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Hollywood Formula

You didn't mention this: Hollywood films typically have two parallel stories, one public and one private, both of which resolve together.

For example, the public story is that the main character is a detective working to solve a whodunit, or a man being chased. The private story is that the main character is going through some personal problems, or there is a romance budding between him and another character, or whatever. In resolving the public story, the main character also resolves the personal story.

It is not a secret that films follow formulas like the above. You haven't said anything that people don't already know. Why does this "formula" work so well in, say, Vertigo but not in Pearl Harbor?

Because it's not about the formula. It's about *how* you get to the ending. Since you mention Star Wars, did you know that George Lucas consulted mythology expert Joseph Campbell to help construct his story to resonate with many of the themes found in mythology? Ideas that touched the Greeks will still touch us today - this is because we're funadmentally the same deep down inside.

Look, you can break any rock song down to verse-chorus-bridge-guitar solo-verse-chorus. So what if it's a formula. We enjoy it because of the tunefulness of *how* it's done. You say that you want something different from the formula, but I would suspect that you yourself have a more enjoyable time listening to a formulaic Mozart opera than the Ring cycle.

Now, what I don't like, and what I suspect you really have a problem with, is not formulas but cliches that get played over and over and over.



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  Kimber Kable  


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