Help Me Form a Theory of a Genre Strategy with Any Examples or Ideas That Might Occur to You...
Another interesting idea occurred to me while watching Elizabeth (1998). I was struck by how similar this narrative was to the first Godfather (1972) movie: each protagonist is a young adult is drawn into a position of authority that they initially tried to avoid in favor of more conventional life; each has to choose against competing mentors, to some extent; each have to assume leadership of declining institutions during crises and lead them to stability. Each even has scenes where the budding leader has to directly confront antagonists, and other scenes where all enemies are slain or otherwise dispatched in one fell swoop.
And it quite led me to wonder if there may not be a super-genre that is nothing less than strategy-oriented. I am at a handicap here, as I've not read enough of this sort of literature to draw out all of the examples that I need. Certainly there are obvious examples that may be drawn from classic sources of history and political science--Sun Tzu, Machiavelli, Herodotus, etc.--anything that is on its face a manual of strategy and/or a history of a conflict. However, where I feel most confident in coming up with examples is from film. But again, these come from genres that are strong on the social sciences: crime (particularly heist narratives, revenge narratives, and "fish out of water" mystery narratives [where the protagonist is either placed in a situation unlike any they've ever been in and compelled to perform or else not privy to all of the facts and thus has to hunt around for facts to construct a likely narrative that will illuminate themselves and the viewer)/gangster and espionage. Yet many average and less than average crime, gangster, and espionage films do not fit the bill. There must be a fairly strong commitment to realism; that is, even if the narrative is highly stylized, it must exist in a setting that physically, socially, and psychologically resembles our own. Diehard, for example, is not a strategy movie; The Bourne Identity might be, and Jackie Brown definitely is. Likewise, Crouching Tiger, Hidden Dragon and Curse of the Golden Flower are not in the super genre while Hero and House of Flying Daggers are. The Wire is, while NYPD Blue is not. There must be romantic movies and romantic comedies that fit into this, though I am at a disadvantage insofar as that...
What else occurs to me as qualifiers for this supergenre is the need for the protagonist to respond to a series of plot complications that quite often present themselves as some form of collusion or conspiracy on the part of two or more characters. In this conflict, the protagonist usually finds himself at some disadvantage, and the necessary response is for whatever reason beyond the scope of his/her normal ability, which cause the character (or the audience's perception of the character) to evolve in some way. Said response is in many cases first cerebral (be it discovering concealed information
or formulating a plan) and then physical (executing the plan; acting on the discovery).
Some of these movies have what might be called a "prism protagonist." In the two examples that inspired this meditation, for instance, we have a macroprotagonist of Britain, with microprotagonists representing multiple points of view that the viewer may sympathize with--the novice embattled executive (Elizabeth), the statesman (Sir William Cecil), and the strategist (Walsingham, who is shown as having impeccable judgement and executes his perfect plans flawlessly). In The Godfather we have a similar arrangement. The institution is the Corleone family, which, we are led to believe, is a righteous organized crime family--they don't commit the same amount of irrational wanton violence as the families in Sicily do, and they are prudent and moral enough to want to steer clear of the drug trade (which, the theory goes, brought quick big profits but stricter law enforcement with more prison time, and therefore more informants and witnesses)--as opposed to the all of the other corrupt ones. Still, Michael wants no part of it. In the novel, Puzo beats you over the head with the fact that Micheal is the true heir apparent--Coppola is a bit more subtle. Don Coreleone is the paragon, the classical/mythical Righteous Don who will be brought down by modernity. (He's also, incidentally, every elder who will watch the movie and connect with "things not being what they used to be.")
To be continued...
No comments:
Post a Comment