Earlier this year on Jimmy Kimmel Live!, singer-songwriter and musician Charlie Puth said the opening to Christopher Cross’s tune “Sailing,” came about when a device was inadvertently dropped on a keyboard’s “B” note. It is the “most beautiful sound you’ll ever hear,” he said. I too fell in love with this song in 1979, largely due to its opening and the lyrics that Christopher Cross so nicely folds into the music. Isn’t it something how a sound so sweet can be born from a mistake? All of this has me thinking about just how many mistakes, how many accidents can best be described as beautiful imperfections.

Last year in April, we released the podcast, “Can Film Thrive without Music?,” where we talked about the crucial role that music plays in film. As part of our preparation, we watched a music documentary called Score: A Film Music Documentary, in which prominent film composers like John Williams, Hans Zimmer, Mychael Danna, and many others share insights and little-known secrets about their craft. In commenting on AI, one composer says its use in music was the equivalent of putting Ella Fitzgerald on Auto-Tune, adding that the beauty in the singer’s voice is in its imperfection. Such a stricture of AI’s foray into music composition harkens to Charlie Puth’s revelation about the accident that led to the beginning of “Sailing.” Similar themes, I think, can be extended to moviemaking.

Some film gaffes are unforgivable, right? Glaring ones like cords and microphones in the shot and blatant anachronisms like contemporary coffee cups in scenes set in medieval times, as in the widely-publicized Game of Thrones debacle, are distracting and take away from the viewing experience. They pull you out of your immersion in the presentation by socking you in the nose with the reality that you’re just watching a movie (or in this case, a television show). As Gollum would say, “They RUIN it!”

Other movie mistakes, though, lend authenticity to the film. Take Leonardo DiCaprio accidentally slicing his hand on glassware during an intense monologue in Django Unchained. The actor uses the painful snafu to lean into the depravity of his character, Calvin Candie, by smearing blood on the face of Django’s wife, played by Kerry Washington.* In the biopic, American Gangster, Denzel Washington knocks over a bucket of ice water out of anger, inadvertently splashing the liquid all over an extra. This blunder adds credibility to Washington’s character, Frank Lucas, as volatile. In The Girl with the Dragon Tattoo, a bottle suddenly falls from the top of a refrigerator when Daniel Craig’s character, Mikael Blomkvist, turns his back to it. The actor catches it, keeping it from crashing to the floor and potentially ruining the scene. Rather than awkward, the save felt natural, and it bolstered the idea of his character as alert and adept. These “fortuitous gaffes,” as fellow COTC Podcast co-host Brandon calls them, don’t just enhance the scenes but make the movies better in their entirety. Chris agrees and adds that in some cases, these moments bring levity to dramatic scripts, which further explains why they are kept in the film.

Most actors and actresses are chosen for films not only for their name and face recognition but also their strong acting and improvisational skills. When given the freedom to do so, they adjust their body, voice, and emotional intensity to heighten a scene’s effectiveness or poignancy. But if the director is too married to their own visualization of the scene, giving the thespians little if any leeway to practice their craft, there is little opportunity for serendipitous moments to occur. An actor leaning into the character a bit more. An actress responding to an unexpected event. Even a rush of synergy occurring during an interaction between two or more characters.

If directors Quentin Tarantino (Django Unchained), Ridley Scott (American Gangster), or David Fincher (The Girl with the Dragon Tattoo) had yelled “cut” on any of the aforementioned scenes, you would have lost out on some of the most authentic and memorable moments captured on film. Indeed, there is a reason we can readily recall each of these scenes more than a decade after seeing the movies. You can even argue that the cast’s ability to respond in the moment to the unexpected things that happen on set enhances the efficiency of moviemaking by minimizing the number of reshoots and the time the film spends in the editing phase.

Some gaffes are less useful, though. In these cases, the filmmakers likely hope you are so immersed in the movie experience that you don’t notice some glaring anachronisms, and there are quite a few. Examples of these include the light bulbs used to power street lamps in a film set during the Civil War (Gone with the Wind) and the character alerting us to the impending sound of a gunshot by sticking his fingers in his ears (North by Northwest). One frequently talked about is the palm tree in a movie set in Chicago (Ferris Bueller’s Day Off). 

While not useful to a film, such errors are forgivable. For instance, did you notice the palm tree in Ferris Bueller when the principal’s car was being towed? What about the fifty-star flag in Oppenheimer, a film set when Alaska and Hawaii were not yet part of the Union? And the electric bulbs used in a film that predates electricity? Regarding the former, Old Glory doesn’t look much different than the present-day Stars and Stripes. As for the latter, chances are, you won’t be looking that hard at the streetlights in a movie centered on war and rancor like Gone with the Wind. Mistakes like these are mild and barely noticed when watching movies, which suggests that while they don’t add value to the film, they don’t disrupt the viewing experience either. Knowing they exist, however, highlights the importance of having a good research production assistant on set who works closely with the director and has deep familiarity with the story. Hey Chris, are you available?! 

Certainly, there are unforgivable and forgivable film gaffes. It’s the third category comprised of fortuitous moments like Denzel Washington getting water on an extra, Leonardo DiCaprio opportunistically cutting his hand, and Daniel Craig catching a bottle that are simply beautiful imperfections—serendipitous events that embellish authentic elements and enrich the movie-watching experience for cinephiles. Let’s hope AI doesn’t come along and mess this up for us. 

Be sure to join us as we discuss the hilarity and utility of film gaffes on the Cup of Tea Critiques Podcast episode, “The Infamous Game of Thrones Starbucks Cup and Other Gaffes in Film and Television.” Follow or subscribe wherever you get your podcasts.

* Kerry Washington says DiCaprio finished the full monologue and later smeared fake blood on her face. Video of the scene, however, indicates that Washington was smeared with DiCaprio’s blood in the original take.