"The result is a picture that represents so much of what I want and rarely get from a movie - a couple of hours filled with characters who are as exciting as the people I know in real life"
About this Quote
Siskel isn’t praising plot mechanics here; he’s praising recognition. The barb is in the phrase “rarely get from a movie,” a clean little indictment of an industry that confuses excitement with volume. He’s arguing that the true special effect is character: people who feel textured, contradictory, alert - not “relatable” as a marketing checkbox, but interesting in the way actual friends, coworkers, and adversaries are interesting. The comparison to “the people I know in real life” is doing heavy lifting. It’s both a compliment (the film has observation, specificity, social intelligence) and a rebuke (Hollywood’s default human is a simplified avatar engineered to hit story beats on schedule).
The intent is critical triage: separating movies that deliver a lived-in encounter from movies that deliver an engineered ride. Siskel frames his ideal experience as “a couple of hours” of company, not a lecture or a puzzle box. That’s a critic’s way of making craft sound like pleasure. The subtext is that he’s tired of empty spectacle and of characters written like press releases: aspirational, coherent, and dead.
Context matters: Siskel came up during the late-70s/80s turn toward high-concept packaging and franchise logic, when characters increasingly served the premise rather than the other way around. So the line reads like a defense of adult attention spans - and of movies as a place to meet people, not just witness events. His standard is deceptively tough: if your characters can’t compete with real life, why are we watching?
The intent is critical triage: separating movies that deliver a lived-in encounter from movies that deliver an engineered ride. Siskel frames his ideal experience as “a couple of hours” of company, not a lecture or a puzzle box. That’s a critic’s way of making craft sound like pleasure. The subtext is that he’s tired of empty spectacle and of characters written like press releases: aspirational, coherent, and dead.
Context matters: Siskel came up during the late-70s/80s turn toward high-concept packaging and franchise logic, when characters increasingly served the premise rather than the other way around. So the line reads like a defense of adult attention spans - and of movies as a place to meet people, not just witness events. His standard is deceptively tough: if your characters can’t compete with real life, why are we watching?
Quote Details
| Topic | Movie |
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