I just started watching Life, the NBC series. I’ve enjoyed the first four episodes. In fact, episode three has one of the most brilliant sequences I’ve ever seen.

Here’s the setup. Charlie Crews is a detective who was sent to jail for a murder he didn’t commit. Being a cop in prison made him a target for many many beatings. Eleven years later they found none of the DNA at the murder site was his. So they released him, and, as settlement for damages, gave him a bunch of money, and allowed him to be a cop again. He’s been partnered up with Dani Reese. Nobody really wanted him, but she’s had problems of her own and got stuck with him. Crews had a car in the first episode, geeked out about GPS and handsoff telephone (stuff his missed in prison), but the ex-con lawyer Crews has put up in his mansion ran it over with a tractor. He’s been riding the bus. In this sequence, Crews and Reese are looking for a guy named Manny Umaga who carjacked a man and his wife then shot the wife. In this sequence they go find where he is and then go get him.

Watch it and then read my comments below. It runs from minute 15:49 to 21:15.

1. Surprise. You walk into a dangerous car shop. What are you expecting? You know you’re going to meet hard characters. They’re not going to want to talk to you. There’s some danger and so a bit of suspense. So we meet some hard characters. I was still surprised by the particulars of Buscando Maldito–his neck tattoos and hat. Wonderful and new (at least to me). But before we can have a confrontation–surprise–Crews sees the car of his dreams. Then we get that wonderful exchange between him and Maldito and El Repitito. Total humor. Totally unexpected. Then Maldito suggests a posse? Not only is he willing to talk, but he suggests he goes with them? When going to get Umaga, more surprises. Flash bangs? Big honking Samoan running? Busts down the door? Takes Crews by the neck? Crews pulls his own knife? Surprise after surprise after surprise.

2. Characters. Loads of interest factors (see my post on character). Maldito and Repitito have fabulous eccentricities. Crews displays his own interesting reaction to the car. Surprising, but logical (BTW, in a later scene you see him driving the car!) Then we see his prison background coming up with the knife. Love his backstory. And did you notice how strong Reese is, taking none of Maldito’s crap?

3. Dialogue. Did you notice how the first few times Reese says anything to Maldito he doesn’t respond to her question? Total avoidance of on-the-nose dialogue, talking cross-purpose.

4. Soundtrack. The way they bridged the two scenes with that music was fabulous. And the music itself. Wow. BTW, that’s “No Nadie” by Edgard Jaude, Rafael Torres, & Andres Ayrado.

5. Conflict. Between the Maldito and Crews about the car, between Maldito and Reese, between Umaga and Crews. Then Crews and Reese (with the knife).

I think I watched this a dozen times. Loved it.

Last week I went and saw Salt. Wow. The movie started with a bang and was off to the races with lots of great action. Unlike many action films where the characters perform stunts which are simply too hokey for me to buy into, I found myself believing in all but two of Salt’s. So I was wowed most of the time instead of thinking about whether they were using wires or what or that it was all so wrong and geeze don’t these guys have consultants? They weren’t as stunning as the opening of Casino Royale, but what is? 

But it wasn’t just action. The premise and acting were all great as well (yes, I recant, I slammed Jolie a while back as an actress cast only for her face value; and while you know that’s one of the reasons why she was here, she still was convincing in her role). Furthermore, the story had a lot of great reversals and reveals. But this was also its ultimate downfall.

When I got to the ending, I did not feel a climax release. No catharsis. No afterglow. It just ended and left me feeling empty. It’s an awful feeling. Totally unsatisfactory. Such a maddening cut off. 

But why? It was all so good up to that point.

*** SPOILERS ***

As I was talking it over with Nellie I believe I indentified the answer: in their effort to be surprising, the director and writers removed everything that would have built suspense. So instead of getting a Sixth Sense ending where the surprise adds to the climax and gives it a wonderful texture, we got a slap of surpise and then nothing.

For me to feel relief, triumph, and the desire to stand up and cheer–all those great climax emotions–I have to be worried about a character. Stressed, thinking they’re going to fail. They need to fight courageously against insurmountable odds and actually come to a point where it appears all is lost. Where I groan inside. All this creates massive pent up worry and anxiety for them. And at that point, the character snatches victory from the jaws of defeat.

Boom! The climax floods me and it’s delight, relief, cheer, joy.

It’s just like a football game where we bite our nails until the very end. Where our non-ranked team is playing the #3 team in the nation. Maybe we jump ahead in the second quarter, but in the third we fall behind. We make some great plays but can’t catch up. And when we do put points on the board, the other team immediately responds. There are three seconds left. We’ve stalled at the twenty yard line. We have one more play. From the moment it starts it appears to be broken, our QB is going down, and then . . . he passes to a running back who has made some space. Who is standing open in the end zone! Yeeeeeaaaaaaahhhhhh!

In order to feel a release a climax, something has to build up. The thing that builds is worry, fret, desperate hope. This is what we mean when we talk about suspense. We know the team’s goal, see their predicament, see the overwhelming odds. See them about to lose it all. The dread of defeat and what will be lost rises.

But in Salt the director and writers went for the effect of surprise instead of suspense and triumph. The moment Salt starts in on the Russian president I thought she was the bad guy. Yes, there was the bit about the spider that had me wondering. Yes, I knew she felt anguish about her husband being killed (that smart little reveal in her expression). I knew all of that. But the movie kept me busy thinking she was the bad guy up until almost the very end. Everything in the film lead me to believe this. Not because I didn’t get it. I got it precisely. It’s exactly what the director wanted. It was the setup for the big surprise/reversal at the end.

But when they went for surprise by not letting the audience know what Salt was really up to, the immediately removed the possibility of suspense. So I didn’t feel any suspense at her infiltrating the old group of spies. No relief at her killing them–that was just her revenge. No suspsense when she went to the White House. Nothing when she chased the president down the elevator shaft. The whole time I was thinking, crap, they really did indoctrinate her. She’s bad.

More importantly, there was no rooting, no worry building to release proportions.

Not until the very end do we realize what she’s been trying to do. Oh, the role reversal with her and Ted Winter (btw, like Liev Schreiber who plays the part) was all a big surprise, as it was designed to be. But the surprise faded and there was . . . nothing to replace it. That’s how surprise works. It’s a relatively short effect. 

Yes, she kills Winter. Yes, he was a threat at the end with his scissors, but I didn’t care that much. I hadn’t been whipped into a fever pitch. Not like I was in Gladiator with the emperor and the lead in the coliseum. There was no pressurized worry ready to burst. There wasn’t any because we hadn’t had any time for it to build and because by that time nothing for Salt was really at stake. The one meaningful thing she stood to loose–her relationship with her husband–was taken away from us in an earlier scene when he was shot dead. So what was at stake? A big old nuclear war. Well, who cares about that? Nobody. It’s too generalized. We cared about Salt and her husband.

The result was that the director and writers traded climax for surprise. Alas.

So here’s my conclusion. Surprise is a relatively easy effect to create. You simply have something unexpected but logical occur. Relief, triumph, climax needs something much different. And surprise can be a part of it. But in our effort to build surprise we must not remove the conditions necessary for please-dear-mother suspense. Suspense requires we root for and worry about a character for a significant period, our unease growing until it’s drawn taut, straining. All the time something significant has to be at stake. Something we can sympathize with. Something personal to the person we care about. Only then can we feel the climactic release. Only then will we stand up and cheer in holy-crap-no-way relief and delight.

I found this a fascinating talk. It’s Ira Glass who is the executive producer of the This American Life radio program from Chicago Public Radio. It’s a show that merges true stories (and some short fiction) of everyday people, surprise, humor, and meaning. There’s a structure to the types of stories that they produce. It’s not a new thing. It’s used all the time in a venue many of us are familiar with. Maybe you’ll identify that venue immediately. If not, it doesn’t matter. Watch and listen. This is a fascinating talk and it highlights just how much humor, curiosity, and insight depend on surprise.

Ira Glass at Gel 2007 from Gel Conference on Vimeo.