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In fiction, a MacGuffin (sometimes McGuffin) is an object, device, or event that is necessary to the plot and the motivation of the characters, but insignificant, unimportant, or irrelevant in itself. The term was originated by Angus MacPhail for film, adopted by Alfred Hitchcock, and later extended to a similar device in other fiction.

The MacGuffin technique is common in films, especially thrillers. Usually, the MacGuffin is revealed in the first act, and thereafter declines in importance. It can reappear at the climax of the story but may actually be forgotten by the end of the story. Multiple MacGuffins are sometimes derisively identified as plot coupons—the characters "collect" the coupons to trade in for an ending.

History and use

The use of a MacGuffin as a plot device predates the name MacGuffin. The Holy Grail of Arthurian legend has been cited as an early example of a MacGuffin. The Holy Grail is the desired object that is essential to initiate and advance the plot, but the final disposition of the Grail is never revealed, suggesting that the object is not of significance in itself. An even earlier example would be the Golden Fleece of Greek mythology, in the quest of Jason and the Argonauts; "the Fleece itself, the raison d'être of this entire epic geste, remains a complete mystery. The full reason for its Grail-like desirability is never explained."

The World War I-era actress Pearl White used the term "weenie" to identify whatever object (a roll of film, a rare coin, expensive diamonds, etc.) impelled the heroes and villains to pursue each other through the convoluted plots of The Perils of Pauline and the other silent film serials in which she starred. In the 1930 detective novel The Maltese Falcon, a small statuette provides both the book's title and its motive for intrigue.

The name MacGuffin was coined by British screenwriter Angus MacPhail. It has been posited that " 'guff', as a word for anything trivial or worthless, may lie at the root".

Alfred Hitchcock

Director and producer Alfred Hitchcock popularized the term MacGuffin and the technique with his 1935 film The 39 Steps, in which the MacGuffin is some otherwise incidental military secrets. Hitchcock explained the term MacGuffin in a 1939 lecture at Columbia University in New York City:

It might be a Scottish name, taken from a story about two men on a train. One man says, "What's that package up there in the baggage rack?" And the other answers, "Oh, that's a MacGuffin." The first one asks, "What's a MacGuffin?" "Well," the other man says, "it's an apparatus for trapping lions in the Scottish Highlands." The first man says, "But there are no lions in the Scottish Highlands," and the other one answers, "Well then, that's no MacGuffin!" So you see that a MacGuffin is actually nothing at all.

In a 1966 interview with François Truffaut, Hitchcock explained the term using the same story. He also related this anecdote in a television interview for Richard Schickel's documentary The Men Who Made the Movies, and in an interview with Dick Cavett.

Hitchcock also said, "The MacGuffin is the thing that the spies are after, but the audience doesn't care."

In Mel Brooks's parody of Hitchcock films, High Anxiety (1977), Brooks's character's hotel room is moved from the 2nd to the 17th floor at the request of a Mr. MacGuffin, a recognition by name of Hitchcock's use of the device.

George Lucas

In contrast to Hitchcock's view, George Lucas believes that "the audience should care about almost as much as the dueling heroes and villains on-screen." Lucas describes R2-D2 as the MacGuffin of the original Star Wars film, and said that the Ark of the Covenant, the titular MacGuffin in Raiders of the Lost Ark, was an excellent example as opposed to the more obscure MacGuffin in Indiana Jones and the Temple of Doom and the "feeble" MacGuffin in Indiana Jones and the Last Crusade. The use of MacGuffins in Indiana Jones films later continued with the titular crystal skull in Kingdom of the Crystal Skull and Archimedes' Dial in the Dial of Destiny.

Yves Lavandier

Filmmaker and drama writing theorist Yves Lavandier suggests that a MacGuffin is a secret that motivates the villains. North by Northwest's MacGuffin is nothing that motivates the protagonist; Roger Thornhill's objective is to extricate himself from the predicament that the mistaken identity has created, and what matters to Vandamm and the CIA is of little importance to Thornhill. A similar lack of motivating power applies to the MacGuffins of the 1930s films The Lady Vanishes, The 39 Steps, and Foreign Correspondent. In a broader sense, says Lavandier, a MacGuffin denotes any justification for the external conflict in a work.

Examples

Alfred Hitchcock popularized the use of the MacGuffin technique. Examples from Hitchcock's films include plans for a silent plane engine in The 39 Steps (1935), radioactive uranium ore in Notorious (1946), and a clause from a secret peace treaty in Foreign Correspondent (1940).

The briefcase in Pulp Fiction (1994) motivates several of the characters during many of the film's major plot points, but its contents are never revealed.

Similarly, the plot of the 1998 film Ronin revolves around a case, the contents of which remain unknown. At the end of the film, it is said to have led to a historic peace agreement and an end to the Troubles in Northern Ireland.

George Lucas also used MacGuffins in the Star Wars saga. He "decided that the Force could be intensified through the possession of a mystical Kiber Crystal [sic]—Lucas's first, but by no means last, great MacGuffin."

A similar usage was employed in John Carpenter's Escape from New York, where the protagonist Snake Plissken is tasked with rescuing both the President of the United States and a cassette tape that will prevent a devastating war between the country and its enemies. While there are hints throughout the film, the contents of the tape are never revealed to the audience.

See also

• Alien space bats
• Big Dumb Object
• The Double McGuffin
• Monomyth
• Red herring
• Schmilblick
• Unobtainium

Notes

1. ^ Brewer's (1992)
2. ^ Harmon (2012)
3. ^ Knowles (2000)
4. ^ Room (2000)
5. ^ Skillion (2001)
6. Lowe (1986)
7. Sterling, Bruce (June 18, 2009). "Turkey City Lexicon – A Primer for SF Workshops". Science Fiction and Fantasy Writers of America. Archived from the original on January 7, 2014. Retrieved January 2, 2014.
8. Lacy (2005)
9. Green (1997, p. 40)
10. Brown (2012, p. 134)
11. Lahue (1968)
12. McArthur (2003, p. 21)
13. Ayto (2007, p. 467)
14. Deutelbaum (2009, p. 114)
15. Digou (2003)
16. Truffaut (1985)
17. Gottlieb (2002, pp. 47–48)
18. Alfred Hitchcock; cavettbiter (uploader) (October 22, 2007) . "Alfred Hitchcock Was Confused by a Laxative Commercial". The Dick Cavett Show (Interview). Interviewed by Dick Cavett. Relevant portion from 0:00-1:36. Archived from the original on May 3, 2015. Retrieved September 3, 2017 – via Youtube.
19. Boyd (1995, p. 31)
20. Humphries (1986, p. 188)
21. ^ Windolf, Jim (February 2008). "Keys to the Kingdom". Vanity Fair. Archived from the original on January 2, 2014. Retrieved January 2, 2014.
22. Lucas, George (2004) , Star Wars DVD audio commentary, Relevant portion from 00:14:44 – 00:15:00
23. Breznican, Anthony (December 1, 2022). "Indiana Jones And The ... Wait, What Is 'The Dial of Destiny'?". Vanity Fair. Archived from the original on December 2, 2022. Retrieved June 30, 2023.
24. ^ Lavandier (2005)
25. Marez (2019, p. 166)
26. "MacGuffin". The Free Dictionary. Farlex, Inc. Retrieved December 7, 2017.
27. Walker (2005, p. 297)
28. "Hitchcock's MacGuffins". Filmsite. Archived from the original on May 18, 2024.
29. Lloyd, Brian (April 10, 2019). "Seriously, What Was in the Briefcase in Pulp Fiction?". Entertainment Ireland. Archived from the original on March 24, 2024. Retrieved September 1, 2021.
30. "Top 10 Movie MacGuffins". IGN. May 20, 2008. Retrieved 2022-03-25.
31. Jones (2016, p. 189)
32. Bitel, Anton (November 18, 2018). "The Bleak Futurism of John Carpenter's Escape from New York". Little White Lies. Archived from the original on September 24, 2023. Retrieved July 14, 2014.

References

• Brewer's Dictionary of Twentieth-Century Phrase and Fable (1st ed.). Boston: Houghton Mifflin Company. 1992. ISBN 0-395-61649-2.
• Ayto, John; Crofton, Ian (March 2007). Brewer's Dictionary of Modern Phrase & Fable (2nd ed.). Chambers Harrap. ISBN 9780304368099.
• Boyd, David (1995). Perspectives on Alfred Hitchcock. G. K. Hall. ISBN 9780816116034.{{cite book}}: CS1 maint: ref duplicates default (link)
• Brown, Noel (2012). The Hollywood Family Film: A History, from Shirley Temple to Harry Potter. London: I.B. Tauris. p. 134. ISBN 978-1-78076-270-8.{{cite book}}: CS1 maint: ref duplicates default (link)
• Digou, Mike (October 2003). "Hitchcock's Macguffin In the Works of David Mamet". Literature Film Quarterly. 31 (4): 270–275. JSTOR 43797135.{{cite journal}}: CS1 maint: ref duplicates default (link)
• Deutelbaum, Marshall; Poague, Leland A. (2009). A Hitchcock Reader (2nd ed.). John Wiley and Sons. ISBN 978-1405155571.
• Sidney Gottlieb; Christopher Brookhouse, eds. (2002). Framing Hitchcock: Selected Essays from the Hitchcock Annual. Detroit: Wayne State University Press. ISBN 0814330614. Archived from the original on January 2, 2016.
• Green, Peter (1997). The Argonautika by Apollonios Rhodios. University of California Press. ISBN 0-520-07686-9.{{cite book}}: CS1 maint: ref duplicates default (link)
• Harmon, William (2012). A Handbook to Literature (12th ed.). Boston: Longman. ISBN 978-0-205-02401-8.
• Humphries, Patrick (1986). The Films of Alfred Hitchcock. New York: Portland House. ISBN 978-0-517-60470-0.{{cite book}}: CS1 maint: ref duplicates default (link)
• Jones, Brian Jay (2016). George Lucas: A Life. New York: Little, Brown and Company. ISBN 978-0-316-25744-2.
• Knowles, Elizabeth, ed. (2000). The Oxford Dictionary of Phrase and Fable. Oxford: Oxford University Press. ISBN 0-19-860219-7.
• Lacy, Norris J. (Winter 2005). "Medieval McGuffins: The Arthurian Model". Arthuriana. 15 (4): 53–64. doi:10.1353/art.2005.0044. S2CID 161632566.{{cite journal}}: CS1 maint: ref duplicates default (link)
• Lahue, Kalton C. (1968). Bound and Gagged: The Story of the Silent Serials. Oak Tree Pubs. ISBN 978-0-498-06762-4.{{cite book}}: CS1 maint: ref duplicates default (link)
• Lowe, Nick (July 1986). "The Well-Tempered Plot Device". Ansible (46). Berkshire, England. ISSN 0265-9816. Archived from the original on July 28, 2013. Retrieved January 2, 2014.
• Lavandier, Yves (June 2005). Writing Drama: A Comprehensive Guide for Playwrights and Scriptwriters. Translated by Bernard Besserglik. Le Clown & l'Enfant. ISBN 2-910606-04-X. Archived from the original on January 18, 2014.{{cite book}}: CS1 maint: ref duplicates default (link)
• Marez, Curtis (2019). University Babylon: Film and Race Politics on Campus. University of California Press. ISBN 9780520304574.{{cite book}}: CS1 maint: ref duplicates default (link)
• McArthur, Colin (2003). Whisky Galore! and the Maggie: A British Film Guide. London: I.B.Tauris. ISBN 978-1-86064-633-1. Archived from the original on December 24, 2017.{{cite book}}: CS1 maint: ref duplicates default (link)
• Room, Adrian (2000). Brewer's Dictionary of Modern Phrase and Fable. London: Cassell & Co. ISBN 0-304-35381-7.
• Skillion, Anne, ed. (2001). The New York Public Library Literature Companion. New York: Free Press. ISBN 0-684-86890-3.
• Truffaut, François; Hitchcock, Alfred (1985). Hitchcock/Truffaut (Revised ed.). Simon & Schuster. ISBN 9780671604295. Archived from the original on January 2, 2016.
• Walker, Michael (2005). Hitchcock's Motifs. Amsterdam University Press. ISBN 978-90-5356-773-9. Archived from the original on 24 December 2017.{{cite book}}: CS1 maint: ref duplicates default (link)

External links

• What's a MacGuffin? at Hitchinfo.net
• A.Word.A.Day: McGuffin at Wordsmith.org

• Fiction
• Film and video terminology
• Narrative techniques
• Narratology
• Plot (narrative)