[stylist] MacGuffin

Sat Apr 25 14:20:34 UTC 2015

MacGuffin is a technological format that was introduced a couple of emails
ago via David Andrews. No I was not joking, but neither am I an idiot that
could not understand a definition. I was questioning a writers/readers
format that is something like Twitter. It is all explained in the email in
question. I just do not understand it.
Eve

On Sat, Apr 25, 2015 at 7:15 AM, Cheryl Orgas & William Meeker <
meekerorgas at ameritech.net> wrote:

> Discussion of the pungent slang term “gobsmacked” notwithstanding, what
> intrigues me more is the name of the MacGuffin foundation, cited in emails
> I've since deleted.  Given the definition below, why name the foundation
> “MacGuffin,” and what, if anything, does its name say about its purpose,
> mission, and future?  Or is it just a clever use of a literary reference?
>
>
> Bill Meeker
>
>
>
>
> Source:  Wikipedia; definition of MacGuffin
>
>
> In fiction, a MacGuffin (sometimes McGuffin or maguffin) is a plot device
> in the form of some goal, desired object, or other motivator that the
> protagonist pursues, often with little or no narrative explanation. The
> specific nature of a MacGuffin is typically unimportant to the overall
> plot. The most common type of MacGuffin is an object, place, or person;
> other, more abstract types include money, victory, glory, survival, power,
> love, or some unexplained driving force.
> The MacGuffin technique is common in films, especially thrillers. Usually
> the MacGuffin is the central focus of the film in the first act, and
> thereafter declines in importance. It may re-appear at the climax of the
> story, but sometimes is actually forgotten by the end of the story.
> Multiple MacGuffins are sometimes derisively identified as plot coupons.
>
>
> Objects that serve the plot function of MacGuffins have had long use in
> storytelling. Such objects in stories continue through to the name-sake of
> the 1941 film The Maltese Falcon and beyond. The name "MacGuffin" appears
> to originate in 20th-century filmmaking, and was popularized by Alfred
> Hitchcock in the 1930s, but the concept pre-dates the term. The World War
> I–era actress Pearl White used weenie to identify whatever object (a roll
> of film, a rare coin, expensive diamonds, etc.) impelled the heroes and
> villains to pursue each other through the convoluted plots of The Perils of
> Pauline and the other silent film serials in which she starred.[3]
> Alfred Hitchcock[edit]
> The director and producer Alfred Hitchcock popularized the term
> "MacGuffin" (a plot device that motivates the characters and advances the
> story) and the technique, with his 1935 film The 39 Steps, an early example
> of the concept.[4][5] Hitchcock explained the term "MacGuffin" in a 1939
> lecture at Columbia University:
> It might be a Scottish name, taken from a story about two men on a train.
> One man says, "What's that package up there in the baggage rack?" And the
> other answers, "Oh, that's a MacGuffin". The first one asks, "What's a
> MacGuffin?" "Well," the other man says, "it's an apparatus for trapping
> lions in the Scottish Highlands." The first man says, "But there are no
> lions in the Scottish Highlands," and the other one answers, "Well then,
> that's no MacGuffin!" So you see that a MacGuffin is actually nothing at
> all.
> Interviewed in 1966 by François Truffaut, Hitchcock illustrated the term
> "MacGuffin" with the same story.[6][7] He also related this anecdote in a
> television interview for Richard Schickel's documentary The Men Who Made
> the Movies, and in an interview with Dick Cavett. According to author Ken
> Mogg, screenwriter Angus MacPhail, a friend of Hitchcock, may have
> originally coined the term.[8]
> George Lucas[edit]
> On the commentary soundtrack to the 2004 DVD release of Star Wars, writer
> and director George Lucas describes R2-D2 as "the main driving force of the
> movie … what you say in the movie business is the MacGuffin … the object of
> everybody's search".[9] In TV interviews, Hitchcock defined a MacGuffin as
> the object around which the plot revolves, but as to what that object
> specifically is, he declared, "the audience don't care".[10] Lucas, on the
> other hand, believes that the MacGuffin should be powerful and that "the
> audience should care about it almost as much as the duelling heroes and
> villains on-screen".[11]
>
>
> For filmmaker and drama writing theorist Yves Lavandier, in the strictly
> Hitchcockian sense, a MacGuffin is a secret that motivates the
> villains.[12] North by Northwest 's supposed MacGuffin is nothing that
> motivates the protagonist; Roger Thornhill's objective is to extricate
> himself from the predicament that the mistaken identity has created, and
> what matters to Vandamm and the CIA is of little importance to Thornhill. A
> similar lack of motivating power applies to the alleged MacGuffins of The
> Lady Vanishes, The 39 Steps, and Foreign Correspondent. In a broader sense,
> says Lavandier, a MacGuffin denotes any justification for the external
> conflictual premises of a work.
>
>
>
>
>
>
>
>
> -----Original Message-----
> From: stylist [mailto:stylist-bounces at nfbnet.org] On Behalf Of Bridgit
> Kuenning-Pollpeter via stylist
> Sent: Saturday, April 25, 2015 2:35 AM
> To: 'Pagan Tree'; 'Writers' Division Mailing List'
> Subject: Re: [stylist] MacGuffin
>
> Are you serious? I'm just not sure if you're joking or not, seriously.
> It's just a definition of the word gobsmacked and it's origins, which are
> Anglo-Saxon. It means astonished, surprised, flabbergasted, astounded. It's
> an adjective.
>
> Bridgit
>
> -----Original Message-----
> From: stylist [mailto:stylist-bounces at nfbnet.org] On Behalf Of Pagan Tree
> via stylist
> Sent: Friday, April 24, 2015 9:44 PM
> To: Writer's Division Mailing List
> Subject: [stylist] MacGuffin
>
> Can anybody explain this in not so technological terms? I just really do
> not get it.
> Thanks, Eve
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