Why Do We Care if Movies Are 'Realistic?'

Why do people care so much about movies being realistic?

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Music by Epidemic Sound
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Patrick Willems
P.O. Box 380333
Brooklyn, NY 11238

[Aquillyne]

YES! Speed Racer is a masterpiece of cinema, horrifically misunderstood and unappreciated. It’s one of my favourite films ever. A work of genius. Thank you for giving it some airtime!

[dnightwalker]

"Spider-Man: Into the spiderverse" is the perfect example that formalism works perfectly for superhero movies.

[The.Youtuber.with.no.Name.]

Nice to see an analysis on Speed Racer.
It's an unappreciated masterpiece.
I find it a shame that people can love Pacific Rim but not Speed Racer.

[miffedmax]

I have been fighting for speed racer's honour for actual years now, almost cried when you called it a masterpiece, I love that film

[HowardHoMusic]

Now you're gonna make me watch Speed Racer. Well done.

[umjackd]

I feel like realism is a common excuse to retreat to as a way to say "I like serious things, not child-like things!" which doesn't really make sense when it's basically saying "I want to be able to watch Batman and justify it to normal people that I'm watching a guy put on a costume and ninja attack poor people."

[nuberiffic]

"I need more realism in this movie about aliens, gods, and super-heroes!"

[tomlion]

I'm not the only ONE who liked Speed Racer??? :O
My Life is Complete!!! :D

[christiancountryboyilovejesus]

A muted color style normally isn't even realistic. Real life is pretty and bright, Well depending on where you live anyway. God bless everyone. :-)

[GeahkBurchill]

Ironically for those Marvel Color-Grading defenders, The Dark Knight is filled with crisp, sharp, saturated blacks and rich color. If you were to grade Nolan's Batman the way Marvel graded Civil War, it would lose a tremendous amount of appeal.

[TheBeird]

I think some audience members want the realism for their movies because they see it as a validation of watching superheroes. In my opinion, emotional honesty and thematic resonance trump 'realism' in genre fairs. Doesn't mean I'd accept Henry Hill solving his problems at the end of Goodfellas by getting on a spaceship though.

[TJ]

The insistence that a movie be realistic limits so much of what's possible. It's like telling an artist they can only make photorealistic drawings, or saying musicians shouldn't take advantage of the enormous range of sounds a studio provides because it wouldn't work in a live setting. Who fucking cares about that shit as long as the end product is interesting? Some of the most original and interesting movies of the last few years are highly formalist: The Lobster, Moonrise Kingdom, Fury Road, Scott Pilgrim, Drive, Black Swan, Under the Skin, A Girl Walks Home Alone at Night, just name a few... movies with their own distinct world and style. And that goes back decades to clearly unrealistic, stylized stuff like House (1977) and David Lynch movies. Nobody actually talks they way people talk in Tarantino or Sorkin movies, or noir stories like Sunset Blvd. or Brick, but who cares? It's fun to hear people talk in stylized language for 2 hours. Why would I pay money to see a movie if it's going to be indistinguishable from real life? What's the point, then?

[andyhoov]

The goal of cinema is to make good movies; sometimes it means being realistic and other times it means being bat shit crazy.

[MyssBlewm]

I actually said, "Oh my gosh yes!" when you brought up Speed Racer. It's really honestly a favorite film of mine, and have always wished this movie got the love it deserves.

[Javicandraw]

When watching the Black Panther trailer for the first time I came to the conclusion that marvel slowly drove us from the "realism" of iron man towards crazy incredible worlds like the ones in GOTG2 and we didn't even notice. I mean, the Black Panther trailer has an african king descending to his coronation in the middle of a waterfall on a spaceship and no one even flinched. I thought to myself "this belongs to something out of Speed Racer". Speed racer shocked viewers because it was so different from what other movies did and that caused a negative reaction. Marvel movies gave us something "realistic" and slowly opened the viewers mind to weird concepts and imagery like the ones in GOTG or Dr Strange. It took them a while, but now we can watch movies with scenes like the one in the black panther trailer and accept it as a part of a "realism based" fictional universe that has evolved in a way where a coronation in a middle of a waterfall with a king descending on a spaceship can happen and it is seen as something natural.

[TenDropChris]

I remember an interview with comic book - writer Garth Ennis I read years ago whenever I hear about people complain about realism in certain works of fiction. He said people tend to confuse "Realism" with "Believably." Christopher Nolon's Batman films aren't realistic-their believable. You believe that given enough time, special training and money- an man could move about the city in a costume fighting crime. If it was realistic- the first time Bruce Wayne would have tried any of this he would have fallen off a building and broken his neck, or been shot, or run into the thousand and one reasons why being Batman doesn't really work in the real world. That kind of goes to into your saying about a film sticking to its truth and own world.

[supersoftfloormat]

Speed Racer IS a masterpiece. I got goosebumps at 4:58 when I realized which movie you were talking about!

[RadishAcceptable]

Surprised you didn't mention Sin City and Watchmen.

I guess the color palettes aren't exactly vibrant, but they definitely don't go for realism.

[VarunSingh-vfqq]

This whole obsession with "Realism" is fucking juvenile and puts more value in style than substance. Realism is not absolute, it exists within a context. Heath Ledger's anarchic, joyless version of The Joker is realistic in the context of the grounded reality of The Dark Knight. Mark Hamill's gleeful clown is realistic and terrifying in the context of the hypernoir BTAS. The only reality that matters is the one that exists in your film. All stylistic choices have to be made according to the established rules of your story and the effect you want to have on the audience. Everything else is noise.

[doronpaz]

watching speed racer is now my top priority