life, bringing a sense of closure to that part of the story. These relationship driven subplots are very often surrounded by a much bigger, louder plot, but they are always there and are really what I believe give Pixar films their heart.

 

3) Simple Stories for a Wider Audience

     The success of Pixar can be attributed to any number of things, but I believe one of the main reasons is that they don't dumb down anything. People of any age can enjoy a Pixar film because the core plot is not a children's story. Finding Nemo is about a father looking for his kidnapped son. It's interesting and relevant for parents and adults, simple enough for a kid to understand and connect with, and colorful enough for a toddler to say, "look at the funny fishy!" The range of Pixar's audience is ridiculously broad. Why? Because they take human stories, and place them in exciting settings with interesting characters that kids and adults alike will fall in love with. The Incredibles is ultimately about a family working through their difficult personal issues in order to earn a greater respect and appreciation for one another. Does that sound like a film your kid would be interested in? Nope. But make it about super heroes on an exotic uncharted island, battling robots with metal tentacles, and yeah, your child is gonna love it! I often hear Pixar describe as a studio that makes kid's films, but I don't believe that for a second.

 

These are just a few reasons why I believe Pixar has so quickly risen to the top of the film making industry, taking the idea of the animated children's film and changing it forever. They make films about real human emotions, yet hardly ever have humans experiencing them onscreen. They build characters that have history and humanity to them, even if on the surface the appear to be there for a quick laugh. They don't pander to children by making dumb films that they think they'll better understand, and they don't pander to adults by creating films that kids will ultimately find boring or too complex. Pixar makes films about real life emotion and drama but in a way to appeal to children as much as adults. As long as they keep that the focus of their work, I'll always be looking forward to the next project coming out of their studio with bated breath.

Profanity in Film

     Films nowadays don't tend to pull any punches when it comes to things like violence, sex, and yes, profanity. Any number of films in theaters right now contain various forms of profanity, whether it be racist, homophobic, or someone simply dropping an f-bomb here and there. But when is it appropriate (if ever) to use language widely considered derogatory and lowbrow in film? Here's my opinion:

When profanity adds to a film:

    

     1) When used to establish character.

     While there are dozens of ways to show a character is a rebel or a "bad-boy" type without resorting to profanity, a casual swear here and there early on can establish it relatively quickly, but that's only when not every character is doing it. Once every person on screen is throwing around profanity, it instantly loses any power or character building possibility it could have had.

     If a character is supposed to be severely racist, not having them ever use a racial slur would actually take away from the fact they are supposed to be this offensive, abrasive person. The way I see it (and this may just be because I don't enjoy hearing swearing on a regular basis), swearing to build character should mostly be used to make the audience dislike the person or at least give them a bit of a disconnect from them.

     2) When the situation warrants.

     There is a scene in the film "Memento" between two characters: Leonard Shelby (a man with extreme short-term memory loss), and Natalie (a woman who, up to this point, we think is trying to help Leonard). The scene in the movie is the moment (SPOILER ALERT!) when we realize Natalie is using Leonard for her own means and has no real desire to help him find the man who killed his wife. In the shouting match that follows, fuck, shit, and cunt are used to excess, with Natalie revealing that she is going to use his disability for her own purposes, knowing that he won't remember ever having the conversation in a few minutes. While the vulgar use of these words can make the scene very uncomfortable, that's because it's supposed to be. The director (Christopher Nolan) wanted the audience to hate Natalie in this moment just as much as Leonard does so he used the strong language to his advantage, having her repeatedly insult and him and his dead wife until Leonard goes so far as to strike her. As the scene ends and Natalie storms out, we see the emotional anguish on Leonard's face and the exact moment when the verbal assault he just underwent is stricken from his memory. It's at this moment that Natalie walks back in the house, pretending everything is normal, and begins doing exactly what she told him she would: using him for his own needs.

     This one scene needed to make the audience turn on a relatively likeable character, and the language is used to achieve that goal.  

     3) For comedic effect (but used wisely and rarely)

     I'm not going to deny it: there are times when someone dropping an unexpected f-bomb is humorous, but it all depends on when, where, and why. I recently saw the movie "Super 8" about a group of young kids witnessing a train wreck and the chaos that follows as an inhuman creature escapes from one of the derailed cars. A few "shits" are sprinkled throughout the film but are (for the most part) used in appropriate situations full of action and near death experiences. Still going for a PG-13 rating, "fuck" is not heard until late in the film after the bus the kids were riding in is attacked, overturned, and nearly crushed by the beast. A pot-smoking teenager who had been helping them, drives up in his car and sees the kids all standing on the road, still in shock after the trauma they just went through. He gets out of the car and begins chatting with them casually then slowly notices the mashed bus lying sideways on the road. He pauses to take it all in and then says, "what the fuck?" It is the only f-bomb dropped in the movie and I feel it was a good decision on the writer's part to not throw it in during one of the many action sequences and to not have it said by one of the kids. It was a very basic and understandable use of profanity and it broke the tension the audience was feeling after the loud, violent, chaotic bus attack they'd just been put through.

When profanity detracts from a film:

     1) When everyone uses it.

     I saw the film "Kick-ass" not too long ago and, being a comic book geek, I was as excited as anyone to see a nerdy kid attempt to become a real life super hero. Not too far into the film, however, the main character Dave is hanging out with his buddies at a comic book store, discussing the possibility of an average person taking on a super hero's role. In this simple conversational scene, several f-bombs are dropped for no discernable reason. They're just chatting away about comics and superhero's but it's "effin' this" and "effin' that." It was at that moment, I started to dislike the film. We had barely started and already I felt disconnected to the main character and his friends because of the fact they couldn't put a simple sentence together without putting the word "fuck" between every other word. Now, I realize the film is based on a graphic novel and (to my understanding) profanity is used just as often in the comic, but it could at least be toned down for the general public, right? Several things are often lost in a book-to-film adaptation, so why not have some of the pointless swearing be written out of the script? As the film continues, this idea that everyone swears is taken to the next level as we meet "Hit-girl", a kid no more than maybe ten or eleven years old who fancies herself a super hero vigilante. To get this "tough girl" point across, she swears like a sailor non-stop, which I found very uncomfortable and unnecessary (especially since I felt it was supposed to be comedic relief).

     If swearing is used far too often or by the wrong people, it will lose all meaning instantaneously and fade into the background of the dialogue. My rule of thumb: if the meaning and power of a statement doesn't change if you simply remove the profane word from it, it doesn't need to be there.

     2) When a character we're supposed to like uses it in excess.

    

     When did swearing become endearing? This next point connects pretty directly to my last one: if you want the audience to like and care about a character in your film, maybe they should be able to form a complete sentence without dropping some sort of swear word in amongst their dialogue. Let's look at one of the most likeable characters in cinema history. A man that people quote tirelessly and always have fond memories of when they first "met" him on the screen: Forrest Gump. First off, the film is not a children's movie. There is drug use and nudity etc. so it's not like the filmmakers felt they had to pull any punches in order to keep it from an "R" rating. So why doesn't Forrest swear as profusely as ever other movie character seems to do nowadays? Because it would have been ridiculously out of character. It would have caught the audience off guard if the famous quote had been, "my mama always said, 'life's like a box of fucking chocolates.'" It just wouldn't have made sense to the character. So why do I have this feeling that if "Forrest Gump" had been made nowadays, there is a much greater possibility that he would have sworn a number of times over the course of the film? Probably because the majority of Hollywood writers don't seem to know how to think about how a character talks as being a part of who the character is. It's almost like you could read any line from "Kick-ass" and find the same line said by a completely different character from the movie "Superbad" or "The Hangover." Dialogue just isn't distinct and varied as it used to be, and I think profanity plays a big role in that.

So that's my stance on swearing in film. I am not against the fact that it has its time and place, but I just feel that maybe people need to take a step back and find that line again. Profanity can be a powerful thing, used to show strong emotion and conviction. But, like anything, when it is overused, it gets tiresome very quickly.