Drama (was What I didn't like about TTT)

[bluesqueak <pipdowns@etchells0.demon.co.uk>]

--- In HPFGU-OTChatter at yahoogroups.com, "David <dfrankiswork at n...>" 
<dfrankiswork at n...> wrote:
> Pip wrote:
> 
> > Drama equals conflict. No conflict, no drama. No drama, no 
> story. 
> > A film or a play is not a novel. A film or a play cannot survive 
> > without conflict.
> 
David:
> This seems so, um, definite.  How can we be sure?

Well, strictly, we can't. We just have to go by the fact that the 
play, as an artform, is at least 2500 years old (given that the 
oldest surviving playscript dates from around 490 BC). Over those 
2500 years, the form of the play has changed a lot - but the rule 
of 'no conflict, no play' has stuck.

That suggests 'Drama = conflict; no conflict = no drama = no play' 
is inherent in the artform. 


<Snip>
> 
> It does worry me that there is an element of circularity in our 
> collective experience here.  In effect our moviegoing habits train 
> us to find some things (such as bits of history) boring and others 
> (such as conflict) dramatic (Are 'boring' and 'dramatic' polar 
> opposites?  Challenge for dramatists and filmmakers: bore your 
> audience with such guile that they thank you for the experience).  
> Because we are so trained, it then becomes difficult for directors 
> who choose not to accept these simple equations to make headway.  
> 

"Waiting for Godot" (Samuel Beckett)is quite a successful play; 
despite it being so (deliberately) boring that a good production is 
signalled by less than a third of the audience leaving at the 
interval [theatre joke]. 

But even Godot has dramatic tension and conflict at its heart. Pozzo 
and Lucky aren't sure that Godot's going to come, or that they 
really want to wait for him. The boredom is partly created by the 
fact that the conflict is kept at a deliberately low level - but 
it's always there.

Films (I mean 'fictional story films')are also a dramatic artform. 
Hence the carry over from plays of the rule of 'Drama = conflict; no 
conflict = no film'. 

The visual moving picture is actually an excellent format for 
presenting history - but since 'presented history' has proved *not* 
to be a dramatic art form, it's been given the title 
of 'documentary' - a new art form in itself.

There is also the crossover art of 'drama-documentary'; 
unfortunately that tends to follow the 'no conflict - no film' rule. 
Viewers often find that there's an awful lot more drama than 
documentary, and rather more fiction than they should expect.

Pip