Adora
10-13-2004, 12:26 PM
Okay... so I was sitting in my writing lecture today and the fellow who was giving it mentioned the well-accepted fact tht most Hollywood films are plots with characters tacked on as window dressing. They're there to be pulled along by the events in the story, hopeless against its power.
So my mind instantly jumped to the other entertaining art-form where we see this same type; Greek tragedies.
Now, I'm not looking to start another high-art/low-art wank war on the forum, as we've already had a few of those and are still trying to mop up the spooge.
I'm mostly just wondering if anyone here understands what I'm on about. My mind (don't blame me, I just work here) seemed to make a connection between the powerful archetype narratives that come up time and time again in Hollywood and the constant hold that Fate and Destiny had on the players in the ancient Dramas.
For example, take something that I consider a modern-day Greek tragedy- The Matrix Trilogy. Oh, don't roll your eyes. Yes you. Just think about it- tragic hero, tragic heroine, the Gods, tragic antagonist, mix with a good dose of indecipherable philosophy, add in an Oracle, and bingo! Even from the get-go when we new that Neo's name was "Thomas Anderson" the possibility of tragic messianic sacrifice was just about screaming out of the screen in our faces. Sure, it had a relatively happy ending, but do you think they would have been able to sell it to the producers without one?
Or maybe it's just all that recent SF films can come up with, since all the examples I can think of seem to be that. Chronicles of Riddick, Terminator II, and of course, the new Star Wars prequels (okay, they're bad, given, but you know what I mean). Is this the case? Are the predictable narratives of modern (SF) Hollywood cinema like the Greek tragedies in the sense you can't escape the ending you know is coming? Or am I just nuts?
Seriously, if anyone can think of other movies (preferably outside the SF spectrum) that come close to my stupid theory, I shall love you forever.
So my mind instantly jumped to the other entertaining art-form where we see this same type; Greek tragedies.
Now, I'm not looking to start another high-art/low-art wank war on the forum, as we've already had a few of those and are still trying to mop up the spooge.
I'm mostly just wondering if anyone here understands what I'm on about. My mind (don't blame me, I just work here) seemed to make a connection between the powerful archetype narratives that come up time and time again in Hollywood and the constant hold that Fate and Destiny had on the players in the ancient Dramas.
For example, take something that I consider a modern-day Greek tragedy- The Matrix Trilogy. Oh, don't roll your eyes. Yes you. Just think about it- tragic hero, tragic heroine, the Gods, tragic antagonist, mix with a good dose of indecipherable philosophy, add in an Oracle, and bingo! Even from the get-go when we new that Neo's name was "Thomas Anderson" the possibility of tragic messianic sacrifice was just about screaming out of the screen in our faces. Sure, it had a relatively happy ending, but do you think they would have been able to sell it to the producers without one?
Or maybe it's just all that recent SF films can come up with, since all the examples I can think of seem to be that. Chronicles of Riddick, Terminator II, and of course, the new Star Wars prequels (okay, they're bad, given, but you know what I mean). Is this the case? Are the predictable narratives of modern (SF) Hollywood cinema like the Greek tragedies in the sense you can't escape the ending you know is coming? Or am I just nuts?
Seriously, if anyone can think of other movies (preferably outside the SF spectrum) that come close to my stupid theory, I shall love you forever.