Comedy and Alejandro González Iñárritu’s Digger

One of the precepts of comedy is that as absurd as the scene gets, the actor cannot laugh. A comedic scene develops through the development of absurd and humorous elements, stacking on top of each other. These elements build, bringing tension, and can only be diffused through laughing. Laughing brings the catharsis. If the actor laughs then it takes away the pressure on the audience to laugh.

When an actor breaks character, like Bill Hader often did on Saturday Night Live, and begins to laugh then the tension changes. The audience will still laugh but now it’s not at the scene but at the inability of Hader to keep it together. They’re in on it with him. His amusement of the situation becomes the core of the joke. Live comedy has that possibility. But all tension and humour would be drained from the scene if Kramer turned to Seinfeld and said, “oh I know Jerry, there’s no sense in this plan and I think I should reconsider some of my life choices.”

This concept is at the heart of why Alejandro González Iñárritu’s Digger fails on a structural level.

Without giving away the story – Tom Cruise plays Digger Rockwell, a billionaire oil magnate who is entirely unapologetic about his greed and the damage done to the environment entirely on his command. But it is framed within another story of an actor in rehearsals to play Digger in a biography of the man. A “play within the play” type situation.

The elements of the oil magnate parts of Digger build up to a a potentially powerful satire. There are some amazing moments of satirical cinema. Then the film steps back and admits that Digger Rockwell is a ridiculous, greedy and selfish person. That the people around him are as well. This recognition and admission diffuses all the tension. It releases everything built up in the audience. The tension that has been built up so wonderfully is gone. The same as Hader breaking character.

There is a reason Iñárritu does this, to try to work in another point. That, too, falls flat. The film tries to be clever instead of delivering an emotional punch through a well told story. Even if this part did land right, the point is not as powerful as the satire.

For it’s satirical ambition, Digger is comparable to Stanley Kubrick’s Dr Strangelove, another satire on powerful people playing with the fate of the world. Kubrick knew that the power of the film would be in the absurdity on screen so much that he didn’t tell Slim Pickens that it was a comedy. Pickens played it straight as a dramatic role. Kubrick also had George C. Scott go over the top in rehearsal takes and then used these outlandish takes for the film.

Building a strong story that has an audience captivated is not easy. It is such a waste of an opportunity to have that tension and let off the release valve in a way that doesn’t capitalise on the story. I am so often left disappointed by films by the Coen Brothers for this reason.

The other structural reason Digger fails is related to this. The question put to the audience at the start is not completed. At the end of the film, the actor playing Digger feels accomplished, a moment of success, but the film was not set up to be about his success. It was about the actual Digger Rockwell. Without establishing this there’s no release or catharsis for the audience simply because this is not the point of the film.

I have my own theory on how Digger should have been made/written/finished but I won’t go into it here. You can email me for it if you want to hear it. Instead, I’ll end with an encouraging reminder.

A “clever” story will be talked about while it’s en vogue. A story that delivers a strong emotional punch will be felt much longer.