It sounds like you are advocating some kind of form of naturalism where what happens to characters should be completely divorced from their character. Which is fine, if that's your preference. But I find it weird to hear you explicitly saying it's *wrong* for an author to follow the rules for tragedy developed by Aristotle and hewed to by great literature ever since. I personally am not interested in a work where the author is permitted to create a character and then have randomly selected things happen to them, pointlessly.
I'm not advocating that at all; crafting a character's story is an essential part of good writing. What I'm against is the writer telling me through narrative dirty tricks that, say, that the Nationalists in Spain are pampered and immoral. If the text argues that the Nationalist in Spain are pampered and immoral then that should be because the Nationalists in Spain
were
pampered and immoral and not because they were gross caricatures with no real interior lives.
I think saying there are works where an author doesn't put their own opinions into the plot and characters is disingenous.
I didn't say that. I said 'personal and dishonest inflections' and 'authorial intrusion' and the like. One would hope that an artist's opinion (like every one's opinion) is derived from observing the world. When an artist fills his or her work with those opinions, that they are his or opinions are entirely incidental; what the artist is essentially doing is depicting life. If I want to write a book about how all Buddhists are idiots, I'm going to have to fill it entirely with Buddhists that are caricatured idiots. That depiction doesn't align with reality and I'd be open to have that aspect criticized as a flaw.
The idea that a writer should have no say or opinion, expressed in the work itself, on any character they've created, is ridiculous.
I didn't say, imply or infer that a writer shouldn't have an opinion in the work on the characters in that sense. The whole piece is, always, inevitably, opinion. What I'm saying is that there should be no disconnect between the author's opinion as found in the work and the work's relationship to reality.
Maybe you meant that creating characters ONLY to make a moral judgement is bad writing, and that can be true. Not always, though--most of Shaw's plays were written to illustrate theories, but he was a wonderful writer nonetheless.
I like Shaw well enough but his tendency to bully characters is a shortcoming of his. I mean, I'm not arguing that all writers of worth must transcend subjective human experience because that wouldn't leave enough to fill a coffin. What I'm saying is that I wish that writers should strive beyond their
current
subjectivity.
I love Evil Dead. It tickles me the 2nd one is basically a remake of the first one, too.
I'm pretty sure the reviewer who coined the phrase "torture porn" first used it in a review of Hostel.
I just got back from seeing Waitress. I am in total agreement with Matt. Funny, sad, sweet, poignant, uplifting, (Nathan is hot), great ending. And I was earwormed with the little song.
Excuse me, I should have written "that bad things should happen to unsympathetic characters is a traditional aspect of horror I find to be poor writing." Janet Leigh's death is, I think, outside that tradition. The death of, say, the Italian detective in Hannibal is within it.
Obviously, I disagree about Psycho being an aberration. I think the tradition is simply: people do bad things, or risky things, and they suffer as a result. Generally the consequences are out of proportion, because that's what makes it horror and not a docu-drama. There has been a more existential bent to some modern horror, so there are exceptions where there's no real reason for the bad shit happening, but horror is rooted in cautionary tales. Step away from the campfire and the boogeyman will get you.
A doctor wants to create life, and makes a monster that destroys everyone he loves. Some kids sneak out for sex & drugs, and a maniac kills them. Some other kids tease a girl, and she turns their prom into an abattoir. A man worried about overpopulation unintentionally unleases a plague that wipes out most of humanity. People mess with atomic power and pretty soon there are giant beasties knocking buildings down.
And rape-revenge stories are practically an entire subgenre to themselves. You're certainly not supposed to find the gang in "Last House on the Left" sympathetic, but that's because they're the villains for half the movie, and you're supposed to sympathize with
their
victims.
There is almost always a reason for what happens, but that doesn't make the victims deserving of their fate. So no, I don't think unsympathetic characters are somehow traditional to horror. It's true that they turn up in bad horror, but that's equally true of bad SF or bad drama or bad comedy.
What I'm saying is that I wish that writers should strive beyond their current subjectivity.
Ah. Whereas I think subjectivity is the point and purpose of writing.
Just got back from
Ocean's 13
and it was FUN. Tight plot, lovely light tone, the usual smart Soderbergh cinematic styling, and the cute boys we love. Popcorn, but yummy popcorn.
Just got back from Ocean's 13 and it was FUN. Tight plot, lovely light tone, the usual smart Soderbergh cinematic styling, and the cute boys we love. Popcorn, but yummy popcorn.
Same here. I called
Steven Soderbergh as the doctor
and Bob called
the Bourne movies parody when Linus is in London.
I think it is a question of style, and of what makes a character's actions "bad" or bad enough to be haunted/hunted/killed. With Frankenstein, you had to think a little bit about why playing God rebounded on the doctor. And you had the distraction of the monster - were you supposed to focus on his story? Hitchcock did the same with Psycho, but made it a bit more obvious that Leigh was a Bad Girl (she changes from a white bra to a black bra), before distracting you with Norman's story.
It's sort of generally agreed that one shouldn't play God, but is teen sex really punishable by death? Is taking a school vacation in a crappy shack really punishable of rape by tree? Is being female enough "bad" to merit brutal torture? Movies currently make it more obvious why the characters are being punished, but the reasons are, to my mind, less useful as social lessons.
Will someone confirm for me that there was no J---a R-----s in
Ocean's Thirteen
? If so, I may be able to view the damn thing....
