Playing Obscurity for Depth

Screenwriter John August had a great post today where he calls out the writers of "The Matrix." His feeling was that the Wachowski brothers, who wrote the Matrix trilogy, should have focused more on certain elements of the story and that, overall, the entire thing was half-baked.

He included a quote that really reasonated with me. He accuses the Wachowski's of "playing obscurity for depth." As August explains it:

It’s the tendency of a screenplay — or an actor — to make weird choices
that the audience won’t understand. The audience, fearing that they just didn’t
“get it,” will label the writing or performance brilliant.

I have had that feeling many times while watching a movie. When I miss something in a movie, or don't understand it, there is a tendency to feel as if the fault lies with me, that I don't "get it." But the writer is the storyteller, and part of being a good storyteller is making your story accessible. As August goes on to say:

I’m happy with some ambiguity. But “incomprehensible” is not a synonym for “clever.”

The more I thought about it, the more we see this all of the time, in many different places. The first example that came to mind was legal writing, or legalese.

A large majority of legal papers and documents are, in my opinion, horribly written. They have a style all their own, and are rarely written in a straight-forward, easy to understand way. I think there is a widespread belief that complicated legalese makes the writer sound smarter. Thankfully, there is a movement in the legal community to encourage clear, simple writing.

I think we also see this in company descriptions and mission statements. Some business writers pepper their writing with buzzwords for the same reason, to sound smarter. To paraphase the quote, I think some people have the belief that "complicated equals intelligent."

In the end, the best way to appear clever/smart/intelligent is to focus on the content of the message itself. And since you're going to be judged on the message, make it as easy as possible for people to understand what it is you're trying to say. Big words and poor structure just clutter what you're trying to say.