DOMINIC

Dominic Mah is a writer, director, and ex-professional gambler. He is currently editing a movie, a feature-length dark-comedy-type-movie. He also blogs about pop culture, girl problems, casinos, and Robotech at http://dommah.com/. Mispronounced in the right way, his name is a strong Vietnamese curse word.

So I’m trying to figure out what to do with the vomiting scene in my movie. By the traditional Mamet-preached rules of storytelling, every scene should have a dramatic action, which involves someone needing something and their obstacles towards getting it. By the more modern Youtubey rules, every scene just needs something sensational or cute happening. Being a microbudget movie, we don’t have many car chases, alien invasions, skydiving or guys being shot out of cannons. But there is a rather handsome shot of a guy throwing up into a three-foot-high brandy snifter, and the question is how/whether to use it to its fullest potential.

As Phoenix Suns coach Alvin Gentry showed us in the NBA playoffs, nausea can be fully dramatic, especially if you empathize with the nauseated dude’s Desire Not To Spew (especially here, in front of all these people, with everything on the line).

The puke itself becomes both obstacle and epiphany. You really don’t want to go there, but afterwards it makes everything better. In that sense, regurgitation is about sacrifice. Doing what has to be done, though the doing may be disgusting.

On the less noble side, it can be a tool for vengeance. Intentional Vomiting qualifies as simple assault, especially if you do it on an off-duty cop’s daughter, as this poor sap did. (Apparently he got the black eye in the course of being “subdued.”)

…so in this case, a decisively gross premeditated action that incites an unexpectedly serious confrontation. Still playing in Aristotle’s ballpark here, I believe.

Finally, as we know from watching TV drama, hurling/blowing chunks/emesis is an intensely personal expression that can show the bonds between friends, the physical cost of tragic events, and of course TRUE LOVE.

The beauty of it is, we’ve all been there. It’s a simple distillation of universal human experience that is icky when it’s happening in the same room with you, but fun from a distance. And in that way, a vomiting scene can be the perfect instrument for the magic of movies, and it should be digitally added to everything. In 3-D.