16: The Secret of the Hoop
Note: pretty much every film mentioned in this essay will contain spoilers for that film. The only ones worth watching are over 20 years old, but please be aware that if you see a film’s title and want to experience it with no prior knowledge, it’s time to stop reading and watch that film before continuing.
Film critic and screenwriter April Wolfe is fond of saying that the enjoyment of film is in no way contingent on avoiding spoilers. “It’s not what happens, but how it happens” could practically be her catchphrase. By and large, this is borne out in the legacy of many films. Well made films with a twist or surprising endings are capable of standing the test of time regardless of how well known their endings are. Were this not the case, Planet Of The Apes (1968), Star Wars Episode V: The Empire Strikes Back (1980) and The Usual Suspects (1995) would have had no legacy after their initial releases. The fact is though the shots are well composed, the scenes are well acted, and the writing is compelling, so even if we know that Earth is the Planet Of The Apes, that Vader is Luke’s father, or who Keyzer Soze is, the films remain solid watches. In the mean time, a film with poor acting and poor writing that is only compelling due to its twist like The Happening (2008) is going to age about as well as a fish on a radiator. Once anyone knows that the trees sneezing is what’s killing Mark Wahlburg* it loses any sense of import and interest. Once we know that Leonardo DiCaprio is himself an inmate on Shutter Island, the film simply becomes an exercise in tedium of waiting for him to figure it out. If how it happens is boring, and we know what happens already, what’s the point of spending 2 hours of our time on it?
This however is not to say that there is no value in the surprise of a twist. Fight Club (1999) may continue to hold value once you know that the Narrator is in fact Tyler Durden, but it holds a different kind of value. Once one knows the twist, it’s fun to see the foreshadowing, and to be able to pick up on the subtlest of clues as to how the Narrator and Tyler are the same person. Its fight scenes still hit hard, its jokes are still funny, and David Fincher's little touches are worth the viewer's time. The first viewing however is its own special experience. There is an unease to the film, and without knowing where that unease is coming from it simply feels like something just out of reach is being hinted at but not explicitly stated, giving a delicious tension to an already tense film. Twists aren’t everything, but twists nonetheless have their place in the world.
This is why I hate the 1994 official theatrical release poster for the film The Hudsucker Proxy.
Ethan Coen’s explanation of why The Hula Hoop was chosen as the thing that Norville would invent to be Hudsucker’s accidental success goes as follows: “We had to come up with something that this guy was going to invent that on the face of it was ridiculous. Something that would seem, by any sort of rational measure to be doomed to failure, but something on the other hand the audience already knew was going to be a phenomenal success.“ Norville however never really explains the Hula Hoop before we see the toy in its prototype form in the Hudsucker board room. He does not list its dimensions, whether the circle is solid or hollow, what it is made of or what one is to do with it. At no point does he say “it’s a thing that you shake around your hips to keep it moving.” Before the scene where Norville presents the hoop in the boardroom, we as the audience see it being “presented” in the exact same way three times. Norville produces a drawing of a circle with nothing else. He says nothing and produces a wide eyed smile trying to communicate “is this not the most exciting idea you’ve ever seen?” It of course is not the most exciting thing to his fellow mailroom employee, Sidney Mussburger, or Amy Archer as they stare at it dumbfounded, prompting Norville’s smile to leave his face as he offers the non-explanation of “you know, for kids!” Ethan Coen’s statement tells us that there should be a disconnect between the characters’ perception of Norville’s circular drawing (that it’s nonsense) and what we as the audience know (that it’ll be a hit).
The thing is though, we as the audience already know it’ll be a hit. The entire architecture of the film from the first scene screams that this is a Frank Capra style big city fairytale. The Coens like to subvert genres, but not so much that they’re going to give the big broad screwball comedy a bummer ending. We know as the opening credits roll that Norville will prevail. He’ll get the girl (even though we haven’t met the girl yet, we know there will be a girl) and will triumph over the villain (though we haven’t met him yet either but we know there will be one). We know that despite his outward country bumpkin appearance he’ll win against all odds. We know this not even necessarily because we’ve seen a Frank Capra movie** but because we’ve seen any movie. We’ve read any book. We’ve heard any story. The Hudsucker Proxy does not present as tragedy, therefore chances are good that it’s going to have a happy ending. Just as sure as Oliver Twist will ultimately escape poverty, as sure as Oberon & Titania will resolve their differences, as sure as David will defeat Goliath, we know in our hearts that Norville will not end up jellying the sidewalk. We know that whatever that circle is, it will be a success.
So why not let us as the audience relish in the same confusion as the people Norville presents his hoop idea to? What on earth could this circle be? Why is this circle specifically for kids? It’s not that knowing that Norville will invent the hula hoop ruins the film, but it certainly detracts from the initial viewing. Potentially this is something that Warner Brothers realized for the international releases of the film, where the poster was altered to no longer include the graphic of Norville gripping the hoop. The French and Spanish language releases changed the title to “The Great Leap” changing the visual anchor from Tim Robbins with a hula-hoop to Paul Newman with a cigar, and changing the background to Waring Hudsucker jumping out of the building.
The UK poster simply used the same basic image as the US poster but changed Norville gripping the hoop to him gripping two piles of cash.
Even the first DVD rerelease of the film recognized that there was value in not broadcasting the hoop’s presence to a would-be viewer (even though the graphic design makes it look more like a Hitchcock pastiche than a Capra one)
Indeed, I myself first experienced the movie divorced from any promotional material. A friend owned a copy, and told me “oh, if you love Fargo, you’ll love this, it’s by the same two guys” and popped in the VHS tape without letting me see the box art. If its initial audiences had seen the film I had and had the same “oh my god it’s the Hula Hoop!” moment as Norville presents his circle to the board, perhaps it would have hit differently. I still even had Ethan Coen’s moment of knowing what the hoop was and that it would be a huge success before the rest of the characters did as the board reacted with their bevvy of befuddled questions***. “You fools! You can stop this now before he’s a success and ruins you!” my inner monologue was shouting, and so even with my moments of initial befuddlement at Norville’s unlabeled circular diagram I still got some amount of time of knowing something the characters didn’t, which lasted a short enough time to not go stale. Maybe with that feeling moviegoers would have had better things to say about Hudsucker and it would have done more box office numbers. Who knows. What is unassailably true however is that some of Hudsucker’s audience was robbed of this delicious little surprise. If the film has a mis-step in this regard though, it’s not textual. It’s not in the script or the shots or anything one experiences in the movie as itself, but rather as a failure in extra-textual content. The great irony is that the very thing that’s meant to communicate “come see this movie” potentially drove people away.
*I assume this is what the twist ending of The Happening is. I vaguely remember it being the case and I frankly refuse to look it up or let my fact checker correct it.
** Though when the film was released in 1994 this was a reasonable expectation. In 1974 It’s A Wonderful Life (1946) entered the public domain and as a result became free holiday fodder for any television network to use. It’s been difficult to find a holiday season in which It’s A Wonderful Life doesn’t play on TV since, so we’ve all probably seen at least one Frank Capra movie.
*** The question “what if you tire before it’s done” regarding the hula hoop is so deliciously absurd that if you start to think about it for more than a minute it practically becomes a zen koan.