The idea of 'restful, contemplative art' is so different from what is considered as entertainment; which may be more about distraction. — Jack Cummins
They blur into the background of the stimuli of life experiences. — Jack Cummins
In the time of the pandemic it was a case of watching news to see what was permitted with the changing guidelines. It was also the unveiling of tragedies of deaths throughout the world, with everyone being at risk potentially and responsible for action in not spreading the virus.
Even now, it is possible that there is a moral panic about contamination, even in conjunction with bedbugs rising. — Jack Cummins
Personally, I find that too much drama in real life gets in the way of creative activities, like creative writing and stories It can be as if the outer dramas consume too much inner energy. Of course, the challenge may be to be creative in channelling the difficulties of life into forms of art, but it not an easy task at all. — Jack Cummins
:death: :flower:A sense of the absurd and humour can help with perspective. Life is tragi-comedy. A mix of tough and funny. We get on with it — Amity
:100: :zip:But most people, most of the time, don't want to reflect and contemplate; we just need distractions. Mass entertainment provides a good laugh or cry or rant to blow off emotional steam. The problem today is that there is simply too much of it. You don't have to seek out the distraction most suited to your mood; distractions pursue and harass you everywhere; jarring graphic images and BAD MUSIC are inescapable. — Vera Mont
:up: :up:A larger problem for young people is that life experience blurs into, is confused with and sometimes subsumed by virtual, electronic life. It's not a problem for old people like me... — Vera Mont
There is the relief of not experiencing the bad luck as pointed out by Moliere quoting Lucretius upthread. — Paine
But there are elements that are meant to leave the audience with some discomfort. The theme of blindness and fear of the future started when baby Oedipus is left to die on a hillside. — Paine
Prophecy is supposed to pierce the invisibility of fate but becomes an instrument of fate in some points of crisis. — Paine
A self-fulfilling prophecy can have either negative or positive outcomes. Merely applying a label to someone or something can affect the perception of the person/thing and create a self-fulfilling prophecy. Interpersonal communication plays a significant role in establishing these phenomena as well as impacting the labeling process [...]
Philosopher Karl Popper called the self-fulfilling prophecy the Oedipus effect:
One of the ideas I had discussed in The Poverty of Historicism was the influence of a prediction upon the event predicted. I had called this the "Oedipus effect", because the oracle played a most important role in the sequence of events which led to the fulfilment of its prophecy. [...] For a time I thought that the existence of the Oedipus effect distinguished the social from the natural sciences. But in biology, too—even in molecular biology—expectations often play a role in bringing about what has been expected. — Self-fulfilling prophecy - wiki
I leave the play less certain of where I live. Maybe I am the one who is blind. — Paine
But I also want to quote Artaud, whose theory of theatre gives a different picture to the pleasure of tragedy: [...]
Artaud is a more poetic writer and so subject to interpretation, but what I've always taken him to mean is that the function of tragedy is to fulfill our anti-social desires through the magic of theatre: the savage desire to kill your enemy can be not just seen from a distince, but felt in the interior -- so it gives an opposite reason for the pleasure of tragedy. Rather than because we are distant from it we come to experience a part of ourselves that we normally couldn't. — Moliere
↪180 Proof Would you consider Deadwood as an example of a modern tragedy?
— Tom Storm
No, imo, it's more of an absurdist historical drama (if that's not too oxmoronic). Instead I consider the first season of True Detective to be "a modern tragedy". — 180 Proof
I interpret True Detective (s1) as a "modern tragedy" because the story, while very atmospheric could take place anywhere , is mostly about 'professional' (rather than royal / noble) protagonists who are inescapably driven by death (re: fear, guilt / ghosts, violence, despair) to 'the edge of status quo destroying' madness (i.e. an analogue for or symbol of the supernatural / demonic / revelation).180, what is the difference between a modern tragedy and an absurdist historical drama, whatever the hell that is ? What makes True Detective, S1 a 'modern tragedy'? — Amity
I was wondering what tragedy looked like outside of the classical canon — Tom Storm
Why? Do you have a thesis to write? :wink:Two of my all-time favorite television shows. I need to watch both again soon. — 180 Proof
Despite receiving a somewhat classical education (Shakespeare/Marlowe/Sophocles/Euripedes) I have no great love of the tradition. — Tom Storm
And indeed researchers have found evidence that over the past couple of decades, people's attention spans have shrunk considerably.
Shakespeare's trajedies(and comedies) have probably had such a cultural influence in thinking, making him(or Francis Bacon or whoever wrote the plays) a significant philosopher as well as playwright. — Jack Cummins
OK. So, why did Deadwood, in particular, come to mind as a possibility? — Amity
Perhaps the educators didn't inspire - or just not to your taste. — Amity
The differences between King Lear and Macbeth involve different kinds of ignorance. — Paine
Two of my all-time favorite television shows. I need to watch both again soon.
— 180 Proof
Why? Do you have a thesis to write? — Amity
...with great subtlety and majestic darkness it explores fate, human suffering, moral dilemmas, loss and characters with fatal flaws. — Tom Storm
[...] It’s not hard to imagine Deadwood as the tragedy Shakespeare would have written had he lived long enough to see the American experiment unfold and been hired to write about it for HBO. Some of its soliloquies, especially those Al Swearengen speaks to a decapitated Indian head in a box throughout the series, are as sublimely crafted and as existentially heavy as anything the Bard gave to Hamlet or Lear, Macbeth or Romeo.
But also Milch’s Shakespearean interest in puns and lowbrow humor injects the otherwise dark Deadwood with levity and absurdity. During the film’s first scene where Calamity Jane rides solo to town, she speaks of passing wind and complains of a blister on her left ass cheek. Later, E. B. Farnum does a little I-have-to-pee dance whilst George Hearst goes on and on about the inevitability of progress.
— Literary Hub - Deadwood
Aware of his own compulsions and the solitary stress of writing, Milch wrote by dictation in the presence of others. He would discuss character arcs and plot elements in the writer’s room by committee, and would often change course based on valuable feedback from collaborators, including actors. Lying on the floor in his office, he would dictate script action and dialogue to a typist, often spending hours on single phrases and sentences, retooling them.
This focus on language is one of Deadwood’s great strengths. David Milch explains to Keith Carradine that, because of the idiosyncratic nature of the Old West, language was brute and harsh, but often masked with a Victorian vocabulary due the literary education of some inhabitants. “There was the cohabitation of the primitively obscene with this…ornate presentation,” Milch adds. The unique setting dictated the way of communication between friends and foes, as the chance of violence for a wrong phrase shadowed every interaction. The “thickness” of the language, Carradine notes, intimidated viewers initially. Once you get used to the dialogue, as I too had to do, the language is flourishing and immerses you in the show. — Theme, Character and Language in Deadwood - Half Past Ten
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