All Geek to Me
Posted: May 8th, 2009 | Author: Jacob Rhodes | Filed under: Uncategorized | 3 Comments »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?
I have a friend who argues that the film has become what the novel was a century ago: the coin of the cultural realm. There are all kinds of novels, from the sleazy paperback with a one-dimensional plot-line to masterpieces of great subtlety and complexity. And we see the same sort of thing in films.
I would suggest that the shallowness of purpose in most (though not all) modern stories is a symptom of larger phenomena. Take, for example, the way we study poetry in school. For most of my public school education, I was taught that poetry is about how you feel. Meter was considered too difficult and never discussed with any seriousness. Allusions and metaphors were terms we had to be able to define, not tools we were actually expected to employ with regularity. A culture that refuses to think about the complexities of poetry – and this is only one example – is unlikely to appreciate complex discussions of purpose or meaning either.
I am trying to think of some good examples of modern works – film or literature – that give a serious consideration to the purpose behind things, but I'm failing to come up with any titles right now… Any you can name?
Aaron, I think you are spot-on that the general shallowing of purpose in modern stories is merely a symptom of something societal. There are the many "everything happens for a reason" films (Signs, Forrest Gump, Crash, Slumdog Millionaire), and they are often comforting– though sometimes the opposite is true (Memento)– but the "reason" behind the feeling is usually erotic love, or occasionally it implies some from of universal order and justice. But I have all too quickly subscribed to the idea that feeling is key. And it's only half of the puzzle: a filmmaker must both say something of relevance and he must entertain. He needs both a Henry and a Falstaff, if you will.
The bottom line in my mind is that movies are, unlike poetry, a very (very) expensive art form. They must (though often don't) make money. And we want to exert less and less effort when we consume entertainment (let alone really think about the meanings behind things). We are ever more content with the "pasteboard masks" as Captain Ahab would say. But this is not new. Exhibit: Aristophanes.
I have no answers, only questions.
[...] response to comments on recent posts about the shallowing of Hollywood stories, I would claim that it’s better to have a purely [...]