FILMMAKER BLOG  Monday, March 24, 2008
LOST AND CENTRAL CONFLICT THEORY
Over at his E sotika Erotica Psychotica blog, Mike explains why he's been slacking on posting and watching Lost instead. His explanation contains a great passage from Raul Ruiz's Poetics of Cinema that makes me want to dust off my copy. But, I do occasionally "watch TV" via DVD rentals, streaming episodes, and online downloads. For some reason, at the beginning of February, something convinced me to start watching Lost. And then, since February 9th, I've watched the entire first three seasons, plus the five episodes of season four that have aired so far. This amounts to 76 45 minute episodes. That's about 3420 minutes. Which, presupposing that a majority of the movies I watch are around 90 minutes, comes out to be 38 movies. Which, in retrospect, is fairly depressing.
It's not a bad show, it's fairly entertaining, and, all things considered, it's relatively smart. But, while reading Raul Ruiz's Poetics of Cinema this last week I encountered an explanation for why I was finding it so hard to do anything but what a relatively empty show. In the first chapter of Poetics of Cinema, Ruiz discusses Central Conflict Theory, and, in a round about way, his aversion to it. Central Conflict Theory ostensibly posits an A vs. B position, and generally manipulates the audience into siding with one side over the other. This central conflict is the only thing driving not only the show, but the audience's desire to see the show: the audience wants nothing more than to see how conflicts resolve. Here's what Ruiz says in his own words:
Let us return to films that are not boring. Films provoked by the noonday demon. Central conflict theory manufactures athletic fiction and offers to take us on a journey. Prisoner of the protagonist's will, we are subjected to the various stages making up a conflict of which he, the protagonist, is at once guardian and captive. In the end we are released and given back to ourselves, a little sadder than before. There is only one notion in our heads, which is to go [on] another journey as soon as we can.
Comments (2)
The central conflict theory it's not only one of the main reasons that make films, literature, and other art forms work, but it's also the reason why sports like basketball (or any other sport where two teams compete) work as a great entertaining form. The fan team works as a protagonist and the "other" team works as the antagonist.
If you think about it, some tv game shows, like "Who wants to be a Millionaire" also works like that, using the contestant as the protagonist. As viewers we are introduce to the contestant life the same way we are introduced to a caracter's life, in a way that makes us care about his porpuses.
The thing is that the central conflict theory have, in nowadays, the monopoly in film fiction specially in american movies. In other movies, like some Ruiz's movies, things work very different, transforming the film watching experience in a complex but far more interesting art form.
Well, that's all. Great blog, great magazine. By the way, I am a Ruiz's countryman from Chile.
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posted by @ 3/26/2008 12:44 AM
Ruiz makes the point that conflict-based narratives represent only a small aspect of human experience - and why should cinematic works be so disproportionately bound by this structure? The slavish devotion to it has severely kneecapped film as an artform, but there are hopeful signs (including increased sophistication in some TV shows) that popular tastes can be pried away from the most formulaic narrative ideas. Because film companies generally want to reach as broad an audience as possible, they’ve gone for the lowest common denominator, dumbing down ideas for viewers, and promoting lazy, black & white thinking. Stories are easily digested this way, and entertainment-seeking audiences have been generally comfortable with predictability and passive viewing. But there’s definitely been progress in recent years in terms of what movies/TV shows people are watching, which is great. The business/industry still lags far behind though, and interesting work remains difficult to fund, earn a living from, distribute, etc. Another aspect of Ruiz’s ideas and work, is that a film is not a script. Magical things happen on screen that can’t be fully conveyed on paper, even by the best writer. Filmmakers are often in the position of gaining support for a production with a script, and the pressure of putting everything into words gives plot-driven and simplistic scripts an advantage over more potentially cinematic and complex ones. By the way, I studied with Raul Ruiz and worked on two of his films, and he’s an incredibly inspiring, kind, and brilliant artist.
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posted by @ 3/27/2008 12:21 PM
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