I've a huge interest in film gambits, "gambits" being a chess term for the opening moves of a game. The term can apply to storytelling as well. "It was the best of times, it was the worst of times" was a gambit, as was "Call me Ishmael." Here's the the gambit for the terrific TV miniseries, "Olive Kitteridge."
The story is about a woman suffering from chronic depression in a small New England town.
It opens with silhouettes of buildings set against unsettling dawn skies. You get the feeling that something's wrong in this town, and has been for a long time.
The pounding surf intensifies the mood.
Now here's (above) where the really original part begins. A fishing boat is seen in an ominously tempestuous sea. One still frame can't do this image justice. A ship in a daytime shot usually symbolizes hope and escape. Not so here.
Far from being a symbol for escape, the boat may be seen as a sentry preventing escape and confining the townspeople to their prison.
The film trucks out of a porcelain image of the ship. The painted image is a happy one but the audience knows better. Seeing the creepy ship in this nice old-fashioned context firms up our conviction that whatever's wrong in this town has deep roots, and that the towns people might even have had a hand in covering it up.
Smash cut to a street in the town where a woman is discovered lying dead on the ground. The music and art direction lead us to believe that she was somehow killed by a supernatural thing. It capriciously felled an innocent woman and left her limp as a rag doll on the ice.
This isn't a horror film, so the supernatural element I'm talking about isn't part of the plot. Even so, it's important. Sherlock Holmes stories are like that. There always a supernatural subtext in them, and it makes the stories more interesting.
Fascinating, eh?
I wouldn't say "supernatural", instead I'd say a good detective story has to make an irrational explanation seem the only possibility. We serious men won't accept the irrational explanation and eventually the author will make all the lines of causality plain. There's the famous Father Brown story ("The Absence of Mr Glass") where the straw scientist/atheist detective sees a murder and Father Brown reveals using his trademark insight that nothing actually bad happened.
ReplyDeleteMt.T: Ah, another Father Brown fan! They're good stories, aren't they?
ReplyDeleteThe Father Brown stories are classics! I love them, and a lot of G.K. Chesterton's writing even though I'm about as far from him philosophically as one can get!
ReplyDeleteChesterton was fundamentally a cartoonist and poet, but he brought that with him in his prose. Full of imagery and 'illogical logic' that shakes you out of bed. Even Father Brown is a cartoon priest, with his exaggerated humility and wisdom. I can just see Walt Disney making Father Brown Mouse cartoons. :P
You can see a book of his cartoons and poetry here:
http://www.gutenberg.org/ebooks/14706
And I've seen specific collections of his cartoons somewhere, but I don't know where. If I remember, I'll send you a link.
Mr. T: I don't think Chesterton's philosophy was so far off, at least in some ways. I wish I could have seen his famous debates with Shaw. Maybe they'd make a great two-man play.
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