To put it simply, a tragic story is the one that doesn’t have a happy end. But it’s more than that. In a common story we expect a hero to go through hardships to find new perspective and knowledge, so that s/he can overcome the challenges. Or that the hero should just punch harder to win. A tragedy, however, is a story where the hero denies to learn from experience, doesn’t have the capacity to realize how to change, or changes too late. Or if the hero is fighting the good fight and is good at heart, the evil is too big for him/her, the system and challenges too powerful to overcome. It’s something that goes against the common narrative that we are very used to, that stems from the Christian mindset that God sends us only those challenges that we can endure, but these stories were much more valid in Ancient Greek theaters. In my opinion, tragedy has the strongest ability to connect with the audience on an emotional level, and leave a longer lasting mark allowing us to properly reflect upon the ideas presented, the story, the characters and the world, and most importantly, our humanity. But in order for that to happen the audience has to bare their guard of cynicism, which is of great challenge for the storyteller. There is a danger of putting your trust into the wrong hands so the audience isn’t willing to do that. The storyteller has to carefully earn the empathy of the audience to the protagonist and never break that connection, guiding and anticipating the audience’s reactions at every step of the way. It’s a very fine line to walk, and if you make a wrong step you will lose your audience’s trust completely. There is a few successful tragic stories on screen, the recent one that comes to mind is There Will Be Blood, where the hero denies to confess till the end. But I wanted to know if there are more that you can recommend to watch, as well as bad examples that fail to connect to the audience, and any theories on tragic storytelling.
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Thanks, Beth. I will check it out today. Some people wake up and drink coffee and read the newspaper. I drink coffee and read Stage 32 posts. I really do enjoy this site. :-)
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That's great, Linda! I do the same thing every morning: coffee and Stage 32. ;)
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That John August tip is amazing, thanks Beth. Also thanks for the link.
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Remember three important things... Wardrobe, hair and makeup. Check out @femscriptintros twitter account It's hilarious.
Thanks Marvin, I checked it out, it is great indeed.