"Their every instinct - and I have to say this is without exception - is to iron out the bumps, and It's always the bumps that are the most interesting stuff"
About this Quote
Lyne’s line is a small manifesto against the most powerful force in big-budget filmmaking: the committee impulse to make everything “work” for everyone. “Without exception” is doing a lot of work here. He’s not merely venting about a few meddling executives; he’s describing a systemic reflex in studios, test screenings, marketing departments, even well-meaning collaborators. Their job, structurally, is risk management. Their taste gets trained around smoothing: clarify motivation, soften ambiguity, remove discomfort, sand down the moment that might split an audience.
The punch is in his reversal: the “bumps” aren’t mistakes to fix, they’re the point. In Lyne’s filmography (Fatal Attraction, Indecent Proposal, 9 1/2 Weeks), the most memorable scenes often live in moral abrasions and tonal unease: desire that curdles, choices that don’t come with clean consequences, endings that refuse to reassure. Those are the bumps - the spots where a movie stops being a product and becomes an argument with the viewer.
Subtextually, Lyne is talking about authorship in an industrial art form. The “instinct” to iron out bumps is also an instinct to protect brand: keep characters likable, keep the message legible, keep the ending tidy enough to sell overseas. But cultural staying power rarely comes from tidiness. It comes from the risky texture that makes people debate a scene on the drive home, or feel slightly implicated by what they enjoyed.
He’s naming the irony of mainstream entertainment: the safest version is often the least interesting, and “interesting” is the only thing that survives the opening weekend.
The punch is in his reversal: the “bumps” aren’t mistakes to fix, they’re the point. In Lyne’s filmography (Fatal Attraction, Indecent Proposal, 9 1/2 Weeks), the most memorable scenes often live in moral abrasions and tonal unease: desire that curdles, choices that don’t come with clean consequences, endings that refuse to reassure. Those are the bumps - the spots where a movie stops being a product and becomes an argument with the viewer.
Subtextually, Lyne is talking about authorship in an industrial art form. The “instinct” to iron out bumps is also an instinct to protect brand: keep characters likable, keep the message legible, keep the ending tidy enough to sell overseas. But cultural staying power rarely comes from tidiness. It comes from the risky texture that makes people debate a scene on the drive home, or feel slightly implicated by what they enjoyed.
He’s naming the irony of mainstream entertainment: the safest version is often the least interesting, and “interesting” is the only thing that survives the opening weekend.
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| Topic | Deep |
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