Chekhov’s Gun
Anton Chekhov stated that there should be nothing significant in a story that is either unnecessary or replaceable:
Remove everything that has no relevance to the story. If you say in the first chapter that there is a rifle hanging on the wall, in the second or third chapter it absolutely must go off. If it’s not going to be fired, it shouldn’t be hanging there.
You know the kind of thing…
Daniel’s crane move in Karate Kid.
The glasses in Chinatown.
Buzz Lightyear’s ‘falling with style’ in Toy Story.
But this kind of foreshadowing can go in good and bad directions.
Great movies set up elements you’re generally unaware of because they exist in nuance and character:
In There Will Be Blood Daniel Plainview accepts the story of the man who pretends to be his brother because he invests great importance in the connections of blood that have thus far eluded him.
In Schindler’s List Oskar Schindler saves 1300 Jews from the Holocaust by using the deceit and subterfuge that made his fortune in the early years of the war.
In Citizen Kane Kane’s ultimate unhappiness comes as he searches fruitlessly for the father he was taken from at the beginning of the movie. (Rosebud is another gun in the first act, but as it is mentioned all the way through we can hardly forget its existence or watch it make an unexpected reappearance.)
But bad movies… Shit… They chuck them in there like monkeys flinging turds:
My least favourite is in the film Signs. Just watch this clip and see how little trust the director has in the audience; how many shots telegraph the bat, and the line ‘Swing away’, which is another first-act gun in a collection that looks like the woodshed of an NRA fanatic:
Just as poor is Jurassic World: the moment in the beginning where Owen calms the raptors is repeated towards the end. Then again, the whole thing is a dismal remake of the 1993 original.
Finally, in Pixels Brenner has to win an ‘important’ Donkey Kong game because he lost an ‘important’ Donkey Kong game as a kid. Yawn.
All films use the start of the movie to create the end, but if that use is artless and crass the whole movie can feel like a lazy mess.
So there you go: make your guns as subtle as possible and they won’t go off in your face.
I’ve often wondered about this in connection with Coen films, which can seem like elaborate, fascinating shaggy dog stories. Even Fargo, which has a gripping ‘will she catch the bad guys?’ plot, there’s the scene where Frances Dormand has dinner with her Japanese-American high school classmate in Minneapolis, and he breaks down and confesses his attachment to her. It’s bizarrely memorable because you don’t see it coming and it seems to have nothing to do with the plot. The best I can come up with is that this scene underlines her calm, down-to-earth nature in all situations, which drives the whodunnit.
Maybe it’s just that the Coens are such talented storytellers that they can introduce wilder, seemingly irrelevant ‘guns’ into their tales, and still resolve them into brilliant films.
Always admired Pegg/Wright scripts for their clever foreshadowing – almost used in an ironic way to reward repeat viewings rather than set up the actual plot.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=kwlOo2Tg96o
That is very good.
Pulp Fiction is full of unnecessary dialogue though.
It can work both ways Mr Chekhov.
See also the callback – often used in comedy. Stewart Lee writes quite interestingly about it in his How i escaped my certain fate book which is excellent. Though he talks about it being abused by lazy comedians
That book is indeed excellent.
couldn’t resist posting this. a rather genius student film based entirely on the notion of Chekhov and his gun. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=KhfGp0Ik_q4
Nice. Thanks.