Consider the case of the 2013 film The Wolf of Wall Street, a three-hour film directed by Martin Scorsese. Here's a description of the film from imdb.com: "Based on the true story of Jordan Belfort, from his rise to a wealthy stock-broker living the high life to his fall involving crime, corruption and the federal government."
For much of the film, before "poetic justice" sets in, Belfort has a blast engaging in "bad behavior." Some defenders of the film's moral agenda have argued that the film demonstrates that eventually those who misbehave are brought to justice. But some critics of the film have argued that the film's ending exerts a less powerful impact on viewers than the film's length "middle" in which bad behavior is "fun."
Do you think a story's ending is its most impactful element from a moral point of view? Give examples to support your claim.
After Gottschall reminds us of some outrageous stories, he points out that he and several other writers "propose that stories make societies work better by encouraging us to behave ethically." (p134) This is a new thought for me, and at this moment I tend to agree; especially as I continue, with his reminder of how technology has and has not revolutionized story telling. The impact of any section of a story depends largely upon the skill of the story teller. The greater impact of any section of a story depends on the listener's or viewer's interest and/or previous experience. If a writer wants to make a moral point, it is invariably reflected at the end. Fairy tales most obviously express the moral teaching by their endings.
ReplyDeleteI have to agree and disagree. Though I would agree the most influential part of a movie is the end, after reading Subliminal last summer I have some doubts about that being the only moral influence. In Subliminal we learned that sometimes even showing that things are bad or wrong makes a part of our mind still want to behave that way. I believe the example they used was a littering campaign. By showing scenes of an extremely littered area, part of our brain for some reason wanted to litter. I think the same could apply to movies. Even if the whole moral of the movie would be 'such and such is wrong', our mind (probably the right side after reading how it works) will still store part of it away in the sense that it's okay to do.
ReplyDeleteI think a stories ending can be the most impactful part of a story at times but at other times not so much. Take the Wolf of Wall Street, while the filmmakers may have shown Belfort's life falling apart they also sugarcoated it. For me that movie was more of a comedy and I didn't take the ending or any of the movie seriously because the story was just that, a comedy. The way I see it the impact of a story can vary depending on seriousness of the story.
ReplyDeleteWhile I agree that a story's ending makes the biggest impact on the viewer, there are so many more elements that come into play. For one, how the author lays out the book can change the way stories are "supposed" to be laid out. First, there's the build up, then the climax, all leading to the resolution. But if an author takes the liberty to bend that layout to their will, such as Looking for Alaska by John Green where the book is written in "before" and "after" parts, it may be harder to find the moral issue at hand, therefore making it harder to find the big "poetic justice" ending. In books like Go Ask Alice or Lucy in the Sky, the story is told through journal entries. The story in both books is about a girl who dabbles in drugs and runs from home, and then decides to sober up and move on, but in the end, the reader is left with a memo by the anonymous author saying that the young girl either committed suicide or overdosed. Is the reader supposed to believe that we always go back to our original vices in the end? Not a very good moral for its young adult readers. Another element is the content of the story. Depending on what it's about or the genre of the story, it's hard to say there is always justice in the end. Every story has its own definition of the hardest hitting moral argument.
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