More about the way I watch movies

[msagara]

maiac wrote:

This sounds exactly like the kind that I need these days. Too many scriptwriters think that they have to do unpleasant and unfair things to their characters to make the story "dramatic".

And I started to answer this in the comment thread and then realized that I had enough to say that it might (might!) go long.

I don't actually mind, in context, when unpleasant things happen to characters; I dislike intensely when it feels contrived, because dammit, if you're going to do something obviously contrived couldn't it at least be nice or good? (I forgive contrived happiness).

I think, for me, I have to genuinely like the characters. In the previously mentioned Letters to Juliet, I actually liked the fiancee. When he did something very unromantic, my thought was "ouch, you idiot" and not "what a jerk". I understood why he was attractive to her -- to anyone -- and also at the same time why he could never make her happy.

I liked the fact that he was entirely unselfconscious in all his reactions and interactions.

So even though it was a romantic comedy and you knew going in he wasn't going to be the guy she married, I still *liked* him.

Let me come up with an entirely different example. I started to watch the movie How to lose a guy in 10 days (I may have the movie name wrong.) I watched maybe the first 20 minutes of that movie and then turned to my friend and said: "I can't stand either of these two. This movie is really going to have to knock my socks off for me to care -- at all -- whether or not they have a happy ending." (He said: Okay, we're not finishing this one. He had to survive my intense fury at the end of Atonement, a movie about which I can rant in rage for days).

I need to like something about the characters. I realize that this is the thing that makes my tastes so entirely about *me* because obviously the above movie did well and many people enjoyed it. What *I* find compelling or likeable in a character doesn't always work for other people; what I find sympathetic can make andpuff grind her teeth and look for a clue bat to hit said character with.

But I want sympathetic characters. Or rather, characters with whom I can sympathize -- and a lot of the time, movies don't have that, for me. If it's a straight action picture, they can all be cardboard -- but not irritating cardboard (I will not rant about James Bond either. I won't. I'm strong).

So although Letters to Juliet was not, in many many objective ways, something to write home about -- I really liked it.

Comments

[maiac.livejournal.com]

"I don't actually mind, in context, when unpleasant things happen to characters; I dislike intensely when it feels contrived, because dammit, if you're going to do something obviously contrived couldn't it at least be nice or good?"

Yes, this.

"I think, for me, I have to genuinely like the characters."

And this. I wish I did live in Toronto, so we could go to the movies together.

I don't object to unpleasant things happening to characters, as such. Without some kind of challenge (which is pretty much by definition unpleasant), the story is really dull. It's when the unpleasantness is unfair (to the reader, is what I meant) that I snort scornfully and find something else to do. When the writer seems to think that the only truly authentic outcome is that somebody you really care about has to die so you realize that life sucks, then I get really irritated. (Which is why I don't join in the Joss Whedon worship, I have to say.) Yes, life sucks. But it doesn't always suck, and I think an important purpose of fiction is to show us that life doesn't always suck. (Which is why I love your stories -- and andpuff's stories, since you mention her. Your characters have enough control over their own fate to make life not suck.)