Great drama must be rooted in conflict

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Is this true, or is it as reductive as saying great music must be rooted in guitars?

― Tom, Thursday, 30 May 2002 00:00 (twenty-three years ago)

course it's true! but many different types of conflict there are, yeees?

― katie, Thursday, 30 May 2002 00:00 (twenty-three years ago)

it's much more vague/generic than the music/guitars statement. If you unpick the drama/conflict statement, you can end up with a very "analytic" statement, i.e. one that is true by definition. you can unpick it in other ways to make it less obviously true, but the fact that you can do both makes it an uninteresting statement. to my mind. but having said that, the conventional way of understanding the statement, i would generally agree with.

― Alan T, Thursday, 30 May 2002 00:00 (twenty-three years ago)

No. <|>Saving Private Ryan is rooted in conflict. And that's rubbish.

― Matt, Thursday, 30 May 2002 00:00 (twenty-three years ago)

yes, this is why my life story is so boring.

― jel --, Thursday, 30 May 2002 00:00 (twenty-three years ago)

I was going to say no, thinking of great love stories, but that's rubbish as they're all about over-coming conflict.

― Anna, Thursday, 30 May 2002 00:00 (twenty-three years ago)

course it's true! but many different types of conflict there are, yeees?

Yeah, this is one of those things that ends up with people saying "Ahh, the conflict is all in Prospero's head"

― N., Thursday, 30 May 2002 00:00 (twenty-three years ago)

Well depends on what you mean by conflict. If you mean the upsetting of the status quo - which will then conflict the characters into attempting to form some kind of resolution then yes. If you mean people beating the crap out of each other, then no. Though that can make a great kung fu movie.

― Pete, Thursday, 30 May 2002 00:00 (twenty-three years ago)

Yeah the question was a bit unclear. I guess it depends on what the aim of "great drama" is too.

A more specific version of the question, then - name a great play/film/TV series in which none of the characters shout at each other.

― Tom, Thursday, 30 May 2002 00:00 (twenty-three years ago)

my little pony

― mark s, Thursday, 30 May 2002 00:00 (twenty-three years ago)

Mime.

― Emma, Thursday, 30 May 2002 00:00 (twenty-three years ago)

Unless they mime shouting.

― Tom, Thursday, 30 May 2002 00:00 (twenty-three years ago)

Tom's Shouting = Conflict shows a worrying psychological side to him. I bet if we all went up and shouted at him he would start crying.

― Pete, Thursday, 30 May 2002 00:00 (twenty-three years ago)

pTeE are you back from the land of the rising sun?

― katie, Thursday, 30 May 2002 00:00 (twenty-three years ago)

Well OK, if you want to move away from 'shouting' as a signifier - name a great film/TV series/play where none of the characters hate any of the others.

― Tom, Thursday, 30 May 2002 00:00 (twenty-three years ago)

la Haine

― Alan T, Thursday, 30 May 2002 00:00 (twenty-three years ago)

Love And Other Catastrophes! Breakfast At Tiffany's!

― katie, Thursday, 30 May 2002 00:00 (twenty-three years ago)

Is there any hating in Four Weddings?

― Alan T, Thursday, 30 May 2002 00:00 (twenty-three years ago)

Alang: GREAT drama.

And yeah, Andie Macdowell was really fucking punchable.

― Emma, Thursday, 30 May 2002 00:00 (twenty-three years ago)

Four Weddings is AN excellent drama and an excellent script. even the plank of wood actress managed not to obscure that FACT.

― Alan T, Thursday, 30 May 2002 00:00 (twenty-three years ago)

Even I didn't think it was very good and I fancy Andie Macdowell.

― N., Thursday, 30 May 2002 00:00 (twenty-three years ago)

AN = ILE speak for Actually Not?

― Tim, Thursday, 30 May 2002 00:00 (twenty-three years ago)

Love and Other Catastrophes has a big load of hate in it. Hate against beret wearing girls whose parents live on farms.

― RickyT, Thursday, 30 May 2002 00:00 (twenty-three years ago)

i know this is probably a bad idea, but what is not very good about four weddings? Don't get me wrong, it's not a personal favourite, but I do recognise that it is a very well structured story in terms of conflict and resolution. i picked it precisely because it is an examplar of setting up conflict (without "hate") and then resolving it as awkwardly as possible for the characters involved.

― Alan T, Thursday, 30 May 2002 00:00 (twenty-three years ago)

Yes I am back. Surely drama is a synonym for conflict.

There is no hate in Dumb And Dumber.

― Pete, Thursday, 30 May 2002 00:00 (twenty-three years ago)

No, I was using it in a different sense - as a word to encompass artforms based on people acting (i.e. film, TV, radio plays, theatre).

― Tom, Thursday, 30 May 2002 00:00 (twenty-three years ago)

drama is a synonym for conflict.

What my first post was long-windedly getting at. Glad to see you back mr ptee!

― Alan T, Thursday, 30 May 2002 00:00 (twenty-three years ago)

Gene Roddenberry expressly forbade conflict between Starfleet officers in ST:TNG because he thought by the 24th Century his heroes wld all be above petty interpersonal conflicts. Which explains why most episodes of ST:TNG are as dull as ditchwater.

― Andrew L, Thursday, 30 May 2002 00:00 (twenty-three years ago)

AGON!! hurrah!!

― mark s, Thursday, 30 May 2002 00:00 (twenty-three years ago)

you can't have dragons without the word AGON qed

― mark s, Thursday, 30 May 2002 00:00 (twenty-three years ago)

Tom is wise to link this question to the rockist thing.

I would cite Samuel Beckett's 'Waiting for Godot' as great drama in which nothing happens (twice).

I am listening to The Plastics 'Origato Plastico' as I write this. It's a very silly album (from 1980) and I know that one of the reasons I like it is the total lack of any passion or commitment or that sense of earth-shaking import which makes rock bands so annoying.

This question, of course, goes back to Aristotle and his concept of Catharsis, which states that drama exposes its audience to 'incidents arousing pity and fear with which to accomplish the catharsis of such emotion', therefore 'purging' it. Well, if I want purging, I eat All Bran. I don't see why art has to clean out my emotional bowels every time it wants to qualify as great.

― Momus, Thursday, 30 May 2002 00:00 (twenty-three years ago)

does aristotle really say the only great art is DRAMA though? i don't recall (haha this is the subject of the name of the rose)

i was going to say godot but then i tht, well don't they HATE each other? i don't recall

catharsis = purgation = evacuation as sense of closure = good point (good as init.pt; good as crit of same)

― mark s, Thursday, 30 May 2002 00:00 (twenty-three years ago)

Unless there's something lacking, the characters in a play or a movie have no desires and thus nothing compelling to do. This answers the age-old question of why Pierce Brosnan is so infuriating to watch—he always acts like he achieved everything he wanted years ago.

― Tracer Hand, Thursday, 30 May 2002 00:00 (twenty-three years ago)

Beckett is a good example of what I was also badly alluding to when I said it depends on how you choose to unpick the original statement. Beckett's works are clearly plays involving characters and dialogue, but I suspect there are people with little enough time on their hand that they would pronounce these works as not fitting in with the received definition of drama. I'm not a scholar of B (surprised? no), but I further suspect that he was intentionally pushing at such a definition and the confines of the traditional concepts of what is meant by drama.

― Alan T, Thursday, 30 May 2002 00:00 (twenty-three years ago)

i think there's a clumsy negotiation of the definitions of drama and art here. most drama prescribes to proppian narratives which are dependent on conflict and the resolution of conflict.

what makes drama drama? is Jarmusch drama? how much does drama need to be 'dramatic'?

when you have films or theatre which base themselves on moments of stasis, or reflection and repose (rather than, i dunno, Eastenders..) does this disqualify them from drama?

― Wyndham Earl, Thursday, 30 May 2002 00:00 (twenty-three years ago)

You can have stasis and repose in a drama. Just because a character is thinking doesn't mean he isn't working through the difficulty that the writer has set for him.

"Waiting for Godot" is the first Cohen Brothers movie. The characters are totally dependent on an outside force. Their lives consist of dread and anticipation. The difficulty to be overcome is the this GUY is supposed to SHOW UP but he hasn't and what do we DO? Every line of dialogue is further proof of the problem's persistence so by turns they a) get irritated with each other b) form alliances c) crack jokes, and many other things.... it's Great DramatiX0r because everything they do is bent towards overcoming the difficulty.

Jarmusch is drama too but I find him unsatisfying most of the time because he locates everything inside the characters' heads rather than on the screen. Depp in Dead Man obviously has a LOT of conflict w/in himself to deal with but he hardly lets anyone else in on his torment so we must be content with the drama of his facial muscles.

― Tracer Hand, Thursday, 30 May 2002 00:00 (twenty-three years ago)

glitchcore!!

― mark s, Thursday, 30 May 2002 00:00 (twenty-three years ago)

So what we've established is that yes, great drama must be rooted in conflict, but all drama is conflict or can be demonstrably defined as conflict.

Therefore the statement that great drama must be rooted in conflict is as true as to say great music must involve some kind of sound.

― thom, Thursday, 30 May 2002 00:00 (twenty-three years ago)

oh fuck, i didn't mean Jarmush i meant Jarman.

but yeah Dead Man = repose + conflict. etc.

― Wyndham Earl, Thursday, 30 May 2002 00:00 (twenty-three years ago)

A Great Drama will set the characters an obstacle or conflict so big that despite every striving inch it can't be overcome. This is why good acting is hard: you KNOW that, according to the script, you're not going to get what you want, but you have to fight tooth and nail for it anyway. There's a one-step-removed thing going on: it's not the conflict itself that makes Great Drama; it's the characters' striving to overcome it. The greater the conflict, the greater the striving, the more heroic the characters, the more inspiring the story. mark s makes a fine point re: Jarmusch. J sometimes locates the site of the striving in weird out-of-the-way places previously regarded as peripheral (facial muscles; a book), similarly to how glitch-click-house-hop makes sound artifacts that were once surplusage or byproducts of the recording process into the place where the action is.

― Tracer Hand, Thursday, 30 May 2002 00:00 (twenty-three years ago)

Ha - and Jarman is even more like this.... (and he too, I find unsatisfying. I like it when push comes to shove and I can SEE it on the screen!)

― Tracer Hand, Thursday, 30 May 2002 00:00 (twenty-three years ago)

However I am also immensely lazy.

― Tracer Hand, Thursday, 30 May 2002 00:00 (twenty-three years ago)

Therefore the statement that great drama must be rooted in conflict is as true as to say great music must involve some kind of sound.

Thom, the 2 generalisations don't necessarily equal each other. Great music is all due to a person's perception: music I might love, you might not. Bob Dylan, for instance: many in American see him as a great musical falk hero. I never could get into his style, myself. But then, perhaps I am being too specific.

Actually, if I have to pick a great filmmaker with drama, I adore Wim Wenders, myself. His Wings of Desire twisted the guardian angel myth into something thoughtful. Same for The American Friend. Where I'd thought the gumshoe detective schtick was already done to death, his use of b/w and various underlying issues made it interesting.

― Nichole Graham, Sunday, 2 June 2002 00:00 (twenty-three years ago)

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