THE GOLDEN BOX SERIES: EPISODE 3

TOP 5 GOLDEN TRAGEDIES

When it comes to tragedies, my loyal reader, I want to clarify a few irritations; no, they are not tear-jerkers. Tears irritate me, and not because I am a testosterone-fueled, heartless, mangy monster (it’s my steroid addiction that makes me that). No, I dislike much of its use, with regards to film, because often it is used for the sake of reminding people of terrible times, rather than truly creating something tragic. I do not call on any watchers of film to stop crying (Please, bawl away), but I’d like to give credit to the ones that can touch that heart of even the most emotionally numb human being (I should mention the steroids, again).

Neither are tragedies, necessarily, those with negative endings (although that is often assumed). These are simply a function (if you finish your third act on a positive, you’ve got to go down). The fact that TITANIC (1997) or BRAVEHEART (1995), among others, enjoyed a beautifully emotional death (whether tear filled, or testosterone rejected), gave it some movement towards tragedy, in both cases, there was victory (whether the desire for Rose to die an old lady, or Scotland to gain its freedom). I consider both of these great films, but neither in the top five tragedies, in spite of the effort.

I’m not going to go into severe details of my opinion on Aristotle and his lengthy thoughts on tragedy. But I will mention that he considered it to be, ‘serious’, cathartic, ‘shows rather than tells’ et cetera (I thought throwing Latin at the Greek, would make a lot of Cambridge people spill their brandies, in rage). While these are characteristics that have been known over the years (and far be it from me to kick his theories out the window and into a flaming dumpster filled with discarded scripts from aspiring and beautiful writers in Hollywood, who keep trying to get people to read their work, but they’d prefer to stay tucked in their little safe zone, with their established writers and never consider anything slightly risky… I forgot where I was going with this). I prefer to consider the effect of a good tragedy, rather than exploiting real death to scientifically bring out an emotion (which I consider cheating; and would obviously vary depending on how close you were to the tragedy in question).

While attacking something serious to some kind of emotional explosion, where you stand up and demand to give the whole cast a great big hug for wrenching water from your eye sockets is important, I look at something I consider more inspiring. The great; ‘failure of what might have been’. Where the world that has been created for you (and this is where film really can excel), the story, the characters, the little pot in the corner of the frame; these all serve to show something has lacked, and the more you go on, the more is missing. Your own imagination stirs images of victory, of directions that could have been taken, of breaking down barriers in your own mind that set you forth in this world to fight (whether for love, law, freedom, tap-dancing, curling,

Tragedy is the great inspirer of what could exist, more worlds and situations spring out of your mind, like dancing French leprechauns, (Yes, it’s an oxymoron, but it’s new! And the image makes me laugh). You cannot help but leave the theatre, and propose to your girlfriend, or start a charity, or slap your high-school bully in the face and then run for your life (until you trip over an old lady and go flying into a flaming dumpster filled with your unread scripts). This is what tragedy is to me, and this is how I judge, my loyal reader, these top five Golden (Still, a metaphor) Tragedies (yet another key to a great film).

5. A CLOCKWORK ORANGE (1971): Before I begin gushing, I do have something that I have to get off my chest. Although, a great admirer of Stanley Kubrick (my position on DR. STRANGELOVE, already established), I felt that this film could have been higher. In the most fitting tragedy, he left out the final two chapters of the book, which truly would have made it greater. I’m not one to gush about books necessarily being superior to films (When I read ‘The Godfather’ my eyebrows shot up, and disappeared into the clouds with surprise), I simply consider the final two chapters to have given a greater depiction of the tragedy, and Anthony Burgess always said this, bless him).

The story depicts the young and violent (Oh! So very violent), Alex, on a dystopian crime spree, before being thrown into prison and becoming an experiment for the justice system. The final chapters show Alex growing, bored by his young obsessions, which (again) I find noticeably lacks in the film. Whether Kubrick wanted to make it his own, or didn’t have the extra pages, or just wanted to irritate Burgess will remain a mystery to me.

However, that aside, it is the great tragedy that attacks the world, it brutalizes it, it scathes it. From the very beginning, the watcher desperately wants this person to; not exist. Yet, as it progresses it builds through what ‘a lack’ really is. It forces such a tragedy onto the monstrous Alex that, as you watch, you sympathize with him. It is one of the most incredible achievements to make a watcher come close to this point. It is a brutal and sinewy synapse seething film, which will inspire to enjoy the fact that you can steal a grape from the supermarket, to know that you can choose (although, had the final chapters been included, more would have been inspired; the growth, the life, the evolving nature of humanity. How tragic!).

4. CHINATOWN (1974): This should have been in the Golden twists, right? Wrong (And, Quiet!). I put this at number four, because it surpasses inspiring your own free will. It serves to bring out something more. There is always a chance to exist.

The story is about a private investigator attempting to follow a case, only to take a mother and daughter (I’m NOT revealing the spoiler; I promise) to safety. Robert Towne and Roman Polanski do so well to create such fantastic forces that pull you down into the seedy depths of yourself.

They create the great desire that comes from breaking out of a locked and trapped world (filled with crime and emotional oppression). From any perspective, it serves to save someone, (whether yourself or people, in general), no matter what they have been through, no matter how helpless you may feel. You can get out of it. It is almost the greatest joke, for me, that Chinatown is used. Not a war zone, not a death-camp, but a town, a mental block. What’s your Chinatown?

3. ONE FLEW OVER THE CUCKOO’S NEST (1975): This is the tragedy of containment. A delightful depiction (which I slap myself in the face for not being able to put it higher) of failing to push through reality.

The film centers on a man brought into a mental institution, and his struggle to overcome the savage routine of the head nurse (Yes. I have been enjoying Jack Nicholson’s performances, thank you).

The film inspires more than anything to do with objects or action. It inspires the greatness of voicing a thought, without patronizing, without cynicism, without destruction. Thoughts can be constructed into something beautiful. It is almost exactly my definition of tragedy. This film inspires you to break through the barriers of your own mind. The film builds a desire to create, to build emotionally, to escape that mental hold that anyone, or anything can have over you (or others).

2. GONE WITH THE WIND (1939): I know what you’re thinking, my loyal reader, I am being a flamboyant, arrow to the eye, steroid shooting, hypocrite. Let me pull the arrow out and detoxify these feelings. It is not the backdrop of the American Civil War that makes this a great tragedy. It gets integrated superbly into the plot, the aspect of land, life and death, and slides delightfully over the progression. However, as the story continues, it does a beautiful and slick slide into deceptive inspiration. The war gets passed, and a return to normality arrives surprisingly early. Why? Simply said, it is because it shows the tragedy of changing, growing, discovering mistakes too late and becoming aware of the great inspiration, of something else (That wasn’t simple, but I stand by it).

The story covers the aforementioned time period, and follows the beautiful characters of two wily dealers, one in denial and the other very much open.

It is the lost love and the realization of the valuable land that can inspire even the greatest, most stubborn, most obsessive person to change. The great insight to stand back, get up from your crying, look at yourself (not in shame, but in pride). After all, there is a vast ‘Tomorrow’ for all of us (I’m not being specific here. It’s not about the time, it’s about the progression. Just in case I get any message from angry people on their death beds).

1. LETTER FROM AN UNKNOWN WOMAN (1948): Not for certain reasons, is this the greatest tragedy and such gold in this article, my loyal reader. There have been so many love stories, but why this particular one? What’s happened to my manhood? What’s the capital of the Faroe Islands? (Sorry. The answer is Torshavn, for both). I chose this film because of the superb examples of absence, of lack, of getting and lacking. Throughout the film the obsession remains the same, but the trappings; the recounted losses, over and over again. They all build within such a perfect of a tragedy. I can’t help but tear up. So little time together, so many examples my head will explode.

I’m joking, my loyal reader, this was precisely why I began writing these articles. The story is about a concert pianist discovering a letter from a woman who was madly in love with him, and he didn’t even remember her (It’s in the title, I refuse to give you more. I beg you to watch it). Through moments of genius, Director Max Ophuls, and writers Stefan Zweig and Howard Koch, find an incredible way of showing existence, and disappearance, something that lacks and then creates into a beautiful climax.

He takes her to a fair, which he does not like in winter, why? Because, as the beautiful Joan Fontaine attests, you can imagine what it would be like in Spring. This is tragedy, my loyal reader. The disappearing band, the ride on a train car (with the fake Switzerland rolling in the background), all contribute to what could be, what life you could have, what love, what children, what achievements, what art, what construction it inspires the watcher to achieve.

It is the existence of so many lacks that recall emotions, without logic and without reason. Whether it is blamed on circumstance, the weather, the geography, the boyfriend, the government, the tax-man, the fact that you stubbed your toe in the morning, the almost inevitable desire to be the center of your own film (and all the melodramatics out there are guilty of this).

This film inspires a life; where it can be real, you can be in Switzerland, you can climb a mountain, you can fall in love, and you can live a life that seems meaningless ended at the next generation, no imprint on this world. But it is that letter, that small unknown letter, we all write this letter, we fight to leave that letter for the world to read, which is ‘the something’. It is the inspiration of the tragic and great written words; ‘If only’. Start writing that letter (Oh, and watch the film. Wow, Catharsis).

Thank you.

(I’d like to clarify, as friends and family would testify, that I do not take steroids).

Over the next week, I will bring you:

TOP 5 GOLDEN FAMILIES (the genre not my favorite family).

SPECIAL AWARDS FOR EXCELLENCE

And completing with my:

TOP 5 GOLDEN FILM (the mesh of all and every significant factor that makes film such a superb work of art).