John August

QandA

Downton Abbey, season two

Television

The second season of Downton Abbey debuts Sunday in the U.S. As I’ve discussed on the podcast, I couldn’t wait and bought it off the UK iTunes Store. I’ve already watched the whole second season and the Christmas episode.

So, for American audiences, here’s a non-spoilery preview of what I found notable about this season.

You can never get back to normal.

One of the main storylines in the first season was the entail, the covenant that required a male heir for the estate to stay within the family. There was a palpable dread that the Crawley daughters would lose their house and fortune until their third cousin Matthew arrived as heir presumptive and all-around white knight.

I don’t think we hear “entail” once this entire season. Instead, the danger is that nothing will ever return to the way it was.

Characters go to war, and some don’t return. Hierarchies are up-ended. The normal function of the house is disrupted, forcing the Crawleys to eat breakfast in a different room. (Sorry. I guess that was a minor spoiler.)

Where the threat of the first season was losing a lifestyle, the threat of the second season is not wanting it back.

For the first time, we hear the downstairs staff openly question their assigned place in society. And we hear similar dissatisfaction from the Crawley sisters.

Once you’ve learned to drive, are you content being driven?

Of all the show’s elements this season, I think this thematic line works the best. The characters seem appropriately aware, unnerved and exhilarated to realize that Everything Is Changing.

Maggie Smith speaks only in bon mots.

My friend Tom speculates that by contract all her dialogue is required to be pithy.

Yet it’s worth paying attention to every scene she’s in, because the show uses her as a proxy for the unseen history of the family, the estate, and their whole class. When she compromises, you know there’s no going back.

Wow, this really is a soap.

Again, no spoilers, but there are a few moments this season that feel like the Merchant/Ivory version of Dynasty.

Look: Shows need plot engines, but I found the soap tropes lazy. In a show with 20+ significant characters, how often do we need A Stranger Comes to Town or a Deathbed Complication?

I wish they’d gone a little more HBO, with internal rather than external forces pushing characters into choices and consequences.

Still, I enjoyed the second season and recommend it. If you haven’t seen the first season, it’s worth watching that first. You can get it through Netflix, iTunes or Amazon.

Resenting your audience

Follow Up, Psych 101

Pivoting off the discussion Craig and I had about Charlie Kaufman’s speech, Josh Barkey outlines a path that may lead screenwriters to resent their audience:

A. Art is often an outgrowth of the self’s desire to be loved. An artist’s motivation for making things is often, at some primal level, an attempt to say to other people: please, please love me.

B. If the artist is honest, works hard, and tells the truth, art patrons will often recognize themselves in the art. They’ll respond emotionally, and some of the love they feel for the artist’s product will inevitably spill over to the artist.

C. This love is, however, conditional. It requires the artist to make new and interesting things, and quickly becomes bored and withdraws love when the artist does not.

D. The artist feels betrayed by what he or she perceives as mis-directed and conditional love, and begins to resent the audience for not loving unconditionally enough.

E. Although the artist might even be aware of the irrationality of this resentment, the resentment can nonetheless shrivel into bitterness, which eventually shrivels into hatred.

I’d argue that for screenwriters, the “audience” is very often not movie-goers but rather the producers and studios who pay us to write. These are the people we’re trying to please and impress.

When they love our work, we feel loved and validated. When they don’t love our work — even though we know it’s better work than they previously praised — we can’t help but feel jilted.

Redbox’s arbitrary winners

Awards, Film Industry

Redbox, the DVD rental kiosk company, sent out a press release with a list of their most-rented titles for 2011:

  • Most-Rented Movie: Just Go With It
  • Most-Rented Action Movie: The Green Hornet
  • Most-Rented Comedy Movie: Just Go With It
  • Most-Rented Drama Movie: The Tourist
  • Most-Rented Family Movie: Rango
  • Most-Rented Horror Movie: Insidious

Huh-wuh?

I couldn’t remember what Just Go With It even was — although I was pretty sure Katherine Heigl was in it.

But I was wrong.

Just Go With It was the Adam Sandler/Jennifer Aniston comedy I never saw. My first instinct was to write something snide about how Adam Sandler is a big star among Americans who get their cinema and broccoli at the same place.

However, that would be unfair. The movie was financially successful: $103 million domestic box office. But that ranks it only #25 among the top movies of the year.

In fact, none of the films on Redbox’s most-rented list made the box office top 10 for the year — Rango made the most, landing at #19.

So why are they the winners here?

Because they happened to come out early in 2011 (or late in 2010), and were on video longer.

Title Theatrical Release Video Release
Just Go With It 2/11/11 6/7/2011
The Green Hornet 1/14/11 5/3/11
The Tourist 12/10/10 3/22/11
Rango 3/4/11 7/15/11
Insidious 4/1/11 7/12/11

Redbox’s list could more honestly be called, “Some movies that came out on video early in 2011.”

Wishing Pixar were braver

Genres

Watching the trailer for Pixar’s new film Brave, Theresa Couchman sighs:

[It] would’ve been nice if a studio that’s known for creative and original storytelling had decided to do something more interesting with their first female protagonist (in SIXTEEN YEARS) than make her…a princess. Who’s cool because she’s good at “boy” stuff. How fresh and exciting! Ugh. Granted, Tangled was one of my favorite movies from last year, but it was also an adaptation of a classic fairytale. Pixar had the opportunity to do anything with this, and they’re just rehashing the same old, same old.

Sadly, “girl struggles against restrictive society” is still a very relevant theme, but it would be awfully nice to see a story about a regular person who has adventures and, oh yeah, also happens to be female. And who maybe likes to read or do needlepoint instead of or in addition to kicking ass, because there is nothing wrong with those kinds of things. I’ve always found the tomboy ideal so prevalent in fantasy fiction and film particularly irritating, sometimes more so than the passive damsel ideal, because it’s still presenting traditionally masculine pursuits as superior.

I had the same reaction as Couchman. I love most of the Pixar movies (well, all of the Pixar movies that don’t feature anthropomorphic vehicles) and found myself shrugging at this trailer, hoping it doesn’t represent the actual movie. While the Highland setting looks compelling, the heroine’s setup feels disappointingly stock.

Sure, gender roles can be restrictive — but so can these rebellious-princess tropes. “A lady pursues elegant pursuits,” her mother chastens. “Show a little decorum!” her father grouses. We don’t see her getting squeezed into a corset, but we get all of the other requisite beats: bored by ceremony, shooting a bow, escaping on horseback.

Studios grumble that boys won’t go to see movies featuring female protagonists, and I think this is why: the trailer shows a frustrated daughter rather than an adventurer.

Link via Faruk Ateş.