A detective with a coffee cup; a group therapy meeting; prescription drugs behind bathroom mirrors; an all-night stake-out; conversations at diners; parents at children’s recitals; people leaving offices with boxes full of stuff; a night in with Chinese takeout; folks at a seedy motel; the high school prom; Thanksgiving and Fourth of July celebrations; a 911 call. Just think of the number of times such situations have occurred in the American films you have watched. Have you ever wondered why the same stock set-ups recur in film after film irrespective of their maker or genre? They are, of course, not shot or executed in the same way. It is needless to say that a diner scene in a Quentin Tarantino film is distinctly different from one in a Rob Reiner film. They are used for different purposes with wildly contrasting effects. But the point is that the situation crops up in both. So is it just because American diners are common all across the country and are the most obvious locations for shooting scenes? Or is there more to such repeated usage?
The larger picture
Each of these scenarios, I believe, tells its own little story that fits into the larger narrative of the film. They are ready-to-use setups which, because of the frequency of their occurrence across films, hark back to a collective memory bank, as it were, that the audience can fall back on every time a particular situation pops up in a film. They are called upon to play a specific function at a particular point in the film. This is so that the audience immediately and instinctively recognises them and understands what their purpose in the story is.
For instance, a detective appearing at a crime scene with a cup of coffee immediately brings forth ideas in the audience’s mind of long hours, exhaustion and strain whose effects the drinker hopes the beverage will momentarily alleviate ( Seven , 1995; Fargo , 1996; The Boondock Saints , 1999). It has become one of the most common sights even in police procedurals with almost every episode showing at least a few characters who display a proclivity for the “to-go” variety of caffeine.
Support groups are there to help people overcome obstacles. But they are also often an indication of the excesses that got them there in the first place ( Fight Club , 1999; Anger Management , 2003; Confessions of a Shopaholic , 2009; Smashed , 2012).
Easily identifiable
Prescription drugs behind mirrors are interesting – besides ease of access, the ability to peer into one’s own reflection while administering them offer the characters some valuable scope for introspection ( Contact , 1997; Mirrors , 2008; Prom Night , 2008; The Orphan , 2009).
Stake-outs are as much about the elements being secretly watched as about the people watching them. In buddy cop films they are typically a way to break the ice between partners who were up to that point at loggerheads ( The French Connection , 1971; Stakeout , 1987; Bad Boys , 1995; Enemy of the State , 1998; Horrible Bosses , 2011).
Diners are chosen because they are crowded places. They can show the key characters interacting with their surroundings as opposed to just one another, they register other people’s reactions to what is being said by the central characters and also help to thwart potential threats and ambushes from rival parties. Pulp Fiction ’s (1994) diner interactions are now part of film lore but there are other notable ones in films like Goodfellas (1990), Inherent Vice (2014) and Baby Driver (2017).
Recitals in films are as much about the children who are performing as about the adults who are guiding/parenting them ( Rushmore , 1998; The Sixth Sense , 1999; Moonrise Kingdom , 2012). By failing to show up, parents in films often use them as the perfect opportunity to disappoint their kids. Characters walking out of offices post-resignation or lay off with cartons full of office belongings do so mostly as a gesture of defiance and a step towards freedom and closure ( Jerry Maguire , 1996; American Beauty , 1999; Ghostbusters , 2016).
Characters eating at home out of Chinese takeout containers – known as oyster pails – may signal a number of things ( The Godfather , 1972; Ghostbusters , 1984; Paid in Full , 2002; Love & Other Drugs , 2010; Inside Out , 2015). It can range from a simple bonding exercise among people to a transitionary or as yet unsettled moment as in films like the animated Inside Out (where Riley and her family sit at the new table eating out of takeout boxes in the house they have just moved to) or The Godfather (where after things suddenly escalate with the attack on Vito followed by the assault on Michael outside the hospital, the Corleones and their henchmen sit around eating takeout while plotting Michael’s first murders). The consistent choice of cuisine in all these cases, however, might just be an indicator of its popularity.
Typical to locale
Motels on the outskirts of towns far away from the hubbub give a sense of an America that is lonely, often poor and always struggling – an America that like the motel itself is on the margins. They are not alternative homes but rather places to get away to temporarily, brief hideouts, stopovers on the way to something better not just on the motorway but also presumably in life. Motels have played important roles lending themselves to the stories in Psycho (1960), No Country for Old Men (2007), Drive (2011), Dallas Buyers Club (2013) and The Florida Project (2017).
The high school prom has provided fodder and inspiration for a number of romantic comedies, musicals and slasher films ( Carrie , 1976; 10 Things I Hate About You , 1999; Prom Night , 2008; Footloose , 2011). Amidst all the rivalries and makeovers that it spawns are themes of coming of age, difference, acceptance and first love that resonate throughout these films, their genres notwithstanding. Celebrations of typically American holidays are common as in films like Born on the Fourth of July (1989), Scent of a Woman (1992), Brokeback Mountain (2005) and The Blind Side (2009). Although starting out with intentions of spreading holiday cheer, such occasions invariably bring up bitter family feuds and old unresolved conflicts. The 911 call is perhaps the most adaptable of all the situations discussed here. While the call itself has been used in countless films as the first and most reliable source of aid for anyone in the face of an emergency, its success has often been a matter of chance and this has in turn led to an array of cinematic eventualities ( Panic Room , 2002; Lars and the Real Girl , 2007; The Call , 2013).
These familiar situations then are storytelling tools. They form a resource, a repository of nostalgic tropes, that filmmakers make use of to tell their stories. At the same time they are also cultural markers that allude to the practices and realities of the country that produced them. With each new story that they help to tell, they get imagined and executed in fresh ways while yet retaining a sense of the old familiarity.
