So, you might have noticed last week the first poster for Wes Anderson’s next film, “The Grand Budapest Hotel” was released, followed quickly by the first trailer. And if you’ve read anything I’ve written basically ever, you’ll be aware that Wes Anderson is kind of my favorite director ever, period. If not then, well, he is, and also why don’t you read this stuff?
And now you’re aware of my probably unreasonable love of Mr. Anderson’s work, it might surprise you to find out that I haven’t watched the trailer for “Budapest” yet. And I’m not going to. Because honestly, I kind of hate trailers.
Specifically in this case, I didn’t need to watch it because its job had already been done for it. A trailer’s purpose is to convince the audience that they want to see whatever film it’s advertising; all it took to make me want to see “The Grand Budapest Hotel” was “New Wes Anderson film.”
Now granted, in situations where you’re unsure about whether it’d be worth your time or not to see the film, trailers can be useful. But with the amount of info about a film you can get online without actually viewing a frame of it, like who’s involved or a very, very loose plot summary, you can usually get enough on a film to make up your mind sans trailer.
The only time I really let myself take the risk of watching a trailer for a film is when the preliminary scoop is intriguing, but not encouraging. “The Secret Life of Walter Mitty” is a recent example. An adaptation of a 1939 short story directed by and starring Ben Stiller?—I mean, I kind of had to know.
And in that case, the chance I took paid off. Not only did the trailer get me on board with the film, but it did so without giving away major plot points or more than a line or two of dialogue (the first one anyways, which was great. Newer trailers give away more).
Sadly this isn’t true of most cases, as advertisers seem to feel the need to give audiences roughly 60-80 percent of the plot in two minutes in order to lure viewers into the theater—which could be a reflection of most moviegoers not wanting to go into a film without a clear idea of what they’d be getting. It doesn’t really matter though.
Because no matter why they do it, the fact is that it’s made trailers unsafe. A big part of my “Budapest” avoidance was rooted in a borderline paranoid fear of spoilers (which, according to people who’ve watched it, was totally justified), because every goddamn trailer feels the need to give away at least the second act of its film. Something as simple as a shot of two characters being in the same place, or just a certain place, can ruin aspects of a movie. It’s that easy for trailers to ruin things.
But perhaps the most important thing a trailer can betray is the mood of a film. When I sit down to watch “Grand Budapest Hotel” for the first time, the unique charm of it is going to hit me in full force. That’s a huge part of the movie going experience for me, and I don’t want to lose it.
There are certain trailers that manage to get it right. “The Wolf of Wall Street” doesn’t give much away and is set to “Black Skinhead” (yeah, Martin Scorscese used Kanye West), making it basically the best thing ever, but it still says so much about the tone and attitude of the film that I’ll still go into it basically knowing what’s up.
The only perfect trailer I can think of is the original trailer for “Psycho,” which was essentially just Alfred Hitchcock saying “Hey y’all, we don’t wanna spoil things, but shit gets pretty real, so uh, just trust us on this one, OK?” I’m paraphrasing a bit, but you get my point. It gave away exactly nothing, it got the point across, and it hasn’t been attempted again.
And it probably shouldn’t be. It works in ways that are really specific to “Psycho,” but the role that trailer played is essentially filled by internet buzz nowadays. The star power, the vague hinting at the plot, the crux of its persuasion is available for nearly every film that comes out, for free, on the internet, and it spoils exactly nothing. So yeah, trailers suck, we don’t need them, but if you like watching them, cool.
But in the time you spend getting hype for “The Grand Budapest Hotel,” trailer free or not, there’s still a lot of great film to be had, like screenings of my favorite film “Upstream Color” this Thursday at 7:00 p.m. and Friday at 9:30 p.m. at the Union South Marquee.
Do you always check out the trailer before you see a movie? Send all your favorite YouTube clips to Austin at wellens@wisc.edu.
