Screenwriters play tricks to let us know we should like characters
August 10th, 2003
BY CHRIS HEWITT
Man's best friend? Maybe. Screenwriter's best friend? For sure.
Dogs play a key role at the movies, and we're not talking about Cujo. "Petting the dog" is a crucial, and hitherto secret, shortcut that screenwriters use to subliminally influence our opinion of characters. And it doesn't have to have anything to do with dogs "petting the dog" refers to a screenwriting trick that filmmakers use to clue us in that we are supposed to like a character we're just meeting. It could be that he helps an old lady cross a street, is cheerful in the face of illness or picks up litter in a park in all of those cases, the character is "petting the dog" and we are being told: This is a good guy.
"Probably the ultimate petting-the-dog scene is Jack Nicholson in As Good As It Gets, says Mark Steven Johnson, the Hastings native who wrote and directed Daredevil. "He's this miserable, racist, homophobic creep, but he likes that little puppy in the hallway, so you think, `He's OK. Who cares if he hates people?'"
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Man's best friend? Maybe. Screenwriter's best friend? For sure.
Dogs play a key role at the movies, and we're not talking about Cujo. "Petting the dog" is a crucial, and hitherto secret, shortcut that screenwriters use to subliminally influence our opinion of characters. And it doesn't have to have anything to do with dogs "petting the dog" refers to a screenwriting trick that filmmakers use to clue us in that we are supposed to like a character we're just meeting. It could be that he helps an old lady cross a street, is cheerful in the face of illness or picks up litter in a park in all of those cases, the character is "petting the dog" and we are being told: This is a good guy.
"Probably the ultimate petting-the-dog scene is Jack Nicholson in As Good As It Gets, says Mark Steven Johnson, the Hastings native who wrote and directed Daredevil. "He's this miserable, racist, homophobic creep, but he likes that little puppy in the hallway, so you think, `He's OK. Who cares if he hates people?'"
read more
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