Without reliable authoritative information and accurate narratives, we are inclined to construct our own. These false narratives are often misleading or needlessly inflame. Presenting a few case studies for your consideration.
Warner Brothers nearly cut the “No Man’s Land” scene from Wonder Woman
In a Fandango interview, May 2017, Director Patty Jenkins is quoted regarding the No Man’s Land scene:
“It’s my favorite scene in the movie and it’s the most important scene in the movie. It’s also the scene that made the least sense to other people going in … When I started to really hunker in on the significance of No Man’s Land, there were a couple people who were deeply confused, wondering, like, ‘well, what is she going to do? How many bullets can she fight?’ and I kept saying, ‘It’s not about that. This is a different scene than that. This is a scene about her becoming Wonder Woman.'”
Clear and direct right? This is the director herself, quoted on the record. However countless outlets ran this story after injecting an additional false narrative. A few are listed purely to corroborate the point with evidence. No other commentary is being made about these publications or the authors. In each case, they add a narrative of Jenkins against short-sighted studio executives unable to understand a creative vision:
- Slashfilm – “when she laid out the scene to people at the studio before filming” / “in order to convince the higher-ups that it was necessary”
- Business Insider – “Jenkins said to convince others at Warner Bros. this would work”
- CBR – “the sequence was harder to sell to studio execs than one might imagine”
- io9 – “someone at Warner Bros. thought at one point it wasn’t worth being part of Wonder Woman’s runtime” / “the scene did not go down well at all with her colleagues at Warner Bros.”
- Vox – “But it’s also easy to see why a studio might suggest cutting the sequence.” / “What’s interesting about this isn’t that Jenkins had to talk some of her bosses into signing off on the No Man’s Land sequence.”
- The Mary Sue – “For some reason, none of this registered with the higher-ups at Warner Bros, who apparently saw this entire sequence as a waste of time”
However, Jenkins had said nothing about the studio, executives, higher-ups, or Warner Brothers. A director quote is an impeccable source, but still vulnerable to the imposition of false narratives. At a June 11th DGA event in Los Angeles, Jenkins sat down with Richard Donner for a brief Q&A where she corrected the narrative.
Warner Brothers had not opposed the scene:
“It’s funny, I feel badly about this cause it’s been reported that Warner Bros. was against it, which it was not Warner Bros., it was my own people in England. It was our own crew at points, who were like, ‘Why are you doing this scene? She’s not even fighting anything,’ So Warner Bros. was not unsupportive of the No Man’s Land scene. It was much more in-process that everybody was like, ‘What’s this scene for? There’s no one to fight. We’ve already seen her block a bullet in the alley and then she’s going to go in and save this church tower, why do you need this other scene?'” (transcription via CinemaBlend)
The video of the event is currently down, but audio is available here in the DGA’s podcast, episode 77 at 18m22s.
In other words, Patty was not battling with studio executives but her own creative team. The fight was not about the soul of the film versus corporate interests, but between like-minded, supportive, creative individuals attempting to collaborate towards the best film.
The objections to the No Man’s Land scene were based in story-beats, presenting novel challenges, and characterization (not logistical, as I claimed in error in my own Wonder Woman episode).
The concern was that Diana had already faced gunfire on the beach, the alley way, and would do so again against the village sniper; How many of their marquee moments did they want to spend on Diana and bullets yet again? Moreover the enemy is abstract and impersonal: Wonder Woman against machine guns. Finally, given that they would immediately start the Veld action sequence, was this scene necessary?
These are good questions and good notes, creatively, character, and story driven. Thankfully, Jenkins had her own creative instincts to insist upon the scene. But look how different the narrative! Instead of a David and Goliath struggle between art and suits, this is a collaborative push-and-pull to polish a picture. Resistance is not the enemy but the assurance that something deserves to be in the film.
Considerably fewer outlets published this correction of the narrative.
Imagine if you only knew and believed the injected false narrative. What kinds of unnecessary anger and judgment you’d bear against the studio who were, in fact, innocent of your accusation?
Fortunately, Jenkins quickly clarified and does so again in our second case. read more
