Cell Phones *in* Movies

Submitted by wBuddha t3_127982r in movies

The number of deaths due to exposure is considered an at all time low, there was a story today in the NYTimes about a family on a sailboat that got rammed by a whale, all saved by a combination of iphone and satphone.

Think of all the genres of film, that if you were writing them now (where the setting is "now") would be tough, couldn't be remade easily. Flicks like Jaws, Friday the 13th, Marathon Man, Predator, even like The Firm etc, all would be difficult to pull off, completely different in the land where the cell phone is ubiquitous.

I mean any movie where there is a need for emergency services, or the action revolves around travel to get to another person needs to account for why not just call, SMS, look-up, cry havoc, whatever.

Motherless Brooklyn takes place in the 50's - the book isn't a period piece. Is this one of the reasons why?

Do we need a whole new set of cinema signifiers to account for this?

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JellyRollGeorge t1_jed74ms wrote

I don't think Arnie would get a good signal deep in the Guatemalan rainforest even today though.

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wBuddha OP t1_jed7d2z wrote

That is why sat phones are now widely available, iridium makes phones just for this, emergencies, to call in the cavalry.

Article in the times, they used an emergency satphone (and an iphone) that brought this to mind: https://www.nytimes.com/2023/03/30/world/asia/sailboat-whale-rescue-pacific.html

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doc_55lk t1_jed90q9 wrote

Newer iPhones can function as satellite phones too. Just thought I'd add that.

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cosmoboy t1_jed8ljo wrote

Yeah, but Arnie as a military guy, sure he might have a sat phone as standard equipment, but would Roy Scheider have taken one on The Orca? He had no idea what he was after. I think there are a lot of situations where a character wouldn't have a thing regardless of its availability.

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wBuddha OP t1_jed96ly wrote

It was a regular family in the Times article, the boat was equipped, not them, with the satphone.

Roy also wasn't that far off shore, regular cell probably would've had service.

Science Fiction films too, where the protagonist isn't believed, he now has a camera where ever he goes.

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drveejai88 t1_jedo6rj wrote

When you consider Jaws, Shaw was adamant he would be the one to catch the shark. He knew the dangers. It was more a vendetta for him.

That's why the flashback was there. He was hunting the shark on Amity in retaliation for the death of his navy buddies.

So even if his boat was equipped with all the modern communication devices and come to think of it Shaw would not do. His character is more a salt of the earth kind), he would not ask for help. That's why when Brody called for the coastguard, he smashed the radio. He has to be the one to kill the beast.

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wBuddha OP t1_jedouxc wrote

Agreed.

If remade though he'd have to smash the radio and both Matt's and Martin's cellphones.

Spielberg does explain why contextually they don't call for help.

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drveejai88 t1_jedp168 wrote

Cell reception will notoriously be spotty on the ocean. Also they say that the shark leads them to deeper waters and more away from land. So cell reception can become more restricted. Or Shaw can merely forbid them from getting phones onto the boat.

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speakermic t1_jed8c98 wrote

I've seen movies use poor reception or dead phone battery as an excuse to let the plot happen.

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wBuddha OP t1_jed8nm0 wrote

Ya, like Cabin in the Woods.

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93torrent93 t1_jedbg84 wrote

Cabin parodies the trope. Most modern slashers have this trope played completely straight.

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wBuddha OP t1_jedm2aq wrote

What do you think the yelp rating for the Harbinger's gas-n-go is?

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[deleted] t1_jedbal9 wrote

I've heard theories that modern technology is one of the reasons a good number of big name filmmakers, since the 2000s, have pretty much stopped making films set in modern times.

Tarantino

Paul Thomas Anderson

Martin Scorsese

Wes Anderson

Spielberg

Coen Brothers

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drveejai88 t1_jedocty wrote

Speilberg can adapt to moden times. If anyone can, it would be him. But I don't know. That's why he is restricting himself to period pieces i guess.

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[deleted] t1_jedpkze wrote

Any of these directors could adapt to modern times if they wanted to. I think it's storytelling is just more natural when you don't have to explain away why no one isn't just texting each other the whole movie.

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AlanMorlock t1_jeeuaur wrote

The Departed has a scene that hinges on someone being able to text inside their pocket.

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[deleted] t1_jegisx9 wrote

Since the 2000s - Me

The Departed was 2006. So since then.

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AlanMorlock t1_jeglhgp wrote

My point is, I don't think Scorsese is particularly avoidant of the story implications of texting. He's made period pieces since then but most of his films in the preceeding g 16 years were also period pieces. Not much of a change for him at all.

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[deleted] t1_jegn5ox wrote

I wasn't talking specifically about Scorsese in the first place.

I was talking about a general trend.

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wBuddha OP t1_jeg1ddx wrote

Ya, this is my point.

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[deleted] t1_jegiiww wrote

And my point is storytelling is more natural when they don't have to.

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AlanMorlock t1_jeet8fl wrote

People say this but most of them didn't really make many contemporary set films prior to smart phones either.

With Scorsese for instance in the 90s, he made 2 films thst were contemporary set, Cape Fear and Brigingout the dead, and 4 period pieces, Goodfellas, Casino, Age of Innocence and Kundun. Idlly enough hosn200s best picture winner includes a in-pocket T9 texting scene!

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Lint6 t1_jede9s3 wrote

> I mean any movie where there is a need for emergency services, or the action revolves around travel to get to another person needs to account for why not just call, SMS, look-up, cry havoc, whatever.

Simple. No service. Phones broken. Battery is dead. Someone lost their phone.

I work in a town with a population of roughly 4,300 people. Cellphone service is complete shit there. Unless I'm connected to my jobs Wifi, I'm lucky if I get 1 or 2 bars of service.

You make it sound like they need to come up with some convoluted reason for why they can't use a cellphone

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wBuddha OP t1_jedlidv wrote

> Ubiquitous

Like trying to ignore the fact, say, everyone in the movie isn't wearing pants.

You can ignore it sure, not address it, but someone is going to review or comment on how unbelievable it was that Jason Bourne was running around in his tighty whiteys.

Laundry day right? Everyone on the same day.

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NicCageCompletionist t1_jee9pz1 wrote

Slasher films tend to start with the victims being bumped off in out of the way places so nobody catches on for a while. Once people figure out what’s going on it can just be a race between the killer and the police. Movies like Ft13 are usually set in locations where you can get a few more kills in in the time it takes the police to arrive, and then they fill the killer full of bullets just in time to save the last victim.

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AlanMorlock t1_jeet28f wrote

Peollenalways bring up slasher films as being disrupted by cellphones but honestly a cellphone isn't particularly helpful when someone is trying to stab you.

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ektachrome400 t1_jefk3lc wrote

All is Lost (2013) is a similar scenario that uses a reasonable premise (equipment failure) to tell its modern day story.

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