tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-13294573.post8301961421922210922..comments2024-03-29T04:56:23.027-04:00Comments on Cockeyed Caravan: Books Vs. Movies, Addendum: In Books, Character Can MotivateMatt Birdhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/07319984238456281734noreply@blogger.comBlogger4125tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-13294573.post-21905292453502849242012-11-09T14:27:23.892-05:002012-11-09T14:27:23.892-05:00If you think about it, most of the character-motiv...If you think about it, most of the character-motivated openings would be externally-motivated if you just started the story earlier. At some point, circumstance makes a character what they are. Anonymousnoreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-13294573.post-53041103230532471502012-11-08T21:06:15.321-05:002012-11-08T21:06:15.321-05:00I asked Betsy if she could think of any examples o...I asked Betsy if she could think of any examples of good movies that began with a willful and barely-motivated change of behavior. She pointed out one of my favorites: Breaking Away: an Indiana teenager suddenly decides to become a pseudo-Italian bicycle racer. <br /><br />Yup, that's a good example. Why does it work? A few reasons: <br /><br />1) Christopher has already made the choice when the movie begins, so we don't dwell on it. <br /><br />2) He totally refuses to explain his decision whenever anyone asks. <br /><br />3) He doesn't know either, and so, over the course of the movie, we find out the complex reasons at the same time he does (doesn't want to be like his lying father, can't admit that he really wants to go to college, where they have bicycle teams and learn other languages, etc.)Matt Birdhttps://www.blogger.com/profile/07319984238456281734noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-13294573.post-22628082113207846602012-11-08T14:34:10.752-05:002012-11-08T14:34:10.752-05:00I'd be interested to hear from you Matt and fr...I'd be interested to hear from you Matt and from any other readers out there if you can think of some great films that break this rule, that work more like novels. I'd tend to bet that films that do this successfully are probably artier and more novelistic to begin with, but that one way they steer clear of the need for endless explaining is to foreground the mystery of the central character's (whether it's the protagonist or another key figure) motivation -- probably by embedding it in the structure of the story itself. If the mysterious motivation is framed as part and parcel of the bigger mystery of the story then the audience will be in the same position as the characters -- watching their behavior to try and understand why they are doing it.<br /><br />This is almost the way MOBY DICK works too, at least with regards to Ahab's motives, which are mysterious at first, and uncovered piecemeal by the reader at the same pace as the POV character Ishmael.<br /><br />Interesting too to think of Peckinpah's MOBY DICK movie MAJOR DUNDEE in which he dispensed with a POV character altogether and foregrounded the title character as an Ahab-like anti-hero with clear motivation.j.s.noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-13294573.post-63106473391424534232012-11-07T22:39:07.662-05:002012-11-07T22:39:07.662-05:00Bravo! Good figuring.Bravo! Good figuring.Anonymousnoreply@blogger.com