The wheel movement not matching the view out the back of the car alwas bothered me. The worst is when the car is going straight and the driver is constantly turning the wheel back and forth.
Then I saw Airplane! and laughed my ass off when they were driving to the airport.
The Controvert: I’m not referring to the details of the conversation, I’m referring to the emotional subtext of the conversation. To illustrate, try watching a foreign movie without subtitles some time. You’ll be surprised how much you pick up even though you don’t know what’s being said. It makes it easier for the actors to explore and communicate their relationship if they’re freed somewhat from having to stare at the road the whole time.
However…
Wumpus is correct, in that this convention, like many others, can be chalked up to laziness a lot of the time. Filmmakers don’t really think about why they do what they do; they just know it works, because they’ve internalized it to some degree. To go back to an example I cited initially, the way a character can park right in front of his destination even in parking-sparse midtown Manhattan, a filmmaker who’s actually thinking things through can solve the problem differently. Say, you have a shot of the destination from an odd angle, then bring the camera back to reveal you’re in a nearby parking garage, with the hero getting out of the car and having dialogue with his sidekick. Cut from there to the lobby of the destination, and the audience fills in the gap. Most filmmakers aren’t thinking about their choices at this degree of detail, though; they just go with the established convention and call it good enough. And for 90% of the audience, it is good enough.
Sometimes I’m annoyed by an actor who isn’t “paying attention” to driving, but I really try not to let it bother me. Why? Because the point of the scene (hopefully) is whatever interaction the characters are having; the driving is secondary. (Plus I know the actor isn’t really in control of the vehicle.) A skilled actor finds a compromise where he pays more attention to the passenger and his dialogue than he would in reality, but not so much that your attention is called to it.
For comparison, consider how actors in car-chase scenes focus grimly on the road, because the point of the scene is the driving, and if they were looking elsewhere it would be really obvious. (Of course, in some ways, that behavior is even sillier than the other example, because the actor isn’t anywhere near the actual car-chase when it’s filmed; he just comes in and does inserts to be spliced here and there into the second-unit stunt footage. “All right, action! Arnold! Grip the wheel and pretend you’re going really fast! Faster! Faster! Turn left! Look surprised! Okay, break for lunch.”)
Even though I can intellectually justify the reason for it (what Cervaise said), as a driver myself I get instinctively anxious when I see another driver’s eyes off the road for more than a second or two. The only answer for that anxiety is to realize that “well, this is only a movie, and it’s just a movie convention.” Which of course is the last thing I should be thinking while I’m watching a movie: it means I’m not engaged in the story.
There was a scene in Scrubs this week where two characters were in a car, and the driver turned to look at the passenger. After about three seconds another car’s horn blared and the two characters startled. Brilliant!
Why can’t they just glance over from time to time?
And I’m always concerned because for all I know, getting into an accident might be a plot point. I’m one of those people who gets annoyed with women constantly tripping while being chased and people going into dark basements when they think there is a psychopathic killer down there. I don’t do well with blatant stupidity in movies/tv.
Ha! As if these items were mutually exclusive.
No problem (I think; still haven’t seen the movie yet 
)
Actually, one of the things I like about older films from the 30s and 40s is that if the story took place in another country with its entire cast of characters from that country, there’s often no pretense at the accent. They just act in character without the window-dressing of having an accent to “remind” us we’re in that country. Now though, people want it both ways. When they hear no accents (like in Tim Blake Nelson’s The Grey Zone), they complain, but if they get the accents (like in K-19: The Widowmaker), then they complain about how bad they are. They’re in a Russian sub! We get it, they’re Russians!
Hi Archive Guy–
Ever notice how in New Testmament Biblical epics, the Romans often have British accents while the Jews sound like Americans?
Not only Roman Epics. Star Wars epics, too.
This is not to suggest that there are Jews in Star Wars, since everything did happen “a long time ago”, presumably pre-Abraham.
Joools: one of the good things about the original Lana Turner version of The Postman Always Rings Twice is that it subverts this convention. Turner and John Garfield are kissing and having an emotional conversation in a car as they drive along in the night, and you think, “They’re going to crash if he doesn’t look at the road soon” - and then they do crash.
They had Romans in Star Wars? :dubious: