Did Nora Ephron read Bordwell in Intro to Film??

While watching Nora Ephron’s Sleepless in Seattle, I found it hard to get David Bordwell’s piece, “Classical Hollywood Cinema: Narrational Principles and Procedures”, out of my head. From the beginning to end, I cannot think of a major instance in which the film strayed from Bordwell’s outline of the Classical Hollywood film.

Bordwell outlines the classical plot by saying that it consists of “an undisturbed stage, the disturbance, the struggle, and the elimination of the disturbance”. The plot of Sleepless in Seattle closely follows this outline and is therefore a classical plot. The undisturbed stage consists of the scenes leading up to the first time that Sam is on the radio. Until this point, our characters lives have not crossed paths and they are in no way interconnected. The moment that Annie hears Sam on the radio, a disturbance exists- she finds herself crying and having feelings for this man who lives across the country and who she knows very little about. She makes an instant connection with Sam when she finds herself mouthing “magic” at the exact moment that she hears Sam say it on the radio- Sam is describing the magic he experienced the first time he took his wife’s hand and Annie instantly thinks of her mother’s story about the “magic” that she felt the first time her husband (Annie’s father) took her hand. Each subsequent time she hears Sam on the radio, a struggle builds because she finds herself having stronger and stronger feelings for this stranger. She feeds these feelings by looking into Sam’s life, hiring an investigator and ultimately flying to Seattle to see him in person. Although there are no words exchanged between the two in Seattle, the connection is made when Sam first sees Annie at the airport and then when their eyes meet across the street in front of his home. Upon Annie’s return to the East Coast, the film tries to trick us into believing that the lovers will never cross paths. However, Annie sees a “sign” in the form of heart-shaped lights on the Empire State Building, where she had requested Sam meet her, and knows that she must at least go to the top of the building to see if he is there. Finally, our disturbance is eliminated when Sam and Annie unite on the top of the Empire State Building on Valentine’s Day.

According to Bordwell’s “Classical Hollywood Cinema: Narrational Principles and Procedures”, a classical story must end with a clear resolution of the underlying problem and the accomplishment of the major goals of the film. As was obvious, the problem that existed throughout the film was the distance that separated Annie and Sam, what with her living in Baltimore and him residing in Seattle. I saw the goals of the film to be the following: for Sam to find a women who he could love as much as his wife and for Annie to find a true love and experience the “magic” that she had learned about from her mother and Cary Grant movies. In the end, Annie and Sam finally meet atop the Empire State Building and experience the “magic” of their love when he takes her hand for the first time. This first in-person rendezvous serves as a classical ending, as defined by Bordwell. When Sam arrives in New York in an effort to retrieve Jonah, the problem of distance is eliminated and we start to see our happy ending pan out. Finally, when Sam and Jonah walk off the elevator and Sam takes Annie’s hand, both goals of the film are achieved- we see that Sam is in love and we can tell that Annie is finally experiencing the “magic” that she had always heard about.

Sleepless in Seattle was the perfect film to watch after reading Bordwell’s piece on Classical Hollywood. I really enjoyed being able to relate the reading to the film with ease. While I really liked the film (huge fan of the chick flick) I think that Ephron played it a little TOO safe in sticking to the outline of the classical Hollywood film. The movie was for sure a “feel good” and the ending made me smile, but it was a little too predictable for my liking. That’s my only complaint! J