"What looks playful could be desperation."

February 4, 2011 7:27 AM

What if filmmakers directed the Super Bowl? As the big game approaches, Slate V imagines what it might look like if Quentin Tarantino, David Lynch, Wes Anderson, Jean-Luc Godard and Werner Herzog were allowed to direct the telecast.
posted by The Card Cheat (79 comments total)

The David Lynch one was lazy. Here's what it should have looked like:

(Bright-eyed Aaron Rogers leaving airport, beaming, standing next to an old lady)

Old woman: Good luck with the Super Bowl Aaron!
Aaron Rogers: Thanks! Hey, I'll throw the first pass for you!

(20 seconds of staring at each other, smiling)

Aaron Rogers: Gotta go!

(Cut to an empty room where Goodell is behind a glass wall, halfway hidden by shadows)

Goodell: I don't Belichick in the Super Bowl, do you hear me? I don't want that. Man. In. The. Super. Bowl.

Cowboy: Sir, The Patriots aren't playing.

Goodell: I'm not talking about this Super Bowl. I'm not talking about this Super Bowl.

Cowboy: Understood.

Well I could go on like this, especially with the third act comprising of a stadium that slowly empties as the game progresses that ends when the stadium is completely empty, yet the sounds of the crowd and announcers go on while Aaron Rogers just throws passes down a field, jogs, picks up the ball, throws another pass, etc.
posted by geoff. at 7:39 AM on February 4, 2011 [19 favorites]

I'd 100% watch that Wes Anderson one.
posted by Potomac Avenue at 7:41 AM on February 4, 2011 [1 favorite]

I'd also like to see Alex Gibney direct the Dan Snyder story.
posted by Potomac Avenue at 7:43 AM on February 4, 2011 [1 favorite]

The V in Slate V stands for video, right? As in, there's no transcript of this thing? (I was hoping for something like geoff.'s comment).
posted by Eideteker at 7:48 AM on February 4, 2011

There's no transcript, but it's just as well, because it's definitely a sight to be seen, not something like an interview.
posted by explosion at 7:50 AM on February 4, 2011

Tarantino: not enough long slow-motion shots of James Harrison with an enormous gold rope-chain swaggering towards the camera, while "Gonna Have a Funky Good Time" plays in the background.
posted by penduluum at 7:51 AM on February 4, 2011

What Oliver Stone's version would look like
posted by smackfu at 7:52 AM on February 4, 2011

Very cute!

I'm a little annoyed that I knew pretty much what the Wes Anderson clip would be, I braced myself for it, I told myself what to expect, and I still loved it.
posted by cavalier at 7:55 AM on February 4, 2011 [1 favorite]

Michael Haneke: just a 90 minute shot of the empty field before the game.
posted by Beardman at 7:58 AM on February 4, 2011 [3 favorites]

I'm with potomac. I'd watch the hell out of the anderson one.
posted by Lord_Pall at 8:04 AM on February 4, 2011

Michel Gondry directed an episode of Jimmy Kimmel Live in a promotion for the Green Hornet film. (His leading star, Seth Rogen, was a guest on the show as well.) If you've seen Gondry's videos, especially his ones with Bjork, you'd recognize a lot of the tricks, but still, it was a fun and compelling trick.
posted by jscott at 8:04 AM on February 4, 2011

Wouldn't the Michael Haneke one depict the most popular team winning, and then the video being rewound to a new ending where the less popular team wins (but doesn't beat the spread)?
posted by The Card Cheat at 8:05 AM on February 4, 2011

I know for a fact that a dream of my would come true: commentators swearing throughout the broadcast.

Also, what would a Michael Bay version look like? I'd venture that the teams would only be allowed to wear teal jerseys and every touchdown would be accompanied by an explosion.
posted by Mister Fabulous at 8:14 AM on February 4, 2011

The Fridge!
posted by IvoShandor at 8:19 AM on February 4, 2011

I would rather go to the dentist than watch football, but I would totally watch a Wes Anderson superbowl.
posted by thivaia at 8:20 AM on February 4, 2011 [1 favorite]

what would a Michael Bay version look like?

Also would take place over the course of four days, played only during 5:45 - 6:45 pm each day.
posted by penduluum at 8:23 AM on February 4, 2011 [1 favorite]

I look forward to the lynch version if it has a constant industrial hum in the background, an inexplicably creepy rendition of a crooner song and a midget that subsists on nothing but the tears of superbowl losers.
posted by Ad hominem at 8:25 AM on February 4, 2011

thivaia: "I would rather go to the dentist than watch football, but I would totally watch a Wes Anderson superbowl"

Funny, I find Wes Anderson movies as painful as a trip to the dentist.
posted by octothorpe at 8:27 AM on February 4, 2011 [2 favorites]

I want to see the one done by Guillermo del Toro, where a giant spider with human mouths for eyes descends onto the field, destroys the quarterback, and sets up a web between the goalposts.
posted by quin at 8:29 AM on February 4, 2011 [4 favorites]

The Fincher version is in dusky tones and shot from the ball's POV.
posted by The Whelk at 8:29 AM on February 4, 2011 [1 favorite]

The Gregg Araki super bowl just turns into an orgy set to Oliva Newton John's Physical. and all the players are now somehow blond twinks.
posted by The Whelk at 8:31 AM on February 4, 2011 [3 favorites]

The Uwe Boll version.
posted by xbonesgt at 8:31 AM on February 4, 2011 [1 favorite]

"There's no transcript, but it's just as well, because it's definitely a sight to be seen, not something like an interview."

Sometimes you just want a summary so you know if it's worth investing your time to watch the whole thing.
posted by Eideteker at 8:31 AM on February 4, 2011

I knew how easy the Wes Anderson would be to make, yet I also loved it. Because his movies stink.
posted by ReeMonster at 8:33 AM on February 4, 2011

No, no, no. The Tarantino one would feature a long conversation between two of the opposing players. And then someone would get a body part chopped off and bleed profusely.

Otherwise, this was pretty fantastic.
posted by phunniemee at 8:33 AM on February 4, 2011

Also, what would a Michael Bay version look like?

With Cleatus the dancing CGI robot and explosion noises at every break, I'm guessing a lot like FOX's current NFL coverage.
posted by Challahtronix at 8:34 AM on February 4, 2011 [9 favorites]

The Herzog clip is made of pure win.
posted by rusty at 8:34 AM on February 4, 2011

In the Coen brothers' version, the quarterback and two linemen have conspired to throw the game and win a bunch of money from a mobbed-up bookie with a hook-hand (played by John Goodman) so they can pay off the local sheriff who's trying to get them all on a murder rap, but somehow the rest of the team keeps accidentally playing so well that they manage to win in spectacular comeback fashion. Last shot is quarterback being carried off the field to the ovation of the entire stadium, on the shoulders of the two linemen, and the faces of all three are drenched in tears.
posted by penduluum at 8:35 AM on February 4, 2011 [14 favorites]

shit now I kind of want to write that movie
posted by penduluum at 8:36 AM on February 4, 2011 [2 favorites]

Can we have community mashups too? A /b/ version consisting of old spice comercial clips featuring a computer synth voice spouting racial epithets to the tune of the pokemon theme song. Maybe a MeFi version that is actually bike racing with a halftime show by Lady GaGa.
posted by Ad hominem at 8:37 AM on February 4, 2011 [2 favorites]

the mefi version would be an ascii-based video games with chiptune halftime
posted by Potomac Avenue at 8:39 AM on February 4, 2011

In the Coen brothers' version...

A Jew, a cowboy and a 3 legged junkyard dog walk into a 7-11 to buy a six pack for the tailgate party...
posted by victors at 8:52 AM on February 4, 2011 [4 favorites]

For some reason, when the Wes Anderson clip came up, I was totally thinking "George Romero". I was confused. Seriously, totally disappointed that there was no Zombie Super Bowl.
posted by Xoebe at 9:03 AM on February 4, 2011

Godard is missing the red text cuts and people running on pitch spraypainting:

S U P E R B O W L
        E
        V
        O
        L
        U
        T
        I
        O
        N

posted by nfg at 9:04 AM on February 4, 2011

I remember hearing a story that Robert Rodriguez got fired from one of his first jobs filming the high school football team for being too artistic with his shot selection and not getting enough useful action for the coaches to review.
posted by TwoWordReview at 9:10 AM on February 4, 2011

Christopher Nolan's Superbowl...
posted by sharkitect at 9:12 AM on February 4, 2011

The Tartovsky version is 2400 hours long; you watch the cow that is eventually used to make the football age in real time, then it is led away off the field and you watch the empty field for a while.

Then a farmer digs a hole.
posted by Shepherd at 9:12 AM on February 4, 2011 [7 favorites]

Have they not seen any non-Kill Bill Tarantino movies? That part seemed like a take-off on one particular movie rather than a director's general style.

Also, I am patting myself on the back for correctly predicting what song the Wes Anderson one would have.
posted by naoko at 9:15 AM on February 4, 2011 [2 favorites]

if Quentin Tarantino ... were allowed to direct the telecast

Order of broadcast:

Third Quarter

First Quarter

Fourth Quarter

Second Quarter
posted by Gelatin at 9:23 AM on February 4, 2011 [9 favorites]

I want to see the Terrence Malick Superbowl. It would have a five minute POV shot of the QB lying on the ground staring at the turf after a hit, while his internal monologue discusses salvation. Every kick would be filmed from behind the kicker- the camera rises with the ball and gets lost in the sky.
posted by TheWhiteSkull at 9:23 AM on February 4, 2011 [8 favorites]

I'm a little annoyed that I knew pretty much what the Wes Anderson clip would be, I braced myself for it, I told myself what to expect, and I still loved it.

That's pretty much how I feel about his all his movies.

except for darjeeling limited. christ, that one was bad
posted by thsmchnekllsfascists at 9:27 AM on February 4, 2011

But, what if Wes Anderson directed Spiderman?
posted by 2bucksplus at 9:36 AM on February 4, 2011 [4 favorites]

Booo. Take one obvious tic from each filmmaker, expand it into caricature, and run it out there for 20 seconds. Annoying.

Though, the Godard bit made me laugh.
posted by xmutex at 9:48 AM on February 4, 2011

Take one obvious tic from each filmmaker, expand it into caricature, and run it out there for 20 seconds

So you're saying that my guess as to J.J. Abrams' contribution: 10 seconds of lens flares and some sort of time-travel motif around halftime, would be a caricature of his commonly used narrative tics??

Because, truth be told, I'd actually kind of like to see it.
posted by quin at 10:06 AM on February 4, 2011

I just want to know what position Joe Pesci would play in the Scorsese version, and whether he would be on the Giants or the Jets.
posted by googly at 10:30 AM on February 4, 2011

Damn, at first I confused Wes Anderson with Wes Craven. I'd like to see a Wes Craven Superbowl.
posted by rtimmel at 10:31 AM on February 4, 2011

Some of the ideas in this thread are better than Slate's. Just sayin'...
posted by alvarete at 10:32 AM on February 4, 2011

That was terrible.
posted by odinsdream at 10:45 AM on February 4, 2011

I thought the Wes Anderson one would have this song, myself.
posted by The Whelk at 10:54 AM on February 4, 2011 [1 favorite]

Warner Bors. Pictures proudly presents

A Stanley Kubrick Film

FIFTY-FIVE


Cut to the defensive line standing ramrod straight in a line. Silence.

Cut to opposing team's quarteback in slow motion, eyes growing wider, mouth hanging open, which Ligeti's Atmospheres plays.

Cut to defensive line standing straight up perfectly still. Silence

Cut to quarterback mouth opens in a slow scream. Ligeti reaches a crecendo.

Cut to a cheerleader, whoes eyes slowly open as she licks her lips.

FIN.
posted by Pastabagel at 11:23 AM on February 4, 2011 [3 favorites]

This thread is now full of win.
posted by cavalier at 11:26 AM on February 4, 2011

The Herzog bit was funny, as was the Anderson bit. The Tarantino one was really lazy, as it didn't ape his style so much as one particular film.

While we're at it:

THE KEVIN SMITH VERSION OF THE SUPER BOWL:

It all takes place in the locker room, where the players talk about dicks. There are very few camera movements. Also, it is the Stanley Cup final.
posted by HostBryan at 11:47 AM on February 4, 2011 [6 favorites]

Well I could go on like this, especially with the third act comprising of a stadium that slowly empties as the game progresses that ends when the stadium is completely empty

Ooo! At halftime do giant-cheeked chearleaders come out and sing a creepy song?
posted by Hoopo at 12:05 PM on February 4, 2011

Akira Kurosawa's Superbowl: Filmed in black and white, 4:3 aspect ratio. It's raining heavily and the field is a sea of mud. One team struggles to score a touchdown against repeated, unrelenting blitz plays. Their efforts seem futile, and when they win, it seems almost accidental. Everyone wonders if there was any meaning to their victory, and whether or not the cost was too high.


John Woo's Superbowl: Where the fuck did all these doves come from?
posted by TheWhiteSkull at 12:07 PM on February 4, 2011 [8 favorites]

Echoing the critiques of Tarantino. Thus far, Tarantino's thing is to work entirely within the genre his film is a part of. So it would be very much a football movie, not just a bunch of random hits. I would expect things like a speech from an aging nearly washed up coach (Any Given Sunday), racial togetherness roughly sewn together (Remember the Titans), trashy cheerleader scabs with hearts of gold (The Replacements) and a guy named Tits McGee (Friday Night Lights).
posted by shen1138 at 12:37 PM on February 4, 2011 [5 favorites]

In Sam Raimi's version, half the game is filmed from the perspective of the ball.
posted by painquale at 12:52 PM on February 4, 2011 [1 favorite]

Hitchcock's Superbowl: the audience and the quarterback are the only ones who see a man being killed during the halftime show. For the rest of the game, the murderer waits on the sidelines, waiting to eliminate the witness; the quarterback needs to figure out how to escape. Also, the ball contains hidden diamonds and a bomb.
posted by painquale at 1:03 PM on February 4, 2011 [1 favorite]

Bunuel's Superbowl: mostly close-ups of the crowd cheering and going nuts; whenever the field is shown it is empty.
posted by painquale at 1:06 PM on February 4, 2011 [1 favorite]

The ghost of Busby Berkeley's Super Bowl: All half time show, including a water number where Aaron Rodgers is lifted up on a pyramid of his linesmen with a lit sparkler in his mouth.
posted by drezdn at 1:24 PM on February 4, 2011

John Ford's Super Bowl: entire game is played in a rolling, grassy glade in the middle of an old-growth forest in Oregon. Goalposts are two conveniently-located, Y-shaped trees; yardage lines are unmarked. Players wear leather helmets. Shot in unprojectably wide aspect ratio; most shots show all 22 players simultaneously, though they seem tiny and insignificant set against the natural majesty of the field. There is one cheerleader, in her mid-thirties, with plain brown hair in a simple ponytail and home-sewn clothes. Her expression throughout the course of the game is stern but vulnerable.
posted by penduluum at 1:29 PM on February 4, 2011 [4 favorites]

Robert Altman's Super Bowl: every play is filmed as a tracking shot from ground level. Every player has his own individual mic; audio from all mics is mixed to equal volume.
posted by penduluum at 1:35 PM on February 4, 2011 [2 favorites]

penduluum, cut it out! I only have so many favorites to hand out today!! Consolidate!

(no really, please keep going, these are lovely)
posted by cavalier at 1:40 PM on February 4, 2011

Ridley Scott's Super Bowl - everything is filmed in a highly saturated color palette and everytime Ben Roethlisberger advances to the line of scrimmage, he picks up a bit of dirt and rubs it into his hands. The ball snaps and the screen dissolves into a frenzy of activity where every fourth frame is cut out to convey the frenzied motion of a ball in play. As Roethlisberger steps back to find his receiver, the action slows down, a Lisa Gerrard vocal track floats up in the background and he briefly flashes back to playing catch in the cornfields of Lima, Ohio.
posted by bl1nk at 1:59 PM on February 4, 2011 [1 favorite]

Oh man. Can you imagine a Sergio Leone superbowl? Half the movie is stretched-time cutting back and forth between the players' eyes in anticipation of the snap.
posted by zjacreman at 2:05 PM on February 4, 2011 [1 favorite]

Chan Wook Park Super Bowl - the foot fetish youtube video of Rex Ryan's wife turns out to have been leaked by Bill Belichick in an effort to distract Ryan before the teams head into the playoffs. In response, Ryan engineers the Jets/Patriots upset victory by kidnapping Tom Brady three days before the game and locking him in a windowless room for 24 hour while broadcasting close circuit video feeds of Gisele Bundchen being seduced and made love to by a doppelganger, a long lost twin brother that Tom Brady believed to be dead.
posted by bl1nk at 2:14 PM on February 4, 2011 [2 favorites]

The Harmony Korine Super Bowl...actually, never mind.
posted by The Card Cheat at 2:30 PM on February 4, 2011 [1 favorite]

Matthew Barney's Superbowl...
posted by sharkitect at 2:33 PM on February 4, 2011

I was really hoping for Film Socialisme Godard and not A Bout de Souffle Godard... but whatcha gonna do...
posted by jrb223 at 3:36 PM on February 4, 2011

The Kurosawa Superbowl: the referees, crouching in a rainy broken-down temple, bitterly recount their view of the plays. In the distance, a woman cries over what might be the corpse of Ben Roethlisberger. At the end, a hooded old man spikes the football in disgust. The camera reveals it's Tom Landry.
posted by felix at 4:34 PM on February 4, 2011 [2 favorites]

Orange and Teeeeaaaalllll!!!!
posted by Trochanter at 4:41 PM on February 4, 2011

I dug the Anderson and Godard ones, and the Herzog as well, though that one made me a little uncomfortable as I wasn't sure if the dialog was actually taken from Grizzly Man or not, and that's just kind of upsetting.

As for Tarantino, he emphatically does not just follow the genre of what he is making, actually. Inglourious Basterds is a war movie without a single battle scene in it. Reservoir Dogs is a heist movie without the heist. Kill Bill was a two-part revenge saga that, yes, aped a bunch of different genres but twisted and blended them in insane and masterful ways. The Samurai showdown was set to Santa Esmerelda's version of "Please Don't Let Me Be Misunderstood," for example, a choice I don't think any other director would have even considered let alone pulled off.

The common knowledge sees Tarantino as a master of violence and witty dialogue. This is only half-true, and in fact he is most likely to falter when he falls in love with his own repartee. In fact, what he is the master of is building tension in non-cliched ways. He holds attention by fetishizing idiosyncratic details. He rarely quick-cuts, and when he does it's still at a much more deliberate pace than, say, Michael Bay or Tony Scott. The violence shows up fairly infrequently, and abruptly, "House of Blue Leaves" sequence aside.

In actuality, I'd really love to see a Tarantino sports movie. I picture it mostly playing out between members of the coaching staff.
posted by Navelgazer at 5:31 PM on February 4, 2011 [5 favorites]

Bunuel's Superbowl: mostly close-ups of the crowd cheering and going nuts; whenever the field is shown it is empty.

Nah. Bunuel's Superbowl is just one long pre-game, all buildup ... but the kickoff never happens. There's always a complication. The head referee can't be found. One of the teams can't find its helmets. A herd of zebras invades the field. For some inexplicable reason, nobody can get out of the dressing rooms. Somebody wakes up and it's all been just a dream.

I'd love that Superbowl.
posted by philip-random at 6:56 PM on February 4, 2011 [2 favorites]

A Terry Gilliam super bowl: Fish-eye lens, midget teams, fantasy sequence where your favored team wins but in reality has a psychotic break.
posted by fungible at 7:05 PM on February 4, 2011

The Darren Aronofsky Superbowl is all about the intense physical trianing, broken bones, bleeding sores, close-ups of steroid injections and sweaty homoerotic fantasia until the star quarterback is consumed with a delusion that he is a mighty warrior from anicent times and ends up killing a man on the field.
posted by The Whelk at 9:04 PM on February 4, 2011 [3 favorites]

Inglourious Basterds is a war movie without a single battle scene in it.

I'd say Basterds isn't a war movie, it's a spy movie or a prison-break movie. But I follow your point.
posted by The Whelk at 9:07 PM on February 4, 2011

Actually, the MeFi super bowl would have the NFC team coached by a group of D&D players whose playbill represents a thoroughly minmaxed set of tactics for an eleven person adventuring party. The AFC team would be coached by EVE online players who may or may not have conflicts of interest with the referees. The player uniforms are all designed and painted by Warhammer 40k enthusiasts but the players themselves are all bots running Dwarf Fortress AI, which causes some of them to periodically carve a fine table during a timeout.

The tv commentary is less about the play by play and more about whether certain plays or tackles really are the best that football has to offer.

The halftime show is an audience open mike where everybody gets to ask questions or gets to recruit people for a pickup game that they're going to be playing next week.
posted by bl1nk at 6:21 AM on February 5, 2011 [1 favorite]

John Frankenheimer's Superbowl.
posted by octothorpe at 8:23 AM on February 5, 2011 [1 favorite]

As I recall, BLACK SUNDAY is a damned good thriller. Thanks for the reminder.
posted by philip-random at 10:02 AM on February 5, 2011

There's a shot in that trailer for Black Sunday that Tarantino stole/borrowed for Kill Bill.
posted by octothorpe at 10:07 AM on February 5, 2011