Wednesday, August 24, 2011

Intentional story telling

I am preparing tomorrow's movie post and the movie I have picked is not a neo noir whereas every film I've discussed on Thursday all summer has been neo noir. It has a lot in common with them and a big commonality is the lying. The narrator of this story is so deeply embroiled in his lies that it may as well be a neo noir.

Anyway, that got me thinking about one of the points The Last Psychiatrist is so good at: intentionality in story telling. We often tell stories that, on their face, seem to make one kind of point but actually betray a completely different purpose.

And we almost always do this when we tell a story intentionally. That is the story that is told not to divert or titillate but a told with a purpose. A doctor who specialized in alcoholism gave a great example of this sort of lie and how it gets revealed once. A guy made an appointment to see him and when he sat down he told the doctor that he'd had a recent drinking experience that had really bothered him. And then he said this,
Doctor, I'm not an alcoholic. I hadn't had a drink in seventeen years before this happened.
And the doctor said, "I knew he was an alcoholic as soon as he said that. Only an alcoholic would remember exactly how long it had been since his last drink."

The alcoholic does not actually know he is an alcoholic in the same sense that he knows he owns a blue shirt. But the fascinating thing is the way the story betrays conflicting intentions. He says he isn't but he is obviously worried that he might be and is trying to deflect the narrative from the conclusion he doesn't want it to run to. That intention is right in the telling of the story and in who he chose to tell it to.

Anyway, the movie for tomorrow is A River Runs Through It, and it is that kind of story. The things Norman Maclean tries to hide are more interesting than what he reveals.

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