When I told a friend of mine about the topic of this blog post, he said, “You’re not going to say what everyone else says about Jaws are you?” He was half-right. As such, this will be the least adventurous “choose your own adventure” blog you’ve ever seen, if there ever was such a thing. Readers who are familiar with the making of Jaws should skip part A and read only part B; readers who aren’t familiar with the making of the film can follow the usual A to B sequence.
A. The pre-production and early-production of Jaws imagined a very different film from that which was actually produced. Spielberg and company drew story boards that included the shark in many of the film’s early “attack” scenes. Their idea was to build a mechanical shark to be shown on screen. A crew working on the West Coast built a shark in a fresh water tank, but when the shark was brought to the salt waters of the Atlantic Ocean, the electronics failed. Unable to make the shark as responsive and mobile as necessary, Spielberg had to re-envision the shooting of the film without the presence of the shark.
Jaws is commonly described as a horror-film. The success of the film, as many have declared, is that the shark is absent for much of the film. The horror comes from our fear of what we cannot see.
B. What I’d like fiction writers to consider is the idea of constraints. Famous fictional constraints include George Perec’s A Void, a French novel that refuses to use the letter e, the most commonly occurring vowel in the French language, and Ian McEwan’s Saturday, which is a novel whose temporal setting is restricted to only a single day, and recently, Padgett Powel’s The Interrogative Mood, which is a novel whose sentences are composed entirely in the form of questions. In this fashion, Jaws’s constraint is the inability—or, necessary refusal—to show the shark on screen.
Why use constraints? Among other reasons, constraints force storytellers to employ techniques they wouldn’t ordinarily employ if they were free to tell the story as they wished; constraints generate innovation and invention of form, technique, and style. Often, it is a new form or technique or style that marks the success of a story, that captures a reader’s attention.
Tuesday, October 26, 2010
Tuesday, July 27, 2010
Up in the Air (2009)
A. Papatya Bucak, my professor and thesis chair, whose blog “Reading for Writers” is one of this blog’s progenitors, has a keen eye for spotting overused literary devices. I once overheard that she wrote a paper about the preponderance of literary heroines who commit suicide. Commenting on one of my stories, she spotted a female character with a need for intimacy, which immediately suggests a gender stereotype. Does her comment mean that we can never have females with a need for intimacy?
If you intend to generate reader interest for your fiction primarily on the basis of “freshness” and originality, I think it does.
If your female character has only one dimension, the desire for intimacy, and nothing else to complicate her character, I think you’ve made the mistake I made in my aforementioned story.
If you create a female character who has a need for intimacy, among other needs—that is to say, a more complex set of desires—I think you’re okay.
The topic at hand is not female stereotypes. The topic at hand is overused literary devices. Up in the Air uses the familiar device of sending a character home, “back to his roots.” Up in the Air portrays home as nearly all films—especially those marketing themselves as artistic or independent. Home is a small, rural town populated with bleak, stifling, and culturally deaf family and friends (as if those types can't be found in cities). It’s always a place “sophisticated” characters have outgrown. Is this more or less true of small town America? That’s not the point. The point is we see it over and over and over again and it gets boring.
A more specific aspect of the “small town” Up in the Air and most other films give us is the “broken family.” In the broken family brothers and sisters don’t speak, divorces are contagious, and the bills barely get paid. It’s “real life”…I get it.
I’m not trying to get all Fox News-ish, though. I’d hate a fiction that blindly praises “Main Street USA” without ever recognizing its limitations. I think it’d be quite refreshing to see “small town” life treated with more complexity, rather than a forgettable and regrettable childhood memory.
Anyway, I suppose this is an argument for awareness. A good writer identifies patterns in other works and makes sure to avoid them in her own.
If you intend to generate reader interest for your fiction primarily on the basis of “freshness” and originality, I think it does.
If your female character has only one dimension, the desire for intimacy, and nothing else to complicate her character, I think you’ve made the mistake I made in my aforementioned story.
If you create a female character who has a need for intimacy, among other needs—that is to say, a more complex set of desires—I think you’re okay.
The topic at hand is not female stereotypes. The topic at hand is overused literary devices. Up in the Air uses the familiar device of sending a character home, “back to his roots.” Up in the Air portrays home as nearly all films—especially those marketing themselves as artistic or independent. Home is a small, rural town populated with bleak, stifling, and culturally deaf family and friends (as if those types can't be found in cities). It’s always a place “sophisticated” characters have outgrown. Is this more or less true of small town America? That’s not the point. The point is we see it over and over and over again and it gets boring.
A more specific aspect of the “small town” Up in the Air and most other films give us is the “broken family.” In the broken family brothers and sisters don’t speak, divorces are contagious, and the bills barely get paid. It’s “real life”…I get it.
I’m not trying to get all Fox News-ish, though. I’d hate a fiction that blindly praises “Main Street USA” without ever recognizing its limitations. I think it’d be quite refreshing to see “small town” life treated with more complexity, rather than a forgettable and regrettable childhood memory.
Anyway, I suppose this is an argument for awareness. A good writer identifies patterns in other works and makes sure to avoid them in her own.
Wednesday, July 14, 2010
Charade (1963)
Characterization Characterization Characterization. This is the mantra for fiction writers of “the program era.” At its most basic, characterization asks that we “round out” our characters with both good and bad personality traits, that we make them neither entirely “good” nor entirely “evil.” But, characterization also means “give me interesting characters—characters who will make me turn the page.”
One way to create characters who make a reader a turn the page, or a viewer forget she is eating her popcorn, is to endow them with charm. Charade, with Audrey Hepburn and Cary Grant, remains modern despite the absence of triple flipping body doubles and exploding helicopters because its characters have charm.
Hepburn and Grant have large whites around their irises and slow blinking eyelids, but appearance, the textbooks tell us, is not the only aspect of characterization we writers need give attention. Speech deserves equal importance (as do thought and action).
One aspect of speech that makes Hepburn and Grant appealing is their ability to deliver one-liners at seemingly inopportune times. My favorite lines from this film seem to rescue moments of tension. For instance, in an early squabble, Hepburn shouts to Grant “You know what’s wrong with you?” “What?” he asks seemingly caught off guard. She pauses, blinking ever s0 slowly: “Nothing.”
Later, during another spat over dinner, Grant says, “Oh, you should see your face right now.” “What’s wrong with it?” Hepburn asks, touching it, reaching for a mirror. “It’s lovely,” he says.
There is a pattern to these exchanges. They occur in moments of tension. They begin with a misdirection—an oncoming insult. And then they deliver an unexpected and just cheesy enough compliment. (One-liners, I think, always need a little bit of cheese sprinkled on top. Just enough so that they can be consumed lightly.)
So, being the unoriginal imitator that I am, I impersonated Hepburn once. “Do you know what’s wrong with you?” I asked a girl. “I didn’t think there was anything wrong with me,” she said.
Oops.
But this exchange taught me a lesson. Charming as these two characters may be, they are not without insecurities. And the types of exchanges I’ve discussed fail unless the insecurities arise. What I find unique about charmers is that quite often they allow their insecurities to become strengths of character.
One way to create characters who make a reader a turn the page, or a viewer forget she is eating her popcorn, is to endow them with charm. Charade, with Audrey Hepburn and Cary Grant, remains modern despite the absence of triple flipping body doubles and exploding helicopters because its characters have charm.
Hepburn and Grant have large whites around their irises and slow blinking eyelids, but appearance, the textbooks tell us, is not the only aspect of characterization we writers need give attention. Speech deserves equal importance (as do thought and action).
One aspect of speech that makes Hepburn and Grant appealing is their ability to deliver one-liners at seemingly inopportune times. My favorite lines from this film seem to rescue moments of tension. For instance, in an early squabble, Hepburn shouts to Grant “You know what’s wrong with you?” “What?” he asks seemingly caught off guard. She pauses, blinking ever s0 slowly: “Nothing.”
Later, during another spat over dinner, Grant says, “Oh, you should see your face right now.” “What’s wrong with it?” Hepburn asks, touching it, reaching for a mirror. “It’s lovely,” he says.
There is a pattern to these exchanges. They occur in moments of tension. They begin with a misdirection—an oncoming insult. And then they deliver an unexpected and just cheesy enough compliment. (One-liners, I think, always need a little bit of cheese sprinkled on top. Just enough so that they can be consumed lightly.)
So, being the unoriginal imitator that I am, I impersonated Hepburn once. “Do you know what’s wrong with you?” I asked a girl. “I didn’t think there was anything wrong with me,” she said.
Oops.
But this exchange taught me a lesson. Charming as these two characters may be, they are not without insecurities. And the types of exchanges I’ve discussed fail unless the insecurities arise. What I find unique about charmers is that quite often they allow their insecurities to become strengths of character.
Tuesday, May 18, 2010
The Wire (Episode 17, Season 2)
I reference the particular episode because it’s highly probable that I will discuss the “the greatest television series ever made” many more times.
The quotation above is important because The Wire is made for television, not for the screen. Therefore, considerations such as serialization, screen size and aspect ratio, and time, are effective constraints for the show’s “makers”—and there are many, as the show features several different directors, as well as guest writers like novelists Richard Price and Dennis Lehane. Further, The Wire doesn’t always work against the traditional constraints of television, but in fact, embraces some of them.
Being the amorous fan that I am, I’ve long wanted to write about The Wire and a particular formal structure I find in television sitcoms, but have not quite had the lexical inventiveness to do so. I find enabling language in (my professor) Marc Scroggin’s biographical study of Louis Zukofsky, who may be contrary to widely-held opinion “the last modernist” (The Poem of a Life: A Biography of Louis Zukofsky, 2007).
Scroggins examines the early sections of Zukofksky’s long poem “A”:
"In a musical fugue, a short melody, the subject or theme, is stated in a single instrument voice, then taken up or imitated by other voices, New motifs—countersubjects—may be introduced in counterpoints to the subject and reappear throughout the fugue much like the subject. Strictly speaking, the fugue is not a form but a formal principle, a method for generating music through the contrapuntal juxtaposition of melodic motifs. Instead of melodic motifs, Zukofsky counterpoints poetic “themes” or ideas."
So, what does this look like in The Wire? In Episode 17, we see several “contrapuntal juxtapositions.” For one, Keema, an officer recently recovered from a gunshot wound now working in the office (as her girlfriend desires) has the opportunity to get back on the beat as her former boss, Cedric Daniels, who also is in the office, and effectively out of line to rise through the ranks of the “brass,” consenting, like Keema, to the desires of his politically ambitious wife, will head a new detail. Both choose the streets against the wishes of their partners. The theme of choosing between career and home is repeated. Indeed, McNulty, arguably the show’s protagonist, is separated from his wife because of his megalomaniacal dedication to his job (Infamously, in Season 1, McNulty has his pre-adolescent sons follow a known drug dealer through the fish market). As the series progresses, Keema (in law school) and Daniels (with a law degree in hand) handle their situations differently, often commiserating on their predicaments.
Season 2, I tell JMill all the time, is a bit of an aberration in that it focuses on East Baltimore and “the docks,” that is the industry of the Port of Baltimore. Here we find a countersubject to the corner boys in the low and high rises of West Baltimore. Nico, the nephew of union leader Frank Sabotka, is frustrated by not getting enough work on the docks. His cousin, Zig, Sobatka’s son, suggests they sling blow, to which Nico retorts, “I ain’t slanging dope on the corner like some project nigga.” Eventually, Zig and Nico do turn to disseminating narcotics. We find two groups of people, those living in the projects in West Baltimore and those used to relying on the harbor in East Baltimore, who think (as do we, the viewers) they are extremely different from those on the other side of town, resorting to the same alternative. Thus, this strategy of “contrapuntal juxtaposition” sheds light on desperate and seemingly disparate situations. From Nico, desperation is dramatized in terms of a (more or less contemporary) traditional family unit (he needs money to get a place for his girlfriend and their daughter), and therefore avoids the assumption of ruthless criminality that often accompanies the inner-city drug trade. From the “Barksdale crew,” the narcotics conduit of West Baltimore, we learn the ingenuity necessary to successfully thwart Baltimore law enforcement. From both, we can easily identify systemic politics perpetuating poverty and violence.
Why am I so sure this technique is characteristic of television? Think about the Seinfeld episode where Jerry and George decide to both get married. Jerry never proposes, George does. The theme of engagement in dramatized in two different situations. Or, the recent South Park episode where everyone wants facebook friends—Stan is the exception, not wanting to “get sucked into facebook.” I think “time” is the culprit in the sitcom. In less than a half-hour, the episode must dramatize as many variations of the same predicament as possible. Notice, there is usually an opposition—George does, Jerry doesn’t; Stan doesn’t, others do.
Here, The Wire deviates from the sitcom. Recall that Keema and Daniels share the same predicament, as do Nico and the average corner boy, but both handle the situation similarly. Keema and Daniels are back on the beat. Nico, as most up and comers do, hits the street lured by the money. Quite simply, The Wire has more time to make a refined use of contrapuntal juxtapositions. There are differences between Keema (homosexual, unmarried, and caring for a child) and Daniels (heterosexual, married and childless). Sitcoms cover as much as possible in a short amount of time. The Wire carries its narrative across episodes and seasons (Keema and Daniels wrestle with their predicaments to different ends all the way to the series finale). This more refined and subtle handling is why The Wire is so admired.
So, what is the lineage of the fugal mode from modernist poetry to television sitcom? I have no idea, and I’m sure there is a book about it, and I’m sure that lineage includes novels and films somewhere in between. Also, what is the value of the fugal mode at this point, considering its old age, cooption by popular culture, and formulaic properties? My answer is that at this point contrapuntal juxtapositions are essentially “narrative grammar” (Roland Barthe’s term). And, it’s important to remember, its generative capability. Therefore, when the fiction is cornered, a contrapuntal juxtaposition may provide mobility and escape
The quotation above is important because The Wire is made for television, not for the screen. Therefore, considerations such as serialization, screen size and aspect ratio, and time, are effective constraints for the show’s “makers”—and there are many, as the show features several different directors, as well as guest writers like novelists Richard Price and Dennis Lehane. Further, The Wire doesn’t always work against the traditional constraints of television, but in fact, embraces some of them.
Being the amorous fan that I am, I’ve long wanted to write about The Wire and a particular formal structure I find in television sitcoms, but have not quite had the lexical inventiveness to do so. I find enabling language in (my professor) Marc Scroggin’s biographical study of Louis Zukofsky, who may be contrary to widely-held opinion “the last modernist” (The Poem of a Life: A Biography of Louis Zukofsky, 2007).
Scroggins examines the early sections of Zukofksky’s long poem “A”:
"In a musical fugue, a short melody, the subject or theme, is stated in a single instrument voice, then taken up or imitated by other voices, New motifs—countersubjects—may be introduced in counterpoints to the subject and reappear throughout the fugue much like the subject. Strictly speaking, the fugue is not a form but a formal principle, a method for generating music through the contrapuntal juxtaposition of melodic motifs. Instead of melodic motifs, Zukofsky counterpoints poetic “themes” or ideas."
So, what does this look like in The Wire? In Episode 17, we see several “contrapuntal juxtapositions.” For one, Keema, an officer recently recovered from a gunshot wound now working in the office (as her girlfriend desires) has the opportunity to get back on the beat as her former boss, Cedric Daniels, who also is in the office, and effectively out of line to rise through the ranks of the “brass,” consenting, like Keema, to the desires of his politically ambitious wife, will head a new detail. Both choose the streets against the wishes of their partners. The theme of choosing between career and home is repeated. Indeed, McNulty, arguably the show’s protagonist, is separated from his wife because of his megalomaniacal dedication to his job (Infamously, in Season 1, McNulty has his pre-adolescent sons follow a known drug dealer through the fish market). As the series progresses, Keema (in law school) and Daniels (with a law degree in hand) handle their situations differently, often commiserating on their predicaments.
Season 2, I tell JMill all the time, is a bit of an aberration in that it focuses on East Baltimore and “the docks,” that is the industry of the Port of Baltimore. Here we find a countersubject to the corner boys in the low and high rises of West Baltimore. Nico, the nephew of union leader Frank Sabotka, is frustrated by not getting enough work on the docks. His cousin, Zig, Sobatka’s son, suggests they sling blow, to which Nico retorts, “I ain’t slanging dope on the corner like some project nigga.” Eventually, Zig and Nico do turn to disseminating narcotics. We find two groups of people, those living in the projects in West Baltimore and those used to relying on the harbor in East Baltimore, who think (as do we, the viewers) they are extremely different from those on the other side of town, resorting to the same alternative. Thus, this strategy of “contrapuntal juxtaposition” sheds light on desperate and seemingly disparate situations. From Nico, desperation is dramatized in terms of a (more or less contemporary) traditional family unit (he needs money to get a place for his girlfriend and their daughter), and therefore avoids the assumption of ruthless criminality that often accompanies the inner-city drug trade. From the “Barksdale crew,” the narcotics conduit of West Baltimore, we learn the ingenuity necessary to successfully thwart Baltimore law enforcement. From both, we can easily identify systemic politics perpetuating poverty and violence.
Why am I so sure this technique is characteristic of television? Think about the Seinfeld episode where Jerry and George decide to both get married. Jerry never proposes, George does. The theme of engagement in dramatized in two different situations. Or, the recent South Park episode where everyone wants facebook friends—Stan is the exception, not wanting to “get sucked into facebook.” I think “time” is the culprit in the sitcom. In less than a half-hour, the episode must dramatize as many variations of the same predicament as possible. Notice, there is usually an opposition—George does, Jerry doesn’t; Stan doesn’t, others do.
Here, The Wire deviates from the sitcom. Recall that Keema and Daniels share the same predicament, as do Nico and the average corner boy, but both handle the situation similarly. Keema and Daniels are back on the beat. Nico, as most up and comers do, hits the street lured by the money. Quite simply, The Wire has more time to make a refined use of contrapuntal juxtapositions. There are differences between Keema (homosexual, unmarried, and caring for a child) and Daniels (heterosexual, married and childless). Sitcoms cover as much as possible in a short amount of time. The Wire carries its narrative across episodes and seasons (Keema and Daniels wrestle with their predicaments to different ends all the way to the series finale). This more refined and subtle handling is why The Wire is so admired.
So, what is the lineage of the fugal mode from modernist poetry to television sitcom? I have no idea, and I’m sure there is a book about it, and I’m sure that lineage includes novels and films somewhere in between. Also, what is the value of the fugal mode at this point, considering its old age, cooption by popular culture, and formulaic properties? My answer is that at this point contrapuntal juxtapositions are essentially “narrative grammar” (Roland Barthe’s term). And, it’s important to remember, its generative capability. Therefore, when the fiction is cornered, a contrapuntal juxtaposition may provide mobility and escape
Friday, March 12, 2010
Crazy Heart (2010)
…Okay, country music fans: here is the film that you haven’t heard about and the film that you hadn’t been dying for, but is certainly worth your nine bucks...but now you know that because you probably watched the Academy Awards.
…One issue that deserves attention is the “the happy ending.”
What qualifies this ending as “happy?” For one, sixteen months after declaring himself sober, Bad Blake, is still sober. What would disqualify this ending from being “happy?” From Bad’s point of view, “his girl” (meaning ex-girlfriend whom he still loves) wears an engagement ring that Bad didn’t give her. Additionally, for the second time in his life, he has lost a son—his exgirlfriend’s four year old son, Buddy. (This is a nice touch, pointed out to me by JMill, as the last time Bad saw his own son, he was also four. And, JMill continues, the movie doesn’t beat us over the head with this subtle bit of fictional “magic”; rather, we’re informed at one time the age of his girl’s son and at another that Bad hasn’t seen his own son in twenty-four years and at another that his son is now twenty-eight.) Back to the happy side, his relationship with Tony Sweet, Bad’s former protégé who “sold out,” seems repaired; and, his agent, who hassles Bad all movie long, is now satisfied as Bad agrees to open for Sweet (The bad / sweet opposition seems too strong, now that I think about it). But then again, his girl who is not his girl is happy with him, and he seems, however perfunctorily, happy for her (to me, this is the heart of the movie, as Blake is a performer and entertainer and in the final scene he has to give a performance, of sorts). The end then introduces a brief encore of pleasantly predictable conflict as his ex invites Bad to talk with her son, Buddy. He politely declines. The camera swiftly zooms out and the remaining figures shrink in the Arizona landscape. Somehow, “it feels all good.” But when I think of Bad’s perspective, it seems things aren’t all good. The resonating effect, then, is one where he makes decisions to make others happy, as I imagine is the essence of the life of a performing artist. Bad’s own desires shrink in the background.
...another something to think about, a pattern I notice in my tastes for stories, is that stories are often a process of creation.
Here, I'm not talking about the process of an artist creating the story. I'm talking about a story which is an adventure into creation. Perhaps you've read The Known World by Edward P. Jones. The novel is coyly presented as a mural--a collection of stories and illustrations that are not in chronological order. The novel ends with the image of a mural depicting all of the stories and illustrations we've read. I also read recently an experimental novel by Raymond Federman, Double or Nothing , which uses the writing of a book as its principle conceit (though I discourage this, as it's a tired conceit in 2010). In Crazy Heart, Bad struggles to write new songs and much of the film focuses on his process of songwriting. The value of writing a fiction that is an "adventure into creation" is twofold. For one, it's the story's propeller, which often comes in the form of a protagonist's desires. Secondly, a character with a creative process is expected to be quirky, irrational, and/or passionate--the characteristics that lead to unique and memorable characters.
…One issue that deserves attention is the “the happy ending.”
What qualifies this ending as “happy?” For one, sixteen months after declaring himself sober, Bad Blake, is still sober. What would disqualify this ending from being “happy?” From Bad’s point of view, “his girl” (meaning ex-girlfriend whom he still loves) wears an engagement ring that Bad didn’t give her. Additionally, for the second time in his life, he has lost a son—his exgirlfriend’s four year old son, Buddy. (This is a nice touch, pointed out to me by JMill, as the last time Bad saw his own son, he was also four. And, JMill continues, the movie doesn’t beat us over the head with this subtle bit of fictional “magic”; rather, we’re informed at one time the age of his girl’s son and at another that Bad hasn’t seen his own son in twenty-four years and at another that his son is now twenty-eight.) Back to the happy side, his relationship with Tony Sweet, Bad’s former protégé who “sold out,” seems repaired; and, his agent, who hassles Bad all movie long, is now satisfied as Bad agrees to open for Sweet (The bad / sweet opposition seems too strong, now that I think about it). But then again, his girl who is not his girl is happy with him, and he seems, however perfunctorily, happy for her (to me, this is the heart of the movie, as Blake is a performer and entertainer and in the final scene he has to give a performance, of sorts). The end then introduces a brief encore of pleasantly predictable conflict as his ex invites Bad to talk with her son, Buddy. He politely declines. The camera swiftly zooms out and the remaining figures shrink in the Arizona landscape. Somehow, “it feels all good.” But when I think of Bad’s perspective, it seems things aren’t all good. The resonating effect, then, is one where he makes decisions to make others happy, as I imagine is the essence of the life of a performing artist. Bad’s own desires shrink in the background.
...another something to think about, a pattern I notice in my tastes for stories, is that stories are often a process of creation.
Here, I'm not talking about the process of an artist creating the story. I'm talking about a story which is an adventure into creation. Perhaps you've read The Known World by Edward P. Jones. The novel is coyly presented as a mural--a collection of stories and illustrations that are not in chronological order. The novel ends with the image of a mural depicting all of the stories and illustrations we've read. I also read recently an experimental novel by Raymond Federman, Double or Nothing , which uses the writing of a book as its principle conceit (though I discourage this, as it's a tired conceit in 2010). In Crazy Heart, Bad struggles to write new songs and much of the film focuses on his process of songwriting. The value of writing a fiction that is an "adventure into creation" is twofold. For one, it's the story's propeller, which often comes in the form of a protagonist's desires. Secondly, a character with a creative process is expected to be quirky, irrational, and/or passionate--the characteristics that lead to unique and memorable characters.
Wednesday, February 24, 2010
Avatar (2009)
As I'd like to accurately think myself a critic, I'm attempting to reserve my judgements of the films I "review." Here, then, I offer a single critique, which fiction writers might make use of.
An achievement of this film's storytelling is the invasion of the humans just after Jake Sully and Neytiri make Omaticayan love. We find here a simple principle, which you can use in your fiction: once something good happens, have something bad happen.
Avatar employs this simple principle in a sophisticated way. For one, the scenes I mention answer two major dramatic questions in close succession. The two questions are: Will Sully and Neytiri become lovers? Will the humans attack the Omaticayans? The reader / viewer feels gratified that the major questions are answered. Additionally, the reader / viewer experiences opposite emotions as the mood of the juxtaposed scenes changes suddenly. Finally, this simple principle works on a conceptual level as well. The union of Sully and Neytiri is a joining of the humans and Omaticayans. The next scene, when the humans attack, is the opposite. The union accomplished by "making love" is destroyed by "making war."
An achievement of this film's storytelling is the invasion of the humans just after Jake Sully and Neytiri make Omaticayan love. We find here a simple principle, which you can use in your fiction: once something good happens, have something bad happen.
Avatar employs this simple principle in a sophisticated way. For one, the scenes I mention answer two major dramatic questions in close succession. The two questions are: Will Sully and Neytiri become lovers? Will the humans attack the Omaticayans? The reader / viewer feels gratified that the major questions are answered. Additionally, the reader / viewer experiences opposite emotions as the mood of the juxtaposed scenes changes suddenly. Finally, this simple principle works on a conceptual level as well. The union of Sully and Neytiri is a joining of the humans and Omaticayans. The next scene, when the humans attack, is the opposite. The union accomplished by "making love" is destroyed by "making war."
Sleepless in Seattle (1993)
...caught the last five minutes of this today
...that's like a disclaimer
So…at the end of this film Meg Ryan is on a date with her fiancé and they see on the Empire State Building red lights forming a heart. The fiancé says, “It’s a sign.” She agrees and ditches him for Tom Hanks.
So…after all the hugging and kissing the film concludes with a computer-generated image of the NYC skyline, the Empire State Building and its red heart. In fiction, we might call this shift in “tone” problematic. For ninety minutes, the screen has had a “realistic” tone, and then we get a computer-generated tone. SS illustrates the jarring effect a tonal shift can have.
…However, I’m one who doesn’t necessarily consider “jarring” a pejorative critique.
…However, sometimes jarring works and sometimes jarring doesn’t. To measure its success, we might ask: Is the fiction conscious of the sudden shift in tone? And, what is the lasting effect? In SS, we can’t answer these questions, as this computer-generated image is our last until the credits roll. SS changes its visual tone more out of convenience (how else than a computer can we make the image of a heart on the Empire State Building?) than for artistic effect.
…To all of which, you might reply: “It’s just a movie, Scott.”
…Fair enough.
...that's like a disclaimer
So…at the end of this film Meg Ryan is on a date with her fiancé and they see on the Empire State Building red lights forming a heart. The fiancé says, “It’s a sign.” She agrees and ditches him for Tom Hanks.
So…after all the hugging and kissing the film concludes with a computer-generated image of the NYC skyline, the Empire State Building and its red heart. In fiction, we might call this shift in “tone” problematic. For ninety minutes, the screen has had a “realistic” tone, and then we get a computer-generated tone. SS illustrates the jarring effect a tonal shift can have.
…However, I’m one who doesn’t necessarily consider “jarring” a pejorative critique.
…However, sometimes jarring works and sometimes jarring doesn’t. To measure its success, we might ask: Is the fiction conscious of the sudden shift in tone? And, what is the lasting effect? In SS, we can’t answer these questions, as this computer-generated image is our last until the credits roll. SS changes its visual tone more out of convenience (how else than a computer can we make the image of a heart on the Empire State Building?) than for artistic effect.
…To all of which, you might reply: “It’s just a movie, Scott.”
…Fair enough.
Thursday, January 28, 2010
Revolutionary Road (2008)
Perhaps your fiction has stalled…perhaps you want your audience to see something your character cannot… perhaps you want to emphasize what your character cannot see without “telling”…perhaps you want a moment where your character metaphorically looks into the proverbial mirror but you don’t want to use a mirror because that would be too damn obvious…
RR is a tragedy very much in the vein of Shakespeare.
A common technique of Shakespeare, which RR borrows, is the fool. In Shakespeare, the fool is often a vessel of knowledge whose contents are disregarded simply because of his appearance. In RR, John Givings, a patient in a mental institution, plays the role of the fool. RR, however, doesn’t use the fool without its own invention.
Throughout King Lear, the fool brings advice to Lear, and Lear continually fails to see.
Fool: …The sweet and bitter fool
Will presently appear;
The one in motley here,
The other found out there.
Lear: Dost thou call me a fool, boy?
Fool: All the other titles thou hast given away.
In RR, John Givings expresses to Frank and April Wheeler many sentiments with which they agree and which we’ve previously heard them express. Rather than speaking in puns and double-entendres as a Shakespearean fool might, Givings speaks bluntly. Rather than speaking unheard as the Shakespearean fool might, the Wheeler’s openly agree. Although Givings doesn’t act the fool, the validity of his ideas appears compromised to both the Wheelers and the audience because of his “social status,” much like a Shakespearean fool.
Alterations to the appearance and manner of the fool as seen in RR are easily contrived (they function to disguise the trope of the fool); however, the force of the alterations stems mainly from Givings’s bluntly insulting disapproval of the Wheeler’s decision to remain in America and not to move to Paris, which leads to a fight, which leads to (insert spoiler here). The tragedy then is amplified: in contrast to Lear, who is simply blind to the truth due to old age, the young Wheelers choose to blindfold themselves, continuing to live under a banner of truth they know to be false.
RR is a tragedy very much in the vein of Shakespeare.
A common technique of Shakespeare, which RR borrows, is the fool. In Shakespeare, the fool is often a vessel of knowledge whose contents are disregarded simply because of his appearance. In RR, John Givings, a patient in a mental institution, plays the role of the fool. RR, however, doesn’t use the fool without its own invention.
Throughout King Lear, the fool brings advice to Lear, and Lear continually fails to see.
Fool: …The sweet and bitter fool
Will presently appear;
The one in motley here,
The other found out there.
Lear: Dost thou call me a fool, boy?
Fool: All the other titles thou hast given away.
In RR, John Givings expresses to Frank and April Wheeler many sentiments with which they agree and which we’ve previously heard them express. Rather than speaking in puns and double-entendres as a Shakespearean fool might, Givings speaks bluntly. Rather than speaking unheard as the Shakespearean fool might, the Wheeler’s openly agree. Although Givings doesn’t act the fool, the validity of his ideas appears compromised to both the Wheelers and the audience because of his “social status,” much like a Shakespearean fool.
Alterations to the appearance and manner of the fool as seen in RR are easily contrived (they function to disguise the trope of the fool); however, the force of the alterations stems mainly from Givings’s bluntly insulting disapproval of the Wheeler’s decision to remain in America and not to move to Paris, which leads to a fight, which leads to (insert spoiler here). The tragedy then is amplified: in contrast to Lear, who is simply blind to the truth due to old age, the young Wheelers choose to blindfold themselves, continuing to live under a banner of truth they know to be false.
Saturday, January 9, 2010
Brothers (2009)
In Brothers, a lesser talked about film this holiday season, the fiction writer might pay attention to the parallel storylines which arise from a familiar film technique: montage. Montage works on film because humans have a propensity to not look away from frenetic images. Frenetic images in fiction (or whatever technique may come closest) are not often successful (or labeled experimental) because a piece will feel non-sequitur, unfocused, and/or haphazard.
Brothers is inventive because it uses montage and then slows the montage to parallel storylines. We move between small town USA and worn-torn Afghanistan at slower and slower rates. The scenes feel progressively drawn out. Initially, the montage pulls at our heartstrings, juxtaposing images of a soldier at war with images of his wife and kids at home. Then, the film raises the stakes by slowing down. I won’t spoil how it raises the stakes (because I want you to see it) but the important thing is that the storyline slows down.
Parallel storylines is a popular, if not overused, technique of fiction. An issue I have with the term is that often the storylines are not parallel but converging. We know the two lines will eventually come together. Brothers is inventive because it makes its converging storylines feel like diverging storylines.
As montage becomes parallel storylines, the fiction writer should note how much its success relies on opposition. Foremost, there is simply the contrast in atmosphere between the US and Afghanistan. A more pointed example, however, comes when Captain Cahill is captured. He instructs his fellow captive to forget everything he knows. He tells him he no longer has a family as Afghanis rummage through his belongings, which include pictures of his wife and son. Meanwhile, Cahill’s wife sits on her couch watching home videos. While the husband is forgetting, the wife is remembering.
I think the use of opposition coupled with the slower rate at which the story progresses works to heighten tension—in a novel with converging storylines, it’s easy to see how progressively longer chapters might achieve the same effect. While parallel storylines is certainly not inventive in fiction or film, what is inventive (and counterintuitive) in Brothers is that the parallel storylines seem to suggest that the family will not reunite, the storylines will never converge. When they do, we’re relieved; but, we’re also eager to see how the film will resolve conflicts developed through the parallel storylines.
Brothers is inventive because it uses montage and then slows the montage to parallel storylines. We move between small town USA and worn-torn Afghanistan at slower and slower rates. The scenes feel progressively drawn out. Initially, the montage pulls at our heartstrings, juxtaposing images of a soldier at war with images of his wife and kids at home. Then, the film raises the stakes by slowing down. I won’t spoil how it raises the stakes (because I want you to see it) but the important thing is that the storyline slows down.
Parallel storylines is a popular, if not overused, technique of fiction. An issue I have with the term is that often the storylines are not parallel but converging. We know the two lines will eventually come together. Brothers is inventive because it makes its converging storylines feel like diverging storylines.
As montage becomes parallel storylines, the fiction writer should note how much its success relies on opposition. Foremost, there is simply the contrast in atmosphere between the US and Afghanistan. A more pointed example, however, comes when Captain Cahill is captured. He instructs his fellow captive to forget everything he knows. He tells him he no longer has a family as Afghanis rummage through his belongings, which include pictures of his wife and son. Meanwhile, Cahill’s wife sits on her couch watching home videos. While the husband is forgetting, the wife is remembering.
I think the use of opposition coupled with the slower rate at which the story progresses works to heighten tension—in a novel with converging storylines, it’s easy to see how progressively longer chapters might achieve the same effect. While parallel storylines is certainly not inventive in fiction or film, what is inventive (and counterintuitive) in Brothers is that the parallel storylines seem to suggest that the family will not reunite, the storylines will never converge. When they do, we’re relieved; but, we’re also eager to see how the film will resolve conflicts developed through the parallel storylines.
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