All Geek to Me

Talk it up geek boy, this is interesting.

Humans create stories by reconstructing the world as we understand it.  The spokesmen for a cold, impartial fate reconstructs it without pattern or purpose.  And for this reason many of them end up in asylums: a deep sense of purpose is innate in the healthy human.

I would, however, dare to validate a sense of cold, impartial fate in certain contexts– in order to illustrate the feeling of a tragic character, for example– but I disagree with the idea that cold impartiality will prevail in the world, as understood by a healthy human.  Maybe I am naive.  Maybe my worldview is sustained by all the oversimplified Hollywood drivel (like Slumdog Millionaire’s “everything happens for a reason,” or Forrest Gump’s “love conquers all.”)  But those films ring true for me, and I am happy.

Going back to the Greeks, I think of The Oresteia (though it is not the only example).  In it are personified fates called Furies, which signify a dark version of what we might call destiny or mission.  In the context of that trilogy, the Furies’ role is to ensure that the treacherous murder of Agamemnon is avenged.  The Furies are not gods.  They are perhaps the dark counterpart of the muses (sources of artistic inspiration personified by, of course, beautiful women).  I find it interesting how many shades of fate can be found in the ancient Greek tradition.

The gods are also an interesting topic: they are both benevolent and malevolent sources of supernatural intervention in the lives of men.  They are not impartial: quite the opposite.  They make and break heroes and cities and empires.  In this concept there is much complexity, but always purpose.

Why is it that purpose seems to have shallowed in modern stories?

Those Greeks – Oikos, Hamartia, Moirae

I’ve been thinking about the timelessness of story lately.  What can we say that hasn’t been said? Or is it just about saying something in a new way, in our context with modern allusions and the vocabulary of our own experience?  For instance, those Greeks, who for millennia have been revered for their knack for beauty and for thoughtfulness, already told some intricate stories that sum up those big questions about what life is and how it ought to be lived.

Three Greek words come to mind, yet they all seem to hit somewhere near the same nugget of understanding.  What is a nugget of understanding, you ask?  Well, an insight, a sense of what is… behind appearances.  These three words, collected somewhere along the path of my liberal arts studies, are oikos, hamartia and moirae.

Oikos – the family unit, the household, the dearest human relationships, the foundation of society.  The return to this most important human center is the archetypal homecoming of which Homer’s Odyssey is the oldest revered example.

Hamartia – the tragic flaw.  Aristotle describes it as the fatal error in judgment.  McKee might see it as the fateful gap between what is perceived and what is real.

Moirae – the 3 Fates, the personifications of destiny who spin, measure and cut the thread of life. Also, perhaps this fate is linked directly to innate character tendencies? This defines fate as a more internal thing.

How are all these related?  Well, besides being essential to any good story, they all connect.  Error in perception, (hamartia), takes us away from our home base of understanding (oikos).  It plunges us into the icy waters of the unknown reality.  The frosty Fates are the unemotional arbiters of circumstance – the predetermined number of days, the objective, often harsh reality of the impartial world.  Our innate character thinks home is the be-all-end-all of reality, but this tragic misconception crushes our character’s world as the wonderful, strange, cold, real world is encountered.  But the story is about coming back, re-embracing and constructing a human life, a comfort zone, a home base, this time with a deeper understanding.  After years of high adventure, Odysseus returns home wiser.  As Robert Frost says in “Into My Own”

They would not find me changed from him they knew-
Only more sure of all I thought was true.

I personally don’t know what to make of the cold Fates.  They certainly evoke fear and seem to represent a great, impersonal, unfeeling cosmos.  But a real story must confront the unknown, the mysterious great beyond, whether it be benevolent or cold.

I just saw the movie Garden State (finally), which attempts to confront the “infinite abyss” and ultimately finds comfort in romantic love. Beautiful.  And moving.  And human.  But somehow not satisfying.

Anyway, it made money and launched the careers of excellent musicians and actors.  Take that, infinite abyss!

Title Sequences

Title sequences are a great study for the aspiring filmmaker.  They really do set the tone of the film and prime the expectation of the audience.  Thank You for Smoking has been my longtime favorite, hands down.  By the by, Jason Reitman (director of both Thank You for Smoking and Juno (also a solid title credit sequence)) is the son of Ivan Reitman (exec producer of Eurotrip (re: title credits below)).  I ran into Jason randomly on Saturday evening at The Grove here in LA.

I remember being really impressed, back in the day, by how they did the titles for Conspiracy Theory (below).  The best version I could find also runs on into the film a bit, so ignore that.  It might be a cool project to create a trailer or title sequence for an original script as a little extra flavor for producers or agencies…

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Ha_6yXS2SKI

(I also have no idea how to embed a youtube video properly.)