‘The Bad and the Beautiful’: Leaving It for the Audience to Imagine

‘She doesn’t speak. We move the camera in close on her. She opens her mouth to talk, but she can’t. And what she’s feeling we’ll leave for the audience to imagine. Believe me, Jim, they’ll imagine it better than any words you and I could ever write.’
Jonathan Shields, 'The Bad and the Beautiful' 

'The Bad and the Beautiful' is a 1952 melodrama that tells the tale of a fictional Hollywood film producer.

Kirk Douglas plays Jonathan Shields, the son of a successful but now despised movie mogul, as he sets out to restore his family name. Shields is visionary, charismatic and passionate about film. But he also suffers some of his father’s shortcomings. He is ‘the man who’ll do anything to get what he wants.’

We are given a perspective on Shields from three of his former collaborators: a director, a leading lady and a screenwriter. All recognise his formidable talent and boundless energy, but all have been burnt by his ruthless ambition.

‘He shouldn’t have shot the picture. He should have shot himself.’

The film, directed by Vincente Minnelli and written by George Bradshaw and Charles Schnee, gives an insight into how Hollywood viewed itself back in the Golden Age.

The movie industry is depicted as fundamentally conservative and financially driven.

'I've told you a hundred times. I don't want to win awards. Give me pictures that end with a kiss and black ink on the books.’

It’s an industry that has an ambivalent attitude towards creative people. On the one hand, it seeks out the best writers. On the other, it treats them like an expendable commodity.

‘I’m flattered you want me and bitter you’ve got me. Where do I start?’

Hollywood throws together diverse talent from all walks of life and is comfortable with a certain amount of creative conflict. 

'Don't worry. Some of the best movies are made by people working together who hate each other's guts.’

Above all it celebrates that precious and enigmatic commodity, ‘star quality.’

‘When you're on the screen, no matter who you're with, what you're doing, the audience is looking at you. That's star quality.’

'The Bad and the Beautiful' gives a good many film-making tips along the way. 

‘A picture all climaxes is like a necklace without a string. It falls apart. You must build to your big moments and sometimes you must build slowly.’

I was particularly taken with a sequence covering Shields’ early career when he was commissioned to produce a low budget horror movie, ‘The Doom of the Cat Men’. He and his director make a dispiriting visit to the costume department to review the potential outfits for the cat men.

'Look. Put five men dressed like cats on the screen, what do they look like?'
'Like five men dressed like cats.’

 They arrive at a lateral solution.

'When an audience pays to see a picture like this, what are they paying for?'
'To get the pants scared off of ‘em.'
'And what scares the human race more than any other single thing?'
'The dark!'
'Of course. And why? Because the dark has a life of its own. In the dark, all sorts of things come alive.'
'Suppose... suppose we never do show the cat men. Is that what you're thinking?'
‘Exactly.'
'No cat men!'

They resolve to communicate the terrifying beasts by association and allusion; by being implicit, not explicit; by showing the effects of their actions rather than the actions themselves.

'Two eyes shining in the dark.'
'A dog frightened, growling, showing its fangs.’
'A bird, its neck broken, feathers torn from its throat.'
'A little girl screaming, claw marks down her cheeks.' 

This is an age-old lesson, but it’s one worth repeating. We tend to imagine that the route to more effective messaging is direct and literal. We think that the responsible course of action is to show and tell… and tell again for good measure.

Often the opposite is true. We can create more compelling communication by intimation and implication; by suggesting and prompting. If we put less in, they can take more out.

Because, as Shields observed, if you leave it for the audience to imagine…’they’ll imagine it better than any words you and I could ever write.’

'Each day through my window I watch her as she passes by.
I say to myself you're such a lucky guy,
To have a girl like her is truly a dream come true.
Out of all the fellows in the world she belongs to me.
But it was just my imagination,
Once again runnin' away with me.
It was just my imagination runnin' away with me.'

The Temptations, 'Just My Imagination (Running Away with Me)’ (B Strong, N Whitfield)

No. 281