- The Ultimate Story Checklist: The 40 Year Old Virgin
- Straying From the Party Line: Gentle Scenework in "The 40 Year Old Virgin"
- Straying from the Party Line: The Lame Third Act Escalation in The 40 Year Old Virgin
- Rulebook Casefile: The Way the World Works (and Doesn’t) in The 40 Year Virgin
- Storyteller’s Rulebook: Use Visual Metaphors, Not Verbal Similes
- Rulebook Casefile: Assembling Gut, Heart, and Head in The 40 Year Old Virgin
Are
unrealistic genre-specific elements a big metaphor for a more common
experience (not how life really is, but how life really feels)?
|
Yes, every man feels
like he doesn’t get enough sex, but this is an extreme example. Likewise the waxing scene, etc, are
examples of common anxieties made huge.
Flying through the billboard at the end symbolizes sex and a
breakthrough.
|
Are
set-up and pay-off used to dazzle the audience (and maybe distract attention
from plot contrivances)?
|
Yes, her “Sell Your
Stuff on Ebay” store is established as a joke, so we don’t figure out that
this will eventually be the solution to his problem. (Although, as with almost everything
else, this wasn’t in the original script, and they just worked it in after
they saw that their exterior story location really did have such a store
across the street!)
|
No comments:
Post a Comment