When watching a movie, it’s easy to see all the many ingredients that go into making the story come to life.   Engaging dialogue from a tightly written screenplay, standout performances from the committed actors, and a vision from the director that helps to make the scene feel as authentic as possible.  But, there’s another ingredient thrown into the mix that doesn’t quite capture the intention of the viewer yet it’s the one thing that affects everything else in the finished product by the end.  That crucial ingredient is film edit.  Without the job of a proper edit, a story has no form or character.  It’s just images without reason.  Editing is what brings out the context of the images that we see and shows us how one thing can relate to another.  And, in the grand scheme of things, editing is probably the hardest job of all for a filmmaker.  While a lot of work goes into the writing and the filming of a story, it’s not until the post-production editing process that the filmmakers are able to find the story that they want to tell.  There, they are able to find the emotion through the contrasting of images or tension through the compression of time, and through that, they are able to get creative with the tools that are available to them.  But, strangely enough, the work of the editor is often unheralded, mainly due to the fact that in order for the editor to do their job well, their work must be made invisible to the viewer.  Unless otherwise made to be seen on purpose, essential film editing must work in service to the story and not overwhelm it, thereby causing many of us in the audience to take the work of an editor for granted.  But, in so many cases throughout film history, it’s been the excellent editing of a movie that causes it to stand out.

Now a lot of people probably think that it’s not that hard at all to edit together a movie.  All you need to do is to plan out your cuts ahead of time and follow the blueprint right?  It’s far more complicated than that.  For an editor to do their job, they must first analyze countless hours of footage, depending on the length of the feature.  Even with a scene mapped out in pre-production, the actual filming must take into account all the necessary coverage from multiple angles, as well as the multiple takes that will inevitably happen, since no one is ever satisfied with just one take.  And it’s from that pool of material that the editor must find the story, taking the best takes out of the mix from the best angles and piecing them together to make it feel like one whole piece.  Not only that, but they must be observant with every bit of footage, looking for continuity mistakes that may undermine the flow of the scene.  Lastly, they must also time their edits perfectly, making each cut feel natural and never abrupt; something that may even matter by only a frame or two.  And this is just the essentials for a practical editing job.  There’s a whole bunch of other tricks of the trade that an editor can use to take things in a more creative direction.  Overall, it’s time consuming and often tedious, but when you find the story forming in front of you, it can also be  rewarding and sometimes even surprising process.  I’ve been through it myself before, and it’s often the process where you see the clarity of what you’re creating come through.  Hell, when I was splicing together film stock as a projectionist a while ago, I could easily see the value of how a couple missing frames might affect the overall viewing experience.  It’s a highly precise art, yet one that must also always support everything else.

From the moment that cinema began, filmmakers have been tinkering around with editing.  The turn of the century often relied on single shot moments to showcase the medium, like a train arriving at a station or a vaudeville performer doing their act, but over time, some visionaries discovered how they could use the moving picture camera to tell a story.  Georges Melies created magnificent stories through fixed camera tableau like his 1902 classic A Trip to the Moon, that didn’t feature much in the way of editing shot to shot but did show that the process could be used in the service of other things like visual effects.  Simple editing remained the norm until American filmmaker D.W. Griffith pioneered the concept of cross-cutting images in service of the story.  With his epic scale production of The Birth of a Nation (1915), Griffith created a new film-making language, having different juxtaposed shots edited next to each other to underline a theme or connect multiple story-lines into one.  Every film since then has followed Griffith’s technique and it has become the standard of modern film editing.  Griffith not only broke ground with his first epic feature, but he would continue to push the medium further with his follow-up, Intolerance (1916), which took the bold step of cutting between four different unrelated story-lines, connected solely by their common themes, showing how far the process can go and still work.  What Griffith discovered was that an edit could convey meaning and it’s something that was explored even further by filmmakers in Soviet Russia.  For the propaganda films of the early Soviet Union, an editing process called montage was developed, which used a mix of images related to theme and edited them in a way to provoke a feeling out of the viewer.  The most famous example of this was the Odessa Steps scene in Sergei Eisenstein’s Battleship Potemkin, where the recreation of a massacre is given extra poignancy by the inclusion of a falling baby stroller amidst all the chaos.  Even in the days before dialogue, and perhaps more so, filmmakers saw the value of how editing could make their stories come to life.

Though extraordinary surprises could come out of an edit, Hollywood more or less standardized the language of editing around the time sound was introduced to the medium.  Filmmakers could use fancy editing techniques, such as in some of the lavish musical numbers found in Busby Berkeley productions, but the limitations of sound recording led to fewer innovations in the process.  Classic style cutting was the norm for many years, and was often effectively used.  Sometimes, filmmakers would get creative with their edits and used them to set up a punchline and pay it off (watch any Three Stooges short to see what I mean) or use their edits sparingly to immerse the audience into the moment (often seen in many tense one-shot mood setters from Alfred Hitchcock).  Montages were also effectively utilized in early Hollywood, mostly as a way to quickly show a passage of time rather than convey an emotion like the Soviets would do.  But, despite the lack of innovation in the art-form of editing, it didn’t mean that the classic style wasn’t used in meaningful ways during this time.  Just look at the final pivotal scene at the end of Casablanca (1943).  For that brief moment between the lines where Captain Rennault (Claude Rains) says to the Germans “Major Strasser has been shot” and “Round up the usual suspects,” we get two quick close-ups of Rennault and Rick (Humphrey Bogart) looking to one another, and then after the pivotal line, a quick pan across to show Rick smiling back.  It’s a simple but elegant moment that’s made entirely possible through editing, and in those two close ups we are told so much without any words spoken.  This is an example where just a basic editing style can effectively tell a story, and it showed that the standardized style did illustrate that artful editing can be found in the simplest of uses.

But, innovation did become more prevalent once editing tools became more advanced and reliable.  The French New Wave brought in new concepts like smash cutting, freeze frames, and slow-motion into the language of editing, and that in turn influenced the film editing styles in Hollywood.  It became an era where the filmmakers felt more comfortable showing the editing process on screen rather than hiding it.  Abrupt cuts between scenes were popularized in the films of Jean-Luc Goddard and Francois Truffaut, and it was adopted by some of the more counter-cultural filmmakers across the pond, because they felt that it gave their movies a grittier, more modern sensibility.  Even prestigious films picked up on the style.  You can credit that famous cut in Lawrence of Arabia (where Peter O’Toole blows out the match and it cuts to a sunrise) to the influence of the French New Wave.  While these processes were always available to filmmakers before, none had been spotlighted as much, and by taking full advantage of these different tools, the same filmmakers helped to increase the awareness of the value of editing in movies.  In many ways, it gave the audience a keen awareness of different styles that a movie can have, and it helped to differentiate how the movies of their era were different than those of the past.  Form then on, innovation in the editing process would underline the advancements of the industry as a whole.  We would see the character of a film or a cinematic movement come out of it’s editing process, whether it be the renegade style of editing from the maverick 70’s or the stripped back style of the indie movement of the late 80’s and early 90’s.  In many ways, a film was more or less dependent on how well it’s editor was in tune with their era, otherwise they would come across as two old-fashioned or too far ahead of their time.

For many years up to today, the director is often reliant more than ever on the work of their editor.  In the past, the editor would usually sit alone in their editing rooms and compile the films themselves and only get feedback later once their initial work is complete.  Now, the editor and the director work in tandem to hammer out an edit of the film, made much easier now that there is a digital intermediate to work with rather than having to re-splice the same film over and over again.  And it’s through this collaboration that a vision can come out of the project.  An editor may sometimes understand the value of a cut better than the director (who might be too protective of every shot they filmed) and their suggestions often help to reign in the story.  There have been many examples over the years of movies that were saved in the editing room after disastrous productions.  Star Wars is probably the most famous example.  Those who worked on George Lucas grand vision often were lost with regards to what they were doing and where the story was actually leading to, and some said that Lucas himself wasn’t entirely sure of what he was getting into.  But, thanks to an expert editing team (which included Marcia Lucas, George’s then wife), they somehow found the essence of the story and condensed it into the solid adventure that we know today.  Sadly, George Lucas has shown less restraint over the years, and we now know what a lack of controlled editing looks like in the Star Wars universe thanks to the prequels and Special Editions.  Apocalypse Now (1979) is another example of a movie saved by an imaginative edit, which paints a beautiful portrait out of what was a notoriously disastrous shoot.  No film is ever lost unless there is a smart, precise edit done to it.  I think that’s why so many directors often reuse the same editors on each film; they need someone they can trust.  Every Spielberg production has seen the dutiful hands of Michael Kahn on it, as has almost every Scorsese pic with Thelma Schoonmaker, and so on.  Sometimes, if you’re the Coen Brothers or Steven Soderbergh, the edit becomes an entirely singular operation too.  Overall, the final character of the film is determined mostly by how well the editor and the director collaborate together.

But, not every collaboration leads to golden results.  Sometimes, a movie is often hindered by a sometimes overzealous editing job.  This has become especially problematic in the era of MTV music videos and quick paced commercials on television that we’ve now been accustomed to.  Many up and coming filmmakers make the wrong assumption that the more editing they use in their movies the better, because it gives their work a grittier, more frantic style.  Unfortunately, quick editing does more to disorient the viewer than it does to engage them into the film.  While it works for some films, like a war picture or a documentary style drama, it can often feel out of place in most anything else.  Editing is meant to establish setting just as much as it is used to convey momentum and emotion to a scene.  If the edits are too wild and can’t focus on it’s subjects, then the audience feels disconnected from the moment.  I’ve complained about the style of Michael Bay a lot already, but his use of editing is a perfect example of this disorienting quick edit style that serves no purpose.  But, even more restrained editing can become obnoxious if misused in a movie.  Sometime filmmakers like to use montages and flashy editing as a way to create poetry in imagery, and it can often backfire and look pretentious as a result.  Even respected filmmakers like Gus Van Sant and Terrence Malick have developed just as many detractors as fans for sometimes getting too fancy with their lyrical editing.  Just look at the pointless long shots of nature in Van Sant’s Last Days (2005) or the showy, meandering editing of Malick’s To the Wonder (2013), and you’ll know what I mean.  Essentially, for an edit to work, there needs to be a purpose behind it, and not just to indulge the filmmaker’s desires.

The editing of a movie is more than anything where the story comes to life.  All the hard work on the production design, the cinematography, the acting, and the dialogue matters little unless it all colludes together as a whole in the editing room.  In the end, the editor’s job is often thankless, but ever so crucial, because they’re mostly responsible for creating the finished product that all of get to see and the success of their job relies on their work not being noticed by the viewer.  Thankfully, with films that celebrate the art of a good edit, we can at least see an editor’s hard work on display occasionally.  In the classic style, it’s always neat to see an edit put the perfect punchline on a well placed gag (Hitchcock’s famous train going into a tunnel innuendo from North by Northwest is a great example).  And in the maverick 60’s and 70’s, it was interesting to see the limits of the art-form explored.  But for me, what I love best about editing is the way that it shows how much even just a few frames of film matter.  There are some moments in movies (like Han Solo’s great surprise arrival at the Death Star late in Star Wars or the final haunting shot of Psycho with Norman’s face superimposed with a skull) that could have been spoiled if they went on just a second longer than they did.  Sometimes it comes down to the one single frame that makes the difference, which is staggering when you consider that 24 frames makes up only a second of film.  My hope is that every filmmaker approaches the editing process with a certain amount of understanding and respect that it deserves.  Play around with what you’re able to do, and you’ll find a completely different story than you might have expected going in.  Many pieces go into the making of a film, but the edit is what puts all those pieces into place and turns that puzzle into the whole picture in the end.

When Hollywood has a movie that is popular, then it’s a beloved asset.  If it’s a story that’s open enough for a sequel, even better.  Building a franchise, more than anything, is what the big studios strive for, because it guarantees them added revenue for years and decades to come.  The only problem is that not every story is well suited for a franchise.  Some movies are better as singular experiences with clear cut conclusions that leaves no loose threads dangling.  And yet, Hollywood will still try to squeeze every last bit of substance they can in order to stretch their success further.  Strangely enough, some of the movies in the last year have shown that with enough creativity and purpose, some franchises can live on and prosper, even after years of dormancy.  With the cases of Star Wars, Mad Max, or Rocky, we are now seeing franchises enter their seventh or fourth iterations, and come out of it even stronger than before.  Not only that, but these movies also make the bold assertion that there will be more to come later.  Of course, with some of these franchises, their continuation makes sense because it’s built into their base levels to be ongoing stories.  But, for that to work, the movies have to bank on the expectations of the audience that they’ll be willing to come back again and again.  And in some cases, when a film series is starting from scratch, it becomes a gamble to have your audiences expect more.  Sadly, some of the biggest misfires that Hollywood has ever made have come from the misguided attempts to build a franchise while forgetting to make the movies stand on their own.

Truth be told, this is far too often the result of having too much story for one movie.  Many franchises we see today are based off of works of literature, particularly the kinds that tell their stories over multiple volumes.  When the story is vast enough to guarantee enough plot for a lot more movies, then it appeals greatly to filmmakers interested in starting up a franchise.  But, when the translation happens, those same filmmakers have to take into account a few things; can they get away with telling only part of the story and is that something that’ll please their audience.  For most of these franchises, they all run into the same problem and that’s the opening film hurdle.  The first film in a franchise, especially one that is supposed to start off a planned series, is always the hardest film to make and it’s by far the one film in each series that makes or breaks the entire operation.  Within it, you must devote a huge amount of run-time purely to set up your main cast of characters, the world they live in, the special rules that pertain to said world, the stakes within, and if you’re lucky, hopefully there will be room for some plot as well.  For many wannabe franchises, this first film is often the stumbling block, just because an insane amount of exposition must be applied in order to set up what comes after.  Exposition is a valuable tool when writing a book and is generally accepted when readers come across it on the page, but in movies, it can often be monster.  When a movie stops to explain something, it grinds the film to a halt, thus making exposition a thing that most screenwriters and directors fear.  This is what defines the biggest problem with most opening films in franchises, and it sadly is what prevents many of them from ever finding their footing.

But, if a franchise does get over that hurdle, then it has a chance of succeeding.  And indeed, the best franchises we’ve seen over the years, at least the ones that come from literary sources, are the ones who managed to establish their worlds and characters successfully.  Once that hurdle has been conquered, then anything is possible and chances can finally be taken.  It was the situation that we saw play out a lot in the early to mid-2000’s when this idea of franchises built from multi-volume literary sources suddenly became the rage in the industry.  In 2001, we saw the start of two series that not only gambled and succeeded with their ambitious first features, but would also go on to set the template for the next decade in Hollywood.  These of course were the Harry Potter and Lord of the Rings franchises.  Rings you could argue was the more successful because it was the better stand alone movie, but Potter did well enough at the box office to warrant it’s expected sequels and only later did it finds it’s footing with the sequels that took more chances.  But regardless of how good the first films were, the fact that they succeeded allowed for the franchise to breath a little easier going forward.  Rings and Potter improved as they went along, but, they had to gain the trust of their audiences in order to keep going.  That’s what made their opening films so crucial, because if the audience didn’t buy into the story from the start, what need would they have for it to continue.  Fortunately for Rings and Potter, they had the benefit of capable filmmakers behind them who believed in what they were doing.  Most of the failed franchises weren’t so lucky.

Though a lot of franchises have come and gone over the decades, the 2000’s seemed to be an especially brutal one for “one and done” attempts at building a series.  Mostly, this was a result of many studios trying way too hard to ride the coattails of Rings and Potter.  Those films had the benefit of a built in base of support that saw them through their entire run, and the audiences were even rewarded with some better than expected results.  Other franchises failed because they made no effort to distinguish themselves and merely just tried to copy the formula that had come before.  Sadly, this happened too often to franchises that had potential, but were saddled with lame, amateurish productions.  A good example of this is something like Eragon (2005).  On the outside, this looked like a feature that embodied the same spirit and style of Lord of the Rings.  Written by wunderkind American fantasy writer Christopher Paolini, Eragon had all the makings of a great classic series; high production values, a stellar cast (Jeremy Irons, John Malkovich, Rachel Weisz), and a beloved source novel.  How could it possibly fail?  With lackluster direction and a 90-minute running time that stripped the story down to it’s bare bones; that’s how.  The movie was a cliche filled mess and it drove audiences away, mainly because there was nothing of interest for them to grab onto.  It was all plot and no heart.  Sadly, the lackluster adaptation stop any chance of the series continuing and all we have now is just the first stand alone film.  It probably failed because it added nothing to the fantasy genre that we already hadn’t seen.  Unfortunately, other franchises would likewise fall into the “one and done” pitfall despite having promise.  The quirkiness of Lemony Snicket’s A Series of Unfortunate Events (2004) should have helped it stand out, as well as the uniqueness of The Spiderwick Chronicles (2008) modern day American setting.  And yet, uninspired productions sank these franchises two before they could ever get themselves going.

On the plus side, many of these franchises smartly remembered that they were stand alone films in addition to being parts of a larger narrative.  The biggest mistake that a wannabe franchise can do is to leave itself open-ended, making the misguided assumption that the franchise will have legs beyond one feature.  Sadly, there have been many failed franchises that not only ended up with just one feature, but also ones that had that same one film feel incomplete.  Oddly enough, this is a practice that was following in the footsteps of a successful franchise that somehow worked to it’s own advantage.  In The Lord of the Ring: The Fellowship of the Ring (2001), the movie left us with an open ending, with the main characters advancing towards the next stage of their journey.  While this was a gamble itself, director Peter Jackson somehow made this acceptable by working everything before feel like a logical conclusion to this phase in the story, allowing the tease at the end to feel more natural.  Unfortunately, not every continuing narrative has these nice and neat breaks to conclude an opening chapter.  Sadly, too many Rings wannabes tried to give themselves these teaser endings to get us excited for what’s next, and having it backfire.  Perhaps the worst attempt at this was a film called The Golden Compass (2007).  Based off the Phillip Pullman novels (which has often been described as Narnia for Atheists), The Golden Compass was New Line Cinema’s misguided attempt to create their own fantasy franchise in the same vein as Rings.  A convoluted adaptation followed and to make it even more infuriating, the movie thought it could conclude open-ended like Rings.  Unfortunately, because they picked a horrible place to cut the story off (which ignores a far more satisfying ending from the book) the movie just feels incomplete as a result instead of being a satisfying experience on it’s own.  This is a perfect example of how not to do a teaser ending, and is the primary reason why The Golden Compass‘ open ending remains so painfully awkward today.

This is perhaps the main reason these failed franchises feel so pathetic in the end; because we know that there is more story to be told and yet we’ll never get to see any of it on the big screen because the openings let us down.  The Golden Compass especially feels irritatingly hollow because it dared to think we’d be clammouring for more in the end, but did nothing to earn it.  But, some movies can get away with it by making each feature feel complete and avoid those ending teasers that only end up infuriating the audience.  Harry Potter had the benefit that each volume of it’s series more or less has it’s own story that only ends up tying together the further into the larger narrative you go.  If the first film, Harry Potter and the Sorcerer Stone (2001) failed and no more were made after, it could still stand on it’s own because the film’s plot was more or less a complete one.  In the end, all films must follow the same act structure as every other film, having a beginning, middle, and ending that all make sense.  Even stories that take in the center of a larger narrative and can get away with it.  Movies that just pick up or leave the story without context will only end up confusing their audience.  That’s what makes every individual Potter film work in the end; their individual narratives.  Some failed franchises withhold elements that could lift the drive of their individual plots in favor of saving them for future installments, and becomes another unnecessary fault that defines them because it robs the urgency of the story.  The only explanation could be that studios want to follow a formula and that doesn’t fit into each stories narrative and you end up with films that feel more like exercises rather than experiences.

The commerce angle behind these franchise makings can also become their downfall.  Sometimes, when the source material is too large to fit into a single feature, or even just a couple, then some productions make the mistake of cramming too much into a movie.  It’s the opposite problem to the hollow withdrawing of material like what happened with The Golden Compass; but it’s no less destructive to the plot of a movie.  Try to tell too much story, and you end up with a plot that never gives the audience a chance to absorb it all, or it tells only a fraction of what’s really there to begin with.  Lemony Snicket’s A Series of Unfortunate Events fell victim to this, with many of the 18 novels in the series crammed into a disjointed narrative that never settles into a rhythm.  M. Night Shaymalan’s failed attempt to adapt the Nickelodeon series Avatar: The Last Airbender resulted in a Cliff Notes version of the first season called The Last Airbender (2010) which gave us all the high points with none of the emotion and ended up being loathed by audiences of all kinds.  This is the unfortunate result of trying to force a giant story into the confines of a cinematic format, and again, forcing the story again leads to failure which in turn leads to abandonment.  Thank God George R. R. Martin turned down Hollywood attempts to adapt his Song of Ice and Fire series into a single condensed film, and instead waited for HBO to come calling.  What he proved is that sometimes there are other ways to adapt a lengthy story, including television, and that it matters to give a narrative it’s proper pace and format.  Rings and Potter had their formulas, but they only worked best for their own stories.  Many of these other failed franchises would have done best to establish their own formulas to follow.

In the end, the best thing to do is to think about each film as it’s own story.  Sadly, even ongoing narratives still have to gamble with the changing times.  Harry Potter was lucky to survive for over a decade, mainly by gaining goodwill from the audience by taking chances.  But, even still, time will change perspectives and audiences will ultimately decide if a series is worth continuing.  We did end up with 3 Narnias in this fantasy craze of the 2000’s, but that was short lived, and we may never see the final four that are still waiting.  It’s a gamble in the end, but one that more or less can depend on the willingness of the filmmakers.  If you are purely just in it to follow a fad, then your series will be short lived.  If you believe in the project, and understand the best way to tell the story on screen, then you might have a chance.  Unfortunately, so many franchises make the mistake of putting too much faith in their first film and then abandoning that faith when it doesn’t turn out like they expected.  Eragon, The Golden Compass, and Lemony Snicket are the unfortunate lost children of Hollywood’s make-or-break approach to franchise building.  Their failures are only made more harsh by the fact that they feel more incomplete than the average film, the result of a misguided belief that these stories can only carry over into the next chapters.  The reason why we see series like Star Wars continue to stay strong even after a long absence, and is allowed to conclude each film with a more or less open ending, is because it’s earned the right to.  Each open ending does have a sense fulfillment by the end, and audiences accept it.  Nothing is withheld or forced on us, and the plot has been firmly established with a satisfying three act progression.  That’s why when we see Luke and Leia standing together as they plan a rescue for their friend Han Solo at the conclusion of The Empire Strikes Back, it feels like a natural ending without truly ending.  It’s a story worth the cliffhanger, and sadly the formula doesn’t fit all stories despite Hollywood’s attempts to make it fit. There’s nothing more unfortunate in Hollywood than a story that will never be concluded, and that’s the worst kind of cliffhanger that any storyteller can imagine.

Most Christmas themed movies usually end up reflecting the spirit of the holiday by the time the credits roll.  In the end, our characters are rewarded with gifts and love from their family, and all the worries of the world fall away for that brief moment of holiday cheer.  It’s a touching conclusion to any story, but if handled improperly, Holiday films can run the risk of becoming very sappy.  And sadly, far too many holiday movies end up choosing to go the sentimental route in their stories.  For the most part, it prevents the movies from ever resonating with an audience.  Just look at any of the many Hallmark Channel style films that are pushed on us every single year.  Can any of you tell them apart?  More than anything, Christmas movies have become the domain of the romantic comedy genre, and not all for the better.  Sure, there are classics among them like Love, Actually (2003), but that had the benefit of an excellent screenplay and a top-tier cast to carry it.  Christmas movies overall have succumbed to the same kind of formulaic problems that have also plagued the rom com genre.  Does it reflect badly on the holiday itself?  Not necessarily.  Most audiences have become accustomed to the gluttony of Christmas themed entertainment this time of year, and most of the generic fare usually fades into the background, catching a passing interest only because it’s the holiday season.  But, as we have seen in the past, some holiday films do rise above the rest and become classics of the genre.  And usually the defining element that helps these movies stand out is the strength of their main characters, or in this case their Holiday Heroes.

Protagonists in holiday films tend to be an interesting group.  Though individually distinct, a Holiday Hero is always defined in these movies by their one purpose in the story; to make everything right by Christmas Day.  Their stories can be as simple as trying to find the right gift for someone, or using the spirit of Christmas to inspire them to do something wonderful, or even leading the hero to actually saving the holiday itself.  But, apart from what they do, the other interesting thing that I’ve noticed about the heroes in Christmas movies is that they are usually the embodiment of the common every-man.  They are the kind of characters that deal with all the hardships of the world with the hope that the good work they do will make just a little bit of difference, even if it means making Christmas worthwhile just one time.  This is a trait that has been around for many years, and owes a lot to the films of Frank Capra, and in particular, his Christmas classic It’s a Wonderful Life.  George Bailey (Jimmy Stewart) is the quintessential example of a traditional Every-man hero, and the fact that his triumphant story is tied so closely with the holiday has left a huge a huge mark on all the holiday films that have come after it.  He has become the archetype of what we know now as the Holiday Hero, and though many different characters have had different challenges put before them during the holiday season, a little of George Bailey’s can-do spirit is still found in all of them.  But, just like how every Christmas movie needs to bring something new to the genre in order to stand out, so must the hero of each story, and as a result, most Christmas movies are made or unmade by the effectiveness of their main hero.

So what does a hero need in a Christmas movie.  That all depends on the narrative that the filmmakers want to tell.  Let’s start with the most common version of the Holiday Hero, that being the George Bailey model.  This is the kind of character that goes through a story arc which leads them to reach a turning point in their life once Christmas Day comes around.  In George Bailey’s case, it’s something as dark as losing all faith in his existence, only to be reminded through how much he means to everyone around him, something that the spirit of Christmas brings out perfectly in everyone.  This redemptive arc is a popular one for holiday stories, and it has it’s roots in the works of Charles Dickens.  Dicken’s A Christmas Carol showed the redemption of Ebeneezer Scrooge through a spiritual journey through the character’s past, present, and future in order to redeem his soul and make him a new man in time for Christmas.  It’s a Wonderful Life does the same, but in reverse, taking a good decent man to the brink of despair only to remind him of the worth he has in this world by the end, preventing him from becoming a bad person.  Though both Scrooge and George couldn’t be more different in personality at the beginning, their transformations by the end fulfill the same purpose in the story, and that’s to make the Christmas holiday the point where their life turned around for the better.  This is reflected in so many holiday themed stories where a character’s life is renewed through the spirit of the holiday; sometimes in a supernatural way like with the Nicolas Cage film The Family Man (2000), or just through enduring a harsh reality through the season itself, like with the childhood woes of Ralphie in the perennial favorite, A Christmas Story (1983).  That’s what has shaped so many memorable Christmas movies over the years; a Dickensian catharsis that’s given to Capra-esque every-man, and it helps to underline the redemptive spirit of the holiday by making the hero so relate-able to our own anxieties during the holidays.  We root for these heroes, because they represent our own desires to change in time for Christmas and the New Year.

The other most common type of hero you’ll find in a Christmas movie is the character trying their hardest to make Christmas turn out right.  This is another relate-able hero type because it’s something that we all try to do.  We try our best to have the nicest decorations, buy the best presents, and throw the greatest parties.  In many ways, this type of character embodies our competitive side during the holidays, and how it bring out both the best and worst of us.  And as a result of this, this becomes the easiest version of the Holiday Hero to get wrong.  Sometimes we enjoy seeing the effort of someone who wants to make the holidays perfect, even when the world is against them.  Jack Skellington from Tim Burton’s classic holiday mash-up, The Nightmare Before Christmas (1993), is a perfect example of this type of character.  There we see a hero who is so smitten with the warm feeling of Christmas time, that he takes it upon himself to fill Santa Claus’ role, despite Ol’ Saint Nick’s objections.  We know that Jack’s plans are doomed to fail, and yet we still celebrate his enthusiasm because that love for the holiday is something we all share, and that need to spread the positivity of the season is what distinguishes Jack as a Holiday Hero, misguided as he may be.   The flip side of this comes from people who are so narrow minded in their pursuit of a perfect holiday, that it makes them unappealing as a hero.  We see this in countless Christmas movies that shamefully turn their “heroes” into mindless consumers of every Christmas tradition.  This is true in soulless holiday movies like Deck the Halls (2006) or Christmas With the Kranks (2004).   It does matter when your hero uses Christmas as a way to spread cheer to others, and not as an excuse for constant one-up-manship.  In this case, the Holiday Hero must be self-less in order to appeal to audiences.  Anyone who celebrates Christmas purely for attention is not worth paying attention to in the end.

The third type of Holiday Hero we see in movies falls into the the more supernatural category, where the fate of the holiday itself falls into their hands.  Of course, it’s impossible for a holiday to rest on the shoulders of a single person, but Hollywood has managed to create stories that do just that, and some of them can be quite charming.  This is more commonly a favorite premise in animation, where you can get away with a lot more of the fantasy elements.  The heroes in these stories often come in contact with holiday icons like Santa, or are related to Santa Claus in some way, or in other cases are Santa himself.  But, what is always the case with these movies is that the hero puts aside their own troubles and worries in order to make Christmas go off without a hitch.  A great example of this kind of hero can be found in the under-appreciated animated film Arthur Christmas (2011), where the title hero takes it upon himself to save the holiday by making sure no loose ends are left after his father (Santa) forgets to stop at one home.  It’s the optimism and belief of doing the right thing that motivates the character and his faith in what the holiday means helps him to undermine the cynical corporate approach that his more ambitious brother wants to bring to the holiday.  It’s a perfect example of how to do this kind of hero right, mainly because his personality really helps to sell the idea that Christmas is worth saving.  The same kind of story-line can also give characters a strong redemptive arc, like with the Tim Allen hit The Santa Clause (1994), where a cynical common man is transformed (literally and figuratively) when he has to take Santa’s place at the North Pole.  Whether the character is pure from the start or not, their generous personality must shine through.  Otherwise, if they stay too cynical and never learn to change, then you get something bland like a Fred Claus (2007).

When you look at all the great heroes in all the Christmas movies, they usually fall into these different kinds of models.  Not all of them end up in the same place, but they nevertheless share similar traits, and of course their fates are tied to the holiday itself in the end.  I of course have my own favorite, and it’s a character who actually represents a bunch of these different traits all together in one story.  I’m of course talking about Clark Griswold in National Lampoon’s Christmas Vacation (1989).  To me, Christmas Vacation is the perfect Christmas movie and Clark (Chevy Chase) the quintessential Holiday Hero.  The reason I like it so much is because it plays upon every Christmas tradition there is and mocks it relentlessly while at the same time embodying the spirit of the season throughout.  What I love best is the way that Clark Griswold takes an almost zealous approach to the Holiday, right to the point of madness.  In the end, he actually embodies every aspect of a Holiday Hero; he’s a Capra-esque every-man who tries to make the holidays perfect despite everything going wrong in the process, to the point of nearly losing his mind.  But what makes Clark such a great character is that the movie refuses to turn him into a purely heroic figure or purely cynical person either; he can sometimes turn into a real jackass when pushed to far.  But, you still want him to succeed because we can relate to his frustration.  Seriously, wouldn’t you freak out too if your boss cut out your Christmas bonus and you got a Jam of the Month Club membership instead.  That’s the appeal of Clark Griswold for me; he suffers for his love of the season, and it’s his imperfection that makes him interesting, and the putting up with hardship that makes him heroic (like having to put up with slovenly Cousin Eddie or disposing of a fried pussy cat from under the Christmas Tree), which helps to make his moments of madness seem forgivable by the end.

Unfortunately, Clark is character too little seen in holiday movies today.  More often we see too many characters in Christmas films that lack depth and personality.  This is the most common problem with holiday films, which tend to favor formula over originality.  It seems like Hollywood sometimes believes that you can just throw around anything with Christmas in the title and it will instantly bring in audiences.  Sadly, that part is true, since there is an appetite this time of year for anything holiday related, but nothing that comes out of this ends up lasting beyond that.  For a Christmas movie to have a long lasting legacy, it needs to have both a story worth watching and a hero worth following; otherwise it’s just a glorified Christmas card.  I’m sure that nobody remembers the pair of Christmas movies made by Vince Vaughn in the late 2000’s called Fred Claus and Four Christmases (2008), or how about the “edgier” Ben Affleck comedy Surviving Christmas (2004), or any of the endless Hallmark Channel fare we see every year.  Sometimes a Christmas movie also becomes notorious for missing the mark completely and hitting the wrong tone about the holiday, like Schwarzenegger’s Jingle All the Way (1996), the deeply disturbing Jack Frost (1998), or the horribly offensive Kirk Cameron’s Saving Christmas (2014).  For a Christmas movie to resonate, it’s got to have a hero interesting enough to follow and a story original enough to keep us interested, while still maintaining the traditions of the holiday.  This is what has made classics like Christmas Vacation, Elf (2003), A Christmas Story, and The Santa Clause withstand the test of time; they have the familiar Christmas spirit, but put a twist on it that makes them interesting to watch.

So, like most Christmas movies themselves, there’s a right way and a wrong way to portray a Holiday Hero.  In the end, the character must be interesting and original, but driven by the spirit of the season.  The most resonant of these usually are the ones whose life takes a turn once Christmas arrives.  Making the hero relate-able is a factor, which is why the It’s a Wonderful Life model is so popular in the genre.  George Bailey’s Christmas is the thing that we all desire to have in the end, where all of our worries go away and we have our faith of humanity renewed when all of our friends and family extend their goodwill towards us.  It’s the dream of the average every-man in modern day life, and it’s what has made the idea of a Holiday Hero so personable in our culture.  But, at the same time, Clark Griswold is also a perfect Holiday Hero, because he represents the dogged spirit of the every-man who just wants to survive the holidays with both his sanity and dignity in tact.  They both represent the highs and lows that the holiday can bring and how each are changed by the end makes the experience of the Holiday such an important factor in those stories.  It’s what makes a Holiday movie a classic, and so often we see other films that get the idea from these archetypal stories very wrong.  Either a Holiday film will have a hero who’s too pure and optimistic or a character so dogmatic about their drive for holiday perfection that they become unappealing and uninteresting. Overall, we long for the heroes who experience the Christmas season the way we want to experience it, whether it be in a traditional happy way or in a life-altering, challenging way.  The holidays are after all about helping us to remember the needs of our fellow man, so our heroes should embody that spirit as well.

When we look at many of our favorite movies over the years, it’s natural to think that any of them were always viewed as beloved classics from the day they premiered.  Some of them have no doubt, but there are many others that didn’t find their way into our hearts until many years later.  Oftentimes, it’s just a matter of timing, and that some movies were either overlooked upon their first release, or they fell victim to poor marketing that didn’t effectively allow the movies to find their target audience.  For whatever reason, Hollywood often has a hard time predicting how movies will perform, both in the short run and the long run.  No doubt, the business of the industry is centered around profitability and the more a film is able to make a return on their grosses in their immediate release the better.  That’s why there’s such a reliance on franchise building and sequel bating in the film industry, especially if your film costs are in the $100 million range.  But, there are the films that are stuck in the middle, those that are ambitious but hard to market that unfortunately are held to the same standard of the blockbusters.  It may seem unfair, but Hollywood is a commercial business, and the only way money gets spent is if those providing the funding can see the potential for big returns.  Thankfully, many filmmakers have become good at pitching projects that do push the boundaries and try something different while at the same time appealing to a large audience.  And these ambitious experiments often turn into some of the greatest cinematic wonders that we love today.  Unfortunately, they are also films that make Hollywood weary of failure.

This is common around Awards season, and this year in particular is a strong example of many ambitious projects under-performing according to the high standards of Hollywood.  The last month, we saw a strong collection of releases from some of Hollywood’s most acclaimed talent, which included Guillermo del Toro’s Crimson Peak, Robert Zemeckis’ The Walk, Danny Boyle’s Steve Jobs and the Sandra Bullock starrer Our Brand is Crisis.  All were heavily marketed as potential Awards season champions and quality entertainment that was sure to give the season a more sophisticated identity over the bombastic dumb fun of the summer.  Unfortunately, apart from Ridley Scott’s The Martian and Steven Spielberg’s Bridge of Spies, every other ambitious film from the last month failed at the box office.  Entertainment Weekly recently ran an article discussing this very thing in their November 13 issue (read it here) in which they dubbed the string recent disappointments “SHOCKTOBER.”  While Hollywood should fret about a pattern of underwhelming returns at the box office, at the same time I don’t think that it’s also fair to say that it was the movies themselves that were to blame.  Really, even though the recent box office has been sluggish, it’s not a reflection of the quality of the films, and many of them are actually still worth seeing.  I already reviewed The Walk and Crimson Peak favorably, and I actually believe that Steve Jobs is one of the best films of the year so far.  But because none of these movies made a profit, it unfortunately leads to a desire on Hollywood’s part to not invest in projects like them in the future, and that’s the sad reality about the business.  Though immediate box office can help boost a movie’s esteem, sometimes other films take their time, and develop their audiences over a long period.  And in some cases, this is actually better for the lifespan of a movie.

It’s the staying power of a movie that ultimately belies it’s greatness.  When we look at the best movies of all time, they all share a popularity with audiences that transcends their time and place.  But, when you dig deeper into a handful of them, you will notice that many lists of the greatest movies ever made will include a mix of both successes and failures from box offices of years past.  For every Star Wars (1977), Some like it Hot (1959), and Casablanca (1943) there’s a Blade Runner (1982), a Groundhog’s Day  (1992), and a Touch of Evil (1958).  All are considered masterpieces now, but the latter category didn’t achieve success immediately and in fact weren’t fully appreciated until many years later.  In some cases, a spectacular failure can even turn into a beloved classic completely out of nowhere.  I’m sure nobody thought that director Frank Capra’s biggest box office failure would turn into his most beloved feature decades later; the Christmas perennial It’s a Wonderful Life (1946).  That movie performed so badly that it shut down the company that made it, and yet today it is almost a sin for it not to air on network television during the holidays.  These are clear signs that great movies always find their audiences eventually; it’s just that not all of them do it in the same way.  Though the stigma of failure can plague a movie for a while, we’ve been shown that quality does get appreciated in the end and that time can help refresh a film’s perception in interesting ways.  Why, we’re even seeing that now with notorious flops like Heaven’s Gate (1980), which was deemed worthy of a Criterion release recently despite it’s reputation.

But, for these movies to exist at all there has to be credibility in their value, and Hollywood, as much as they try, can’t always predict how movies will perform in the long run.  This ultimately effects what films end up getting made, and the need for immediate satisfaction is the prevailing desire on the part of those financing the projects.  When a movie fails to make money, the studios become less likely to invest more into something different, and that’s when we see fewer chances being taken.  I would only ask Hollywood to consider the fact that movies, if they are good enough, can be more profitable in the long run and that immediate box office won’t always be the last word on a film’s success.  Take the case of Ridley Scott’s Blade Runner; this was a box office failure in it’s time and people viewed it as a sign of Scott’s decline in stature in the industry.  But, with subsequent home video releases and airings on cable, the movie found an audience and  became a cult hit.  That cult status later hit the mainstream and now Blade Runner is not only considered one of Scott’s most beloved films, but also considered to some as his masterpiece over successes like Alien (1978) and Gladiator (2000).  Also, most importantly, it has become a moneymaker for it’s studio Warner Brothers; maybe not to a Star Wars level, but still you’ll see a fair share of memorabilia and special edition releases devoted to the film to this day, all of which generate plenty of money.  This is a perfect example of a movie that has aged beautifully, like fine wine.  It shows that you can’t just dismiss a movie right away because it didn’t give you what you wanted up front.  That being said, no body can predict how audiences tastes will change over time.

A large part of how a movie does perform at the box office has to do with how well it answers the hype that surrounds it.  Marketing of course does the work of generating attention for movies, and in many cases hype can be helpful and deserved.  But, there’s also the risk of putting too much hype on a film , because it can generate the wrong kind of attention.  This was the case with many of the recent releases that failed at the box office this October.  A lot of attention was drawn to the quality filmmakers and star power that these movies had, and also the fact that they were about something important and/or artistically daring.  In most cases they were, but the marketing failed to make that case to audiences.  What I saw in the advertisements for these films was a desperate desire to make these movies appear important, but at the same time, it ended up also making them appear indistinct.  That’s the danger of Awards season marketing; studios want to make these movies look like contenders, such as those that have succeeded before them, but at the same time, it diminishes what could have made them different from the rest.  The Steve Jobs movie, for example is one of the most interesting cinematic experiments I’ve seen this year; telling the story of a historical figure in our culture in only 3 scenes, helped out by the masterful direction from Danny Boyle and a killer screenplay by Aaron Sorkin.  Unfortunately, that daring artistic choice is not highlighted in the marketing, and it made the movie look just like any other biopic we’ve seen, which it is not.  The same can be said about the downplaying of the artistic achievements in Crimson Peak and The Walk.  Like the Entertainment Weekly article states, this is a case where Hollywood fell victim to making “too many films for a similar audience.”  But when you look at the films themselves, there’s nothing similar about them at all.  It’s only the marketing that made it look like they were of the similar vein.  That’s the danger of Award season marketing, because it puts all movies into a similar category when really they should belong in their own spotlight.

And being the big winner of award season doesn’t always give a movie a long life span either.  Anybody else remember Ordinary People, the Best Picture Oscar winner of 1980?  Didn’t think so.  There are other years where you can find many of the greatest classics ever made by Hollywood that all lost to a movie that few today even remotely remember.  One of the more recent examples of this was 1999.  That year, American Beauty walked away with the big awards, beating out movies like The Green Mile and The Sixth Sense.  It probably made sense at the time, but sixteen years later, the movies that stand out from 1999 that have aged the best are ones that weren’t even nominated; American Beauty not being one of them.  This includes my own favorite film from that year, David Fincher’s Fight Club.  The movie reached theaters amid mixed reviews from critics and a disappointing box office run, especially given that A-lister Brad Pitt was the star of it.  But, despite not clicking with the Hollywood elite initially, Fight Club did find success in the underground market, especially among college aged youth at the time, and like Blade Runner it developed a cult following that eventually hit the mainstream.  Now Fight Club is rightfully considered a classic years later, even to the point where awarded thesis papers are written today on college campuses across America discussing the philosophical questions raised by the film and it’s significance to cinematic art.  Other 1999 films have also likewise developed devoted followings like The Matrix and The Iron Giant, and have since left a remarkable impact in the decade following their release.  Iron Giant in fact recently received a special anniversary re-release, which is pretty remarkable for a movie that bombed when it first came out.  All the while, American Beauty isn’t even mentioned much today, much less seen worthy of an anniversary re-release.  Director Sam Mendes is in fact much more heralded today for his James Bond movies and less for the film that earned him an Oscar.  It just shows that vying for the end of the year gold doesn’t always guarantee a long life span for your film, and that sometimes it’s much better to make a movie that builds an audience over time.

The other thing that determines a movie’s ability to find it’s audience is how it deals with the circumstances of it’s release. Like I stated earlier, failure in the beginning doesn’t always mean failure for eternity in the whole of cinematic history.  If a movie is worthy of it, it will eventually find an audience.  Sometimes this is helped by viewing the film through the prism of nostalgia.  This often happens with movies that are emblematic of the time they were made and feel unique when contrasted with the movies of today.  Just look at any of the movies mocked on Mystery Science Theater.  What seemed bland and sub-par in it’s own time can come off as charmingly ridiculous when taken out of their original contextual time period.  The same goes with some of Hollywood’s more undiscovered classics.  People attracted to different genres can often find a hidden gem deep in the studio vaults, if Hollywood gives them a  chance to be seen.  That’s why Film Noir, Western and Sci-fi genres benefit from the passage of time, because audiences that seek out unseen classics will almost always find what they are looking for, just due to the sheer probability taken out of diverse tastes.  Time makes us ultimately forget how a movie performed and instead makes us see the movie on it’s own merits, as a great story worth telling and that’s what ultimately makes them a classic in the end.  Sometimes a great film was overlooked at the time just because the studio didn’t see any value in it and decided to bury it for years.  Thankfully, with the resources we have now, nothing is buried anymore, and even the forgotten are given a chance to shine.  Blade Runner and Fight Club managed to do it on home video, and It’s a Wonderful Life did it on television.  The more avenues a movie has given to it, the better chance it has to find it’s audience in the end, and all the great ones do eventually.

So, despite Entertainment Weekly’s worries that one bad month is an omen of ill tidings for the industry, it should not be a reflection on the movies themselves.  A great film eventually finds a way to make money in the long run.  Sadly, Hollywood is an impatient beast, and waiting for returns a decade later is not a good way to run a business.  So, movies like Steve Jobs, Crimson Peak and The Walk are going to carry the stigma of being disappointments for a while, and it will probably hurt their chances during Awards season, which is a little unfair.  But, Hollywood should understand that box office numbers are not always a sign of a film’s actual overall value.  Sometimes a failure at the box office may be discovered by an aspiring filmmaker who is then inspired by it and eventually one day they make a game-changing film that does produce an immediate box office success.  Overall, I’m saying that Hollywood execs shouldn’t be discouraged from taking chances once in a while.  Yeah, it will be good for business if you travel down the safe route with predictable, name brand fair that’s guaranteed to give you a big opening weekend.  But, if you have the opportunity to reach for greatness by making something that’s different and challenging, it may give you decades worth of positive returns.  Basically, you’re left with the choice between producing an opera or a fireworks show.  Both have the potential to entertain, but one will stick with people for far longer despite costing you more initially.  Hopefully the October releases this year can stick it out; and the awards season has been known to pull movies out of the abyss of disappointment by giving them the spotlight through a deserved nomination.  In that regard, it shows that playing the long game can be tricky, but at the same time, oh so rewarding.