Edgar Wright knows how to make a film.
Emotion.
Like Samuel Fuller said in Pierrot le fou:
“Film is like a battleground. There’s love, hate, action, violence, death… in one word: emotion.”
And that from a guy who was ACTUALLY a soldier.
Fuller.
The Big Red One.
U.S. 1st Infantry Division.
Fuller.
A soldier.
And then a director.
A formative influence on Jean-Luc Godard.
But I digress.
Scott Pilgrim… is a masterpiece.
I didn’t think it would be.
It seemed too cutesy.
The signage.
Too hipster.
Faux cool.
Cookie cutter.
But it passes the test.
The moment is much like Simon Pegg’s “Oh, fuck off you big lamp” in Wright’s The World’s End.
Derrida and all golden-ratio-seeking creators would likely pinpoint a line from the redhead drummer: “We are Sex Bob-Omb and we are here to watch Scott Pilgrim kick out teeth in!!! One two three four!!!!”
You’ve lost a lot.
Now you win.
-PD
I read that one principle of screenwriting is to take the viewer through the full color wheel of emotions.