Voiced by Natalie Gadeikis, Staff Writer
Written by Alberto Gomez, Entertainment Editor
Simplicity in writing, storytelling, performance, cinematography, and even in advertising plagues the film industry today, although that’s not to say simplicity equates to vileness. On the contrary, the rub comes in understanding where and when simplicity excels. And this is where The Princess Bride comes into this issue’s “Analysis Paralysis.”
The Princess Bride is not a complicated movie, in any vein. Princess gets kidnapped, mysterious hero rescues princess, characters discover their true love, protagonists become estranged, hero inevitably flies to his love’s rescue again, and they pronounce their true love. Millions of other films were just perfectly summed up, just saved readers millions of hours on thousands of films.
Yet The Princess Bride goes above and beyond with the handling of these classic tropes. The first act of this film is rather cookie-cutter, the only difference in execution is its witty banter and excellent comedic timing. Everyone remembers the tragedy of Inigo Montoya, the Battle of Wits is one of the most witty monologues ever written, but excuse those two scenes, the first act is surprisingly plain. The most unique part of Act 1 is purely the characters and dialogue, nothing about the plot, yet, sticks out as all that fanciful. And so it continues with Act 2 and Act 3. The overall structure of the film is nothing to marvel at. The concept is as simple and cliche as it comes.
And there lies the marvel. Director Rob Reiner takes a simple concept and does nothing spectacular with it. Instead, he focuses not on the adventure but the people within it. Films like Divergent, The Hunger Games, and Twilight, choose to entrance audiences with the spectacle of adventure instead of making a believable and accessible protagonist with a centimeter of depth to enjoy the adventure. Look back at Katniss Everdeen and try to find personality in her. Besides “I love my sister and I’m constantly sad.” In movies like that, the protagonist is plagued by inaction. She does nothing to drive the plot forward, rather it the situation that drives her forward. This type of directing and writing leads to bland character development and takes away the adventure. No longer are audiences curious as to what the character will do next, but what will happen to the character next. This suspends audiences away from the protagonist and creates this immense disconnect from the characters. And the last thing a storyteller wants is for the audience to be disconnected.
Reiner puts the central focus on the actions of characters. Princess Buttercup, one of the main characters, is not called to marriage by some random selection, a character decides to make her his bride, immediately justifying why audiences should despise the prince forcing her into marriage. An unexplained disaster does not instigate the fabulous fencer Inigo Montoya’s pursuit for revenge, Count Rugen ruthlessly murders the man’s father when he was a child, immediately establishing a seeable force to despise. The adventure is simple. The character’s motivations and why they partake in an adventure is well established and has a clear purpose. At NO point is a viewer wondering “But why?” because each motivation is easily explained. Why does the man in black try to save Buttercup? Because he loves her and that is seen from the get-go. No one is waiting for some long, drawn out love letter just to say “I love you.” No time is wasted on some arbitrary love triangle because no one wastes their investments on a pointless and uninteresting cliche.
Typically, “Analysis Paralysis” dissects the themes of a piece, but in order to understand major themes of successful work, one must understand why a piece is successful and why it contains quality. The ability to discern between a poor piece and one of quality does not take training, but one does not simply wake up knowing why Catching Fire fails as a quality story. Anyone can tell when a piece is good or bad, but “Analysis Paralysis” aims to teach readers why films succeed with their delivery of thematics.