Short Stuff: MacGuffins

What’s a MacGuffin? We don’t know. No one knows. But it has to do with movies and that’s fun to talk about. See omnystudio.com/listener https://omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.

Speaker names marked ? are inferred from speaking time and the show’s known hosts — they are not voice-verified.

• 0:00Speaker 00

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• 0:04Josh Clark?

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• 1:07Josh Clark?

  Hey, and welcome to the podcast. I'm Josh and there's Chuck and Jerry's here too, sitting in for Dave, which you guessed it, makes this a short stuff. And it's a short stuff about a question that will probably never be answered. What is a MacGuffin?

• 1:25Speaker 02

  Yeah, I think I offered up a definition of my own recently and I'm not even sure what I said.

• 1:31Josh Clark?

  You, you, I think you went with the second definition.

• 1:34Speaker 02

  Okay.

• 1:35Josh Clark?

  That it, that we're, we're covering here.

• 1:37Speaker 02

  All right.

• 1:38Josh Clark?

  But there's, I mean, even though, so there's a couple of different definitions. They contradict each other in certain ways, but there are some things they agree on. And that is that a MacGuffin is a plot device. It moves things along to some way, to some degree or another. It motivates characters in a story or a movie. And what it is specifically and what role it ultimately plays in the plot, that's what,

• 2:05Josh Clark?

  that's where the definitions differ. And so just based on what I just said, that means that figuring out what a MacGuffin is, is the MacGuffin of this episode of Short Stuff.

• 2:17Speaker 02

  This would, that wouldn't be the central premise of the short stuff?

• 2:22Josh Clark?

  I don't know, man. This is, this is brain breaking. This is like economics, quantum physics, and jackhammers all put together.

• 2:30Speaker 02

  Well, the first sort of definition, I think, example wise, is the Maltese Falcon is kind of always, if you, if you look up anything about the MacGuffin, they'll usually kind of point to the Maltese Falcon film as one of the best examples. It was a novel and then later a movie where Humphrey Bogart played Sam Spade, and the MacGuffin is the Maltese Falcon. It's this statuette of a bird in the movie, but it's really not about that Maltese Falcon, the object. It's about what happens to try and get a hold of this thing, basically.

• 3:09Josh Clark?

  Okay. Okay. I, okay. So this is where the, this is where I don't get it. So the, there's definitions out there from screenwriters who say the, the Maltese Falcon is the point. This is the object that does everything in the movie. All of the actions are based on getting their hands on the Maltese Falcon. There would be no plot whatsoever if the Maltese Falcon didn't exist. Ergo, that's what a MacGuffin is. It's the thing that moves the entire movie.

• 3:42Speaker 02

  Yeah.

• 3:42Josh Clark?

  Right? The, the other definition is, no, I mean, it causes some action. And as far as the characters are concerned, it's the most important thing, but it actually isn't all that important in the overall plot. I get the first definition of MacGuffin quite clearly, but this other, other definition I cannot get because every time I say, okay, well then let me try to figure out what is an example of a MacGuffin there. I, I usually come up short and it ends up basically falling into the first definition instead.

• 4:14Speaker 02

  I don't see the difference, much of a difference between the two definitions.

• 4:18Josh Clark?

  I, I know there's not much difference, but the idea that it's irrelevant or the, the most important part of the entire plot, that's, that's a, that's a difference for sure.

• 4:29Speaker 02

  Okay. But ultimately, the, the Maltese Falcon itself isn't like, and the cure for cancer is inside and we can save the main character. You know what I mean?

• 4:39Josh Clark?

  Okay. I'm going to go with your take on this because I'm not the one who had a movie podcast.

• 4:45Speaker 02

  So a good example of the second one, and we're going to go over some more famous examples too at the end, but in Raiders of the Lost Ark at the beginning, that little gold head statue that he's that he gets, if you'd never seen that movie before, you know, he saw it for the first time, you might think like, oh, this object that he's recovering is like super central to the plot perhaps. And it's not at all. So that's just sort of the first MacGuffin in that movie. They're usually introduced in act one, although George Lucas has come out and said that he thinks the actual Ark of the Covenant is also a MacGuffin.

• 5:22Josh Clark?

  So yeah, you said that, and I don't, I don't get that then. That's the thing that motivates everyone's action. It's the most important thing in the entire movie. How is that irrelevant?

• 5:35Speaker 02

  Well, I mean, because I guess because in the end, they just go stick it in a box and put it in a warehouse.

• 5:44Josh Clark?

  Okay. So then let me ask you this. You referenced like the Maltese Falcon having the cure for cancer. If the point of getting the Ark of the Covenant was to open it up and like just end all of the ills of the world, and then they did that at the end, would that mean it's not the MacGuffin then, or a MacGuffin?

• 6:05Speaker 02

  Hmm. I don't know, because I don't think that was the driving point of them trying to find the Ark. Like that was a byproduct of it.

• 6:15Josh Clark?

  If it had been though.

• 6:17Speaker 02

  Oh, well, geez, I don't know.

• 6:19Josh Clark?

  Yeah.

• 6:20Speaker 02

  That movie's so ingrained, it's hard to sort of reframe it.

• 6:22Josh Clark?

  Okay. I say we take a break. We'll regroup, take a couple of film classes and come back.

• 6:28Speaker 02

  That sounds great.

• 6:49Josh Clark?

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• 7:11Josh Clark?

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• 7:49Speaker 03

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• 7:52Josh Clark?

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• 7:55Speaker 02

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• 8:19Josh Clark?

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• 8:42Josh Clark?

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• 9:08Josh Clark?

  Okay Chuck, I've got another, another attempt here. This one makes a little more sense to me. In The Murder of Roger Ackroyd, the Agatha Christie book, have you ever seen it? It's really good.

• 9:19Speaker 02

  No.

• 9:20Josh Clark?

  It's essentially what the, what Knives Out, the first one is based on.

• 9:24Speaker 02

  Oh, okay.

• 9:25Josh Clark?

  But in there, the, the character, the main character, the titular character Roger Ackroyd, he is murdered and he was murdered to, to, so the murderer could get their hands on a blackmail letter, okay? The blackmail letter with the, the name of the blackmailer, that's important to the characters, but it's not really the point of the overall plot. The point of the overall plot is Hercule Poirot's investigation to uncover who murdered Roger Ackroyd. So in that sense, that blackmailer letter is the MacGuffin. How about that one?

• 10:03Speaker 02

  Yeah, I mean, it seems like a MacGuffin to me.

• 10:05Josh Clark?

  Okay. Okay, we're on the trail. So I think my problem is this Chuck, it's not that I can't understand what a MacGuffin is, it's that I can't understand why some things that are MacGuffins are called MacGuffins and other things that aren't considered MacGuffins aren't MacGuffins. That's, that's my big problem here. I'm just gonna shut up about it from now on, but I just want to make sure I go on the record saying that.

• 10:28Speaker 02

  All right, well, it all comes, uh, it came pre Hitchcock, but Hitchcock is the one that sort of, um, made it famous, I guess. Uh, he used it in a lot of his movies for sure. Uh, and he had a couple of different explanations over the years. Uh, one is that it was something vitally important to the characters, but of no importance to me, the narrator. Uh, another one I saw him say was, it's the thing that the spies are after, but the audience doesn't care about, um, which was where he and George Lucas diverged because George Lucas, um, apparently R2-D2 was a MacGuffin in, in Star Wars. He said, I think the audience should care and specifically like if the audience doesn't

• 11:07Speaker 02

  care as much about R2 as Luke does in finding him, then like the emotional tilt will be off.

• 11:15Josh Clark?

  Yeah, for sure. But Hitchcock was able to pull off what he was saying in that, say like the microfilm or whatever, you don't really care if the the bad guys get it or Cary Grant gets it. You want to make sure that Cary Grant and was it Grace Kelly, who was in North by Northwest? You just want to make sure that they're both okay. You don't care about the microfilm.

• 11:38Speaker 02

  Yeah, yeah, for sure. The movie Psycho is a is one of the classic examples because, you know, everyone remembers the Bates Motel. But I think if you haven't seen the movie in a while, if you're not a student of that film, you may forget that whole first part in the first act, where Janet Leigh, the reason she goes to the Bates Motel is because she's on the run after stealing 40 grand for her from her employer. And that 40 grand, that's the MacGuffin, that it never comes up again.

• 12:09Josh Clark?

  No, but it's the thing that initially motivates the character's actions. It gets her to to flee. She's on the lam. That takes her to the Bates Motel. And then the actual plot begins.

• 12:20Speaker 02

  Yeah. But what about the word itself?

• 12:23Josh Clark?

  Well, you sent something and I've read this 10 times, and I still don't get how it explains what a MacGuffin is. So I think I'll leave it to you. But it's what it's the one time Hitchcock tried to to explain the origin of MacGuffin or what it is, I think.

• 12:37Speaker 02

  Yeah, he credits a writer that he worked with named a Scottish guy named Angus McPhail. And one of the theories is that it just comes from the root word guff, which is a word that means like something said that's trivial or meaningless. So that that certainly has a little bit of weight. But another story is that apparently McPhail had had told this story to Hitchcock, where he said, two Scottish men are riding on a train. One man asked the other about the contents of a package on the overhead luggage rack. He said, it's a MacGuffin, a device for hunting tigers in Scotland. And the other guy said, but there are no tigers in Scotland. And he says, Well, then I guess it's not a MacGuffin.

• 13:20Josh Clark?

  Still do not get it.

• 13:22Speaker 02

  Well, I mean, to me, that just means it's sort of like that illustrates its meaninglessness.

• 13:30Josh Clark?

  Okay. Okay, we'll go with that.

• 13:33Speaker 02

  I mean, I don't see what else it could mean.

• 13:35Josh Clark?

  I don't either. I don't see what it can mean in any case. Like, it's like, yeah, I don't know. Who knows? I think your interpretation is right. I can kind of sink my teeth into the history of this because you said that it predates Hitchcock, although he popularized it. Apparently decades before that, this was TV tropes who pointed this out. There was a silent film actress named Pearl White. And in the kind of action cliffhanger serials that she started, they were always chasing after some like roll of film or some treasure or something like that. And she called them weenies, but they were essentially what she was saying. They were the plot devices that was driving all of the characters' actions.

• 14:18Speaker 02

  I like weenie.

• 14:20Josh Clark?

  I like weenie, too.

• 14:21Speaker 02

  Yeah, that's pretty good.

• 14:22Josh Clark?

  Bring that back.

• 14:23Speaker 02

  Uh, my favorite MacGuffin, I think, is probably from Escape from New York.

• 14:29Josh Clark?

  Oh, yeah.

• 14:30Speaker 02

  The cassette tape.

• 14:32Josh Clark?

  Yeah, that's a good one.

• 14:33Speaker 02

  Yeah, there's a cassette tape of Donald Pleasence as the president. And, you know, he's trapped on the prison island of New York and Snake Plissken is tasked with going to get him and crucially, that cassette tape back because it's some big important speech to the world. And you don't even hear it at the end because, well, I don't want to spoil it, but you never end up hearing what's even on that cassette tape. So that's sort of a classic MacGuffin.

• 14:59Josh Clark?

  Similarly, another John Carpenter movie that had a great MacGuffin was The Thing with Wilford Brimley being the MacGuffin, from my understanding of MacGuffins.

• 15:11Speaker 02

  Yeah, that's a great movie.

• 15:13Josh Clark?

  You said R2 is the MacGuffin in Star Wars Episode IV. I think that's awesome. I had never thought about that before, but he's the droid that they're after because he has the plans for the Death Star. Another one that comes to mind is that mysterious briefcase that belonged to Marcellus Wallace that Vincent and Jules go retrieve in Pulp Fiction.

• 15:34Speaker 02

  Yeah, classic MacGuffin. And that one is, I mean, I love Pulp Fiction, but that one definitely seems like Tarantino really wanted to write in a classic MacGuffin, I think.

• 15:43Josh Clark?

  Yeah. And he did.

• 15:44Speaker 02

  Yeah.

• 15:45Josh Clark?

  And they also, they never say what was in the briefcase.

• 15:47Speaker 02

  I know.

• 15:48Josh Clark?

  And it just kind of falls away from the plot eventually, too.

• 15:52Speaker 02

  Yeah, for sure. I think I have a bad taste in my mouth about Tarantino in general lately.

• 15:56Josh Clark?

  Yeah. Why, what is it about like men who have power and fame and reach like their 50s and just completely just jerk out?

• 16:05Speaker 02

  I don't know.

• 16:07Josh Clark?

  I don't get it.

• 16:09Speaker 02

  Well, my time is coming, I guess.

• 16:11Josh Clark?

  No, I think you've passed the point.

• 16:14Speaker 02

  Okay, so once you hit 54, 55, then you're safe?

• 16:17Josh Clark?

  Yeah.

• 16:17Speaker 02

  Okay.

• 16:17Josh Clark?

  I think you made it through the great filter of becoming a jerk.

• 16:20Speaker 02

  All right. Well, your time's coming then.

• 16:22Josh Clark?

  I know. I'm really having to hang on.

• 16:23Speaker 02

  You'll be all right.

• 16:25Josh Clark?

  I'm going to follow all of your examples, including your definition of MacGuffin. And I think we should stop talking about MacGuffins now.

• 16:31Speaker 02

  All right. And hey, we'll say this, write in. We'd love to hear from film students and film cinephiles and see if you guys can give us a clear definition.

• 16:42Josh Clark?

  That's a great call, Chuck. Great call. Short Stuff is out.

• 16:49Speaker 00

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