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Originally posted by Scott R:
I think the key phrase is 'in the end.' I tend to look at the end results of the piece to determine the net emotional effect. For example, the film 'My Life,' with Michael Keaton. My date at the time bemoaned it as depressing ('Because he DIES!!) but I thought it was celebratory because Keaton's character overcomes his anger at his family.

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Agreed. But then, I like angst.

Posts: 32919 | Registered: Mar 2003  |  IP: Logged | 

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Does the end result (the ultimate triumph over evil) compensate the reader/viewer for the misery that they have to go through?

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Posts: 37449 | Registered: May 1999  |  IP: Logged | 

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If by "compensate" you mean "redeem all the pain," no. Because let's face it: Rick saves his son's soul, but wouldn't have to save that soul at ALL if *SPOILER*.

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TomD- if the question was about redeeming the *character's* pain, then I'd agree with you. But for the reader/viewer, I think it depends.

I felt that Eviction Notice (besides being very good; claps for Scott R) was very uplifting. In a depressing way. But I felt better after I read it, because there was a struggle that was WON against evil. If "good" or, should that be too abstract, the protagonist, had won without a battle, I would have felt betrayed. Stories need content. Content comes from conflict. Conflict causes varying degrees of suffering.

I sometimes think it's more painful for the reader to read a story where it's assumed that a happy ending to all the pain and suffereing makes everything okay (for example a forced redemption or triumph or reconciliation). I might get shot down for doing this, but I'm going to use an example from Angels In America (I've only seen the HBO movie so I don't know how the screenplay differs from the original play. And *SPOILER WARNING*).

After all the drama sort of finishes, there are a bunch of final monologues that I feel justify all the crying I did while watching. Harper, after leaving New York and her husband Joe, has a long monologue about how she's not exactly happy, but she's *better*. Prior and Lewis don't get back together, but they do some forgiving and making up and are still friends, even though they'll never get back to the relationship they had before all the abandonment and betrayal.

The story element that *didn't* satisfy me was Joe's. There is only a quick moment where his mother and he have a Movie Moment where the viewer is supposed to infer that she is now perfectly comfortable with his homosexuality and that he's now gonna be fine, just fine. Which doesn't ring true to me. The "happy ending" there doesn't work to justify my sadness over his conflict, because his conflict is then trivialized. Pain is everywhere! Art that is suppossed to be vaguely realist (just ignore the angel, okay?) should reflect that.

But then, as rivka said, I like angst. (she said, adding a smiley...)

I guess it depends on what the reader/veiwer is looking for. I want a completely blissful ending to my cheesy romantic comedies (Cinderella gets the Prince. and shut up about how she barely knows him!). Sometimes I want my torment-ends-in-painful triumph fix. That's where Eviction Notice falls for me. Sometimes I want my Garden State (life sucks. But it's what we have. Parts are beautiful). Sometimes, I just want full-out everyone-dies-or-worse tradgedy (the "Life Sucks Kill Me Now" genre).

Where am I going with all this rambling? Basically to say in a really round about way, "Sometimes." Isn't art great that way? It's so open to reader/viewer interpretation. If I read Eviction notice while looking for "Life Sucks Kill Me Now", I'd focus on the pain and the death and the violence and might interpret the ending as a message saying that you lose even when you win. Like in Dead Poets Society *SPOILERS SPOILERS*, yeah, it's great that what's his name can stand up and speak his mind now and how the students are so inspired, but essentially Keating is fired and Neil is dead, despite the unquestionably triumphant mood of the last scene (the music, the earnest faces of youth, etc). It all depends on the reader, really.

And in case you missed it in my post above, to you, Scott R, because Eviction Notice was GREAT.

Posts: 866 | Registered: Dec 2003  |  IP: Logged |