Matt Richtel whines:
Technology is rendering obsolete some classic narrative plot devices: missed connections, miscommunications, the inability to reach someone. Such gimmicks don
Matt Richtel whines:
Technology is rendering obsolete some classic narrative plot devices: missed connections, miscommunications, the inability to reach someone. Such gimmicks don
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Remember the Martin Scorsese movie “After Hours,” with Griffin Dunne? The whole premise of the movie would have to be thrown out nowadays: He keeps getting into zany situations because he doesn’t have any money and can’t get people to let him use their phone. No ATM or BlackBerry in sight.
My favorite movie to talk about in this context is Christopher Nolan’s Memento, which came out less than ten years ago. That movie includes no cell phones or personal computers, and the main technology the protagonist uses (a Polaroid camera) isn’t being made any more. He walks around with a manila folder containing all the information he knows about his own past, and is completely disarmed when he can’t find a pen or paper to write down notes.
Oddly, though, even as this technological moment recedes from us, it only heightens our sense that the character is frozen in time by his accident. Even if you were to give Leonard Shelby a Blackberry, he could never figure out how to use it.