Stalk footage

From the comments on Dave Kehr's blog:

This somehow reminds me of the “celery theory” I sometimes jokingly bring up when I feel silly. I have noticed that in every American film in which people are shown taking groceries home, they carry a paper bag that has celery stalks peeking out of it (this happens even in Paris — e.g. “The Girls” — where I never saw anybody buy celery stalks or carry them in a paper bag). My point: there are millions of cliches of that kind that reappear in countless films, and I doubt that the directors in most cases have much to do with it. Did Cukor tell the prop person: “Put celery stalks into that bag and I want to see them sticking out”? Perhaps but I doubt it. And I don’t think it would be very enlightening to describe any director’s work in terms of how many times characters in his films are seen carrying grocery bags with celery stalks peeking out of them.

I hope this celery disquisition will be taken for just what it is: a metaphor.

Comment by jean-pierre coursodon 08.31.08 @ 8:27 pm

(Via Dzyd Brent)