Stranger than Fiction

Tools    





As some will know, we won a huge court case today, pretty much the biggest in London. So I’m very tired, having been up since 4 am, and very intoxicated, having gone through the cocktail list in a bar like it’s a phone book.

I’m thinking back to the Hereditary discussion last weekend, partly owing to the other side’s surreal behaviour during the course of the trial (no legal thriller, whether by Fincher or Lynch or Kubrick, could come close to what the other side’s main witness, who is also a lawyer, did and how he fell apart and went berserk on the witness stand when he was caught ‘red handed’ with incriminating texts and whatnot). Think Primal Fear and worse. Honestly, Lisbeth Salander is more believable than this guy.

Specifically, it got me thinking about the point made towards the end of that discussion that life being infinitely complex and self-contradictory should not be an excuse for bad plotting/insufficient emotional grounding of motivations in a work of art. It’s a point I agree with.

However, I can’t help but think that, in my experience at least, the most shocking, perplexing and exciting narratives in film and literature (but I’ll restrict myself to film) often turn out to be true stories. And I don’t mean ‘true’ in the ‘inspired by’ sense.

Even if we accept that real-life events are nearly always exaggerated to be made more dramatic, I do think the ‘craziest’ narratives usually stem from true events. Stuck (2007) absolutely gets the biscuit in that sense, but there are also Argo, 127 Hours, and, frankly, even more mind-blowing real-life cases, such as the woman who froze to death and was warmed up and came back to life (Jean Hillard, this was in 1980), which, to my knowledge, have not been made into films yet.

I feel like there’s a certain gap/deficiency in the film medium when it comes to depicting truly inexplicable, extreme events and emotional responses to them, or simply reactions that are ‘unorthodox’. Because we then argue, as was discussed in relation to Hereditary, that oh, well, life is irrational, but fiction needs to make sense, fiction needs to be consistent. Which, again, I agree with, but isn’t ‘make sense’ a bit of a narrow way of looking at things? I suppose fiction should, indeed, have a structure of sorts, but haven’t humans evolved enough as a species to disregard that sometimes? Would that make for a worse story? I’m no fan of extreme postmodern films like Naked Lunch, but I do think a woman can randomly, for no reason, throw her baby out of a window, and that deserves cinematic treatment as much as your next love story.

Would it not benefit cinema if we gave ourselves leave to depict the ‘craziest’, most irrational and inexplicable human emotions? Unity Mitford sat on Hitler’s lap as a 16-year-old and thought she was in love with him. Armin Meiwen found a volunteer on the internet who wanted to be killed and have his penis eaten.

Yet for some reason, we think the emotional fluctuations in Hereditary are so extreme as not to be ‘believable’.

Now, I’m also thinking that taking on those kinds of subjects requires incredible levels of skill which most directors don’t have (and those that do won’t touch these themes with a ten foot pole). No wonder ‘extreme’ films usually fail commercially and critically; narratives like WAZ, for example, are pretty original and aim to explore the ‘unlikely’ and the bizarre, so I guess they don’t resonate with many people and that, in turn, leads one to conclude that they don’t reflect enough of the human experience.

But is that reason enough not to try to portray the truly bizarre? Does it really benefit us as the audience and allow us to get the most out of the film medium if we decide we ‘shouldn’t accept’ irrationality/inconsistency in characters?



"How tall is King Kong ?"
The main issue is absolutely ridiculously impossible coincidences -convenient or inconvenient- that completely shatter any suspension of disbelief.

(My life is made at 97% of these.)



The main issue is absolutely ridiculously impossible coincidences -convenient or inconvenient- that completely shatter any suspension of disbelief.

(My life is made at 97% of these.)
Absolutely, that, too. Although I was getting at irrational, unlikely behaviour which no screenwriter would be able to justify to save his life.



As some will know, we won a huge court case today, pretty much the biggest in London. So I’m very tired, having been up since 4 am, and very intoxicated, having gone through the cocktail list in a bar like it’s a phone book...
I don't know anything about it, except I seen a brief mention in the Shoutbox. Are you a lawyer? Or involved in the case? What was the case?



I don't know anything about it, except I seen a brief mention in the Shoutbox. Are you a lawyer? Or involved in the case? What was the case?
I’m in litigation PR, which is worse. In very scandalous cases lawyers very much rely on us, as perception is everything. Think smear campaigns and all, bit like Hater.

Our client, once the most expensive company on the London Stock Exchange, suffered reputational damage after they hired a lawyer to help them check if they broke any laws, and the lawyer instead leaked all the evidence of their wrongdoing, potential and actual, to the relevant authorities.

They sued the lawyer, who initially denied leaking, but has today conceded that he was not acting in the client’s best interests. Going to jail, that guy. Anyway, it made me think that this was simply unfilmable, and that there was a lot of insanity in life that cinema and literature are not making use of.

The guy stood in the witness box just yesterday and claimed he had Covid-induced amnesia and couldn’t remember (!!!) whether or not he leaked. Give me a break.



As some will know, we won a huge court case today, pretty much the biggest in London. So I’m very tired, having been up since 4 am, and very intoxicated, having gone through the cocktail list in a bar like it’s a phone book.
...
I think you write pretty damn well, being half in the bag...



Yes truth is stranger than fiction. More interesting too. Probably why I would rather watch documentaries than some BS fantasy movie.*

I would say most writers/directors are either not perceptive or creative enough or don’t want to take a chance to go outside the box for fear of critical or commercial failure.

It takes a truly talented writer/director who is willing to take risks to create a masterpiece, and even then they still have to get the green light from producers who try to meddle with the creative process.

These producers most of the time don’t want to take the risk of going outside the box, they want something they know will make money which is why they keep doing remakes/reboots and no truly original creative ideas which is a huge disservice to the audience. Some Indy films will take the chance but most of the time they don’t have a big enough budget to produce the quality.

Like most things, it comes down to money. They also look at it from a human psychology standpoint and want to make people feel good about the film probably because the average person has about an 80 IQ and is not mentally equipped enough to understand a film that doesn’t have a basic formula/premise and a happy ending.

Most people don’t understand the true meaning behind film. An example of this is Scarface where people see the guns and drugs and everybody wants to be like Tony Montana. Yet the true meaning of Scarface is that greed is bad and when you screw over other people you will get the same back and end up losing in the end. It’s not about glorifying violence and drugs, it’s supposed to be the exact opposite but the average teenager/rapper does not understand that.



As some will know, we won a huge court case today, pretty much the biggest in London. So I’m very tired, having been up since 4 am, and very intoxicated, having gone through the cocktail list in a bar like it’s a phone book.

I’m thinking back to the Hereditary discussion last weekend, partly due to the other side’s surreal behaviour during the course of the trial (no legal thriller, whether by Fincher or Lynch or Kubrick, could come close to what the other side’s main witness, who is also a lawyer, did and how he fell apart and went berserk on the witness stand when he was caught ‘red handed’ with incriminating texts and whatnot). Think Primal Fear and worse. Honestly, Lisbeth Salander is more believable than this guy.

Specifically, it got me thinking about the point made towards the end of that discussion that life being infinitely complex and self-contradictory should not be an excuse for bad plotting/emotional grounding of motivations in a work of art. It’s a point I agree with.

However, I can’t help but think that, in my experience at least, the most shocking, perplexing and exciting narratives in film and literature (but I’ll restrict myself to film) often turn out to be true stories. And I don’t mean ‘true’ in the ‘inspired by’ sense.

Even if we accept that real-life stories are nearly always exaggerated to be made more dramatic, I do think the ‘craziest’ stories usually stem from true events. Stuck (2007) absolutely gets the biscuit in that sense, but there are also Argo, 127 Hours, and, frankly, even more mindblowing real-life cases, such as the woman who froze to death and was warmed up and came back to life (Jean Hillard, this was in 1980), which, to my knowledge, have not been made into films yet.

I feel like there’s a certain gap/deficiency in the cinema when it comes to depicting truly inexplicable, extreme events and emotional responses like these. Because we then argue, as was discussed in relation to Hereditary that oh, well, life is irrational, but fiction needs to make sense, fiction needs to be consistent. Which, again, I agree with, but isn’t ‘make sense’ a bit of a narrow way of looking at things? I suppose fiction should, indeed, have structure of sorts, but haven’t humans evolved enough as species to disregard that sometimes? Would that make for a worse story? I’m no fan of extreme postmodern films like Naked Lunch, but I do think a woman can randomly, for no reason, throw her baby out of a window, and that deserves cinematic treatment as much as your next love story.

Would it not benefit cinema if we gave ourselves leave to depict the ‘craziest’, most irrational and inexplicable human emotions? Unity Mitford sat on Hitler’s lap as a 16-year-old and thought she was in love with him. Armin Meiwen found a volunteer on the internet who wanted to be killed and have his penis eaten.

Yet for some reason, we think the emotional fluctuations in Hereditary are so extreme as not to be ‘believable’.

Now, I’m also thinking that taking on those kinds of subjects requires incredible levels of skill which most directors don’t have (and those that do won’t touch these themes with a ten foot pole). No wonder ‘extreme’ films usually fail commercially and critically; narratives like WAZ, for example, are pretty original and aim to explore the ‘unlikely’ and the bizarre, so I guess they don’t resonate with many people and that, in turn, leads one to conclude that they don’t reflect enough of the human experience.

But is that reason enough not to try to portray the truly bizarre? Does it really benefit us as the audience and allow us to get the most out of the film medium if we decide we ‘shouldn’t accept’ irrationality/inconsistency in characters?
Gonna ramble here for a bit:


I think how narrative or emotional implausibility is handled really depends on the movie around it. Not to exhume the Hereditary discussion too thoroughly, but looking at the actions of the different characters, it's worth considering a few things. Is the character of sound mind? Even if what they are doing isn't what a hypothetical person would "normally" do, based on what we know about the character, is it something they could conceivably do?


The movie has to lay out the groundwork for this decision or event to have an impact. Potentially this can be done in two ways. One is that we spend time with the character and get in their headspace, so that their seemingly illogical decisions make some sense within some context. The problem I have with people knocking movies for dumb character decisions is that a lot of the time I don't see them engaging with the film's attempts to rationalize. Even in a minor case like a character in a slasher movie stepping out alone in the middle of the night. If we have reason to believe that they're unaware of the the imminent threat and isn't acting stupidly with that knowledge in mind, I don't see why that should bother a viewer. (But then of course, if the movie is leaning on this trope too heavily, then I suppose it's fair to knock it.)



The other is to limit our knowledge of the surrounding context and make its randomness/implausibility the basis for its narrative impact, but in such situations it needs to be weighed against how transparently the movie is using it to further other narrative aims or how well it ties to its overall logic. Does this random or unlikely event seem a little too convenient of a way to push the plot or theme along? As you've brought up a horror movie, I'm going to go to my fallback of Lucio Fulci and compare (as I've probably done too many times) City of the Living Dead with The House By the Cemetery. The former has a series of nonsensical, random occurrences, but they fit into an overall nightmare logic, move in "one" direction (i.e. different supernatural acts don't "contradict" each other) and create a sense of escalation and mounting dread in how they're laid out. Its sense of horror is also more abstract, so the randomness creates a sense that the evil forces operate according to rules we're not privy to, which enhances the sense of dread. The latter also has a series of nonsensical, random occurrences, but they feel more concrete and specific, and in one notable case the events do "contradict" each other (a character seemingly operating in concert with the evil forces is then killed off by them with no explanation or buildup whatsover). As a result, the nonsense stays just that. (Of course, as I may have mentioned elsewhere, I like both movies plenty and for reasons other than just the narrative, but am sticking to those qualities for the purpose of this discussion.)



"How tall is King Kong ?"
Yes truth is stranger than fiction. More interesting too. Probably why I would rather watch documentaries than some BS fantasy movie.
Actually this opens another subject too :

Fantasy fiction (as in sci-fi, fantasy, supernatural, mythical, etc) is terribly unimaginative. It's always the same stories re-skinned, the same structures, the same categories, passing as original thanks to some superficial tweaks and redesigns. Because they are all rooted in the same culture, the same imagination, the same logic.

And actually, human culture has produced much much more diversity than that. If you start exploring for real the myths, beliefs and folklores of history and of anthropology, if you take them as they are, through their own genuine categories instead of framing them through our own categories ("soul", "gods", "kings", etc), if you don't denature, trim and reduce them to some backbone pseudo-universalisms à la J. Campbell, you have a fantastic, untapped diversity at your disposal. Sometimes harder to digest, precisely because they aren't based on our familiar canvas.

So that's one reason why studying exotic myths and beliefs is much more fascinating than rehashing our slight variations around same old ideas. In a sense "reality" is richer than fiction, except that "reality" here is the "true beliefs" of humans around the world (the fact that the beliefs themselves exist/ed, not the reality of their objects), and "fiction" is "ours".

I still watch movies (though less than before), but when it comes to books, I've progressively ditched fictions in favor of scientific essays. Because what authors (from my culture) invent ends up mirroring me much more than opening on otherness. Everything feels familiar. Alternatives are there (dogon mythology, yanomami cosmogony, dream-logic medieval folklore, and whatnot), but outside our closed cultural circuits.



Actually this opens another subject too :

Fantasy fiction (as in sci-fi, fantasy, supernatural, mythical, etc) is terribly unimaginative. It's always the same stories re-skinned, the same structures, the same categories, passing as original thanks to some superficial tweaks and redesigns. Because they are all rooted in the same culture, the same imagination, the same logic.

And actually, human culture has produced much much more diversity than that. If you start exploring for real the myths, beliefs and folklores of history and of anthropology, if you take them as they are, through their own genuine categories instead of framing them through our own categories ("soul", "gods", "kings", etc), if you don't denature, trim and reduce them to some backbone pseudo-universalisms à la J. Campbell, you have a fantastic, untapped diversity at your disposal. Sometimes harder to digest, precisely because they aren't based on our familiar canvas.

So that's one reason why studying exotic myths and beliefs is much more fascinating than rehashing our slight variations around same old ideas. In a sense "reality" is richer than fiction, except that "reality" here is the "true beliefs" of humans around the world (the fact that the beliefs themselves exist/ed, not the reality of their objects), and "fiction" is "ours".

I still watch movies (though less than before), but when it comes to books, I've progressively ditched fictions in favor of scientific essays. Because what authors (from my culture) invent ends up mirroring me much more than opening on otherness. Everything feels familiar. Alternatives are there (dogon mythology, yanomami cosmogony, dream-logic medieval folklore, and whatnot), but outside our closed cultural circuits.
I don’t know if I would agree with that. This thread made no reference to only discussing ‘western’ narratives - I never make such assumptions.

Re: speculative stories, Gogol was a Ukrainian horror writer (yes, a lot of it is horror) whose work was rooted in Ukrainian folklore. Some stuff is like nothing else. There are speculative narratives from all over the world, especially now, making their way into the screen. They are not all that similar.

I detest Campbell, and Frazer and Lévi-Strauss, while we’re at it. But, hey, Campbell gave humanity Star Wars! Deserves thanks for that, no?

When I was reading theology, I spent a lot of time exploring Norse/Scandinavian mythology, the two Eddas and all. It’s probably my favourite, but I’ve cast an eye at most of the ‘exotic’ myths out there (early Mesopotamian stuff is also really out there). Wouldn’t necessarily argue that there’s as much of a cultural difference as you suggest; if anything, it used to always get me thinking that humans think the same. Which specific myths do you find exotic?

Also, I would argue that myths are and have always been political, used among other things to assert and reinforce the idea of historical dominance of some peoples over others, so it’s not like they reflect intimate, small-scale human contradictions. They don’t really take the individual into account, only ‘a people’. Especially as myths are so overwhelmingly focussed on origin stories.

In short, mythology is fascinating, but it’s a far cry from exploring why a woman would throw her baby out of a window. Or not even ‘why’, just, ‘Here’s a woman that did that.’ Without bringing in postpartum and whatnot, just trying to reflect human contradictions on screen.

I also think you can always access the ‘otherness’ via art, should you want to.

Anyway, curious as this is, I think it’s a bit of a separate discussion.



As some will know, we won a huge court case today, pretty much the biggest in London. So I’m very tired, having been up since 4 am, and very intoxicated, having gone through the cocktail list in a bar like it’s a phone book.
If it’s not in the NY Times today I’m gonna sue them for withholding information as I have no idea what case you’re talking about.
__________________
I’m here only on Mondays, Wednesdays & Fridays. That’s why I’m here now.



If it’s not in the NY Times today I’m gonna sue them for withholding information as I have no idea what case you’re talking about.
For some reason, this saga, which is a decade old, doesn’t tend to feature in NYT - not even when it all kicked off, I’m quite curious why, actually - and it’s a niche topic unless you know what a big deal it is/has been. But it’s been covered in Bloomberg, FT and such. Might get NYT this time, you never know.



For some reason, this saga, which is a decade old, doesn’t tend to feature in NYT - not even when it all kicked off, I’m quite curious why, actually - and it’s a niche topic unless you know what a big deal it is/has been. But it’s been covered in Bloomberg, FT and such. Might get NYT this time, you never know.
Could have been there. I read the entire thing every day & don’t recall it, but it may have gone completely over my head.



When it comes to appreciating the craft of storytelling, yeah, we don't need fiction to reflect the contrary impulses that can be found pretty frequently in day to day real world life.


But to adhere to this is to limit what a film can do. I sometimes want to pull my hair out when people want an artist to express themselves within the confines of properly articulated narratives when film is NOT inherently a narrative medium. It just happens to tell stories really well. So why hold that against it for all time? And this isn't even getting into the fact that story telling shouldn't even be limited to the explainable or justifiable. Storytelling involves evoking emotion and empathy, and there is no reason that surprise, chaos and nonsense can't elicit these things just as well. To expect otherwise is to completely pull the teeth out of an awful lot of subversive and experimental approaches to film.



Now, do people need to like films that wilfully bring in random elements to their structure, whatever the reason? Of course not. And I get why most people don't like this, and want very clear ways of distinguishing between what is a 'good' or 'bad' movie (as if that is really even that relevant of a discussion to begin with). Or want things properly resolved. But, for God's sake, the anger some people show towards movies that break out of standard forms to me frequently means people don't even want such experiments to even exist. That they are an affront to some people. And, on that level, I will proceed to continue pulling my hair out.