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Docudrama main character

On one level, that of content, docudrama has much in common with melodrama. The nature of the struggle, the positioning of the main character, and the tone are similar. But on the issue of style, the manner of presentation of the story, they differ. The docudrama is concerned with a particular kind of style, a style that assures an aura of veracity. This style may be present in the melodrama, but it is never as central a feature as it is in the docudrama. [Pg.171]

In the melodrama, the character and his or her goal seem to transcend time and place. The reason is that at its heart, melodrama is about psychology, behavior, and interior issues in a sense, the dramatic arc of the main character is an inner journey. Consequently, the externalities of time and place are subsidiary to the internal dynamics of character. Mike Van Diem s Character, discussed in the previous chapter, is an excellent benchmark. The main character s family life, his ambition, and his self-abnegation far transcend the sense of Rotterdam in the 1920s. We are aware of Rotterdam, its poverty, and its labor unrest, but none of this overrides the interior journey of the main character. In docudrama the reverse is true. Place and time not only transcend character, they are central to the experience of docudrama. In Ken Loach s Wednesday s Child, the prevailing ideas of antipsychiatry in the London of the 1960s override the film being considered as a family drama about dysfunction and... [Pg.172]

In the melodrama, plot (if deployed) is a primary barrier to the main character and his or her goal. If the main character and the goal are less important in the docudrama, how is plot used In Peter Watkin s Culloden, the battle itself, the last battle fought on British soil, dominates the narrative. Although there are many characters on both sides of the battle, their vividness does not dominate the story indeed, there is no single main character. The course of the event, which is the plot, dominates the narrative. [Pg.173]

Although the docudrama can proceed without a main character if it chronicles an event, more often there is a main character, and that character does have a goal. The difference between melodrama and docudrama is actually one of point of view how the main character and his or her goal is deployed. [Pg.179]

In melodrama, we enter and experience the story through the main character. In docudrama, however, the point of view—or point of entry to the story—is via the writer-director, whose point of view is not necessarily that of the main character. In fact, the main character and his or her goal is simply the vehicle by which the writer-director presents his or her views on the story. In Land and Freedom, Ken Loach wants to say something about idealism and about how realpolitik destroys the idealism that arises out of hopeful political ideology. He uses the main character and his consequent disillusionment as the vehicle for that idea. In this film, the view of the writer-director exists separately from the main character and his goal. The main character and his goal become the lightning rod for the ideas of the writer-director. [Pg.179]

Plot in the melodrama is used in opposition to the main character and his or her goal. Since the role (that is, view) of the writer-director is the dominant presence in the docudrama, a parallel process goes on in the deployment of plot. Plot serves to illustrate, and make the case for, the views of the writer-director. In Culloden, Peter Watkins has particular views on the imperialism of England vis-a-vis Scotland, and Scotland s 18th-century venture into nationalism. The plot, the Battle of Culloden, is Watkins s case against England, and he finds the country guilty. [Pg.180]

Several of the previously mentioned docudramas use narrators. It is by no means mandatory that there be a narrator however, the device, borrowed from documentary, is commonly used in docudrama. Very often that narrator assumes the journalistic role of reporter, and so the structure proceeds as a piece of reportage (Culloden). Another approach to the narrator is to use a diarist. In Loach s Land and Freedom, the letters of the main character document the story. [Pg.180]

This differs from the playwright s approach to a real life event, such as the Battle of Gallipoli. David Williamson s treatment of events in the Peter Weir film Gallipoli is very dramatic, and we do enter the story through the experience of two main characters. The treatment, however, is very different from the narrator approach earlier described for the docudrama. [Pg.180]

Having elaborated upon the features of the docudrama in the long film, what is the balance between subject matter and style in the short film Are main character and goal, plot, and tone deployed in a manner that supports the authorial voice How much if any variance in tone does the short docudrama tolerate These are questions to which we now turn. [Pg.181]


See other pages where Docudrama main character is mentioned: [Pg.173]    [Pg.175]    [Pg.187]   
See also in sourсe #XX -- [ Pg.173 ]




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