On
The Guardian Flim Blog, Danny Leigh argues that Hollywood is unable to learn from the success of great American TV dramas like The Sopranos (above) and The Wire.
... in both shows, the ultimate plot twist – as much of a resolution as we ever got – was that all that dysfunction, madness, violence and contempt for human life, all those bodies of kids in Baltimore row houses and squalid deaths in New Jersey laybys were, in the final analysis, fuelled by one thing: money. That simple, and it would seem too bleak a message to be acknowledged by Hollywood – where bad guys are still cartoon boogeymen, instead of victims of a system that makes bad guys of us all.
On The Guardian Flim Blog, Danny Leigh argues that Hollywood is unable to learn from the success of great American TV dramas like The Sopranos (above) and The Wire. 
Nah, I think Danny Leigh has spent too much time watching *American* drama! If he'd thought instead about the best British series - ones like Shameless and Spooks and Skins and even Hustle - he'd realise that *boredom* drives people to bad deeds more often than money. We can all do without a bit of cash, but if there's nothing interesting going on today, then we'll make *trouble*!
ReplyDeletehttp://gogowiththeflow.blogspot.com/
Though I can see what Danny means with The Sopranos and their fiscal motives and I could easily go with the Flow (ahem) regarding boredom in Shameless, et al, I feel the dysfunctionality expressed in both has more to do with rites of passage, the need of a human being to become something more than they were born to; the personality traits of the individual would determine if this need leads to more destruction or more construction. This inherent energy, coupled with a lack of opportunity is, I feel, what leads to the dramatic dysfunctionality we love. It is the first rule of child psychology, that any attention is better than none at all.
ReplyDelete