Suspension of Disbelief in Film and TV

I am curious how important Suspension of Disbelief is for people. I imagine this is a topic covered in film school, and of course movie creators and reviewers are no doubt well aware of it.

I would say this kills my enjoyment of a movie quicker than anything else. But it's not for the reasons that people often cite...that a) a character acted in an illogical way, or b) that there was a plot hole.

a can usually be explained quite easily - people do stupid things all the time in real life, and in movies characters are often under immense pressure so not thinking straight is understandable. I find that b can also often be explained because what people often call plot holes aren't that at all.

My Suspension of Disbelief is usually ruined due to the tone of a movie not matching what is going on. The best examples I can give is the first Indiana Jones film and the show Quantum Leap. I was excited to watch the entire set of Indy movies, noting how many consider one or two to be among the best films of their respective decade, but after the first I just couldn't continue. It totally kills the experience for me when characters are in very serious and dire circumstances and the tone of the movie is jokey and lighthearted. Quantum Leap was the same way. I get that this is meant to be family fare. That's fine and I respect that, but it doesn't change the experience for me.

So what do you guys think? How important is this for you, and what are examples in film that you can give? I must assume, with content like Indy and Quantum Leap, there must be many people who can look past this more than I can. That said, I find that for the vast majority of movies, my SOD remains fairly intact.

 

Was there a specific part in Raiders that got to you? Just curious. Its my favorite movie of all time.

 

I don't think so. I saw it a long time ago. I'd have to watch it again to say what parts I dislike most. But from what I recall, the incongruity between tone and events ran pretty consistent throughout most of the film. I remember just not being into the film throughout most of it.

 

Not sure what to say but they're movies. I think starting with Hitchcock the studios realized humour and adventure worked perfect, cartoon movies for adults. Hitchcock described his films like adventure thrill rides where you're scared but then leave laughing. The build up of tension and then the release is a great formula which Raiders uses magnificently. I just watched Crawl (2019) a "horror" film about alligators stalking two people trapped in a crawlspace during a hurricane...complete B movie cheese-a-rama you'd think but the director's brilliant use of the formula makes it a real classic that some people get and a lot miss out on. It is a continuous jump scare film but done like a haunted house ride, you know the scare is coming, it arrives you jump up, laugh and wait for the next one. If you take this movie serious for one second you lose all the fun the same as a haunted house ride. So I suggest to relax, grab some popcorn and enjoy the entertainment.

 

Raiders was a slapstick farce. I can't suspend belief for a screwball comedy. I think the suspension of belief applies to a serious film, a drama. A story that sucks you in, where the actors inhabit the roles, and you almost feel like you are in it with them.

 

When I watch a movie, I just go with the flow - unless it becomes unbearable.

 

I'm having to suspend everything that can be suspended to get through the final season of Dark on Netflix. One episode left.

 

With Hitchcock I downgrade North By Northwest because it's ultimately about nothing. Hitchcock had other movies where there is some backbone or deeper resonance, but it's not there in North By Northwest. To me, that is what OP is getting at. He wants to care more about what's going on, and the movies or TV shows take him out of it with the joking.

 

I love Hitchcock. I don't know, Hitchcock doesn't have characters who act like they are having a good time while almost the worst things possible are happening to them (note: I still need to watch a lot of his movies). It's the tone of the characters themselves that bothers me. And how can I feel nervous for them in their predicament when they don't even seem the slightest bit nervous themselves?

Was Raiders a screwball comedy? I think of Adam Sandler movies as screwball comedies. And the characters in those movies act the way I would expect them to. Suspension of disbelief is therefore maintained. Yeah, they are not realistic or Oscar worthy films in the slightest, but adults behaving like children is a real thing, and in the context of those movies I'd argue that what generally happens is about right.

 

I just need something to be presented in a way that feels true to itself. (Maybe I don't even always need that– but in context of this discussion, that is where I land) So I thoroughly enjoyed Raiders when I was a kid, and I love the first Guardians of the Galaxy movie while they are joking with intergalactic power in the balance, and I love A Woman is a Woman when they act like there's gonna be a song and there isn't, and The Little Tramp who scampers through deprivation, and Ray Gun Virus which is just flickering frames.

 

Where do they get food?
Or do they ever eat?
Who’s Adam & Eve’s tailor?

 

I could theorize an influence on the writers from growing up reading Marvel Comics, wherein the heroes (Spiderman, or The Thing, just to name two examples out of a myriad) are constantly cracking jokes during battles with evil-doers while lives (or even higher stakes) are on the line.

I know G. Lucas was HEAVILY influenced by Marvel Comics (cf. the ill-advised attempt to bring Howard The Duck to the cinema. And yes, Howard The Duck is another of Marvel's wisecracking heroes.)

 

I think you are talking about the wrong topic: it's not "Suspension Of Disbelief", it's..."Willing Suspension of Disbelief". In other words, the level not of which you are willing to believe what you are watching and how the conflicts and drama affect your attention level...but the level of investment you are allowing the filmmaker to get on with his story, without having to turn to the audience every few moments to ask, "are ya still with me?".

Sometimes you have to give the filmmaker latitude that you trust the filmic language he's working with, even if it is not in the same manner you are expecting from him. In other words, your enjoyment of watching some dude's movie, is also dependent on your trust, whether you know what he's up to or not. And, this'll kill you, but, sometimes it's not all about you. You've got to let the guy telling the story, tell the story.

My wife is a good example of what happens when you don't do that. If she misses something in the narrative, she'll caterwaul and squeal until I go back and point out something to her. Or worse, if I miss something and she wants to know where it is, and I just say, "keeeep waaatchinnnggg...", she'll badger me to admit I didn't see what she's missing, and somehow blame me for that. I was willing to assume, if it wasn't rubbed under our noses, the plot glitch doesn't factor into the outcome (or, the filmmaker wants you to realize this later, and catching it ahead-of-time is only going to mess up your enjoyment). She wants it all now, and won't wait for somebody to tell the story in the order they think their story is important to be told.

There is a difference between incomplete information, and lackluster narrative. Sometimes you have to momentarily suspend your disbelief in order to see what the filmmaker has to say.

And...yes, I attended film school.

 

i dont mind a little far fetched or slapstick if the writing is good, for me its when actors act out of character , you see that a lot when new writers/show runners take over a show, and have turns that instinctively you know, thats now how that character acts and it kills it for me.

 

So long as a show is internally consistent and doesn't rely on Idiot Plots, I can suspend disbelief pretty far.

 

just keep thinking....it is a movie (or TV show) and everything will be OK

 

Willful suspension of disbelief.

We all engage in it in one form or another every time we watch a movie or a TV show. The second we sit down to watch fiction, we're well aware that what we're watching is make-believe. What's at issue is to what extent we accept the artist's fiction. A great deal of this has to do with how the author/director builds the fictional world. And then adheres to the established rules of that world. Sometimes the world is created via place-setting (like the Westworld series), and other times you're thrust into it and learn about it as the protagonist learns (The Terminator).

I have no problem with cybernetic murder robots from the future. I do have a problem when every subsequent sequel mangles the rules set forth in the initial film. Yes, I'll continue to watch the franchise, but the first one was the best, the rest have been disappointing.

Similarly, many films and series have come to rely on "unlikeable characters making poor decisions". This is lazy storytelling, and it snaps me out of the show quickly and violently. See The Walking Dead franchise for a clear example of that.

 

Just viewed a piece of animation concerning a "wascally wabbit" being pursued by a dim-witted hunter with a speech impediment. The wabbit also spoke-English,with a Brooklyn accent.Willful suspension of belief. Did not care to suspend disbelief. If it ain't true,I don't wanna know.

 

Different people will draw the line at different places.

I tried to watch the Queen movie and I couldn't get past those stupid teeth that Rami Malik wore. I shut it off.

 

Absolutely.

I'm struggling to get through Ray Donovan because the wife and the father are such horrible people, I simply can't accept that the title character hasn't shot the both of them in their respective faces.

 

You make a good point and I don't really disagree. As @'05Train pointed out, we kind of do this every time we sit down to watch a piece of fiction. I'm not sure your point is arguing against what I am saying.

I guess I am expressing a preference. That the tone of a film and it's characters are reflective of the events that are happening in it. When that doesn't happen then my suspension of disbelief is kind of shot. And I think it's easy to see why. Serious events, jokey vibe. The two don't go together and it's simply not realistic. I don't mind humor mixed in if it's done in a subtle way. The Coen Brothers and Tarantino are great examples of that. They work in a lot of humor but the overall tone manages to stay very serious, because it's not the characters themselves who are breaking out of the moment to make a quip to the camera (basically, that's what Indy is to me).

I was more of a Punisher fan. Probably not surprising given my preferences now.

I don't mind this. As I mentioned before, people make bad decisions all the time, and lot of people in real life are unlikable. You can have a good story with bad decisions made by the characters in it. And you can also tell a good story with unlikable characters. That's why I watch movies - to be told an interesting story, sometimes with an interesting message, and to experience either drama, or action, or comedy, etc. Characters are, in that way, just a means to an end, and sometimes they have to be unlikable and/or make the wrong decision because that's what the story calls for. Can you imagine if everyone in life always made the right decision? But it's a balancing act; poor decisions I am fine with, if it's plausible that a person would actually make that decision given the pressure they are under at the time and human nature (which is to make mistakes). With that, I find there is a quite a large degree of latitude, at least for me.

 

One thing that can ruin it for me is when an actor's accent, dialect, speech pattern etc. doesn't come across authentic. Like, every time I heard John Lithgow's Churchill impersonation on The Queen, the Netflix series. I see and hear both the actor and the character. They never blemd together for me.

Strangely, I had my suspicions before I saw David Fincher's The Girl with the Dragon Tattoo but I think it's great. I had seen the Swedish film based on the same novel, I know what a Swedish accent sounds like, and I've been to the country. The actors had just enough of a hint of the accent, I thought, to mark their characters as "Swedish." Language never became an issue for me because what I saw and heard felt borne from confidence.

 

You're adding the "sometimes" qualifier. Of course there are unlikeable people who make poor choices in real life. But again, look at The Walking Dead franchise. There are precious few truly likeable characters. And everyone continues to make poor decisions. However many seasons in, and it's as though no one has learned a thing since Z-Day.

I can accept that they live in a world in which George Romero never existed. I can accept that they live in a world in which the concept of and the actual word "zombies" doesn't exist. But when entire seasons and story arcs require that the same people continue to make the same mistakes....It defies reason, and demands that characters remain in developmental stasis.

 

Can't really comment on that show, never having seen it. But yes, I think that would begin to bother me. Sounds like a show that has run it's course.

Movies take place over a much shorter timespan than a long TV series, so mistakes made by characters in movies are probably easier to accept. Over the course of a long TV series that can cover many months or years, characters should learn from their mistakes.

 

It's not as if the audience has a checklist in mind going into a film or teleplay, your first challenge to "suspension of disbelief", is simply if the show rubs you the wrong way. Maybe the characters are a bit too obtuse, the buildup of a story doesn't seem naturally-occurring, or the audience is made aware of them being manipulated into "buying into it". Maybe there's just something the filmmaker does that irritates you, losing your desire to follow the characters there. Any number of circumstances.

Obviously the audience will be more willing to follow the plot without incredulity, if they feel they're being played straight with. Less intentional plot holes, more trust that even what they don't get, isn't gonna distract them until the big reveal. Then they won't feel nudged into "picking it apart" before the third reel.

Show less of what a great, fancy auteur you are, and focus that into delivering a great narrative.

Scorsese does that for breakfast.