Film Theory 1.02

Cellular phones have killed movies.

Not in the way you think, either. Sure, we all hate those complete assholes who neglect to turn off their phones in the theater, so that halfway through a movie you might very well be enjoying, you have that annoying "DUN-nuh-nuh-nuh-DUN-nuh-nuh-nuh-DUH-nuh-nuh-nuh-NUH" noise coming out of nowhere. (And yes, I have occasionally been that asshole - but it was an accident, I swear.) I'm actually making the argument that the invention of cellular phones has had a massive, and largely negative, impact on the films themselves.

No really, think about it. The popularity of cellular phones in real life makes it outright implausible that any character in a movie wouldn't have one. As a result, they have the instantaneous ability to call anyone for any reason. Trapped by zombies? Call someone. Susan's husband is a murderer? Call her. "Hey Susan, you're husband's the murderer." "Oh, thanks!" Cellular phones would be the answer to practically every suspenseful problem ever created... and so they must be stopped at all costs.

Screenwriters are constantly forced to work around this frustrating device with the following lines of dialogue. Try to remember how many times you've heard them!

"Damn, I can't get a signal!"

"My battery's run out."

"They shot my phone!"

Every single time you hear one of these buzz-phrases, or variations thereof, think about the scene you're watching. If the character's cellular phone worked, would the suspense be dead? Would the movie, in fact, be over? Overwhelming odds point to yes.

I was doing some research on the original series of Star Trek recently, and I discovered an interesting factoid about the Starfleet communicators they invented for the show. Apparently, Gene Roddenberry created them specifically so they could break down or lose their signal, because he knew that otherwise, Kirk could just call for backup at any given time and that would be the end of the episode. Cell phones were a problem for screenwriters before they were even invented! (Another interesting tidbit is that the original Starfleet communicators were flip-phones, exactly like most cellular phones on the market today. Coincidence? Geeks working for Nokia? Or just prescient sci-fi? You decide.)


Very few movies or television shows actually embrace the possibilities of cellular phones to further their plotting, rather than work around them because they're a hindrance. 24 would be a very difficult show to write if Jack couldn't call Chloe at the drop of a hat to relay information, or receive blueprints of whatever abandoned warehouse he's breaking into this week. I'd very much like to see a season of the show in which Jack doesn't have his phone, and is constantly forced to borrow quarters in order to check in with CTU.

Another favorite of mine is the film Cellular, an already forgotten genre film in which Kim Basinger plays a kidnapping victim who calls Chris Evans at random, and needs to keep him on the phone throughout the entire film in order to save her family. Cellular actually uses cellular phones in varied and interesting ways from a storytelling perspective. Signals get crossed, so Chris has to steal someone's phone. His battery is dying, so he needs to steal a charger at gunpoint. He needs to stay silent because the kidnappers are in the room, so someone drives up next to him blaring their car stereo. Clever stuff. The film is basically a one-trick pony, but it's clever enough to keep finding new ways to milk its conceit for the full running time.

One of my screenwriting professors in college used to talk about popular movie cliches. For example, the shot of a character at a bus stop, about to leave town. The bus pulls up between the camera and the character, then pulls away, and he's still there. Yeah, it's a cliche, and yeah, we've seen it a hundred times. But as my professor said, "We keep using it because no one's thought of a better way to do the scene."

I know you writers are on strike, and I support you wholeheartedly. I just want to point out that you now have plenty of time to discover a better way to incorporate cell phones into your narrative, rather than find excuses to pretend like they don't exist. If someone ever figures out a way to ensure that cell phones always have a decent signal, it could mean the end of scripted entertainment as we know it (or they might decide to make every new film a period piece).

(Strange but true: Film actress Hedy Lamarr actually co-developed the wireless communications patent that eventually led to the invention of the cell phone. That's Hedy...)

Hollywood? I'm just going to make this clear: I swear that if I hear the line, "I can't get a signal" one... more... time...

I'm going to know that you got lazy.

(See this? This is you.)