Movie Art and the Nature of Story

Almost anyone who has taught film studies has drawn on one of the numerous editions of the superb textbook by David Bordwell and Kristin Thompson Film Art. I have done so in a number of courses involved in the field. However, since my courses have been part of the popular culture component of programs at the English department of my university in Poland, I have effectively been teaching about movies. In fact, the textbook itself is to a large extent about movies. Put fairly simply, film is a term that initially was to give the subject of motion pictures an added degree of respect, since early on arguments for recognizing them as art often dealt with more ambitious “films.” So the term was eventually favored in university programs on the subject when it was finally accepted for study in the Anglosphere. Even so, at a later stage it was bold enough for the authors of the textbook to maintain they were dealing with an art form, since many film scholars basically understood motion pictures as a socio-political product and not much more. The Frankfurt School played a role in this. To the rescue for many of us came philosopher of art Noël Carroll who introduced arguments from a different perspective in the debate, provocatively writing about popular culture as potentially “mass art,” arguing the two components are not mutually exclusive. My essay will be along that vein of thought by discussing “movie art.” I will primarily discuss the nature of movie art and story on the example of several movies.

Among the more traditional questions raised by looking at the movie as an art form is its relationship with high art. At an existential level, this problem was raised in the documentary Ennio of 2022, which presented the career of Ennio Morricone, who composed the memorable musical scores for The Good, the Bad and the Ugly and The Mission, among numerous others. Morricone was a promising composer of serious music who graduated from a conservatory in Italy, and was taught by a master of the art. The most dramatic crisis in his artistic life was when he turned in earnest to composing scores for popular movies, and received a good deal of criticism from his peers for allegedly denigrating his talents in the service of such a low form. Yet toward the end of his career at least some of his fellow graduates acknowledged this turn.

One of the amusing anecdotes within the documentary was when Clint Eastwood praised Morricone, expressing gratitude that the composer’s music for Sergio Leone made his performances in the renowned trilogy of westerns seem dramatic, which he both humbly and humorously claimed was no easy task. This brought to my mind his earlier performances in the television series Rawhide, as well as the entire series. I recall watching the series as a child: a rather ordinary, not particularly memorable series, even though it starred the talented Hollywood character actor Ward Bond who appeared in numerous movie classics. So Eastwood certainly catapulted over his acting origins thanks to Leone and, yes, Morricone. For many it was likely biographical information on the actor that reminded them of the existence of the series.

But fans of the Blues Brothers will remember their performance of the Rawhide theme song in the movie they gave their name to. Worth noting, performing the song hinted at considerable humility on the part of the stars from Saturday Night Live, who helped revive the popularity of the blues and soul on television, but seemed to realize that in a musical where genuine artists such as, among others, John Lee Hooker, Ray Charles and Aretha Franklin were engaged, they had better limit their performances of the blues to the absolutely necessary ones, such as in the movie’s climax. And so the catchy Rawhide theme served the purpose of introducing them as musicians in the movie quite well. More importantly, in its comic narrative The Blues Brothers (1980) creatively traces the roots of rock music. This provides a crucial service. In her book Hole in Our Soul: The Loss of Beauty and Meaning in American Popular Music (1994) Martha Bayles studies the eventual decline of rock, convincingly arguing the phenomenon developed once the music started turning away from its fecund roots in the blues and soul, coincidentally more or less at the time of the movie’s release. From such a perspective the movie conveys an important message that the best popular music, which rock at its peak certainly was, is firmly rooted in a vibrant tradition, which is also true for the art of storytelling in the artistic medium of the movie.

Early in this century Michael Tierno wrote the textbook Aristotle’s Poetics for Screenwriters (2002). In terms of that fundamental understanding of motion picture aesthetics, music makes it in the top six vital elements but plot is the most important. And since on occasion art cinema exhibits contemporary high art disdain for traditional elements, like the mundane plot, arguably Hollywood follows this rule more closely, especially in its major works. Stated more plainly story is what makes a movie. I will now look at a couple of reflexive movies that explore the nature of storytelling and so bring out what might be called the self-understanding of the medium in this vein.

Rob Reiner’s Princess Bride (1987) starts off with a grandfather—played superbly by Peter Falk—visiting his bed-ridden grandson to entertain him while the child’s mother goes off to work. He informs his skeptical listener, who is dismayed that he will actually be read a story, that in his day “television used to be called books.” Thus right at the onset of the movie the narrative stresses the importance of tradition in storytelling, where the medium is only part of the message. Grandfather and child quickly discuss the content of the story, primarily to test whether it will meet the expectations of the youngster for adventure. These expectations are fairly typical for what appeals to young boys. In other words, the story must be entertaining, otherwise he will not be interested in it and at best only passively consent to the experience.

So the “book” story proceeds, visualized on the screen for the broader audience. Yet initially it is accompanied by the grandfather’s voiceover, so that the verbal source in tradition of the conveyed story is made certain, and likewise with the child’s pointed comments, that also make the ostensible target audience’s perception of the tale quite clear. The tale is set in a far off land in the distant past: a fairly straightforward fairytale setting. Early in the story the protagonists are introduced, a landowning young lady and her farmhand. Soon a romantic bond develops between them, and here the visual aspect takes on particular importance: they seal their emerging love with a kiss. The boy interrupts his grandfather, asking in disgust whether this is “a kissing story.” Via a voiceover the storyteller rushes through a plot twist, with the apparent death of the young farmhand who had set off in the world to make his fortune, and the child gleefully responds: “Murdered by pirates is good!” So the narrative waltz is set: adventure and entertainment keeps the demanding audience attentive, which is counteracted by the development of a central relationship that encounters various tests in order to mature. The “audience” also matures: the boy complains more than once about the kissing, but eventually accepts the final kiss. This demonstrates it is crucial that a story meet certain expectations of the intended recipients while also presenting insights that might stimulate and challenge, even enrich the audience.

As a motion picture The Princess Bride fits the family film genre with a fairytale at its narrative base. One of the great storytellers of the twentieth century, J.R.R. Tolkien, had a specific criticism of fairytales addressed to children, which could be pertinent to much of early children’s literature. What annoyed the writer as he expressed it in his essay “On Fairy-Stories” was the problem of the double addressee in these stories. In other words, he was against a double narrative: one addressed to the child, the other where there are elements that are to amuse the adult storyteller engaged in reading the story to his or her charge. Tolkien felt this was unfair and patronizing toward the child. And one might add the same is case in some family films; for instance, it is fairly evident in The Wizard of Oz (1939) in which there is certainly humor addressed to the adults watching the movie with the children. What can be noted in The Princess Bride is the story works for the adult viewer without patronizing the child. And although it is quite amusing in places specifically for the adult it is not laughing behind the child in the audience’s back.

If The Princess Bride is a story that an adult tells a child, in some ways Tim Burton’s Big Fish (2003) is a story a child tells his father, but also one his father tells the viewer. The child is now a young adult himself, so his perspective on story has changed from that of the young child in Princess Bride. The story and the way it is told as a movie has the markings of the director, but is nonetheless different from those he usually tells. Within the movie narrative a young man helps his dying father by telling him the story of how he dies, which assists the latter in accepting his human fate. Yet, that son introduces the dominant narration of the movie with the voiceover: “In telling the story of my father’s life, it is impossible to separate fact from fiction, the man from the myth. It doesn’t always make sense, and most of it never happened. But that’s what kind of story it is.” In other words, he is effectively explaining the nature of the story which we receive on the screen, but also considerably more.

Burton’s own father had died not long before he decided to adapt Daniel Wallace’s novel of the same title. So the story obviously had a special meaning for the director. It also constituted a reflection about his art at a critical moment in his life. As such, Big Fish can be recommended to those not particularly interested in Burton’s films, much like David Lynch’s Straight Story.

Arguably, from that voiceover introduction we have the dilemma of the storyteller as well as every human. As Alasdair MacIntyre puts it, we are all storytelling animals. The stories we tell ourselves from the virtue ethics perspective the philosopher represents help us make sense of our lives and that of others, obviously not without a struggle. As a work of art, the story in Big Fish is in part attempting to make sense of life at the personal and interpersonal level but also at some metaphysical level, if not exactly a religious one. It is also examining how stories help us in that quest. But if in The Princess Bride a fairytale is told to a child, the story form Burton is particularly interested in is the tall tale: an American tradition with various mutations, and one the director had explored himself in a contemporary manner in his earlier movies such as Batman or Beetlejuice.

In the movie, Edward Bloom, the father, is a salesman and a notorious teller of fish tales, of which he is often the hero: the eponymous “big fish.” His son Will is a reporter, a storyteller of facts. Worth noting, a fish tale often exaggerates the present or personal experience, so facts are playfully distorted—given the right flavor, as the elder Bloom would say. The inevitable conflict of the protagonists with their two diverse means of storytelling drives the plot of the story. But the conflict is also philosophical: where is the truth, in the “myths” or the “facts,” in story or reason. Fortunately, Big Fish does not give a simple answer, the introductory voiceover promises an open-ended approach to the questions and the movie largely delivers. The opening fish tale in the movie that the father tells at his son’s wedding—much to the latter’s chagrin—evokes the role of myth in communicating love. And his wife, the object of this love in the movie, quite evidently also loves him deeply to the very end. At other times the self-aggrandizement within his tales can be overbearing. Meanwhile, as his father is dying, the son’s investigations uncover elements of truth in the tall tales that had upset him so much. This is part of the reason he finally accepts his father and helps him through the last rites of story to part with this world in peace. The father also dies with the knowledge the tradition of storytelling will continue through his son, as the tale told in the movie itself confirms. Hence, there is both continuity and change. This is part and parcel of good storytelling, with tradition and innovation given their due.

In her essay “A Defense of Popular Culture” from the turn of the century, political philosopher Mary P. Nichols writes: “Popular culture is popular because it resonates with life. At its worst it resonates with the lowest, most vulgar aspects of life, but at its best it appeals to life’s complexity, its nobility, and its wisdom.” What is the most important aspect of life that a movie story can resonate with? Early in Princess Bride the narrating grandfather makes the voiceover point that when the farmhand responded to requests from the farm owner, he always said to her: “As you wish.” She soon understood with these words he was communicating to her that he loved her and that finally she loved him too. After he finishes reading the story, his grandson now graciously says it can be read it to him again another time. The grandfather replies: “As you wish.” The message is quite clear. And love is certainly what makes that movie story resonate with life, and it is not alone in this—more frequently this is true among the better movies within the eudemonistic tradition of the happy ending. Can it be just a coincidence that when MacIntyre recovered virtue ethics in moral philosophy shortly afterwards Jane Austen with her adult eudemonistic spirit and ethos was rediscovered through adaptations and pervaded some of the best movies of the 1990s? The philosopher praised Austen in After Virtue, but that could hardly have affected the phenomenon. The tradition, however, is currently in decline, perhaps because, at this time, so many people seem to have so much trouble finding happiness in their own lives, and movies reflect this. My wish, if I were to put it that way, is for many more people around us to find their way to that end. If this were so, I’m certain it would find resonance in more than just the movies.

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