I guess I wasn’t understanding what he meant by drifting apart … I took it as the audience was introduced to their being perfect for each other, but she had to come to terms with moving on. At the end 20 years later, she makes the same decision, leaving us with the trapped pigeon metaphor that has the trapped pigeon freed, to fly away. The last scene seems to be the pigeon’s possible eye view, flying away leaving the inhabitants of the house in a growing distance.
Or is the term “drifting apart” more about a disintegration of interaction due to being more interested in doing their own thing?
I assumed they meant generally growing apart in terms of the RS. In The Remains of the Day, they start off as adversaries and become friends and could have potentially become more, but it never happened. Or at least, that’s hope I remember it–it’s been more than twenty years since I read the novel, and quite a few since I last saw the movie.
What I remember striking me in the final shot is that he’s closing the windows. He’s shutting himself into the house.
What I meant is something I don’t have any examples of, so i can’t provide one.
But, in a movie like When Harry Met Sally the two of them start off as strangers and then fall in love. Same with Four Weddings and a Funeral.
But certainly there are movies where people start out friends and end as strangers, or enemies.
I think this is what happens in Sweet Smell of Success. The MC and IC start as friends, but the IC leaves at the end, thinking that the MC is a failure.
@Greg’s suggestion of Captain America: Civil War works.
In Disney’s Tangled (the film, not the series), I think there is a relationship between Rapunzel and her “Mother” which ends badly. I’m not sure if that story is complete though.
The Third Man, Citizen Kane, and maybe Wells’ Falstaff (or the original Shakespeare play.
The Butterfly Effect?
The Laura Linney ‘Sarah, Karl and Michael’ section of the Love Actually film montage.
Lolita?
and interesting enough, possible films from the WW2 war years:
All this and Heaven too
Kitty Foyle
Waterloo Bridge
The Cat People
Here comes Mr. Jordan
How Green was my Valley
Double indemnity
The picture of Dorian Gray
Mildred Pierce
Anna Karenina
Babylon 5, some episodes (and maybe as a whole)
I bet some episodes from Babylon 5 are close, since that was the heyday of v.1.6 and v.2. I’m watching some reruns and remembering going to three Dramatica weekend workshops in Burbank during the 90’s. There were writers and production management in attendance from unknown places, but there seemed to be a mix of users that felt at home using whatever was at hand.
Based on @jhull’s analysis and the Users’ Group analysis, the story is broken, although the relationship between Rapunzel and Gothel being part of the RS sounds very interesting! It looks like Tangled is like Ralph Breaks the Internet, with both having a strong RS, but a schizophrenic MC perspective (is the MC Rapunzel or Flynn?) and an unclear OS.
This is a neat discussion, by the way!
In addition to the above examples, there’s also the “Rise of Nazism” story in The Sound of Music. The RS is aptly titled “Budding Romance Goes Sour.”
And I wonder if Jeremiah Johnson with Robert Redford has a storyform. Maybe, all his different relationships in the film are mc/ic trade offs? You might find some gems in those. At the end of the film, I was stunned at the experience, especially with such minimal dialogue. Now, I wonder if the mountain was a character, also.
I am not familiar with this movie (beyond the one-line description).
I think it’s extremely unlikely that the mountain is a character, because characters have to be reactive to what is happening. At most, the mountain can represent a characteristic or two, or perhaps be an example of the theme.
Believe me, if you saw this movie you’d be wondering the impossible/unlikely, too. Stunning … the only one word that sums up the film. I even pause stunned when I think about it, as l live life.
When a mountain is in a story, it’s not really a mountain. It’s part of a Storymind. A mountain in a story might be nothing more than set dressing, a place for the story events to unfold, and definitely not a character. But if imbued with motivation, the idea of a mountain becomes merely the skin that overlays a process of the mind and thus becomes an analogy for that process. And that would make it a character, would it not?
For instance, if one character looks at the mountain and says “that’s a dangerous mountain. It doesn’t want to be climbed. If you try, it will end you. It might throw an avalanche at you, or wait until you’re stuck a thousand feet up the side of a cliff and toss a blizzard at you, or it might wait until youre not looking and let a few boulders tumble down right over your head”, then hasn’t that mountain been imbued with the motivation to not be climbed and been made a character?
And suppose your MC is the mountain climber whose purpose is to climb the mountain through external means, but every time the mountain tries to kill him, the MC is pushed a little closer to seeing the problem less as something external and more as something like ‘thinking inside the box will get you killed’. And eventually the MC gives up his purpose of climbing mountains and takes up a new purpose of thinking outside the box. Not just in climbing mountains, but life in general. Not only is that mountain a character, but it’s now the Influence Character, isn’t it?
I don’t know. He went through so many relationships, but all I can see is Jeremiah Johnson’s face as he fades into quiet acceptance that the mountain has him at the end and "…ends with the song lyrics, "And some folks say, ‘He’s up there still.’ " [wikipedia]
Generally I agree with this. My point was more along the lines that we shouldn’t confuse obstacles with antagonists.
I think this is drawing a big generalization from a short paragraph.
But I’ll propose this as a “you & I are just alike moment” --> “I’m the world’s best climber and you are the world’s hardest climb: Outdoor Magazine is fascinated by us. We’ve both been on the cover four times.”
“We are nothing alike: you are seeking thrills, and I am still, quiet… seeking peace.”
Thing is, Melanie mentions a “talking book” in her essay. I have no problem with that—even if it’s a complete fabrication inside the mind of another character. An inanimate book is probably not a character, but it can probably represent a characteristic. (I have the meetings with the conch represent Uncontrolled in my breakdown of Lord of the Flies, and the avalanche representing Uncontrolled in my breakdown of Mulan. Those things aren’t a person any more than a mountain is, though I suppose they are more dynamic.)
Yeah, I get that point. I probably should’ve posted this on the other thread you linked to, and I don’t mean to nitpick-or whatever it is I’m doing…trying to dig something gray from a black and white answer-but saying that a mountain can’t be a dramatica-style character—that it can’t be an analogy for a process within the mind—seems overly limiting. I understand telling a newbie to the theory not to do it until they’ve become more familiar with certain concepts, but not that it can’t be done.
I mean, I’m sure that when leaving Dramatica out of it most people would agree that a talking book, or a talking car, or a talking animal, or a singing mountain is just a human in book or car or mountain form. So definitely those can be characters. [quote=“MWollaeger, post:38, topic:2687”]
An inanimate book is probably not a character,
[/quote]
I agree. It’s probably not a character. It’s only a character if it is imbued with motivation.
But here’s the real point:
In a story, a person is not a person any more than a mountain is. Because they take the shape of people they are typically meant to do double duty as both characters and fully fleshed out humans, but, as I see it, what makes them characters isn’t that they come across as fully fleshed out humans but that they represent some aspect of the Storymind. If the audience isn’t meant to see the character as a fully fleshed out human because it’s an inanimate mountain, then it doesn’t have to do that double duty. It only needs to represent some aspect of the human mind.
Now, I’m not saying if it’s a good idea or a bad one to make your mountain into a full Antagonist, or even to make it a complex character with multiple traits. But I don’t definitely don’t see a problem with associating an inanimate mountain with a single trait like, say, Hinder or Avoid when it tosses storms and boulders at a climber. Maybe I’m thinking of character wrong, but in my mind having that one trait is enough to call it a character.
The reason I believe that it should be sound theory to make an inanimate object a character is because it’s not the actual mountain or person within the story that partakes in Hindering. It’s only the Storymind that partakes in Hindering when the Storymind looks at what is happening in the story and takes the perspective that throwing storms and boulders is an example of Hinder.
I think of a character as someone who can react to the push and pull of a story. If someone can do this with a mountain, then sure. In general, I’m probably just being persnickety because so many people say things like “New York is a character in the movie” and what they mean is “New York gives the movie a great tone.”
I think the proper way to settle this argument is to watch The Mission and see if we think the wet mountains De Niro has to climb up are characters. I think they are just ways to let him express his traits.
