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Short Stuff: MacGuffins · Stuff You Should Know

• 0:04
  Speaker 1: Hey, and welcome to the podcast. I'm Josh, and there's
• 0:06
  Speaker 1: Chuck and Jerry's here too, sitting in for day, which
• 0:09
  Speaker 1: you guessed. It makes this a short stuff, and it's
• 0:12
  Speaker 1: a short stuff about a question that will probably never
• 0:18
  Speaker 1: be answered. What is a mcguffin?
• 0:22
  Speaker 2: Yeah, I think I offered up a definition of my
• 0:24
  Speaker 2: own recently, and I'm not even sure what I said you.
• 0:28
  Speaker 1: I think you went with the second definition. Okay, that
• 0:32
  Speaker 1: we're covering here, all right, But there's I mean, even though,
• 0:36
  Speaker 1: so there's a couple of different definitions. They contradict each
• 0:39
  Speaker 1: other in certain ways, but there are some things they
• 0:42
  Speaker 1: agree on, and that is that a mcguffin is a
• 0:45
  Speaker 1: plot device. It moves things along to some way, to
• 0:49
  Speaker 1: some degree or another, it motivates characters in a story
• 0:52
  Speaker 1: or a movie. And what it is specifically and what
• 0:57
  Speaker 1: role it ultimately plays in the plot, that's what That's
• 1:02
  Speaker 1: where the definitions differ. And so just based on what
• 1:06
  Speaker 1: I just said, that means that figuring out what a
• 1:09
  Speaker 1: mcguffin is is the mcguffin of this episode of short stuff.
• 1:14
  Speaker 2: This would that wouldn't be the central premise of the
• 1:16
  Speaker 2: short stuff.
• 1:18
  Speaker 1: I don't know man, this is this is brain breaking.
• 1:21
  Speaker 1: This is like economics, quantum physics, and jackhammer is all
• 1:26
  Speaker 1: put together.
• 1:27
  Speaker 2: Well, the first sort of definition I think, example wise,
• 1:31
  Speaker 2: is the Maltese falcon is kind of always if you
• 1:34
  Speaker 2: if you look up anything about the mcguffin, they'll usually
• 1:36
  Speaker 2: kind of point to the Maltese Falcon film as one
• 1:39
  Speaker 2: of the best examples. It was a novel and then
• 1:43
  Speaker 2: later a movie where Humphrey Bogart played Sam Spade and
• 1:48
  Speaker 2: the mcguffin is the Maltese fact falcon. It's his statuette
• 1:53
  Speaker 2: of a bird in the movie. But it's really not
• 1:56
  Speaker 2: about that Maltese falcon the object. It's about what happens
• 2:02
  Speaker 2: to try and get a hold of this thing.
• 2:04
  Speaker 1: Basically, okay, okay, I okay, so this is where the
• 2:11
  Speaker 1: this is where I don't get it. So there's definitions
• 2:14
  Speaker 1: out there from screenwriters who say the Maltese falcon is
• 2:20
  Speaker 1: the point, this is the object that does everything in
• 2:23
  Speaker 1: the movie. All of the actions are based on getting
• 2:26
  Speaker 1: their hands on the Maltese falcon. There would be no
• 2:30
  Speaker 1: plot whatsoever if the Maltese falcon didn't exist. Ergo, that's
• 2:35
  Speaker 1: what a mcguffin is. It's the thing that moves the
• 2:38
  Speaker 1: entire movie. Yeah, right. The other definition is no. I mean,
• 2:44
  Speaker 1: it causes some action, and as far as the characters
• 2:47
  Speaker 1: are concerned, it's the most important thing, but it actually
• 2:51
  Speaker 1: isn't all that important in the overall plot. I get
• 2:54
  Speaker 1: the first definition of mcguffin quite clearly, but this other
• 2:59
  Speaker 1: definition I can not get because every time I say, okay, well,
• 3:02
  Speaker 1: then let me try to figure out what is an
• 3:04
  Speaker 1: example of a mcguffin there, I usually come up short
• 3:07
  Speaker 1: and it ends up basically falling into the first definition instead.
• 3:11
  Speaker 2: I don't see the difference much of a difference between
• 3:13
  Speaker 2: the two definitions.
• 3:15
  Speaker 1: I know there's not much difference, but the idea that
• 3:19
  Speaker 1: it's irrelevant or the most important part of the entire plot,
• 3:23
  Speaker 1: that's that's a that's a difference for sure.
• 3:26
  Speaker 2: Okay, but ultimately the Maltese falcon itself isn't like and
• 3:31
  Speaker 2: the cure for cancer is inside and we can save
• 3:33
  Speaker 2: the main character, you know what I mean.
• 3:36
  Speaker 1: Okay, I'm gonna go with your take on this because
• 3:38
  Speaker 1: I'm not the one who had a movie podcast.
• 3:42
  Speaker 2: So a good example of the second one, and we're
• 3:45
  Speaker 2: going to go over some more famous examples too at
• 3:47
  Speaker 2: the end. But in Raiders of the Lost Ark at
• 3:49
  Speaker 2: the beginning, that little gold head statue that he's that
• 3:54
  Speaker 2: he gets. If you had never seen that movie before,
• 3:57
  Speaker 2: you know he saw it for the first time, you
• 3:59
  Speaker 2: might think like, oh, this object that he's recovering is
• 4:02
  Speaker 2: like super central to the plot perhaps, and it's not
• 4:06
  Speaker 2: at all. So that's just sort of the first mcguffin
• 4:10
  Speaker 2: in that movie. They're usually introduced in act one, although
• 4:14
  Speaker 2: George Lucas has come out and said that he thinks
• 4:17
  Speaker 2: the actual arc of the Covenant is also a mcguffin.
• 4:20
  Speaker 1: So, yeah, you sent that and I don't get that.
• 4:23
  Speaker 1: Then that's the thing that motivates everyone's action. It's the
• 4:27
  Speaker 1: most important thing in the entire movie. How is that irrelevant?
• 4:33
  Speaker 2: Well, I mean because I guess because in the end
• 4:38
  Speaker 2: they just go stick it in a box and put
• 4:40
  Speaker 2: it in a warehouse.
• 4:41
  Speaker 1: Okay, So then let me ask you this. You reference
• 4:44
  Speaker 1: like the multice Falcon haveying cure for cancer. If the
• 4:46
  Speaker 1: point of getting the Arc of the Covenant was to
• 4:49
  Speaker 1: open it up and like just and all of the
• 4:55
  Speaker 1: ills of the world, and then they did that at
• 4:58
  Speaker 1: the end, would that mean it's no out the mcguffin
• 5:00
  Speaker 1: then or mcguffin.
• 5:04
  Speaker 2: I don't know, because I don't think that was the
• 5:07
  Speaker 2: driving point of them trying to find the arc, like
• 5:11
  Speaker 2: that was a byproduct of it.
• 5:13
  Speaker 1: If it had been, though, oh.
• 5:15
  Speaker 2: Well, geez, I don't know. That movie so ingrained, it's
• 5:18
  Speaker 2: hard to sort of reframe it.
• 5:20
  Speaker 1: Okay, I say we take a break, we'll regroup, take
• 5:23
  Speaker 1: a couple of film classes, and come back.
• 5:27
  Speaker 2: That sounds great.
• 6:02
  Speaker 1: Okay, Chuck, I've got another another attempt here. This one
• 6:06
  Speaker 1: makes a little more sense to me. In the The
• 6:09
  Speaker 1: Murder of Roger Ackroyd, the Agatha Christie book. Have you
• 6:12
  Speaker 1: ever seen? It's really good. No, It's essentially what the
• 6:15
  Speaker 1: what Knives Out the first one is based on. But
• 6:20
  Speaker 1: in there, the character, the main character, the titular character,
• 6:23
  Speaker 1: Roger Ackroyd. He is murdered, and he was murdered to
• 6:28
  Speaker 1: get so the murderer could get their hands on a
• 6:30
  Speaker 1: blackmail letter. Okay, the blackmail letter with the name of
• 6:35
  Speaker 1: the blackmailer. That's important to the characters, but it's not
• 6:39
  Speaker 1: really the point of the overall plot. The point of
• 6:42
  Speaker 1: the overall plot is Hercule Paul Rose's investigation to uncover
• 6:46
  Speaker 1: who murdered Roger Ackroyd. So in that sense, that blackmailer
• 6:51
  Speaker 1: letter is the mcguffin. How about that one?
• 6:57
  Speaker 2: Yeah, I mean it seems like a mcguffin to me.
• 6:59
  Speaker 1: Okay, okay, we're on the trail. So I think my
• 7:03
  Speaker 1: problem is this, Chuck. It's not that I can't understand
• 7:06
  Speaker 1: what a mcguffin is. It's that I can't understand why
• 7:09
  Speaker 1: some things that are mcguffins are called mcguffins, and other
• 7:12
  Speaker 1: things that aren't considered mcguffins aren't mcguffins. That's that's my
• 7:16
  Speaker 1: big problem here. I'm just going to shut up about
• 7:18
  Speaker 1: it from now on, but I just want to make
• 7:20
  Speaker 1: sure I go on the record saying.
• 7:21
  Speaker 2: That, all right, well it all comes. It came pre Hitchcock,
• 7:25
  Speaker 2: But Hitchcock is the one that sort of made it famous.
• 7:28
  Speaker 2: I guess he used it in a lot of his movies,
• 7:31
  Speaker 2: for sure, and he had a couple of different explanations
• 7:34
  Speaker 2: over the years. One is that it was something vitally
• 7:37
  Speaker 2: important to the characters but of no importance to me,
• 7:40
  Speaker 2: the narrator. Another one I saw him say was, it's
• 7:44
  Speaker 2: the thing that the spies are after, but the audience
• 7:46
  Speaker 2: doesn't care about, which was where he and George Lucas
• 7:50
  Speaker 2: diverged because George Lucas apparently R two D two was
• 7:54
  Speaker 2: a mcguffin in Star Wars. He said, I think the
• 7:57
  Speaker 2: audience should care and tally like, if the audience doesn't
• 8:01
  Speaker 2: care as much about R two as Luke does in
• 8:05
  Speaker 2: finding him, then like the emotional tilt will be off.
• 8:09
  Speaker 1: Yeah for sure. But Hetchcock was able to pull off
• 8:13
  Speaker 1: what he was saying, and that say, like the microfilm
• 8:16
  Speaker 1: or whatever, you don't really care if the bad guys
• 8:19
  Speaker 1: get it or Carry Grant gets it. You want to
• 8:21
  Speaker 1: make sure that Carry Grant and was it Grace Kelly
• 8:27
  Speaker 1: who is in north By Northwest? You just want to
• 8:29
  Speaker 1: make sure that they're both okay. You don't care about
• 8:31
  Speaker 1: the microfilm?
• 8:32
  Speaker 2: Yeah, yeah, for sure. The movie Psycho is one of
• 8:37
  Speaker 2: the classic examples, because you know, everyone remembers the Baits Motel.
• 8:42
  Speaker 2: But I think if you haven't seen the movie in
• 8:43
  Speaker 2: a while, if you're not a student of that film,
• 8:45
  Speaker 2: you may forget that whole first part in the first
• 8:48
  Speaker 2: act where Janet Lee the reason she goes to the
• 8:52
  Speaker 2: Bates Motel is because she's on the run. After stealing
• 8:55
  Speaker 2: forty grand from her employer. And that forty grand, that's
• 9:00
  Speaker 2: the mcguffin that it never comes up again.
• 9:03
  Speaker 1: No, but it's the thing that initially motivates the character's actions.
• 9:07
  Speaker 1: It gets her to flee. She's on the lamp that
• 9:10
  Speaker 1: takes her to the Bates Motel, and then the actual
• 9:13
  Speaker 1: plot begins.
• 9:14
  Speaker 2: Yeah, but what about the word itself?
• 9:18
  Speaker 1: Well, you sent something and I've read this ten times
• 9:20
  Speaker 1: and I still don't get how it explains what a
• 9:23
  Speaker 1: mcguffin is. So I think I'll leave it to you.
• 9:24
  Speaker 1: But it's the one time Hitchcock tried to explain the
• 9:29
  Speaker 1: origin of mcguffin or what it is. I think.
• 9:32
  Speaker 2: Yeah, he credits a writer that he worked with named
• 9:34
  Speaker 2: a Scottish guy named Angus McPhail, And one of the
• 9:39
  Speaker 2: theories is that it just comes from the root word
• 9:41
  Speaker 2: guff which is a word that means like something said
• 9:44
  Speaker 2: that's trivial or meaningless. So that certainly has a little
• 9:47
  Speaker 2: bit of weight. But another story is that apparently McPhail
• 9:53
  Speaker 2: had told this story to Hitchcock, where he said, two
• 9:56
  Speaker 2: Scottish men are riding on a train. One man asked
• 9:59
  Speaker 2: the other about the contents of a package on the
• 10:02
  Speaker 2: overhead luggage rack. He said, it's a mcguffin device for
• 10:06
  Speaker 2: hunting tigers in Scotland. And the other guy said, but
• 10:08
  Speaker 2: there are no tigers in Scotland. And he says, well,
• 10:11
  Speaker 2: then I guess it's not a mcguffin.
• 10:14
  Speaker 1: Still do not get it, well, I mean to me.
• 10:18
  Speaker 2: That just means it's sort of like that illustrates its meaninglessness.
• 10:24
  Speaker 1: Okay, okay, we'll go with that.
• 10:27
  Speaker 2: I mean, I don't see what else it could mean.
• 10:30
  Speaker 1: I don't either. I don't see what it can mean
• 10:32
  Speaker 1: in any case. Like it's like, yeah, I don't know
• 10:35
  Speaker 1: who knows. I think your interpretation's right. I can kind
• 10:39
  Speaker 1: of sink my teeth into the history of this because
• 10:41
  Speaker 1: you said that it predates Hitchcock, although he popularized it
• 10:45
  Speaker 1: apparently decades before that. This was TV Tropes who pointed
• 10:49
  Speaker 1: this out. There was a silent film actress named Pearl
• 10:51
  Speaker 1: White and then the kind of action cliffhanger serials that
• 10:56
  Speaker 1: she started. They were always chasing after some like role
• 11:00
  Speaker 1: of film or some treasure or something like that, and
• 11:05
  Speaker 1: she called them Weeni's but they were essentially what she
• 11:08
  Speaker 1: was saying. They were the plot devices. That was driving
• 11:11
  Speaker 1: all of the character's actions.
• 11:12
  Speaker 2: I like Weenie.
• 11:14
  Speaker 1: I like Weenie too.
• 11:15
  Speaker 2: Yeah, that's pretty good.
• 11:16
  Speaker 1: Bring that back.
• 11:17
  Speaker 2: My favorite mcguffin I think is probably from Escape from
• 11:22
  Speaker 2: New York. Oh yeah, the cassette tape.
• 11:26
  Speaker 1: Yeah, that's a good one.
• 11:27
  Speaker 2: Yeah, there's a cassette tape of Donald Pleasants as the President,
• 11:30
  Speaker 2: and you know, he's trapped on the prison island of
• 11:33
  Speaker 2: New York and Snake Plisken is tasked with going to
• 11:36
  Speaker 2: get him and crucially that cassette tape back because it's
• 11:40
  Speaker 2: some big important speech to the world and you don't
• 11:44
  Speaker 2: even hear it at the end because well, I don't
• 11:46
  Speaker 2: want to spoil it, but you never end up hearing
• 11:48
  Speaker 2: what's even on that cassette tape. So that's sort of
• 11:51
  Speaker 2: a classic mcguffin.
• 11:53
  Speaker 1: Similarly, another John Carpenter movie that had a great mcguffin
• 11:59
  Speaker 1: was the thing with Wilford Brimley being the mcguffin from
• 12:03
  Speaker 1: my understanding.
• 12:03
  Speaker 2: Of mcguffins, Yeah, that's a great movie.
• 12:08
  Speaker 1: You said, R two is the mcguffin in Star Wars
• 12:10
  Speaker 1: Episode four. I think that's awesome. I had never thought
• 12:13
  Speaker 1: about that before. But he's the droid that they're after
• 12:15
  Speaker 1: because he has the plans for the Death Star. Another
• 12:18
  Speaker 1: one that comes to mind is that mysterious briefcase that
• 12:22
  Speaker 1: belonged to Marcellus Wallace that Vincent and Jules go retrieve
• 12:26
  Speaker 1: in pulp fiction.
• 12:28
  Speaker 2: Yeah, classic mcguffin, And that one is I mean, I
• 12:31
  Speaker 2: love pulp fiction, but that one definitely seems like Tarantino
• 12:34
  Speaker 2: really wanted to write in a classic mcguffin I think.
• 12:37
  Speaker 1: Yeah, and he did. Yeah, And they also they never
• 12:40
  Speaker 1: say what was in the briefcase no, and it just
• 12:43
  Speaker 1: kind of falls away from the plot eventually too.
• 12:46
  Speaker 2: Yeah, for sure, I think I have a bad taste
• 12:48
  Speaker 2: in my mouth about Tarantino in general lately.
• 12:51
  Speaker 1: Yeah, what is it about like men who have power
• 12:55
  Speaker 1: and fame and reach like their fifties and just completely
• 12:58
  Speaker 1: just jerk out. I don't know, I don't get it.
• 13:03
  Speaker 2: Well, my time is coming, I guess.
• 13:05
  Speaker 1: No, I think you've passed the point.
• 13:08
  Speaker 2: Okay, so once you hear fifty four or fifty five,
• 13:10
  Speaker 2: then you're safe.
• 13:11
  Speaker 1: Yeah, okay, I think you made it through the great
• 13:13
  Speaker 1: filter of becoming a jerk.
• 13:14
  Speaker 2: All right, Well, your time's coming, then.
• 13:16
  Speaker 1: I know I'm really having to hang out you'll be
• 13:17
  Speaker 1: all right. I'm going to follow all of your examples,
• 13:21
  Speaker 1: including your definition of mcguffin, and I think we should
• 13:24
  Speaker 1: stop talking about mcguffins now, all.
• 13:26
  Speaker 2: Right, And hey, we'll say this right in. We'd love
• 13:28
  Speaker 2: to hear from film students and film centephiles and see
• 13:32
  Speaker 2: if you guys can give us a clearer definition.
• 13:36
  Speaker 1: That's a great call, Chuck, great call. Short Stuff is out.
• 13:43
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• 13:46
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