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Ponderings on metagenre
Jun. 2nd, 2012 02:25 pmI was hoping to spend the afternoon up in Harriman State Park (about 45 minutes this side of Yellowstone), but it looks like yesterday's start to the Scout fitness program has done a number on son 2's foot (the one he broke over Easter). He's not writhing in agony, but maybe he shouldn't have tried running on it... Besides, it's supposed to storm up there in a few hours. Nice down here in the valley, though. And um...since I went with them to see how fast I could do a mile, I am also sore. I have been running off and on as possible through school events, and I can tell that it's getting easier, but I pushed myself more than usual to keep up with my boys, and now...ouchie.
We finally watched Hugo last night. It was visually very fun to watch, but I found myself analyzing it, too. (One of the hazards of being a writer is that you tend to automatically deconstruct/edit everything you read or watch.) The kids felt very...self aware. I'm around a LOT of kids all the time (not just my own), and these two just had a really adult perspective for their age. It's not a precocious factor, and it doesn't have anything to with how smart they are; it was more like they were unnaturally aware of how they felt in any given situation, where I think a kid would feel in the moment but maybe not have enough life experiences to see what that really meant. It might be simply a factor of adapting a book to a movie--you can make character growth seem more gradual and solid in a book, but a movie has only so many minutes, and so sometimes that growth can feel a bit jerky or unsubstantiated. By 3/4 of the way through, though, it felt like it evened out.
Hugo was a lovely film and it got a lot of awards. I can think of other lovely films that haven't gotten any. The movies I like are usually ones based on a (usually children's) book, and movies aimed at children, especially with fantasy elements, are usually skimmed over for awards like this. I think one thing Hugo had going for it awardwise was that it was about the movies. It's funny, but there's a certain sub-genre running through all the arts that's sort of a metagenre thing. Books about young writers, movies about the movies, musicals about Broadway shows, and songs about writing songs. I think that sometimes it works, and certainly there is room for it, but a narrow focus like that isn't necessarily going to hook everyone. It's like--if you made a movie about dentists, with great cinematography, people who spend all day looking inside other people's mouths might be very moved. But I...probably wouldn't. If you made a movie about a dentist who is heartbroken because his true love died when a tooth extraction went wrong, and now he's got a second chance at love but she's just come in to have her wisdom teeth out and wants him to do it--well, that's not just about dental work. Hugo, of course, was about the movies and also fixing broken people. But sometimes that metagenre thing just doesn't work. (See Latvia's Eurovision song entry this year (http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=BeXo4HzpmuU)--lovely tune and lovely voice, but people simply aren't going to vote for a song about a song because it doesn't appeal enough to core emotions, to use Save the Cat! terminology.) I do think that the Academy people took special note of Hugo because it was, in a sense, all about them.
Things I particularly liked about Hugo: the automaton and the hanging from the clock and the repetition of the kid on the tracks. I also smiled because the girl (Isabelle? My copy of the book mysteriously disappeared in the mail while moving back from Germany) looked SO much like Jackie Dolamore, and of course, both Hugo and Magic Under Glass have an automaton (although they are very, very different stories otherwise). And I loved how so many different elements combined into the same story (Clocks/trains/automaton/toys/movies). And I was fascinated by the train station guard, who was the mean villain, and yet you couldn't help feeling sorry for him because he was part clockwork himself, a little broken, and felt it would prevent him from what he really wanted (to impress the flower girl). Although if I were the flower girl and I saw him chase down an innocent orphan like that, I would have some serious second thoughts, just saying.
We finally watched Hugo last night. It was visually very fun to watch, but I found myself analyzing it, too. (One of the hazards of being a writer is that you tend to automatically deconstruct/edit everything you read or watch.) The kids felt very...self aware. I'm around a LOT of kids all the time (not just my own), and these two just had a really adult perspective for their age. It's not a precocious factor, and it doesn't have anything to with how smart they are; it was more like they were unnaturally aware of how they felt in any given situation, where I think a kid would feel in the moment but maybe not have enough life experiences to see what that really meant. It might be simply a factor of adapting a book to a movie--you can make character growth seem more gradual and solid in a book, but a movie has only so many minutes, and so sometimes that growth can feel a bit jerky or unsubstantiated. By 3/4 of the way through, though, it felt like it evened out.
Hugo was a lovely film and it got a lot of awards. I can think of other lovely films that haven't gotten any. The movies I like are usually ones based on a (usually children's) book, and movies aimed at children, especially with fantasy elements, are usually skimmed over for awards like this. I think one thing Hugo had going for it awardwise was that it was about the movies. It's funny, but there's a certain sub-genre running through all the arts that's sort of a metagenre thing. Books about young writers, movies about the movies, musicals about Broadway shows, and songs about writing songs. I think that sometimes it works, and certainly there is room for it, but a narrow focus like that isn't necessarily going to hook everyone. It's like--if you made a movie about dentists, with great cinematography, people who spend all day looking inside other people's mouths might be very moved. But I...probably wouldn't. If you made a movie about a dentist who is heartbroken because his true love died when a tooth extraction went wrong, and now he's got a second chance at love but she's just come in to have her wisdom teeth out and wants him to do it--well, that's not just about dental work. Hugo, of course, was about the movies and also fixing broken people. But sometimes that metagenre thing just doesn't work. (See Latvia's Eurovision song entry this year (http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=BeXo4HzpmuU)--lovely tune and lovely voice, but people simply aren't going to vote for a song about a song because it doesn't appeal enough to core emotions, to use Save the Cat! terminology.) I do think that the Academy people took special note of Hugo because it was, in a sense, all about them.
Things I particularly liked about Hugo: the automaton and the hanging from the clock and the repetition of the kid on the tracks. I also smiled because the girl (Isabelle? My copy of the book mysteriously disappeared in the mail while moving back from Germany) looked SO much like Jackie Dolamore, and of course, both Hugo and Magic Under Glass have an automaton (although they are very, very different stories otherwise). And I loved how so many different elements combined into the same story (Clocks/trains/automaton/toys/movies). And I was fascinated by the train station guard, who was the mean villain, and yet you couldn't help feeling sorry for him because he was part clockwork himself, a little broken, and felt it would prevent him from what he really wanted (to impress the flower girl). Although if I were the flower girl and I saw him chase down an innocent orphan like that, I would have some serious second thoughts, just saying.
