James Bond attacked by pigeons

by David Benjamin

“Professor Henry Jones: ‘If only I could have been there with you.’
“Indiana Jones: ‘There were rats, Dad.’
“Prof. Jones: [Startled] ‘Rats?’”
— Indiana Jones and the Last Crusade

MADISON, Wis. — Picture this.

James Bond slips out the window of the most luxurious hotel in, say, Monte Carlo. He clambers off the balcony and edges along a brittle ledge that (cliché alert!) cracks and crumbles beneath his shoes. But he grips a window frame, or — better yet — a gargoyle, and after (cliché alert) struggling a moment to keep his balance, he regains his footing. As he approaches a pitch-dark recess in the wall, suddenly (major cliché alert), a flock of pigeons explodes deafeningly — amplified to at least 100 decibels by the sound engineer — from the inky cranny.

Bond, startled, loses his grip, tumbles off the ledge and —screaming, flailing his arms and unable to deploy the parachute tucked into his Rolex — plunges to his death, landing (cliché alert) on the roof of a car (see below).

Okay, I know. The pigeons always pop out of nowhere and scare the bejesus out of the audience, but Bond always keeps a fingerhold on the gargoyle and sneaks deftly into (cliché alert) the boudoir of a mysterious sloe-eyed sexpot who will, in the next reel (double cliché alert) either try to kill Bond or will turn up dead, killed by the movie’s obligatory criminal mastermind (well, actually, by his heavily muscled Asian, Black or Eastern European bodyguard/assassin).

Whenever a movie hero inches onto a ledge or ventures precariously onto a Really High Place — ideally after dark — the Film Director’s Canon of Clichés requires a whole mess of pigeons to burst from their hidden roost, shocking the hero into almost but not quite screaming, letting go and plummeting to Splat City.

This cliché was hardly new when Alfred Hitchcock organized a flock of pigeons (and possibly got the idea for The Birds) to attack James Stewart on a bell tower in Vertigo. But that scene remains the epitome of the Pigeon Cliché, prompting every subsequent director and every guy who played James Bond to re-enact it over and over again. Surprisingly, audiences are still surprised.

Many forms of wildlife figure prominently in the Canon of Clichés. Rats, for instance.
Whenever a movie detective, or a teenage girl hunted by a sadist with a chain saw, enters a dark cellar, tunnel, sewer, or a creepy abandoned building draped with (cliché alert) spiderwebs, I gird my loins for the “rat shot.”

And there it is, a rat — sniffing the fetid air, crawling across the heroine’s slingbacks or gnawing the body that everyone’s looking for. Typically, the soundtrack accompanies the rat shot with a shrill violin stab. The heroine recoils in disgust. The hero says, “C’mon, honey. It’s just a rat.” Cut to the corpse.

The two best deviations on the obligatory underground rat shot (OURS) are, of course, screenwriter William Goldman’s Rodents of Unusual Size (ROUS) in The Princess Bride, and Spielberg’s decision to flood the cellar/catacomb/tunnel beneath Venice with a million scurrying, snuffling, blonde-scaring black rats in Indiana Jones and the Last Crusade.

Another rich source of clichés is the Establishing Shot, a filmmaking staple, especially on TV. One of the classics is the café exterior in “Seinfeld”. When this Establishing Shot appears, viewers know that next there will be a tableau of Jerry and Elaine, perhaps with George and/or Kramer at a booth inside the joint.

Often, the Establishing Shots is necessary. Just as often, it’s a near occasion for cliché. Consider, for example, the seagull clip. Whenever a lazy filmmaker wants to tell you that the scene has shifted to somewhere near the ocean, the easy clue is waves lapping the shore. When waves don’t quite fit, the fallback is a two-second soundbite of gulls squawking, often accompanied by a foghorn hooting in the distance. A visual of the gulls is a nice touch but not obligatory.

Hitchcock, bless his heart, turned this mundane item of film upholstery into a completely fresh motif in The Birds, by FXing a battalion of vengeful gulls, screaming, squalling, attacking little kids and pecking Suzanne Pleshette to death.

Speaking of birds, let’s circle back to James Bond’s moment on the ledge at the Ritz with the pigeons. Let’s pretend he fell. If so, we know exactly what happens next because there are no rules in the Canon of Clichés more ritually rigid than those for flinging folks from high buildings. Above all, by this standard, people who fly off high-rises never hit the pavement. They always land on cars.

According to the scenario, however, there are different — mandatory — ways to land on a car. These never vary. Let’s say you’re plummeting from above, with no hope of Spiderman. Before impact, you must determine whether the car you’re scripted to hit is empty or occupied. If it’s empty, your job is to land on the roof, facing up, assuming a spread-eagle death-pose reminiscent of the crucified Jesus.

My favorite example of this cliché is actress Jackie Swanson, as Amanda Hunsaker in Lethal Weapon. Swanson launched a graceful swan dive off an L.A. balcony. In her post-landing shot, she was arranged in perfect symmetry atop a luxury sedan, dead but lovely in subtle makeup and a gauzy negligee.

If, however, you determine during your drop that you’re about to land on a car that contains people, you must contrive to turn in mid-air, facing downward and aiming for the windshield. In this attitude, you will hit the hood with your body, eliciting a crash that will echo off nearby buildings while your head penetrates the windshield. Driver and passenger will find themselves gazing in horror into your glassy eyes while blood drips from a dozen ghastly facial lacerations. Classic!

I can’t conclude this primer on the Film Director’s Canon of Clichés without referencing the part about “Stuff TV and Movie Police Do That No Real Cop Would Ever Think of Doing.” Foremost among the clichés in this long chapter is the stipulation that TV and movie cops never, ever wait for “backup.”

Example: A badass perp is cornered inside (cliché alert) an abandoned warehouse on the docks (cue seagulls). The first cop to arrive is the pathologically manly and deeply emotional Elliot Stabler. His SVU colleagues are on route, But Stabler is overwhelmed by a secret childhood trauma revived in his psyche by the particular atrocities perpetrated by the perp in the warehouse.

Now, the bad guy is trapped. If Stabler waits five minutes, dozens of cops will swarm. They’ll surround the building, cutting off any possible escape. Helicopters will hover, preventing the perp from fleeing across rooftops. All this manpower will render the perp’s capture efficient, bloodless, unwatchable. Luckily, for viewers, Stabler can’t even think of waiting for help. He doesn’t know if the perp is heeled with one gun, a machine gun or a bazooka. He doesn’t know if the guy is alone, or has an army of fellow badasses, each strapped with an AK-47 and a hundred rounds of ammo. Stabler doesn’t consider his wife, his kids, his own safety or his impending 20-year pension. He’s driven only by the movie-cliché impulse that if he doesn’t charge alone and moronic into needless danger, the evil perp will escape to wreak havoc upon virgins and children until the end of time.

So, Stabler (cliché alert) kicks the door open with one foot. (Go ahead. Try that sometime.) He holds his 9mm Glock in one hand while (cliché alert), awkwardly lining up a flashlight along his gun barrel. He doesn’t look for an electric switch because, according to the Canon of Clichés, TV and movie cops never turn on the lights in a dark room. He creeps forward, swinging his beam erratically and groping in the gloom. Finally…

Well, you know how the rest of it goes. And if you don’t, you could look it up.

I’ll lend you the manual.