Picasso

I watched a BBC documentary on Picasso on Friday night. It got me thinking again about whether or not film is due for a revolution in structure and form.

Picasso started off as a classical painter, academic realism they call it. Then his work added a symbolist influence. Blue period. Rose period. And finally modern art transformed... cubism, crystal period, neoclassical, surrealism, and beyond.

Painting and novels were the primary art forms of the day (my guess), and it's obvious painting went through a revolution in the early 1900's, and from what Chuck said in his article, fiction is going through a similar crisis. And they could be much further along than film.

I know it's a common chorus, people have been proclaiming the death of the 3-act structure hero story since Aristotle. But maybe we could use some exploration like Picasso did with the bull, seeing what elements of traditional film structure you can remove while still maintaining the essence.

The problem is, I get bored with so many movies I see. I wonder if it's because I'm older and have seen enough to get all the tricks, or if it's because audiences are more savvy now. I'd like to believe it's because audiences are more savvy now (which Chuck stated in his article), because I'd love to see more exciting, experimental movies.

Picasso BBC doc: click here
Chuck Palahniuk article: click here

Chuck Palahniuk Thoughts

...fiction writers should abandon technically correct writing and experiment in the same way painters were forced to experiment in order to keep their medium relevant.

Chuck Palahniuk via LitReactor link

I've had the same exact thoughts for awhile now, about films. I know the 3-act structure is supposed to be universal, and the hero's journey has survived this long for a reason. But I struggle so much with films I see and films I'm trying to write being boring. 

Personally I love how Linklater plays with structure and time. And same with early Tarantino, you're putting the movie together as you go along, catching up with the storytelling. And Memento. 

We could easily be getting to a time in cinema, about 100 years in, where traditional narrative feels boring, tired, and worn out. As much as I enjoy many of the big tentpole movies, or studio pictures, there's a limit to how much I appreciate it. Because I know how it's going to end, and I know what I'm getting when I buy my ticket. 

I would like to be surprised more. I'd like to have to work harder to put the story together myself. I still want to be entertained, so you still need big action set pieces. And emotional journeys are still compelling, but it can be pushed into new directions. Maybe it's simply a symptom of high budget films needing to appeal to a massive audience and therefore have a simpler structure. 

But Chuck could be right, as the standard storytelling ideas get out there in the marketplace, filmmakers will need to push the medium into new areas to satisfy the audience. The internet is making this knowledge ubiquitous, and eventually it may not work anymore. 

Personally, I have very little interest in telling a standard 3-act hero's journey. Although I know this is a cliche place to be for a first-time writer. Wanting to reinvent the form. Many writers have been here before, and later learned to appreciate the timeless form. But I also feel things could be different now, due to the internet, free knowledge, and exponential growth. I think audiences will demand more from their storytellers. Or maybe they'll just want the same thing, only different, to quote Blake Snyder.