Although psychological dramas and individual-against-the-System stories still need to have some visible sources of conflict. Falling Down presents a whole series of external obstacles, while Network has several "villains." This is the reason I think some well-intentioned movies like The Constant Gardener don't work dramatically; they don't have forces of antagonism or goals that the viewer can engage emotionally.
One of the more skillful recent examples of that trick is again, The Fellowship of the Ring, where the film builds up a central orc captain as the big heavy of the orcs, and then has Aragorn kill him after the death of Boromir. It's noteworthy because that character is in the movie purely for that piece of emotional catharsis. In a rational sense, it's a false catharsis, since it accomplishes nothing in the furtherance of the characters' actual goals; it's not even a setback for Saruman and Sauron, who clearly consider the orcs disposable. It's just there so that at what is really quite a bleak point in the story, the audience can breathe a sign of relief and say, "Well, at least they got the bad guy who killed Boromir."
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timeasmymeasure
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Date: 2009-11-17 12:55 am (UTC)One of the more skillful recent examples of that trick is again, The Fellowship of the Ring, where the film builds up a central orc captain as the big heavy of the orcs, and then has Aragorn kill him after the death of Boromir. It's noteworthy because that character is in the movie purely for that piece of emotional catharsis. In a rational sense, it's a false catharsis, since it accomplishes nothing in the furtherance of the characters' actual goals; it's not even a setback for Saruman and Sauron, who clearly consider the orcs disposable. It's just there so that at what is really quite a bleak point in the story, the audience can breathe a sign of relief and say, "Well, at least they got the bad guy who killed Boromir."