7 Secret Tricks Movies Use To Convince You They're Mad Deep

It seems breaking mirrors is much too violent for Disney movies, so they have their own variation: attacking your reflection in water. Tarzan does it because he's a hairless freak, Jasmine does it in Aladdin because she doesn't want to be a Disney Princess, Scar's son does it in The Lion King II because he looks like Lion Hitler, and so on. No wonder King Triton hates the land-dwellers -- they're always attacking his kingdom unprovoked.

Meanwhile, Bruce Willis in Sin City gets the half-shadow treatment when he weighs the pros and cons of sleeping with the girl he basically views as an adopted daughter.

Dimension Films

They're usually aping some other, better movie when they do it. When Martin Sheen monologues about how every man has both good and evil in him in Apocalypse Now, he and Marlon Brando are both in shadow, though that may have had more to do with hiding Brando's Twinkie-enhanced physique.

United Artists

United Artists

But this sort of lighting technique goes back even further. It's a holdover from the classic noir films of the '40s, when Hollywood realized that audiences currently experiencing yet another World War might think less of people than they used to. Films began showcasing characters that were just like that week-old ground beef in your fridge -- neither all good nor all bad. After nearly 80 years, this bit of visual shorthand is still their go-to move.

Sony Pictures Entertainment

The last scene in the film, however, shows him exiting his hospital room through his window. His daughter then comes into the empty room, goes to the window, looks up, and smiles. Did she see him flying? Probably not, but if this isn't real, then what does it mean that she's the first one to be roped into the visions that used to be reserved for him? BOOM. Profound.

Fox Searchlight Pictures

This is similar to the ending of the Peter Sellers movie Being There, about a simpleton who becomes more and more influential in the political world despite only spouting gibberish, because everyone hears what they want to hear (as if that could ever happen). The film culminates with the main character wandering off onto a pond and walking on top of it:

Symbolizing the fact that he is an inflatable decoy person

The whole film, he keeps metaphorically "walking on water," and now he's actually doing it. Or is he? Again, probably not. But then what does it MEAN? Profound.

The end of Big Fish does this too. The main character's father talks about his life while on his deathbed, and all the stories are obviously magical and far-fetched. But then the film ends with the storytelling father turning into a giant catfish and swimming off into the water, followed by a funeral which "versions" of all the witches and giants from his stories all attend. Were those stories true? If they were exaggerated versions of real life, then what is the truth? It doesn't matter. AMBIGUOUS MAGIC, baby! Catch the fever.

Chess is universally considered a "smart people" game, which comes in handy for action movies looking for a quick "This isn't your typical musclehead action hero!" shorthand. And it's not only movies -- Jack Bauer is playing chess the first time we see him in 24. Meanwhile, the detective played by Forest Whitaker in Taken 3 is carrying a chess piece all the time. Not the board, just a single piece. That's how you know Liam Neeson has finally met his intellectual match.

20th Century Fox

Guy Ritchie is a big fan of this trope. In Revolver, Jason Statham's character straight up says he's using chess to show he's smarter than someone, while Sherlock Holmes: A Game Of Shadows features a dramatically edited Holmes vs. Moriarty chess match (with real moves). How else will we know Holmes is a genius, aside from everything he says and does in every single scene he's in?

Romantic flicks have been doing this since at least Breakfast At Tiffanny's, but the most iconic (and meme'd) example is the one from The Notebook. At first, Ryan Gosling and Rachel McAdams are ruffled by the sudden showers, but as they open up about their feelings, they gradually become oblivious to it and end up having a messy, rather uncomfortable-looking makeout session.

New Line Cinema

Match Point has basically the same scene, but more sordid. In Cast Away, when Tom Hanks finds out his girlfriend married someone else while he was on his little Gilligan adventure, he's like "Aw shucks, I'll be on my way, ma'am." However, emotion overpowers her natural aversion to the cold rain, and they share an extremely wet kiss.

Blade Runner isn't what you'd call romantic (and if you would, please see a psychologist), but it's a good example of how action movies can use this technique. During the final confrontation, Rutger Hauer doesn't give a crap about the rain because he's a synthetic being and all, but Harrison Ford seems terribly inconvenienced. But then, as Hauer starts telling him his profound cosmic experiences, Ford's so awestruck that the rain fails to make any impact anymore.

Warner Bros.

It's so crazy that you even forget this movie stars Charlton Heston in brownface.

Marvel as the camera follows several minutes of carefully choreographed action! Film buffs blew their loads, and directors have spent the last 60 years trying to make longer, more complex "oners" of their own. Brian De Palma topped Welles with a four-minute opening shot for Bonfire Of The Vanities. Robert Altman topped that with an eight-minute opening shot for The Player. De Palma (again) topped that with a 12-minute opening shot in his Nic Cage tour de force Snake Eyes. The rest of the movie is a turd, but who cares?

And then it got really crazy. Alfonso Cuaron's Children Of Men has 16 "oners," including the pants-shitting car scene and the also-pants-shitting war zone sequence. How the hell do you top that? A full movie that happens in one uninterrupted shot? Well, yeah. Sort of. That's pretty much what Birdman is. Alejandro Inarritu one-ups his old pal Cuaron by making a movie that (through the magic of editing) looks like it was shot in one take, practically forcing Hollywood to shower it with Oscars. Now that movies can't take this trend any further, it's probably TV's turn. You heard it here first: Season 4 of True Detective will be a single eight-hour tracking shot broken up into chunks.

Then, in Batman v. Superman, an entire montage is dedicated to Superman slowly descending from the heavens to help people ... which just makes him look like an asshole for taking so long. The Christian symbolism is so blatant it's hard to call it symbolism.

Warner Bros.

But at least the character sort of fits the profile. He is an all-powerful being full of goodness sent by his father to save humanity. So what's the excuse for shoving the same symbolism into Spider-Man 2 (the first one)? Late in the movie, Spider-Man fights Doc Ock on top of a train. One thing leads to another, and Spider-Man has to stop the runaway train while contorted into a particularly Christlike pose:

Columbia Pictures

Just so you don't think that's a coincidence, the next scene shows an exhausted Spidey being carried through the train by its passengers, all while maintaining excellent cruciform, before being laid down. The passengers gather around him, fearing he is dead, but rejoice when he awakens. Self-sacrifice, crucifixion, death, and rebirth all in one scene -- it's efficient, at the very least.

Columbia Pictures

All of this "Superhero as Jesus" analogies wouldn't be so insulting if the rest of the films weren't spent rendering it pointless. In Superman Returns, Clark Kent abandons Lois Lane and his sick son, Spider-Man 2 makes it very clear that Peter Parker is some dopey kid who can't even deliver a pizza on time, and Superman in the Snyderverse is responsible for so much destruction that he has more in common with the Angel of Death than the Lamb of God. You know, it's almost as if they didn't think through the symbolism at all beyond a couple of cool shots. Weird!

Saikat Bhowmik can't stay indifferent whenever it rains. Follow him on Twitter, and visit his channels Amuzic II and Amuzic. Jordan Breeding also writes officially for Paste Magazine, unofficially on Twitter, and sits perpetually in half-shadow. Follow William Ash on Twitter.

When you're done with your cinematic moments in the rain, maybe have one of these umbrellas nearby for when things settle down.

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