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Message: <blockquote data-quote="barsoomcore" data-source="post: 1290822" data-attributes="member: 812">Whoah, sorry folks. Off on holidays and let all my responsibilities slide. Won't happen again, I assure you.*rubs hands together*Now, where to start?Oh, yeah, welcome back, reaper -- and good catch. I'd entirely forgotten that. So, apologies to you, LightPhoenix, for my insistent denials that I'd ever suggested I figured out a particular movie. Though I can't say that figuring out Identity is a sign of particular cleverness -- [spoiler]I mean, we keep cutting to the insane serial killer who looks nothing like anyone else in the story. A little multiple personality isn't too big jump, I say. I don't even consider THAT the big twist in the film -- the twist is who survives in the end. And that I didn't figure. Still pissed me off, but not because I guessed it.[/spoiler]Okay, we're using different definitions. How do you describe a film that you yourself did not enjoy? I'm using the word "failure" to describe a film that fails to entertain ME. I'm not going to take the fall because a writer isn't smart enough to keep me guessing, or a director isn't good enough to keep me engrossed, or an actor isn't charismatic enough to keep me interested.A film that fails to entertain me is a failure, and it is on that basis that I say the writer of a film that fails to entertain me, FOR ANY REASON, has failed. Now, you're using "failure" to mean, "Disliked by the majority of people," which means you're talking about popular acceptance, not artistic success. The one can be measured by a polling of audiences, the other cannot.Actually, this goes beyond film (and indeed, beyond writing) so let's just say the teller of a story that fails to entertain me has failed. "Teller" and "Story" being nice general terms that might apply to all sorts of situations.Now, they may or may not care. Britney Spears almost certainly does not care about my opinion of her music. But I can still make statements like "Britney Spears is a failure and here's why," and be justified in doing so, no matter how popular she may be.Arguments like, "Well, she's really popular so she can't be a failure," do not address the reasoning of the statement and so don't demonstrate it's incorrectness.Failure and success in art will forever be subjective things. In business, not at all, and you can always say, "Well, it was financially successful," but that has NO bearing on its artistic success, which must be determined individually by each audience member. Quoting piles of reviews that agree with your opinion may be nice for your self-image, but don't necessarily have any bearing on any particular position.I disagree with extreme prejudice. Writing a twist that nobody can guess is a method of entertaining people. One of many. Story-telling well and entertaining your audience are synonyms. A well-told story is one that entertains. At the least -- it may do many things besides, but if it doesn't entertain, it's not well-told.Now we come to the question of audience frame of reference. Let's take Sophocles. That Sophocles has entertained many people is clear -- the plays have survived because of their ability to entertain audiences through the ages. That reading Sophocles may not entertain casual readers of today is likewise clear -- there is a frame of reference that Sophocles takes for granted that is very different from what most people carry around with them nowadays.We have to learn to appreciate Sophocles. We have to acquire a frame of reference in which the plays become entertaining.So sometimes when a story fails to entertain us, we need to consider frame of reference. Often the first time we're exposed to material from an unfamiliar f.o.r., we dislike it or reject it. Only after time do we acquire the background we need to understand the material.But once we do, we can then once again offer our opinions as to the success or failure of individual works of art -- in our subjective way. And of course sometimes when we think a work has failed, what's really happened is that our frame of reference is sufficiently misaligned with that of the storyteller that we cannot appreciate the work.It is the mark of truly great storytellers that their material tends to transcend frames of reference and resonate even for people who haven't learnt to appreciate it. Shakespeare springs to mind, here. People who cannot read Shakespeare for pleasure will still flock to movies made from his plays.If we examine the hypothetical opinion that "Identity is a failure because it's so easy to figure out the ending and once you do the film is boring as all heck," it doesn't look like a problem with frame of reference. It MIGHT be, but it doesn't look like.Note that I don't think Identity is a failure for that reason. The reasons for the failure of Identity are many and varied, though it was not without rewards (hurrah for John Cusack). But discussing that individual film seems a little limited in the scope of this discussion.As a storyteller, I can't afford to have that attitude. If my audience loses interest for ANY reason, it behooves me to find out why and figure out if I can improve my story somehow so as not to lose my audience's attention.Yes, I do. When the story isn't gripping enough that I forget all that. Which is why I keep saying it's a failure on the part of the storytellers. It's their JOB to keep me so engrossed, so enthralled, that I forget I'm being told a story. If they can't do that, they have failed.Sure, and there's such a thing as being a good audience. It's easy to just sit there in cynicism and snideness and poke holes in something. Stories are delicate things and have to be treated with respect.But you can't just say to people, "Stop poking holes in the story!" They need a REASON to be engaged, they need the story to take them "into the moment." A story that can't do that is failing. And I don't believe that the best response is to simply put one's brain aside and effortlessly suspend one's disbelief. To do so for a story that hasn't earned it is to cheat yourself of intellectual growth. Great stories don't ask us to kid ourselves, and settling uncomplaining for mediocre stories only makes it harder for us to truly appreciate the good stuff.</blockquote>

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