Pointless Movie Scenes

Jackie Mason | August 10, 2010
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Samir Mehta | August 12, 2010
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Steve West | August 13, 2010
Does the furry scene in The Shining have a real place there? It's the one where the boy is wandering the halls and sees ghostly images here and there. One of the open hotel doors reveals a sexual situation involving men dressed in animal costume. It creeped me out for sure but in a totally disgusted way as opposed to being horrified, if you get the difference I'm trying to make.

Jackie Mason | August 13, 2010
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Scott Hardie | August 13, 2010
I'll answer carefully, since I deservedly got into a lot of trouble eight years ago for equivocating my love of a "well-made movie" as defined by the inclusion of a pointless extra scene with Matt's onetime love of fart jokes. (So sorry, Matt.)

The gold standard for this kind of scene is Marge Gunderson's dinner with former classmate Mike Yanagita in Fargo. The kidnapping/fraud/murder story that drives most of the movie is put on hold while a guy she barely remembers awkwardly hits on her and she lets him down easy. The scene is interesting by itself, but it made a lot of audiences scratch their heads about its inclusion, not to mention created some controversy for actor Steve Park. It does serve a purpose in the plot, by making time pass and by making Marge realize she's been lied to, but that's not obvious at the time you see it.

The Coen brothers like these scenes. The whole final act of No Country for Old Men could be described as "pointless," such as the auto collision in the neighborhood. That scene reflects greatly on the character in it and on one of the main themes of the movie (nature's absence of justice), but it sure doesn't advance the plot because the plot is already over.

Most movies don't have time for these scenes, and that's not necessarily a bad thing. The hit movie out right now is Inception, which is wound up with such clockwork complexity that it has no spare room left for needless scenes. We get a few throwaway moments that illuminate further potential of the premise, such as the old men sharing a long sedation in Yusuf's basement, but they're part of scenes that advance the plot.