Something I’ve learned about storytelling: just because I’m emotional telling a story doesn’t necessarily mean the audience will also be emotional. It’s a good start, for sure. Requisite, even, I think…though maybe not. Maybe one can tell a story wholly rational and calculated and have the audience all up in the feels. I don’t think I’ve ever done that before, but I won’t rule that out as a possibility. But either end of the spectrum, the point is that it’s not necessarily about how the storyteller is feeling, it’s always about what the audience is feeling. And beware to those who don’t understand that. There’s a bridge that must be built between storyteller and audience, and if that bridge isn’t built, they’re not going to be feeling what they’re supposed to.
An obscure way to talk about the movie I saw tonight, which is on a lot of people’s “best of” for the year, so I was excited to see it. Ecstatic, even, in the first twenty minutes or so. It wasn’t bad. I want to be clear about that. There’s much to like in the movie. But…at the end of the day, it oozed with lots and lots of very intense emotion behind the camera, on the part of the filmmaker…and not much passing through the screen to me, the audience. It could have. The craft was lacking. That bridge, the one that a storyteller has to build to reach their audience? It’s built with craft. All the big and little tiny things that keep the audience immersed in the story, that make it feel so real, you forget it’s just lights and words and sound.
This movie was interesting. Beautiful at times. Reach exceeding its grasp, but admirable reach, nonetheless. The music was spectacular. I won’t name it since I’m pretty critical of it…I wish it had been better. I was in the mood for something to really move me.
Night night.