stories can gain richness through unexplained details. this may be “cheating” on the author’s part, but who cares, they make them more enjoyable. otherwise you fall into the pure allegory trap.
It is cheating; otherwise, why I can’t I just randomly generate a story and then wag my finger at people who don’t “get” what everything refers to, while never offering an explanation of my own?
For an example of this practice at its worst, see the move 2001: A Space Oddessy, starting from the “Jupiter and Beyond the Infinite” card.
Well, you know that there was a quite coherent idea behind that sequence (made clear in the 2001 novel Arthur C. Clarke then wrote), but that when it came to filming it… well, it’s Stanley Kubrick.
How much evidence do we have that the idea preceded the sequence, rather than being a post-hoc rationalization (“techno-babble”)? I’m sure there’s a lot of both in the relation between the book and the film.
Yeah, good point. Just to clarify, the book is okay with regard to that sequence, but the movie, taken in isolation, basically gives up on trying to make sense there. And Kubrick wasn’t big on explaining what it meant, thereby leaving the heavy lifting to the viewer.
Moviegoers should not be expected to bring their own superior allegory mappings.
stories can gain richness through unexplained details. this may be “cheating” on the author’s part, but who cares, they make them more enjoyable. otherwise you fall into the pure allegory trap.
It is cheating; otherwise, why I can’t I just randomly generate a story and then wag my finger at people who don’t “get” what everything refers to, while never offering an explanation of my own?
For an example of this practice at its worst, see the move 2001: A Space Oddessy, starting from the “Jupiter and Beyond the Infinite” card.
and 2001 is considered a masterpiece. kubrick wins.
Well, you know that there was a quite coherent idea behind that sequence (made clear in the 2001 novel Arthur C. Clarke then wrote), but that when it came to filming it… well, it’s Stanley Kubrick.
How much evidence do we have that the idea preceded the sequence, rather than being a post-hoc rationalization (“techno-babble”)? I’m sure there’s a lot of both in the relation between the book and the film.
Yeah, good point. Just to clarify, the book is okay with regard to that sequence, but the movie, taken in isolation, basically gives up on trying to make sense there. And Kubrick wasn’t big on explaining what it meant, thereby leaving the heavy lifting to the viewer.
Moviegoers should not be expected to bring their own superior allegory mappings.
And then there are those that never tried to make sense in the first place, such as the film Eraserhead by David Lynch, and the anime/manga FLCL...