Game of Thrones bears out what I’ve
said about Writing all my life — it’s not “The Story” but how well it’s told.
Game of Thrones, for all its adult
content and unprecedented unsentimentality, still ticks off every cliché to be
found in High Fantasy Sword & Sorcery.
But due to its outstanding production, which HBO mounted with such conviction
– taking it all seriously – you get
this stunning result which makes the genre come alive and seem so fresh it’s as
if it’s the first time you’ve ever encountered such a sword fantasy. No wonder it’s a crossover hit of such
magnitude: drama comparable to The Sopranos as re-imagined in Middle
Earth.
If only
all genre TV shows – or motion pictures – could devote themselves to the craft of storytelling rather than just believing in their own press, that they’ve
got a great “Story” in the bag and all they need to do is squirt it on the
screen any old how, never mind who directs or who screen-writes.
It’s
taking a story’s premise seriously enough and following through on the storytelling
craft that makes all the difference.
There isn’t any essentialist magic in a given “Story”, in and of
itself. Filling a checklist of required
tropes for the fans isn’t going to guarantee a quality result. It’s all about how well the tropes are used;
how well the plot’s dramatized.
Something HBO’s Game of Thrones
proves like no other fantasy show before it.
No comments:
Post a Comment