Life Stories

Once Upon A Time, there was a family who laughed and cried every time they got together. They recalled the good times and the bad by physically acting out hilarious situations of the past. They playfully picked on their children as they described (in detail) events of distant childhood that made the rest of the family smirk and chuckle with amusement while the kids in the spotlight jokingly rolled their eyes. They verbally remembered touching moments, and laughed when someone broke the sentimentality with a shocking yet uproarious remark. This family belong to none other than yours truly. Stories were the backbone of family gatherings, and many of my memories revolve around the fam circled around, sharing tales of their daily occurrences, trying to "one up" one another in the quality of our storytelling. This fascination of stories sparked my immediate interest in the title of the TED talk, The Clues to a Great Story.

The speaker in this TED talk, Andrew Stanton, started off his whole discussion with a humorous story about an Irish man telling how people identified him by his one wrongdoing (f**king a goat). This immediately shocked people, but drew them into what he might say next. He used this shock-and-awe technique to prove how he thought a good story should should be like. He said that stories should give the audience a promise that it will be worth their time. Whether it be a hook beginning, or simply a "Once Upon A Time…" A story is constantly changing and evolving. Change is fundamental within a story because it reflects life, which is never static. However, Stanton says that a story should always have a theme. The theme of a truly epic story is to invoke wonder upon the viewer. This is one of the greatest gifts that a storyteller can give.

A story should have one common goal. That goal could be to tell a joke, to provide meaning in our everyday lives, to confirm our understanding of human nature, or even to bridge connections between people who are uncommon. We can learn to love others by hearing their stories. We can discover what makes people "tick" by determining what values and experiences they express through their characters.

Stanton says that a story should construct anticipation and uncertainty, making the audience work to guess the information (without letting on that you are making them work for it). It gives the audience something to look forward to, and makes them feel more involved. Going along with this, although not mentioned in this TED talk, the viewer of a movies is often given the lens of the main character as opposed to an omniscient view, so that he/she can experience the story alongside the character.

Stanton gets his ideas across with the use of ethos, logos, and pathos. Firstly, he utilizes ethos with the fact that he is one of the writers of the great Disney movie Nemo. I was immediately drawn into what he had to say because I adore this movie ("HE TOUCHED THE BUTT!"). Secondly, he uses logos by providing the evidences that I have afore mentioned, as well as showed movie clips that embody his evidences including some snippets of Nemo and Wall-E. Lastly, he uses pathos by telling his story of how he was a premature child and how he used his experiences through the character of Nemo. This helped the audience connect with him.

One quote by an author Neil Gaiman truly sums up what is being said in this talk. It is just this: "The one thing that you have that nobody else has is you. Your voice, your mind, your story, your vision. So write and draw and build and play and dance and live as only you can."


A story is unique to the storyteller. 

What will your story be? Where will it begin and where will it end?

Rotten to the Heart, Baby

[Question 5]

PHYLLIS

We're both rotten.

NEFF

Only you're a little more rotten.

Phyllis Dietrichson stands looking down. She is in her early thirties. She holds a large bath-towel around her very appetizing torso, down to about two inches above her knees. She wears no stockings, no nothing. On her feet a pair of high-heeled bedroom slippers with pom-poms. On her left ankle a gold anklet.

Already, in this narration from Walter Neff, Barbara Stanwyck's character is portrayed as a seductive, alluring woman. She is the wife of one Mr. Neff's clients, but that does not stop her from flirting with him basically the instant he walks in the door. She is a troubled, shifty woman that wants her husband dead, and is unhappy with his daughter too. She manipulates Fred MacMurray's character by throwing her womanly charm at him any chance she could. She also pulls on his heart strings when she says, "Walter, I don't want to kill him. I never did. Not even when he gets drunk and slaps my face."

She is not a likable character, in that she makes the viewers feel uneasy by her wild nature and devious behavior. She is seen as immoral with her lust for murder, and also a little crazy with that insane look in her eye. She is always shot at an angle from the side, rarely head on, giving the illusion of watching from the outside, never really understanding her motive or true self. The only times she is filmed head on is when she is scheming with that crazy look in her eye, or when she is trying to be seductive to Mr. Neff.

She is surrounded by a fuzzy light when she is meant to look seductive and appealing. When she is planning murder or revealing a dark and wicked side of her, the lighting is either dark or dim,  displaying her secretive persona.

Displaying this woman lead as a deceitful and seductive counterpart to a successful and simply "misguided" man could expose a public idea of how women were viewed as a whole in the 1940s. They could be thought of as the continuation of Eve, the woman who deceived her husband into eating the forbidden fruit. They could be seen as beautiful, but deadly. They could be seen as insecure and needy, while bold and ill-natured. Men were rotten, perhaps women were seen as "a little more rotten" as perceived by the oh-so-misguided Mr. Neff. Truth be told, it was Neff's lust for money and this woman that led to his helping her, but hey, who can say no to a person wearing a pretty anklet? Right?….