Most movies have to do with stories. This is one of the reasons I recently enrolled in a MOOC (Massive Open Online Course) called ‘the Future of Story Telling’. If you want to participate, it is free and you may follow the link to register. It is really interesting.
In the first assignment, participants were asked to:
… think about a story you have read, seen, listened to, played or experienced has impressed you most in your life. … Which story can you still very well remember? Write down both, the summary of this story (what you remember of the story, not what Wikipedia says.. 🙂 and – on the other hand: – what made it so special to you that you can still remember it.
Retell this story by giving a short summary of what you can remember of it. (in less than 400 words).
Think about (try to remember) and write down what fascinated you most about this story. What can you remember best? What impressed you most? … Its characters? The locations? The plot? The style and voice of the story? Or maybe even the surroundings of how this story was told, maybe by your parents, grandparents, or maybe in your first self-read book? Tell us the story OF the story so-to-speak. (less than 500 words).
There was no doubt in my mind what that story should be. It was ‘The Matrix’ (1999). For someone entering this blog for the first time (or not personally knowing me), just the film title gives the wrong idea, unless there is an understanding under the action-layer used by the movie to convey a deeper meaning (will come back to this later).
What was really interesting, was the summary of the story (attention: contains spoilers!), resulting after couple hours of work. It was like seeing the skeleton, the bare bones of someone you love without flesh! It had no resemblance whatsoever with all the things you cherish him/her for. May be that is the goal but regardless of that, the result is still very interesting. It generates thinking which is after all the goal of the course.
So, the second part, which is the “story of the story” (analysis pending), has to restore the balance! It has to convey the logic and the feelings for the preference of that story among other beautiful stories.
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