So what do you do when you have nothing to do?
And what do you do when you have lot of things to do but you don’t feel like doing anything!You meditate. But if can’t medicate because you are worried about the things you have to do?
Saturday, June 24, 2006
Thursday, June 22, 2006
Written And Directed By ...
The story goes like this. Woody Allen was making a thriller. While editing, Woody felt that the romantic scenes in the film are better. So, he converted the film into a romantic comedy, and Annie Hall was made.
Whether the story is true or not, it reinforces one thing, Allen’s command over his medium, direction and screen writing.
In filmmaking, writing and direction are two specialised job. A writer visualizes the film on paper and the director converts the vision on celluloid. Mario Puzo’s job was to write which Francis Ford Copola could ensemble on screen.
Here’s the catch. What happens when the director himself is a screen writer and vice versa. Woody Allen could convert a thriller into a romantic comedy because he wrote the film.
In the beginning, story and screenplay was always a director’s pejorative. Charlie Chaplin wrote all his films himself. Same is the case with celebrated European directors like Fellini or Bergman. Things changed when big studios took over in Hollywood. Money began to flow and each job was specialized with acclaimed writers like William Faulkner, and F Scott Fitzgerald coming forward to write movies.
A director writing his own script has advantages; he can manipulate it at any stage of the film’s making. Crash, written and directed by Paul Haggis forces us to think. Crash is a good film by the sheer strength of its screenplay, the ability of the writer to built situations. We wonder if Crash would appear same on screen if it were directed by someone else, say Clint Eastwood. Haggis wrote Eastwood’s ‘Million Dollar Baby’. Would it look same if Haggis directed that film? We have reservations. On screen, Eastwood is always himself. Somewhere he fails to bring out the pathos of the boxing coach. Probably Haggis could have done a better job since he created the character.
Woody Allen once said about ‘Husbands and Wives,’ that he carried over what he wanted on the page to the screen. That’s true of his entire oeuvre. He creates ordinary situation with such depth that it begins to make sense to us. And there is something of him out there, an average middle class neurotic guy, with a self-deprecatory and deadpan humour, thick-rimmed glasses, and all.
It’s true of most writer-directors. Charlie Chaplin could breath only through the Tramp, and Quentin Tarantino’s vision is always filled with blood.
If Allen deals with ordinary of ordinariness, Tarantino goes to other extremes. Blood apart, the highlight of his script is his dialogues. His character never speaks plainly. In ‘Reservoir Dogs’, what stands out is the interactions among the strangers, how they present themselves through their speech.
In ‘Pulp Fiction’ Tarantino made a pulp of the whole art screen writing. Gone are the good ole’ days of Aristotle, and the structure of the beginning, middle and end. It begins in the middle and ends where it begins. Seems Tarantino put together whatever caught his fancy, but ‘Pulp Fiction’ is not only coherent, also wonderfully textured.
In ‘Kill Bill’, Tarantino deals with his screenplay as if he’s writing a grand novel on screen. He not only names the two parts as volumes, but also gives chapter names, and how intelligently, naming Chapter One as Two. And his scenes, they begin languidly, with all possible details, making a silly situation not only convincing, but cinematically moving. Remember ‘Pulp Fiction’ where Jules sermonises before committing the murder, or, the grand finale between Bill and the Bride in ‘Kill Bill’.
Legend says, in his struggling days, Satyajit Ray would write a dummy screenplay whenever he hears about a movie being made of a novel. And when the film is released he would compare his version of the story with that of the film’s director. Ray is a successful writer himself, yet he never hesitates to take stories from others and turn it into his own screenplay, like Charulata and Ghare Bayre from Rabindranath Tagore.When a director writes his own film he has the creative freedom to tell the story the way he wants. Only Neil Jordan could direct the terrorism meets transvestite saga ‘The Crying Game’ because he wrote it. Same goes for Luc Besson’s ‘Leon: The Professional’. The way Besson developed the relationship between hitman Leon and 12-year-old Mathilda, he only could recreate it on screen.
There are people who complain of autobiographical shades when a director writes his own story. Federico Fellini’s ‘81/2’, the story about a confused director looks like Fellini’s own biography. True. But what do you say about ‘La Dolce Vita’, the story of the life among the rich in Rome. His Rubini is certainly not Fellini. Just for information, the term ‘paparazzi’ was coined from a character of this film, called Paparazzo.
Ingmar Bergman wrote ‘Wild Strawberries,’ the story of a doctor reevaluating his life, when he was lying in the hospital bed. It could easily be a tragic story. For record, however, it’s the most optimistic film ever made by the genius, Ingmar Bergman.
There are others, however, who achieved their creative height while working on other’s screenplay. Bernardo Bertolucci created magic with epics like ‘The Last Emperor’, and ‘1900,’ co-written with other writers. When he wrote ‘Last Tango in Paris’ alone he messed up everything, the presence of Marlon Brando notwithstanding.
Whether the story is true or not, it reinforces one thing, Allen’s command over his medium, direction and screen writing.
In filmmaking, writing and direction are two specialised job. A writer visualizes the film on paper and the director converts the vision on celluloid. Mario Puzo’s job was to write which Francis Ford Copola could ensemble on screen.
Here’s the catch. What happens when the director himself is a screen writer and vice versa. Woody Allen could convert a thriller into a romantic comedy because he wrote the film.
In the beginning, story and screenplay was always a director’s pejorative. Charlie Chaplin wrote all his films himself. Same is the case with celebrated European directors like Fellini or Bergman. Things changed when big studios took over in Hollywood. Money began to flow and each job was specialized with acclaimed writers like William Faulkner, and F Scott Fitzgerald coming forward to write movies.
A director writing his own script has advantages; he can manipulate it at any stage of the film’s making. Crash, written and directed by Paul Haggis forces us to think. Crash is a good film by the sheer strength of its screenplay, the ability of the writer to built situations. We wonder if Crash would appear same on screen if it were directed by someone else, say Clint Eastwood. Haggis wrote Eastwood’s ‘Million Dollar Baby’. Would it look same if Haggis directed that film? We have reservations. On screen, Eastwood is always himself. Somewhere he fails to bring out the pathos of the boxing coach. Probably Haggis could have done a better job since he created the character.
Woody Allen once said about ‘Husbands and Wives,’ that he carried over what he wanted on the page to the screen. That’s true of his entire oeuvre. He creates ordinary situation with such depth that it begins to make sense to us. And there is something of him out there, an average middle class neurotic guy, with a self-deprecatory and deadpan humour, thick-rimmed glasses, and all.
It’s true of most writer-directors. Charlie Chaplin could breath only through the Tramp, and Quentin Tarantino’s vision is always filled with blood.
If Allen deals with ordinary of ordinariness, Tarantino goes to other extremes. Blood apart, the highlight of his script is his dialogues. His character never speaks plainly. In ‘Reservoir Dogs’, what stands out is the interactions among the strangers, how they present themselves through their speech.
In ‘Pulp Fiction’ Tarantino made a pulp of the whole art screen writing. Gone are the good ole’ days of Aristotle, and the structure of the beginning, middle and end. It begins in the middle and ends where it begins. Seems Tarantino put together whatever caught his fancy, but ‘Pulp Fiction’ is not only coherent, also wonderfully textured.
In ‘Kill Bill’, Tarantino deals with his screenplay as if he’s writing a grand novel on screen. He not only names the two parts as volumes, but also gives chapter names, and how intelligently, naming Chapter One as Two. And his scenes, they begin languidly, with all possible details, making a silly situation not only convincing, but cinematically moving. Remember ‘Pulp Fiction’ where Jules sermonises before committing the murder, or, the grand finale between Bill and the Bride in ‘Kill Bill’.
Legend says, in his struggling days, Satyajit Ray would write a dummy screenplay whenever he hears about a movie being made of a novel. And when the film is released he would compare his version of the story with that of the film’s director. Ray is a successful writer himself, yet he never hesitates to take stories from others and turn it into his own screenplay, like Charulata and Ghare Bayre from Rabindranath Tagore.When a director writes his own film he has the creative freedom to tell the story the way he wants. Only Neil Jordan could direct the terrorism meets transvestite saga ‘The Crying Game’ because he wrote it. Same goes for Luc Besson’s ‘Leon: The Professional’. The way Besson developed the relationship between hitman Leon and 12-year-old Mathilda, he only could recreate it on screen.
There are people who complain of autobiographical shades when a director writes his own story. Federico Fellini’s ‘81/2’, the story about a confused director looks like Fellini’s own biography. True. But what do you say about ‘La Dolce Vita’, the story of the life among the rich in Rome. His Rubini is certainly not Fellini. Just for information, the term ‘paparazzi’ was coined from a character of this film, called Paparazzo.
Ingmar Bergman wrote ‘Wild Strawberries,’ the story of a doctor reevaluating his life, when he was lying in the hospital bed. It could easily be a tragic story. For record, however, it’s the most optimistic film ever made by the genius, Ingmar Bergman.
There are others, however, who achieved their creative height while working on other’s screenplay. Bernardo Bertolucci created magic with epics like ‘The Last Emperor’, and ‘1900,’ co-written with other writers. When he wrote ‘Last Tango in Paris’ alone he messed up everything, the presence of Marlon Brando notwithstanding.
Tuesday, June 20, 2006
Chill Factor!
Compared to supernatural thrillers, or ghost stories, horror as such, is a wider genre. Norman Bates in Alfred Hitchcock’s ‘Psycho’, especially when he steps into is mom’s wig, is bone-chilling horror but not supernatural.
Hollywood’s tryst with supernatural, ghosts, demons, zombies or mere inexplicable, however, tells a different story. It begins with an innocent victim, either possessed or pursued by a vengeful spirit. Introduce a hero with a past, and let him investigate the evil. Your brew of supernatural horror is ready. Add blood, gore and violence according to taste.
Or, bring out an army of undead, vampires or zombies, and let then loose in a killing spree. Or, let some someone innocently discoverer some dark secret. Or better still, invite Satan to earth in his desperate wish to have a baby with a human female. And let Hollywood explore the possibilities of inexplicable and scare you.
In the beginning there were Count Dracula and his friends fated to meet Van Helsing after much blood has been spilt, or consumed. Then we come to the midst of vampires themselves. The struggle of supernatural breeds reaches its crescendo with Blade, where Wesley Snipe’s Blade, a vampire himself tries to save the earth from the clutches of his evil kinsmen.
Michael Jackson’s Thriller popularised the zombies. Soon they began to haunt deserted mansions and sleepy towns, and forest areas, coming to a full circle with George Romero’s ‘Dawn of the Dead’, when these undead visit a shopping mall and wreck havoc.
But nothing interest Hollywood more than the Biblical fallen angels, Satan the devil and his band. From ‘The Exorcist’ to ‘The Exorcism of Emily Rose’, it’s the same old story. The myth is simple: the devil has enmity with god, he wants revenge, and most importantly he wants a son so that he can create hell on earth. He speaks either Aramaic, or Latin, but knows English too. Though he has his own shape, he mostly comes in human form. He’s looking for his victim, and all we need is a heroic figure to save the day. In ‘End of Days’ it’s Arnold Schwarzenegger and in ‘Constantine,’ it’s Keanu Reeves. But in films such as ‘The Exorcist’, or ‘Omen’, or ‘The Exorcism of Emily Rose’, things get uncanny, inexplicable, and gruesome presenting evil for evil’s sake.
The evil, devil or ghost must have reason to exist. But Hollywood does not have a ready explanation. In ‘The Ring’, Samara’s ghost haunts through the videotape for a reason. Her mother had killed her. But it’s never explained why and how she needs to come out of a television set to commit a murder.
In ‘What Lies Beneath’, the wife comes to realise her husband’s secret through a ghost. But must the ghost meet Harrison Ford under water in the last scene? Or, in the classic ‘Don’t Look Now’, why the dwarf in red pursues Donald Sutherland?
The theory is, you stumble upon evil. But in ‘The Children of Corn’, or in the numerous part of ‘Chucky’, the story about the vengeful doll, evil has no reason. You don’t always need a ghost in gruesome makeup to scare you. Suspense of the inexplicable is enough. In Roman Polanski’s ‘Rosemary’s Baby’, it is the unseen, that Rosemary’s pregnancy, is part of a satanic ritual, that gives you the creeps. In Stanley Kubrick’s ‘The Shinning’, based on a Stephen King novel, there is no apparent ghost. But the deserted hotel where the Torrance family lives is scary enough. So is the Maryland Woods of ‘The Blair Witch Project’. In Danzel Washington’s ‘Fallen,’ the demon talks to you through people you have never met. Nothing can be scarier.
Blade provided the idea of presenting ghosts from inside. So we meet Haley Joel Osment in ‘The Sixth Sense’, who can see ghost. The ghost of Bruce Willis takes the chill factor to the level of saddening pathos. We don’t fear him, but feel sorry when he finally removes his coat and finds that he is long dead. In ‘The Others’, we fear for Nichol Kidman, till the last ten minutes, and then we are scared ourselves, oh, no, she is the ghost herself.
In Hollywood, the fallen angels and the inexplicable ghosts are a reality. And they no longer haunt old, deserted mansions, but our lives.
Hollywood’s tryst with supernatural, ghosts, demons, zombies or mere inexplicable, however, tells a different story. It begins with an innocent victim, either possessed or pursued by a vengeful spirit. Introduce a hero with a past, and let him investigate the evil. Your brew of supernatural horror is ready. Add blood, gore and violence according to taste.
Or, bring out an army of undead, vampires or zombies, and let then loose in a killing spree. Or, let some someone innocently discoverer some dark secret. Or better still, invite Satan to earth in his desperate wish to have a baby with a human female. And let Hollywood explore the possibilities of inexplicable and scare you.
In the beginning there were Count Dracula and his friends fated to meet Van Helsing after much blood has been spilt, or consumed. Then we come to the midst of vampires themselves. The struggle of supernatural breeds reaches its crescendo with Blade, where Wesley Snipe’s Blade, a vampire himself tries to save the earth from the clutches of his evil kinsmen.
Michael Jackson’s Thriller popularised the zombies. Soon they began to haunt deserted mansions and sleepy towns, and forest areas, coming to a full circle with George Romero’s ‘Dawn of the Dead’, when these undead visit a shopping mall and wreck havoc.
But nothing interest Hollywood more than the Biblical fallen angels, Satan the devil and his band. From ‘The Exorcist’ to ‘The Exorcism of Emily Rose’, it’s the same old story. The myth is simple: the devil has enmity with god, he wants revenge, and most importantly he wants a son so that he can create hell on earth. He speaks either Aramaic, or Latin, but knows English too. Though he has his own shape, he mostly comes in human form. He’s looking for his victim, and all we need is a heroic figure to save the day. In ‘End of Days’ it’s Arnold Schwarzenegger and in ‘Constantine,’ it’s Keanu Reeves. But in films such as ‘The Exorcist’, or ‘Omen’, or ‘The Exorcism of Emily Rose’, things get uncanny, inexplicable, and gruesome presenting evil for evil’s sake.
The evil, devil or ghost must have reason to exist. But Hollywood does not have a ready explanation. In ‘The Ring’, Samara’s ghost haunts through the videotape for a reason. Her mother had killed her. But it’s never explained why and how she needs to come out of a television set to commit a murder.
In ‘What Lies Beneath’, the wife comes to realise her husband’s secret through a ghost. But must the ghost meet Harrison Ford under water in the last scene? Or, in the classic ‘Don’t Look Now’, why the dwarf in red pursues Donald Sutherland?
The theory is, you stumble upon evil. But in ‘The Children of Corn’, or in the numerous part of ‘Chucky’, the story about the vengeful doll, evil has no reason. You don’t always need a ghost in gruesome makeup to scare you. Suspense of the inexplicable is enough. In Roman Polanski’s ‘Rosemary’s Baby’, it is the unseen, that Rosemary’s pregnancy, is part of a satanic ritual, that gives you the creeps. In Stanley Kubrick’s ‘The Shinning’, based on a Stephen King novel, there is no apparent ghost. But the deserted hotel where the Torrance family lives is scary enough. So is the Maryland Woods of ‘The Blair Witch Project’. In Danzel Washington’s ‘Fallen,’ the demon talks to you through people you have never met. Nothing can be scarier.
Blade provided the idea of presenting ghosts from inside. So we meet Haley Joel Osment in ‘The Sixth Sense’, who can see ghost. The ghost of Bruce Willis takes the chill factor to the level of saddening pathos. We don’t fear him, but feel sorry when he finally removes his coat and finds that he is long dead. In ‘The Others’, we fear for Nichol Kidman, till the last ten minutes, and then we are scared ourselves, oh, no, she is the ghost herself.
In Hollywood, the fallen angels and the inexplicable ghosts are a reality. And they no longer haunt old, deserted mansions, but our lives.
Friday, June 16, 2006
Twists & Tales
On the surface, the film is a recipe you’ve never tasted before. Yet, Quentin Tarantino’s Pulp Fiction makes for stupendous movie diet.I said, Tarantino’s. Yes, every film is a director’s film. But perhaps no other film carries the director’s mark as distinctly as Pulp Fiction does.
A good film demands a good narrative and a director’s job is to see this translate on screen through coherent scenes where the actors play out roles. There is no such narrative in Pulp Fiction, only situations. The film is a collage of situations with lives of two mob hit men, a boxer, a gangster’s wife, and a pair of small time thieves intertwined together.
These situations are divided into four parts, each part with a separate title. As if Tarantino’s trying to present a short story collection on screen. And his situations move like a fast-paced thrillers where there’s twist at every corner. Hence, the film’s title — Pulp Fiction.
It is the twists in the tales that Tarantino is concerned about, not the tales. And twists, there are too many.
The thieves sit in a restaurant, drinking coffee and talking (mark the use of f-words), and finally when they are ready for action, the scene moves to the two hit men, Vince and Jules. As they begin to hold our attention, enters the gangster’s drug-addict wife. John Travolta does a Saturday Night Fever jig with Uma Thurman, and as you start liking the couple, they disappear to give way for Bruce Willis’s down in luck boxer.
As if, Tarantino’s playing music, and once the tune hits the crescendo, he shifts to another.
The beauty of the film lies in the detailing of the scenes Tarantino creates, how he fuses breakneck action with slow, lazy scene sequence, how he combines different emotions within a single sequence, how he makes weird characters utterly believable, and how he makes them talk.
The scene where Willis looks for a perfect weapon in the shop, it’s hilarious and grim at the same time, when Samuel L Jackson sermonises before committing the murder, the interactions between Travolta and Thurman, there are many such examples. Tarantino can make any scene look cool. And Travolta’s Vince is coolness personified.
Pulp fiction means narratives which are of poor quality, intentionally shocking and sensational.
Shocking and sensational, yes, but Tarantino’s Pulp Fiction is a riveting experience.
A good film demands a good narrative and a director’s job is to see this translate on screen through coherent scenes where the actors play out roles. There is no such narrative in Pulp Fiction, only situations. The film is a collage of situations with lives of two mob hit men, a boxer, a gangster’s wife, and a pair of small time thieves intertwined together.
These situations are divided into four parts, each part with a separate title. As if Tarantino’s trying to present a short story collection on screen. And his situations move like a fast-paced thrillers where there’s twist at every corner. Hence, the film’s title — Pulp Fiction.
It is the twists in the tales that Tarantino is concerned about, not the tales. And twists, there are too many.
The thieves sit in a restaurant, drinking coffee and talking (mark the use of f-words), and finally when they are ready for action, the scene moves to the two hit men, Vince and Jules. As they begin to hold our attention, enters the gangster’s drug-addict wife. John Travolta does a Saturday Night Fever jig with Uma Thurman, and as you start liking the couple, they disappear to give way for Bruce Willis’s down in luck boxer.
As if, Tarantino’s playing music, and once the tune hits the crescendo, he shifts to another.
The beauty of the film lies in the detailing of the scenes Tarantino creates, how he fuses breakneck action with slow, lazy scene sequence, how he combines different emotions within a single sequence, how he makes weird characters utterly believable, and how he makes them talk.
The scene where Willis looks for a perfect weapon in the shop, it’s hilarious and grim at the same time, when Samuel L Jackson sermonises before committing the murder, the interactions between Travolta and Thurman, there are many such examples. Tarantino can make any scene look cool. And Travolta’s Vince is coolness personified.
Pulp fiction means narratives which are of poor quality, intentionally shocking and sensational.
Shocking and sensational, yes, but Tarantino’s Pulp Fiction is a riveting experience.
Thursday, June 15, 2006
Love’s Labour Lost
A few years ago, the American Film Institute (AFI) compiled a list of 100 romantic films, called ‘America’s 100 greatest love stories.’ A cursory look into the list and what surprises you is that more than 90 per cent of these love stories end in a tragic note, with the lovers either dead or parting ways. They hardly live happily ever after.
'Happily ever after’ is probably the most romantic of all romantic ideas and strangely, it does not work in most romantic films. This oxymoron needs explanation.
The logic of a love story is very simple. Boy meets girl (or man meets woman), cupid strikes, and the lives of these two individuals are altered forever. So far so good! What’s next?
Ideally, the lovers should settle down in marriage and live happily ever after. A fairytale situation; Cinderella meets her prince charming!
But life isn’t a fairytale. There’s death lurking, there’s society at large which is hostile as usual, and most importantly, there are choices to make. Walking with the lover to the sunset is not always the right choice.
Fairytales are a different story. Unlike romance, fairytales demand a forced happy ending, where, in most cases, the female protagonist must shed her past to embrace her lover’s world in order to achieve that much-lauded happily ever after prize. Little Mermaid, Ariel, must leave her ocean and ‘grow’ legs if she wants to be with her prince charming. Princess Fiona must turn into a full-time ogre to live happily ever after with Shrek. In Shrek 2 when Shrek has a chance to continue as a handsome prince, it is Fiona who protests and lets her hero be what he is. In short, fairytales demand unfortified sacrifice from one or the other of the pair of lovers.
Romantic stories usually fail to fulfil this.
Why?
Fairytales consider the pair of lovers as one entity, whereas in romantic stories they are separate individuals. Except for ‘love’ that binds them, they have their own dreams and whims, and choices. In the clash between love and individual identity, love is always the loser.
Take for example, Gone With the Wind, the second film in the AFI list. Scarlett O’Hara is a woman with her own biases. So is Rhett Butler. Problem begins when Rhett wants Scarlett to behave the way he wants, whereas Scarlett cannot forget her love for Ashley. Both want to make the best of their lives and none is ready to make sacrifices.
In the very first film of the AFI list, Casablanca, each lover is faced with a choice, which they make, even at the risk of spoiling their own lives. Elsa leaves Rick for Victor in Paris. A sick Victor needed her then. Now, it is Rick’s choice whether to keep Elsa or let her go. Rick chooses the latter. Love is not about retaining the lover. It’s about letting go. That’s why Casablanca is such an endearing and classic love story, let’s say love triangle.
The English Patient, on the other hand, is a love quadrangle. The English patient loves Katherine, Hanna loves him, and Kip loves Hanna, each one losing their love in the end.
Another phrase dear to all romantic stories is, 'till death do us apart.' In Titanic, Jack of the ‘I jump, you jump’ pair dies only to let Rose live, and she lives, feeding on the memory of her long-lost love. In Love Story the opposite happens. Jennifer dies, but not before teaching Oliver the most important lesson of love, ‘love means never having to say you're sorry’.
In The Bridges of the Madison County, love starts and ends within a span of four days. Robert Kincaid meets Francesca, married with husband and kids. They inevitably fall in love and everything is changed. Robert invites Francesca to leave her family and go with him. She agrees until the reality strikes. She just cannot leave her family to pursue her own happiness. She makes her choice. And Robert has no option but to respect it.
In Roman Holiday, Ann chooses to return to her princely palace. After all, ‘loss‘ itself is a romantic idea. ‘Gain’ is materialistic.
'Happily ever after’ is probably the most romantic of all romantic ideas and strangely, it does not work in most romantic films. This oxymoron needs explanation.
The logic of a love story is very simple. Boy meets girl (or man meets woman), cupid strikes, and the lives of these two individuals are altered forever. So far so good! What’s next?
Ideally, the lovers should settle down in marriage and live happily ever after. A fairytale situation; Cinderella meets her prince charming!
But life isn’t a fairytale. There’s death lurking, there’s society at large which is hostile as usual, and most importantly, there are choices to make. Walking with the lover to the sunset is not always the right choice.
Fairytales are a different story. Unlike romance, fairytales demand a forced happy ending, where, in most cases, the female protagonist must shed her past to embrace her lover’s world in order to achieve that much-lauded happily ever after prize. Little Mermaid, Ariel, must leave her ocean and ‘grow’ legs if she wants to be with her prince charming. Princess Fiona must turn into a full-time ogre to live happily ever after with Shrek. In Shrek 2 when Shrek has a chance to continue as a handsome prince, it is Fiona who protests and lets her hero be what he is. In short, fairytales demand unfortified sacrifice from one or the other of the pair of lovers.
Romantic stories usually fail to fulfil this.
Why?
Fairytales consider the pair of lovers as one entity, whereas in romantic stories they are separate individuals. Except for ‘love’ that binds them, they have their own dreams and whims, and choices. In the clash between love and individual identity, love is always the loser.
Take for example, Gone With the Wind, the second film in the AFI list. Scarlett O’Hara is a woman with her own biases. So is Rhett Butler. Problem begins when Rhett wants Scarlett to behave the way he wants, whereas Scarlett cannot forget her love for Ashley. Both want to make the best of their lives and none is ready to make sacrifices.
In the very first film of the AFI list, Casablanca, each lover is faced with a choice, which they make, even at the risk of spoiling their own lives. Elsa leaves Rick for Victor in Paris. A sick Victor needed her then. Now, it is Rick’s choice whether to keep Elsa or let her go. Rick chooses the latter. Love is not about retaining the lover. It’s about letting go. That’s why Casablanca is such an endearing and classic love story, let’s say love triangle.
The English Patient, on the other hand, is a love quadrangle. The English patient loves Katherine, Hanna loves him, and Kip loves Hanna, each one losing their love in the end.
Another phrase dear to all romantic stories is, 'till death do us apart.' In Titanic, Jack of the ‘I jump, you jump’ pair dies only to let Rose live, and she lives, feeding on the memory of her long-lost love. In Love Story the opposite happens. Jennifer dies, but not before teaching Oliver the most important lesson of love, ‘love means never having to say you're sorry’.
In The Bridges of the Madison County, love starts and ends within a span of four days. Robert Kincaid meets Francesca, married with husband and kids. They inevitably fall in love and everything is changed. Robert invites Francesca to leave her family and go with him. She agrees until the reality strikes. She just cannot leave her family to pursue her own happiness. She makes her choice. And Robert has no option but to respect it.
In Roman Holiday, Ann chooses to return to her princely palace. After all, ‘loss‘ itself is a romantic idea. ‘Gain’ is materialistic.
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