The most recent movie I saw was Valkyrie. It is one of the greatest movies I have seen in a while. I can therefore find many qualities to emulate in another form of storytelling, which is writing. For the purposes of comparing elements of writing nonfiction to filmmaking, this is particularly fitting because Valkyrie is based on a true story.
What made this movie excellent was the way the setting, time period and character attitudes reflected the authentic events as best as possible. In writing, fiction or nonfiction, the reader has to believe what they are reading. Even if in the case of writing fiction, the reader has to buy into it and the author allows that to happen by making the setting, era, and characters real. The outfits as seen in the film could be described in detail. The specific personas were performed through specific gestures and actions. This can also be applied to writing. The best piece of advice I have been given in regards to writing is "show us, don't tell us."
With this same tool we can learn about the rhythm of our writing. The movie uses pauses and silence to build tension. A writing teacher once taught me that punctuation is our best friend in making "special effects." This sense of creativity and art in a nonfiction piece may be the difference between history and a captivating story that really happened.
I certainly cannot verify whether or not facts were checked perfectly but it is clear that research came before the creation of the movie. This is a good example to anyone who is trying to recreate some part of real life. It can be a huge discredit to any piece of art depicting some part of history when facts are found to be false. Fact checking is crucial to certain types of nonfiction. In general Valkyrie has many techniques that can be channeled into writing.
Interesting, I really enjoyed reading your response because it had a unique spin on things. The ability of a work of creative non-fiction relating to its readers on a personal level is key. You came away with this exact concept, and then proceeded to tie into truthful depiction of imagery. Even though you must portray your character in a light that allows readers to relate to them. It does not mean that you can write anything you would like in order to achieve this. It is important for us to keep our works grounded between exaggerated fantasy, and mundane reality. Nice job in taking things one-step further, I look forward to reading more.
ReplyDeleteHi Christine! I have read over your blog posts and I can see that you are a great writer. I especially enjoyed that free breakfast at Denny’s incident, twas very funny.:) I agree with you on your comment about reliability. In writing good nonfiction one should make it as believable as possible to the reader or else it isn’t relatable. Also, it seems that the details incorporated into this film also allowed for that believability. I look forward to reading more of your posts :).
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