Suspension of Disbelief
Subtextual Film Logic
Primary Audience: Production
Site Tags: Filmmaking, Abstract, Mental Models
Suspension of Disbelief
Intro
Why is it called the suspension of disbelief? And not the suspension of belief? Is it because you have to suspend what you do believe– or what you don't?
When talking shop, Jonah Hill described approaching each new movie as- first agreeing upon what the tone of reality is. A height of reality. He described it as a dimension of tone and exaggeration. An important unison, all collaborators needed to agree upon, in order to play in.
Height of Reality
The height of reality is something the audience (rightfully) spends little time thinking about. But nonetheless it's something they infer and are aware of. At the beginning of each piece context + tone conveys logic.
Within seconds of watching The Adams Family (1991), or Swiss Army Man (2016) or Little Miss Sunshine (2006) we the audience have a sense of what's normal, and abnormal within the logic of these universes.
The physics, norms, and expectations of a piece are all absorbed at a lower subtextual level.
The story & production convey some of this in the forms of various contextual clues such as– color palettes, design, frames, camera movement, character reactions, pacing, etc. Differing heights of reality aren't unique to film, they can take place in any medium of storytelling, be it flip book animation, or campfire yarns.
The want to suspend
When watching a movie, TV show, or a spot, overwhelmingly we as the audience do not question the tone-appropriate lighting that befits each scene. We don't (excessively) question the inclusion or omission of narrative details. In large, we don't question the logic of the story➔ as long as the emotional narrative is pointing us in the right direction.
The reality is, the royal viewer comes to the table in good faith (most of the time). They come to the table, prepending the benefit of the doubt in favor of the filmmaker. There is a want to suspend disbelief. This is the nature of escapism. No one watches a TV show looking to have a bad time (and if they are- maybe there's another problem at play there.)
It's easy to suspend disbelief, for the same reason it's easy to watch a movie, or listen to someone tell a story. It's all escapism baby.
Suspension of Belief
So how does suspending disbelief compare to suspending belief. If you're invested in the story of Home Alone 2 (1992), then pretending the bricks that hit Marv are non-lethal, is actually not that hard. But pretending to NOT believe something you find integral to your belief system- is a bit harder.
if a) is to suspend the disbelief of that in which you don't believe. Say for instance, that magic carpets cannot fly.
then b) would be to suspend belief of that in which you do believe.
There's not a lot of calls for the need to suspend belief, because watching something you outright disagree with is antithetical to the nature of entertainment. While classic Hollywood films may occasionally prompt this briefly, this phenomenon becomes far more evident in propaganda films or antiquated misguided documentaries.
Some old Hollywood examples, that call for the need to suspend belief----
A Lonely Place (1950)
Humphrey Bogart displays moments of aggression, including a moment where he roughly handles Gloria Grahame.
As a moment, it's brief and it's acute. We as the audience can rationalize the behavior, through both the framework of the troubled Bogart character, and an anthropological lenses of the time.
Gone with the Wind (1940)
Clark Gable's treatment of Vivien Leigh in the staircase scene. In which he carries her up the steps in a drunken sexual suggestion.
Despite Vivien Leigh's in-scene ambiguity, the narrative reflects on this moment tenderly in the following scene.
Despite modern forthcomings & paradigms, we as the audience can suspend that in favor of the emotional arc the story suggests for us.
Hattie McDaniel's portrayal of Mammy is a much more pointed example of this phenomenon. McDaniel's portrayal is painfully emblematic of the racism of the time.
Despite this discordance in beliefs– value, fondness, and entertainment can still be gleamed from the picture.
Birth of a Nation (1915)
This is a movie where the cost of suspending belief is so high, it renders the picture unwatchable for most.
A story that centers on the Ku Klux Klan as the heroes, regarded by critics as the "the most reprehensibly racist film in Hollywood history".
Despite historical significance, most film aficionados don't have the patience or incline to suspend belief enough to justify watching.
Constraints of Logic
Constraints of Disbelief
Once we've inferred a piece's height of reality, i.e. it's logic. At what point does its own supposition, impend upon itself?
A HYPOTHETICAL—
A chiefess tells a story, around a proverbial campfire:
⬥ It's an engrossing tale. A story of hyperrealism in an office workplace that is cold & corporate. Individual scenes pivot on the high stakes of the mundane. The hero is a bizarre man, but the supporting characters are just as bizarre. You could say this is a Russian story.
⬥ But in the final act story beats become wider. The pitches of voices become higher, dialects become more casual, and the nature of the story becomes carelessly haphazard. Then you would have a discordance, an incongruity.
⬦One act defies the conventions and expectations of the previous acts.
Once the physics of a universe are broken, disarray becomes commonplace. Entropy expands when it should constrict. And the void that is the audiences mind is..... at the very least confused.
When Reality Breaks: jumping the shark
The term jumping the shark has gone to take on a meaning of its own, warped by pop-cultural editorials. Fundamentally it's about when a story ceases to suspend disbelief. Instances in which a narrative pushes beyond its own logic.
In these moments the viewer has an interpretative conflict, that takes them out of the story. The logic and setup is partly to blame. The expectations of what a movie is supposed to be, or is supposed to provide differs from what it delivers.
Note, this isn't about delivering an unexpected story, it's about delivering a contrary tone logic.
When a detailed heavy plot movie becomes foggy on the details of the transitioning act. We are frustrated because this is what we've come to expect from this movie.
When an adventure comedy with a grounded tone introduces acts of extreme casual violence in its last act.
When a sci-fi film grounded in hard science suddenly leans on mystical or spiritual explanations in the conclusion.
The takeaway here is coherence, be consistent with your own rules, your own gravity.
One Step Further =>
That said conventions are meant to be broken ¦
My favorite movies are those that defy the conventions they've set and become something entirely different. The final sequences in '2001', and 'A.I. Artificial Intelligence' both come to mind. The difference between stories that feels like they are jumping the shark, and those that feel like they are defying convention: is perhaps a matter of intention–
