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In Reply to: Re: Evidently You Think That....... posted by RGA on January 13, 2006 at 16:13:44:
Your thoughts are generally resonant, but I find one of your
statements problematic. You said, "Great drama can be re-viewed
and is a cathartic experience -- comedy or horror generally is not."I believe this is semantic due to phrasing. Statement seems to imply
drama does not follow general distributions similar to other genres,
i.e., excellent,good,fair,poor,etc. However, if you believe that
great comedy or horror is non-existent or cannot evoke catharsis, then I'd have to disagree. I think comedy, horror also
have excellent representatives, though likely less in number than
drama for reasons you have stated.My assertion here is that excellent films, regardless of genre, have
capacities to evoke deep catharsis, with lesser quality films providing varying reduced degrees of cathartic release.Consider what I believe a good representative of the oft lowly-
thought-of sci-fi genre, E.T. The Extraterrestrial. That film ,
especially when first viewed, but also upon subsequent viewings,
evoked a number of deep emotions in me: wonder,awe,laughter,sadness,
empathy,anger,etc. IOW, the film genuinely moved me and I found
those viewing experiences extremely enjoyable, cathartic and of
generally high value.As you said, emotion first, intellect second. And as a corollary,
quality before categorization. ~AH
Follow Ups:
I think we're in agreement. And catharsis a bit of an open term for me it is a term for profound lasting life changing art. Certainly horror and Comedy and certainly science ficition can have this - though interestingly it can often be in dramatic sequences.E.T. to use your example is first and foremost a human dramatic story -- IMV all great films tend to place the human drama at the forefront no matter what the genre. We care about Elliot, Girty(sp?) and the rest of the family and that is why that film resonates. It is Spielberg's Casablanca (and I like it better than Casblanca) because it is also darn well sweet.
The Exorcist? We can identify with the mother's frustration and her plight. I'm not religious in the least bit and it resonated with me as one of the most powerful films I've seen - even if much of the power is through sensory shock.
Some films like 2001: A Space Odyssy is less human drama -- so there are exceptions -- though one could argue that that movie was human race human drama.
2001: A Space Odyssey. I had been thinking about that film in relation
to grandiose themes - omniversal, (how much bigger can one get?)
Yet on that cosmic scale, human significance diminishes drama-tically as we put
humanity into perspective. (Just from our own galactic scale perspective,
earth is small as an electron, one would need a microscope to see it!) So
bigger one gets, things tend to get rather impersonal. For an
interesting take on relative impersonal coldness of 2001 vis-a-vis
Tarkovsky's warmer,more personal Solaris, go to Underman's Review
at www.underview.com/2001/Solaris.html. ~AH
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