Artistic decisions VS Realism VS Verisimilitude - sort of...

Sorry, if the title is confusing, but I plan to touch a wide area here.

The beginning of the film Rubber got me thinking about things yesterday (I only watched the opening scene and then had to do something else, so no spoilers please!), and today I read this xkcd sucks post, and finally decided to write a down my thoughts.

For those who are not familiar with the opening of Rubber, it's basically the following: a bunch of nonsensical things happen, then a character has the following monologue:

So I disagree with this - although I love this opening to death and can't wait to see the actual movie later this afternoon -, since all of these decisions are artistic decisions.

Let me try to make things clear. I don't like when upon watching a movie, someone complains about "realism" in movies. As the xkcd sucks post points out, these people confuse versimilitude with realism. So when they complain about something that's not "realistic", they almost always mean to say that the scene in question lacks internal consistency.

If we take the example of the xkcd-strip, this means that the guy waits for the salt for 20 minutes, and this is "not realistic", or better put "not internally consistent", since despite the fact, that the character is merely a drawing, we know well, that the drawing represents a human, and humans don't wait 20 minutes for the salt. Or if they do, they have a reason. And this scene is not poorly done because of the mere fact that the character waits for 20 minutes, but because no reason is given for this. This makes this scene not internally consistent with the fact that we are talking about human beings. The creator of the strip forgot to include a reason for the waiting.

However, and here is a twist: this was a conscious artistic decision, since the point of the strip is not to show consistent human behavior, but the punchline. So the "why did he wait 20 minutes?" question becomes a Fridge Logic type of question. So is the comic poorly done or not? YMMV

The first question in the Rubber opening scene (Why is E.T. brown?) comes down to a combination of an artistic decision, which may or may not have been a feeling of some sort ("I think it looks best in brown") and the somewhat circular nature of this question: if E.T. is green, you can just as easily ask why is it green. So Spielberg did not address in the movie, why E.T. is brown. So this was an artistic decision, which was backed up by an unknown thought process in the artist's brain. So in terms of internal consistency, it indeed has "no reason", but it's not an important plot point. It has to be some color...

For this reason, I myself only consider a story flawed, if it doesn't address a crucially important artistic decision. Since all plot developments are artistic decisions, to build verisimilitude, the artist has to explain things. If he fails at that, the audience is alienated. There are some things however which require no explanation - this makes all this a YMMV issue

Ok, so this is a Wallof Text now, and I'm not even sure you guys get what I wanted to talk about, so here are some questions to get the discussion going:

• 1. Are you bothered by the lack of verisimilitude in the works you watch/read/play?
• 2. From this point of view, when do you consider a story flawed?
• 3. Do you like to have an explanation for everything?
• 4. What does "realism" in movies/books/games mean to you?

I'll clarify my standpoint in the replies below - if I get any

edited 7th Nov '11 5:09:21 AM by Sati1984

Well - stating up-front that most of the stuff I like is speculative - I consider a work sufficiently realistic if the rules are consistent, the timeline is consistent, people behave like people, and the pseudoscience isn't too offensive about trying to be plausible.

I don't need an explanation for everything - nudges me out of the story a bit, really - though the lengths the Death Note manga went to to explain everything were truly stunning. Let it never be speculated that Light's sister could have taken the wrong bag of chips by mistake!

And then there are people like Michael Ende, Neil Gaiman and Alexander James Adams, who get to ignore all the rules of realism because reading or listening to them is like one of those dreams where you can breathe water: the fantastic is suddenly a reality unto itself.

I like stories that explain things - your quote from my recent memory only applied to Inception, which at times blatantly overexplained some things. But it still did not bother me too much.

So do you think that in these cases (I would put David Lynch in this league too) explanations aren't needed at all? What about internal inconsistencies?

Where is the line between "It looks like they threw together some entirely random things, and this is bothering me, since X and X is not explained." and "It only seems random, everything has a reason, I just don't know what it is, but it does not stop me from enjoying the movie."?

The thing those three have in common (and David Lynch does not, IMO) is sort of a... Jungian dream-resonance, I guess. Of course phoenixes will abandon the mistrustful, and of course your inner child finds your dreams too confining, and of course being in the presence of a preternatural listener will let you realize the problems inherent in your quarrel. I can't say that being forced to milk a cat as a daily antidote dealie falls into that category, especially when you're a character who should by rights be seen again after that scene and never is. Even Ende and Gaiman can't ignore intrinsic plot threads.

EDIT: Tim Burton at his best - Edward Scissorhands and Big Fish - is also a resident of Fantastica.

Honestly, even the Death Note manga's explanations made the story less compelling than it was in the anime - for the first arc. The second arc of the anime didn't explain enough, making the manga's overexplanations preferable. I guess that serves as a rough litmus for my standards.

edited 7th Nov '11 6:51:39 AM by DomaDoma

I'm planning to see Death Note real soon, but until I do, can you explain this in terms of Inception, or anything else I might have seen?

Huh. Strange difference to make for me. Because so far I've always said realism is internal consistency first, and being near to reality only second. But even if that definition is wrong, I don't think it's confusion, just, well, different semantics.

Now, whatever you call it, yes, it is important to me. Obviously it depends on the kind of story. xkcd comics are all about the punchline and not about the story, so a guy waiting 20min in a comic doesn't bother me. But works that do depend on the story should have realism or verisimilitude or whatever (i.e. primarily internal consistency).

The thing is, works depending on their story need the viewers/readers/players/whatever engage in a willing suspension of disbelief. And internal contradictions just stand out and pierce through this suspension. Depending on how heavy they are, some merely scratch the suspension of disbelief, others completely destroy it.

A story can be flawed for various reasons. One can be lacking internal consistency, another important reason can be failing characterisations - characters who just don't appear real (too idealized, too one-sided etc.) or characters one just doesn't care about.

And yes, I do like as much explanation given as possible. IMO, it adds to the willing suspension of disbelief if we get details and more details of the background world. That way, we can be engaged with the background world, and hence the story, on as many levels as possible.

I haven't seen Inception. I know, I know, I'm flogging myself too. But... say Saffron stopped to explain in great detail just how she became a part of that rustic folk festival. That would be too much explanation: it's unknown, and it's relevant, but it's pretty ancillary to the plot of the episode.

edited 7th Nov '11 7:27:03 AM by DomaDoma

Why is E.T. brown?

The alien technology in E.T. is generally of an organic nature. As such, it actually makes sense that the alien species would have a more organic looking color to them. It's part speculative, part artistic, as the brown color fits in well with the color scheme of organics, or at least the organics that the aliens used for technology.

@Octo: About the last paragraph of your post: so what about the films of David Lynch? In Mulholland Drive for example, nothing is really explained, things just happen, and you're not even sure that they follow any kind of logic. Still, in the end, for me it was a satisfying experience. If you stop looking for the explanation, and just go with the flow.

So in my head, I divided the films to 2 categories: there are the "flow" type of movies, like Coraline, Mulholland Drive, Blue Velvet, etc. In them, I don't really mind internally inconsistent things, since they have limited internal consistency in the first place.

And then there are the "hard" type of films: The Matrix, Inception, Serenity, where the story must make sense on every level possible. I need more and more details, and these details make the universe richer and more alive.

And then of course there are films that are somehow the combination of the two: 2001ASpaceOdyssey, Clockwork Orange, etc., which have internal consistency, but for a great deal of the runtime, they evoke the "flow" feeling pretty well.

Do you have these same categories or do you have more/others?

@Doma Doma: Ah, you found my kind of example all right! Shiny!

... but wouldn't that be a violation of the Law of Conservation of Detail? If the explanation is useless in terms of the plot, I don't think any artist would bother to come up with such marginal and useless "explanations" in the first place.

About this, Lord Of The Rings comes to mind. When I read the book(s), I found it too detailed - all that info was distracting and had no relation to the quest of the main characters. For this reason, I think (blasphemous as it may be), that Lo TR is somewhat a poorly constructed novel. It's a great description of an imaginary world, but as a novel, it does not work well...

@Karmakin: I like that explanation, and you described one possible thought process which could have produced that result (artistic decision).

I've been on forums where they expect that kind of incidental thing to be explained in the narrative, and if the author chooses to save it for the interviews, well dammit, the work should stand on its own, so the "crippling plot hole" hasn't gone away just because the author totally knows how it would be filled.

(Crap like the legend of Nimrodel and Amroth goes beyond the realm of peripheral plot points straight into "my novel doubles as my worldbuilding bible; let me tie you to a chair and recite you my poetry.")

So what about people who do mean actual realism when they complain about the lack of it?

I loved White Ribbon because it was realistic, regardless of the fact that it didn't explain anything and didn't even resolve the plot. The realism itself was enjoyable enough to make it an unforgettable movie for me (one of the best I've seen), probably because of how scarce realism is in fiction.

Out of context, I would say that as long as it's not vogon poetry, it's not a big deal. But yeah...

I have not seen the White Ribbon yet, but it's pretty high on your list. So far of all the works I've seen, I think The Wire was the most realistic. Are they similar?

edited 8th Nov '11 2:07:59 AM by Sati1984

Consider the standard Wake Up, Go to School & Save the World plot, where the protagonists rush out to save humanity with little development of their thought processes. Now consider the beginning of Persona 4, which takes a few hours to show the characters slowly deciding to face the monsters they've discovered. I personally consider Persona 4 a bad game, but I can't help but disagree with those who say it has a bad beginning—the psychological development involved lends a certain amount of power to even the worst of the later sections.

edited 8th Nov '11 2:12:09 AM by feotakahari

Wow, this thread is full of works I will see/play in the next future. I do plan to play Persona games in the near future on my PS 2 or PSP...

This thread has piqued my interest. I have two examples and I'm wondering if you guys can check the level of realism in them and if you think, judging from these premises alone, they are good enough.

Example 1: The premise of Eden of the East. For those who are not familiar. Retired business man gives twelve different people from different backgrounds Y100, 000, 000, 000 with a phone that allows each of them to use this money to save Japan. To prevent them from just using the money as they wish, one of the twelve is tasked eliminate anyone who fails in the task or uses up all the money.

Example 2: The premise of Sister Princess. 15-year-old orphan fails to get into the high school on which he has set his heart, and to which his best friend has gained admittance. Forced by circumstances and the enigmatic adults around him to a strange island community off the coast of Japan, he receives the biggest surprise yet — waiting there for him are a baker's dozen sisters he'd never known he had.

I can forgive the initial premise just about anything, frankly, as long as everything down the line keeps consistency, tones down the coincidences, and explains as needed (oh, so that's why Voldemort couldn't kill a toddler.) It's the anthropic principle: sure, it's improbable, but probable premises make for dull stories.

edited 9th Nov '11 9:30:25 AM by DomaDoma

@OP: Watch the rest of Rubber.

It's fucking weird.

Agreed. Moreover, this seems to answer the OP, well at least the reason for ET being brown. It is part of the premise. I think if someone would choose to watch say a movie, then that person would have accounted for its premise; thus, agreeing with it. Why would a person watch something if he/she doesn't even like the premise? Now, if the premise is not realistic to one's tastes, that would be because each person has his/her own bias towards something. Creators realize this so their use of realism would adjust depending on their target audience so artistic decisions as the OP used is justified as long as its in making the premise. If theses decisions fail to gather an audience, well too bad. Try again.

Now, about consistency in the story itself, it would not even matter if the premise is not realistic. Premises limit the story to its own rules which may or may not be believable but must be followed. So if artistic decisions fail in doing so, there is a problem but I don't think it has anything to do with realism. To reiterate from above, realism is a characteristic of a story in varying levels depending on what was described by the premise. Problems in realism within the story itself depends if the story is not following the realism described in the premise. Anyway, isn't realism sort of a genre already?

As to why I posted those examples, I was curious if anyone would give another opinion. I'm interested in reading it.

edited 10th Nov '11 6:56:15 AM by MarquisDev

@Erock: I watched the rest of Rubber, and yes, it was weird... but didn't live up to the fantastic opening scene.

I kinda hoped that the bunch of binoculars and the chairs and everything else will not make any sense. Sadly, they did. Also, I felt the rest of the movie a bit forced. There were amazing fourth wall breaking moments though.