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| The Difference between US and British films
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Had more time to watch DVDs recently since my son discovered what sleep is. But my husband and I had been getting annoyed with some of our films and we've finally worked out why.. happy endings!
Take "Stranger than Fiction" the Will Ferrell/ Emma Thompson film. It has a really clever premise - man wakes up and suddenly one day he hears his life being narrated. Turns out he's a charater in a novel and the author always kills off the protagonists in her stories. Can he find her and convince her not to? Right before the end, a university professor character that works out what is going on says that the Will Ferrell's character will have to die because the new novel is sublime.
And in a UK film Ferrell's character would die. And it would be interesting and tragic and leave Emma Thompson's author with a huge moral dilemma. But as she's always been driven more by her art that by real people (she's a hermit), that would be an entirely typical decision for her character to take and live the rest of her life with the consequences. In this US film, she rewrites the ending, he gets to live, and gets the kooky cookie girl.
Or take "Bruce Almighty". Morgan Freeman as God says to Jim Carrey's Bruce "you can't kneel down in the road and expect to live" yet live he does. Bruce gets a chance to make one unselfish prayer and on the strength of this (just as for Faust and his unselfish wish) he get to make amends, return to how things were wiser and happier and again gets the girl.
In a UK version, we like to think that the ambiguous if not the tragic ending would've prevailed: Bruce realises what he's done wrong, kneels down in the road and prays to God, the truck hits him and... credits roll. Do you think he goes to heaven? Do you think Grace would ever find happiness without him as she had prayed? You decide. We like your ending better.
So what should we conclude?
Maybe there's a difference in mentality between the US and the UK. Maybe we're less fearful of loss. If you think about it, maybe we start with this sort of sentiment at an early age - even our children's literature (like Harry Potter) kills off characters that are loved.
I'm no fan of the Ken Loach, Mike Leigh bleak, dark grim-up-North school of British film making (although my husband is). I know in general British cinema operates on a lower budget than big Hollywood films, but I just can't see that that makes a difference to the quality of stories being produced.
I like fantasy and I like satisfactory resolution to a story. But I think that it's the forced sentimentality, what feels like the shoehorning in of a happy ending that grates. I've no problem with happily ever after of itself, but life is bittersweet, and you can grow used to the taste of it making a pure happy ending seem sickly sweet and completely unbelievable. |
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Posted by rose22 on 2008-02-18 16:53:02 | Rating: | Views: 132
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