Uses of story
Apr. 29th, 2006 08:06 pm![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
pegkerrI have been thinking more about the discussion on my post about the United 93 movie. I am rash, perhaps, to go back to this topic, since the discussion waxed rather wroth, but I started thinking in a more general way about story after talking with ![[livejournal.com profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/external/lj-userinfo.gif)
kijjohnson and will try to elaborate on my thoughts here.
I thought about how those who seemed the most uneasy that the movie was made at all particularly stressed that the movie wasn't true. The filmmakers dared to picture and film events which might have happened but others which maybe did not, and how did they dare to do so? First of all, it is all very distressing to relive these events, and second of all, wouldn't this muddling of the true and the fictional simply confuse people?
I realized, suddenly, that for a fiction writer like me (at least when I am not blocked) the question "is this story true?" sounds completely different to my ear than it does to a non-fiction writer like, sayminnehaha B. (to take a completely random example). When minnehaha asks "is this true?" it means, did this event happen exactly this way? What proof do we have? Did the person depicted say exactly that? What was the precise sequence of events? Who knows these things? Are they trustworthy?
But to someone like me, the way I often use story (unconsciously much of the time, although I am looking at this process quite deliberately now) "Is it true?" means, does this tell a true thing about the way people really are? Is it fair? Does it get at the heart of things? Does it reflect the point of view accurately? Does it zero in on what is really matters?
Tolkien talked about the Cauldron of Story in in his essay Tree and Leaf; writers put bits of things into the cauldron, both delicate and unhealthy, and let it bubble and blend, and then eventually serve it up. As to the charge that the elements of the movie are too distressing to deliberately expose myself to again, yes, but the fiction writer part of me is always looking for powerful ingredients to add to my Cauldron. Understand, I don't mean that I have a taste for horror. I mean that there is something in me that seeks out stories of honor, of courage, power, of passionate clashes, of high stakes, choices that matter.
Tolkien had much to say about writing, or the highest form of it which he called "subcreation." Read "Tree and Leaf" to get all of what he says; I certainly can't boil it all down for you in a short LJ post, but much of it is on point here. He defends humanity's urge to make story (which is often under attack). We seek Recovery (a regaining of a clear view, of understanding things as they really are), Escape (not escape from reality--Tolkien cautions us to understand this as Escape of the Prisoner rather than Flight of the Deserter--but the Great Escape from death) and Consolation. United 93 did not quite achieve what Tolkien called "Eucatastrophe," the consolation of the unexpected joyous ending, as it would have if the passengers had managed to fight off the terrorists and safely land the plane. But it was certainly not the Dyscatastrophe, the sorrow and failure, that the other three flights were.
This is not to say that I fail to understand or value what the non-fiction writer sees and values about the story/history of United 93. I see those things, too. But my mind naturally follows other paths.
I remember a television production I saw of the Arabian Nights which was made in 2000, which had a most interesting and subtle consideration of story. The production made extremely clear that Scheherezade wasn't simply telling stories to the king to save her own life, to fascinate him so that he wouldn't kill her. The king, it was clear, was mentally and spiritually ill, sick to the heart by betrayal and unable to trust. She was actually physicking him, choosing and tailoring his stories based not on what would fascinate him the most, but on what he most needed to hear to become mentally whole again. He needed to hear this story because he needed to think about honor, about loyalty, about temptation and how to resist it. The king fell in love with Scheherezade not because he liked the stories, but because she healed him.
There have been cultures which have forbidden story-telling and playacting at all, insisting that people should not tell "lies." Myths are lies, though lies "breathed with silver," Lewis said, before his conversion to Christianity.
"No," Tolkien said, "they are true."
Perhaps the filmmaker has made a "myth" of the story of United 93, a "lie breathed with silver."
I think Tolkien was speaking of a meaning of "true" as I have tried to explain it here.
[Edited to add:huladavid reminded me of another issue here: the question of who has the right to tell a story? Only the people it happened to? (What if there are no survivors; does this mean the story can never be told?) Only people from that city? That socio-economic group? That culture? That country? This was something I wrestled with when writing Swans: do I have the right to write from the P-O-V of gay men in New York City when I'm a (mostly) heterosexual chick from the Midwest?]
I may have confused you all horribly. I am not at all satisfied that I have made myself clear. If so, I am sorry. Anyway, your comments are invited--or at least until it all blows up into volcanic explosion and I have to shut it down again.
kijjohnson and will try to elaborate on my thoughts here.I thought about how those who seemed the most uneasy that the movie was made at all particularly stressed that the movie wasn't true. The filmmakers dared to picture and film events which might have happened but others which maybe did not, and how did they dare to do so? First of all, it is all very distressing to relive these events, and second of all, wouldn't this muddling of the true and the fictional simply confuse people?
I realized, suddenly, that for a fiction writer like me (at least when I am not blocked) the question "is this story true?" sounds completely different to my ear than it does to a non-fiction writer like, say
minnehaha B. (to take a completely random example). When minnehaha asks "is this true?" it means, did this event happen exactly this way? What proof do we have? Did the person depicted say exactly that? What was the precise sequence of events? Who knows these things? Are they trustworthy?But to someone like me, the way I often use story (unconsciously much of the time, although I am looking at this process quite deliberately now) "Is it true?" means, does this tell a true thing about the way people really are? Is it fair? Does it get at the heart of things? Does it reflect the point of view accurately? Does it zero in on what is really matters?
Tolkien talked about the Cauldron of Story in in his essay Tree and Leaf; writers put bits of things into the cauldron, both delicate and unhealthy, and let it bubble and blend, and then eventually serve it up. As to the charge that the elements of the movie are too distressing to deliberately expose myself to again, yes, but the fiction writer part of me is always looking for powerful ingredients to add to my Cauldron. Understand, I don't mean that I have a taste for horror. I mean that there is something in me that seeks out stories of honor, of courage, power, of passionate clashes, of high stakes, choices that matter.
Tolkien had much to say about writing, or the highest form of it which he called "subcreation." Read "Tree and Leaf" to get all of what he says; I certainly can't boil it all down for you in a short LJ post, but much of it is on point here. He defends humanity's urge to make story (which is often under attack). We seek Recovery (a regaining of a clear view, of understanding things as they really are), Escape (not escape from reality--Tolkien cautions us to understand this as Escape of the Prisoner rather than Flight of the Deserter--but the Great Escape from death) and Consolation. United 93 did not quite achieve what Tolkien called "Eucatastrophe," the consolation of the unexpected joyous ending, as it would have if the passengers had managed to fight off the terrorists and safely land the plane. But it was certainly not the Dyscatastrophe, the sorrow and failure, that the other three flights were.
This is not to say that I fail to understand or value what the non-fiction writer sees and values about the story/history of United 93. I see those things, too. But my mind naturally follows other paths.
I remember a television production I saw of the Arabian Nights which was made in 2000, which had a most interesting and subtle consideration of story. The production made extremely clear that Scheherezade wasn't simply telling stories to the king to save her own life, to fascinate him so that he wouldn't kill her. The king, it was clear, was mentally and spiritually ill, sick to the heart by betrayal and unable to trust. She was actually physicking him, choosing and tailoring his stories based not on what would fascinate him the most, but on what he most needed to hear to become mentally whole again. He needed to hear this story because he needed to think about honor, about loyalty, about temptation and how to resist it. The king fell in love with Scheherezade not because he liked the stories, but because she healed him.
There have been cultures which have forbidden story-telling and playacting at all, insisting that people should not tell "lies." Myths are lies, though lies "breathed with silver," Lewis said, before his conversion to Christianity.
"No," Tolkien said, "they are true."
Perhaps the filmmaker has made a "myth" of the story of United 93, a "lie breathed with silver."
I think Tolkien was speaking of a meaning of "true" as I have tried to explain it here.
[Edited to add:
huladavid reminded me of another issue here: the question of who has the right to tell a story? Only the people it happened to? (What if there are no survivors; does this mean the story can never be told?) Only people from that city? That socio-economic group? That culture? That country? This was something I wrestled with when writing Swans: do I have the right to write from the P-O-V of gay men in New York City when I'm a (mostly) heterosexual chick from the Midwest?]I may have confused you all horribly. I am not at all satisfied that I have made myself clear. If so, I am sorry. Anyway, your comments are invited--or at least until it all blows up into volcanic explosion and I have to shut it down again.
![[identity profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/openid.png){kind=small}
United 93 is true: the power of stories to heal.
Date: 2006-04-30 01:18 am (UTC)I believe that is what you mean? It's certainly what I think!
I love the way that stories have the potential to heal. I think we are all kings who need to be physicked sometimes.
Now, there's no way to prevent us abusing the prescription
Adelaide
(no subject)
Date: 2006-04-30 01:24 am (UTC)Facts are, or can be, an ingredient in story: but to Tree and Leaf I would add Le Guin's introduction to The Left Hand of Darkness, where she talks about facts being no more solid and real than pearls are. Conversely, one of the reasons I mistrust Plato is that he would have banned Homer's works from his Republic.
(no subject)
Date: 2006-04-30 01:24 am (UTC)I haven't seen the film. I imagine, like any portrayal of an event where there were no survivors to tell the tale, that the makers of the film attempted to portray how things may have happened, how we may hope that they happened, how the end result that can be factually proven may have been arrived at. And that they have done so in hopes of arriving at something that is, in the numinous sense, true. Maybe other films will be made to illuminate different truths about the same events. That's what we humans do, and have always done.
(no subject)
Date: 2006-04-30 01:27 am (UTC)Regarding "United 93", I must admit to being confused about some people's comments about why would anyone go see a movie about something that really happened...about why you would want to replace the reality with the fictional version. These comments made no sense to me because if you go with that viewpoint, then it says we should never make movies, TV shows, books, etc about real things. Duh. That would basically eliminate the primary inspiration for most artistic endeavours. It's like saying that we should never make movies about the Holocaust or about World War II or about the Titanic, etc. etc.
Surely the acts of creation of movies and books about these things are ways of trying to understand them, to interpret them in different ways, to show different viewpoints about major events, to try to learn some lessons from the horrible things that have happened, to find some catharsis or comfort from sharing these experiences. Surely all of this is good.
When I worked in New York I spent a lot of time at the World Trade Centre. I had business acquaintances who survived 9/11. I still feel sick when I see the empty space along the skyline. As sad as it was that the passengers on United 93 died, they represent the extraordinary traits of human beings that are a direct opposite to the horrible events of that day. So I plan on seeing the movie and I will cry for them.
Flight 93
Date: 2006-04-30 01:28 am (UTC)I'd recommend watching the documentary "Loose Change 2nd Ed." to see these ideas spelled out. If you haven't seen it, you might be interested.
It's at google video at http://video.google.com/videoplay?docid=-5137581991288263801&q=loose+change
Again, I adore you and I just thought this might be interesting, is all.
:)
Hope you have a good day,
Cindy
(no subject)
Date: 2006-04-30 01:37 am (UTC)It's a New Yorker who is ...irked ... by the movie. Here's a quote from the end of her post:
New York will never stop being heartbroken, but heartbreak is about life, not death. And if you're going to open our film festival with this, going to put this on our screens, going to make us watch those ridiculous testimonial ads about this film, we deserve better, not in craft or skill, that's evidently present in large amount. But in art. An event that moved us from one era into another, that negated the fearful imaginings of our nuclear childhoods as not imaginative enough, deserves to have art, not just artfulness. Courage here isn't cementing the apocrypha of the events of that day, but creating it, and recreating it, and calling it story. I don't feel outraged in all of this, merely poorly done by.
I thought that was an interesting take on some of the same issues you're thinking about.
::ducks out before any flamethrowers come out::
Interesting essay...
Date: 2006-04-30 01:41 am (UTC)One thing --and I don't know how/if this relates to the subject at hand, but I was thinking about the whole "it's too soon to make a movie out of x" thing. For me, it's more a matter of "it's too soon for ME to see a movie based on x". An example would be that I took my time before seeing Philadelphia, the months between my buying a copy of And The Band Played On and my finally feeling able to read it, but I don't recall having any reticence about seeing Longtime Companion. Similarly if there's a news report concerning an airliner crash, and they are going to air tape from the "black box" I turn the t.v. or radio off, BUT there was a play done recently based on transcripts of "black box" recording, and I thought the idea was fascinating.
Which causes me to wonder & remember the couple of times while writing The Wild Swans you asked if you had the right to tell an A.I.D.S. story. Which got me thinking about what creators of United 93 might have thought about while filming or writing or acting...
I dunno if this makes any sense.
(no subject)
Date: 2006-04-30 01:50 am (UTC)We're all capable of making artwork (I've been kicking around a Sept. 11th piece), but so few people seem to think they're allowed to paint or write or whatever...
I also wonder if so many people have a problem with U93 maybe has to do with their feeling "I'm not OLD enough to have something that happened within my lifetime 'etched into film' ".
(Gezz, I wonder how I lived with a painter for seven years without getting kicked...)
Re: Interesting essay...
Date: 2006-04-30 02:09 am (UTC)(no subject)
Date: 2006-04-30 02:25 am (UTC)That's an interesting point, though -- that there are a ton of different ways to address 9/11 through art, yet some people feel that they aren't "allowed," or possibly they don't feel like it's worth it, because they don't think anyone will read/watch/look/listen to what they create.
My favorite piece that I've seen is John M. Ford's 110 Stories, which you can read here.
(no subject)
Date: 2006-04-30 02:44 am (UTC)I think it's important to bear in mind that the power of stories can be used for both good and evil purposes. And the same story can mean really drastically different things to different people. For example, there's a lovely (and apparently true -- well, I met this guy on the Internet and he SWEARS up and down that this really happened exactly as he described it) story about a man who was attacked by a butterfly as he was walking through the woods. He realized after a minute that the butterfly was attempting to defend its wounded mate, who he'd been about to step on, so he carefully walked around them. His story was extensively distributed without attribution -- when he discovered this, he e-mailed all the places that had it up and most immediately added his name. (All he wanted was credit for it.) What I found most striking about the sites that lacked attribution was the VARIETY of people who'd found inspiration from this. It was up on Pagan sites in the context of people talking about religious tolerance and acceptance, and it was up on Fundamentalist Christian sites in the context of people talking about putting prayer back in school. Both groups were inspired by this story and strongly identified with the butterfly.
Anyway, I think some of the concern and hostility about the United 93 movie is because the story of 9/11 has been used for some incredibly poisonous ends.
But... the fact is, it's a powerful story, and undeniably factual (not the movie, but the "terrorists flew planes into buildings" aspect of the historical record).
I think frustration with these two facts (story undeniably happened; story has been used for evil purposes) spills over into a strong hostility to re-tellings of the story that are (or could be) used by the other side.
I don't know what the solution is, though I think I tend more to think that we need to tell the story TOO rather than throwing up our hands and surrendering it to Michelle Malkins of the world.
(I still don't want to see it, though. I make it to movies rarely enough anyway.)
True
Date: 2006-04-30 03:26 am (UTC)B
Re: Interesting essay...
Date: 2006-04-30 05:05 am (UTC)I haven't been following the stories swirling around United 93 intensely, mostly getting my information just from the radio and from LJ. One thing I heard on the radio which seems related to this thought, was that the screen writer (or producer, maybe?) got permission from all of the family members of those who were killed on the flight to make the film - and that if even one person said that they didn't want the film made, then they wouldn't make it. That they wanted to be very respectful of the feelings of the surving family members.
(no subject)
Date: 2006-04-30 06:05 am (UTC)So basically, I think this is the nubbin of one of the major things people were upset about, in your Big Comments post on the subject. I mean, there were other things, too (all about American Imperialism), but the question of story and truth versus the /actual events/ of what happened... Yes, that's key.
So-- good post.
(no subject)
Date: 2006-04-30 10:55 am (UTC)From here, it looks like propaganda, and the thought of that pisses me off too much to take a chance on the movie.
(no subject)
Date: 2006-04-30 11:45 am (UTC)I'm not sure where the story of Flt. 93 falls on this spectrum, because I don't know enough about how they made the film and what parts of it are solid either artistically or factually. But thinking of it as a fiction writers and someone who respects stories as their own true things is not all of the difference.
Re: Interesting essay...
Date: 2006-04-30 01:45 pm (UTC)While typing the above I started thinking of the difference between biography and "art" (for want of a better word). Biography is --the way I see it-- more factual, and art is more instinctive, more "how would I have reacted if..."
It all boils down to who has the right to make a Quilt panel?
(no subject)
Date: 2006-04-30 01:50 pm (UTC)Thanks for the link. That was incredible.
(no subject)
Date: 2006-04-30 02:45 pm (UTC)(no subject)
Date: 2006-04-30 02:45 pm (UTC)(no subject)
Date: 2006-04-30 02:55 pm (UTC)This aspect of Art can be incredibly vexing when the tools of fiction are applied to actual events and actively start screwing up the facts of a case. Flight 93 sounds too distressing for me to want to see it yet, but if they are respectful of the known facts I wouldn't hold it against them for using the artistic license to make the presentation more lifelike than documentary-like.
As to who has the right to tell a story, anyone has the right. From the film-maker to the man-in-the-street giving his brief synopsis version to a friend, anyone has the right to speak freely. As to how well they can do, who will listen, and who will pay - that's another story.
(no subject)
Date: 2006-04-30 03:36 pm (UTC)As for who has the right to tell the story and the problem of fact versus fiction, I truly believe that when we start limiting the creativity of fiction writers and making everything factual, we lose a lot. We lose creative expression and I happen to think that whenever creative expression is limited, the nation, and all mankind suffers. Without creativity and freedom to express various ideas about events of the day, then there is little possibility of our growing as a civilization. Instead, we would be doomed to repeat the past and our mistakes over and over again. Voices that question, interpret and, possibly, show us another way are a necessity.
I have not yet seen this film. From what I have read about it, though, I see it as an attempt to help us understand one way in which people fought back against terrorism. Without any understanding that fighting back was and is possible, I think we are doomed.
(no subject)
Date: 2006-04-30 03:46 pm (UTC)(So if Lewis actually said, "Myths are lies," and Tolkien actually said, "No, they are true" [both in those words], then I think they were talking past each other. The correspondence to "Myths are lies" would be "No, myths are truths.")
...Does it reflect the point of view accurately?...
I pulled this one out because I think that issue is somewhat different from the other things you've listed here. The point of view belongs to one specific person in one specific situation. That person can answer your question, and his/hers is the only answer that counts. (If you're writing fiction, of course, you get to establish the point of view.)
"Is it true?" means, does this tell a true thing about the way people really are?
I'm fairly distrustful of the concept that there is such a thing as "the way people really are." The way this particular person was (or might be) in this particular situation, yes. Make it two or more people or two or more situations, no.
Is it fair? Does it get at the heart of things?...Does it zero in on what is really matters?
Fair to whom? By what standards? "The heart of things" in whose view? (Does one person decide what constitutes "the heart of things" for everyone who shares the experience?) "What really matters" to whom? For what purpose?
A person writing fiction gets to decide those things for that particular work of fiction, to make it reflect the writer's vision of "a truth," and need not worry about factual truth. But a person writing nonfiction about real events that happened to real people has a bit of a problem: if more than one person was involved in the event, it's very difficult to make the depiction "true" even in the factual sense, but readers expect it to be. And if it tells "a truth," it will almost certainly be the writer's truth, not that of any real person depicted. There's nothing wrong with that per se; however, writers often do not make that clear to readers, and I suspect that sometimes they aren't clear about it themselves.
(no subject)
Date: 2006-04-30 03:54 pm (UTC)However, you won't be seeing that. You will be seeing a writer's and a director's interpretation, based on some fragmentary telephone calls and cockpit recording, of "one way in which people fought back against terrorism." Except for perhaps a few hundred words, everything you will see--every action, every emotion, every other word--will be the writer's and the director's imagination. Unless the two of them have actually been through a similar experience, their "understanding" is no better than what you yourself could come up with by listening to the words that we do have.
(no subject)
Date: 2006-04-30 04:43 pm (UTC)I don't know that I necessarily think that means it's a lesser form of art that doesn't truly /understand/ something. (I think it's often true that it won't, but one can produce good art and/or a good movie from other people's say so. _Saving Private Ryan_ is something many people would hold up as an example. (Not me, I haven't seen it.))
(no subject)
Date: 2006-04-30 07:13 pm (UTC)Nor do I, but I was replying to someone who characterized the movie as "an attempt to help us understand one way in which people fought back against terrorism." And in trying for understanding, I think it's very important to keep in mind that what we are seeing is not what happened; it's what someone imagines happened.
If you wanted to understand how to be a prostitute, would you read a book by someone who had never been one but could imagine what it might be like? The fact is that many people do just that--not specifically regarding being a prostitute, though I'll bet it has been done--they read/view something by someone imagining what it might be like, and then they take that into their memory (and even into their life) as what it is like.
(no subject)
Date: 2006-04-30 08:34 pm (UTC)Sigh... No flame? Where's the fun in that??
(no subject)
Date: 2006-04-30 08:40 pm (UTC)(no subject)
Date: 2006-04-30 11:35 pm (UTC)I don't know about you, but for me there's a difference between "I won't see this and don't understand why anyone would" and "this movie should not be made."
(no subject)
Date: 2006-05-01 03:29 am (UTC)It matters whether or not something is billed as fact.
For one thing, reality is under no obligation to be believable, whereas fiction is.
(no subject)
Date: 2006-05-01 06:05 am (UTC)The issue of who has the right to tell a story is one I dealt with last quarter in school. I was in a community based theatre class and my group chose to do a community based theatre project with the homeless community in Santa Ana. It was really difficult for me to write the scene for that project. Besides the stress of only have newspaper articles to go by, I wasn't sure if I was portraying the community in the right light. I didn't want it to be clichéd or sugar coated, but at the same time I didn't want to portray my community in a negative way. I had an outside perspective. Was it okay for me as an other to do this? Ahhh it was hard.
I'm really interested in reading the Tree and Leaf. Also, I love Arabian Nights. My school did it a year ago. It was written by Mary Zimmerman, who wrote Metamorpheses. It was my favorite show last year. Everyone about that show was just amazing.
(no subject)
Date: 2006-05-01 06:48 am (UTC)I think that there will be many more movies and fictional as well as factual stories about the events of 9:11. Most will be hard for us to see. I compare it to some of the stuff done about JFK. Some of that is still hard for me to see because I was much younger and more vulnerable when JFK was assassinated. I will never forget it, nor the simple fact that the shock and emotion of that day precipitated a final, fatal illness in my husband's grandmother. She just fell apart at the idea that something could happen here similar to what happened in her original homeland of Ireland.
That the writer has given us his interpretation of events based on whatever little facts he was able to gather does not ruin the movie for me. It still shows one way people may have fought the terrorists. It is still a tribute to who the writer believed these passengers to be. None of us ever sees an event in the exact same way anyway. We each bring our own viewpoint and baggage load of previous experience to any event in real life, the movies or even in the written word. Therefore I think we should judge this movie and any other fictionalized accounts of the events of 9/11 on their own merit without some overlay of a need to judge them on some factuality scale.
Re: Flight 93
Date: 2006-05-01 03:53 pm (UTC)These conspiracy theories are pretty heartless for the survivors.
The Washington Post had an article by someone who was on the official committee investigating Sept. 11 in the Opinion section on Sunday. The writer felt the movie was a lot more correct than incorrect.
Which
Date: 2006-05-01 04:07 pm (UTC)The Washington Post had an article by someone who was on the official committee investigating Sept. 11 in the Opinion section on Sunday. The writer felt the movie was a lot more correct than incorrect based on the testimony as well as a timeline. I would recommend it as supplemental reading.
Considering that United 93 has been done by a not well known director who used no stars and worked hard to make it was accurately as was known at the time it was being filmed, it has to be considered as close to a documentary as one can do without actual survivors of the flight. For all the complains about the accuracy, I have yet to see any concrete suggestions how the movie could have been more accurate.
Coming out later in the year is a big budget film by Oliver Stone starring Nicholas Cage about a survivor of Sept. 11. Somehow I don't think that will have the same documentary feel.
I also noticed that one of the cable channel had a documentary called Flight 93 this weekend. I wonder if anyone has seen both and compared them.