VocabularyのメルマガArcaMaxでMcGuffinと言う興味深い言葉の紹介がありました。
McGuffin muh-GUF-in (noun) - A device that helps propel the plot in a story but is of little importance in itself.
"The book's problem seems to be that the main thrust of the plot features a McGuffin so gnarled and elaborate as to throw the novel out of whack, even as it propels things forward."
Coined by film director Alfred Hitchcock (1899-1980).
つまり、「物語、映画などで筋の展開に効果を発揮する一工夫。ストリー全体の中ではそれ自体はたいして重要ではない。米国の映画監督アルフレッド・ヒッチコック(Alfred Hitchcock, 1899-1980)による造語。」と英辞郎の説明にもあるので、多分映画通には常識の言葉なのでしょう。
ArcaMaxの説明は次にように続きます。
A McGuffin could be a person, an object, or an event that characters of a story are interested in but that, intrinsically, is of little concern. For example, in Hitchcock's movie North by Northwest, thugs are on the look out for a character named George Kaplan. Roger Thornhill, an ad executive, gets mistaken for Kaplan and so he is chased instead. Meanwhile Thornhill himself tries to find Kaplan who doesn't even exist.
Hitchcock explained the term in a 1939 lecture at Columbia University: "In regard to the tune, we have a name in the studio, and we call it the 'MacGuffin'. It is the mechanical element that usually crops up in any story. In crook stories it is always the necklace and in spy stories it is always the papers. We just try to be a little more original." (quoted from the OED)
Hitchcock borrowed it from a shaggy-dog story where a train passenger is carrying a large odd-shaped package. The passenger calls it a MacGuffin and explains to the curious fellow passengers that it's a device used to catch lions in Scottish Highlands. When they protest that there are no lions in the Highlands, he simply replies, "Well, then this can't be a MacGuffin."
私は映画は余り見ないので良く知りませんが、映画に関する用語は前に話題にしたbodice rippers、film noirの他にも色々ありそうです。
McGuffin muh-GUF-in (noun) - A device that helps propel the plot in a story but is of little importance in itself.
"The book's problem seems to be that the main thrust of the plot features a McGuffin so gnarled and elaborate as to throw the novel out of whack, even as it propels things forward."
Coined by film director Alfred Hitchcock (1899-1980).
つまり、「物語、映画などで筋の展開に効果を発揮する一工夫。ストリー全体の中ではそれ自体はたいして重要ではない。米国の映画監督アルフレッド・ヒッチコック(Alfred Hitchcock, 1899-1980)による造語。」と英辞郎の説明にもあるので、多分映画通には常識の言葉なのでしょう。
ArcaMaxの説明は次にように続きます。
A McGuffin could be a person, an object, or an event that characters of a story are interested in but that, intrinsically, is of little concern. For example, in Hitchcock's movie North by Northwest, thugs are on the look out for a character named George Kaplan. Roger Thornhill, an ad executive, gets mistaken for Kaplan and so he is chased instead. Meanwhile Thornhill himself tries to find Kaplan who doesn't even exist.
Hitchcock explained the term in a 1939 lecture at Columbia University: "In regard to the tune, we have a name in the studio, and we call it the 'MacGuffin'. It is the mechanical element that usually crops up in any story. In crook stories it is always the necklace and in spy stories it is always the papers. We just try to be a little more original." (quoted from the OED)
Hitchcock borrowed it from a shaggy-dog story where a train passenger is carrying a large odd-shaped package. The passenger calls it a MacGuffin and explains to the curious fellow passengers that it's a device used to catch lions in Scottish Highlands. When they protest that there are no lions in the Highlands, he simply replies, "Well, then this can't be a MacGuffin."
私は映画は余り見ないので良く知りませんが、映画に関する用語は前に話題にしたbodice rippers、film noirの他にも色々ありそうです。
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