pubs
Occurs to me that the thing The Good, The Bad, and The Ugly has definitely in common with Fellowship of the Ring (more than the other two Rings movies), and indeed with things like Lang’s Metropolis and The Third Man and Nosferatu — basically every movie I find magical and involving — is that the movie’s world is in a sense the main character. There are other characers in the movie, with their own agendas that we follow. The main conflict or relationship, though, is between those characters and the world they’re in — which in most cases is their own world; they just don’t see all of the aspects of it that we do, because they live there. The characters exist to bounce off the scenery, to ignore it, to walk us through it, to give us contrast with it..
This also describes The Legend of Zelda. And Silent Hill. And Phantasy Star II. And Dragon Warrior. And just about every videogame I find magical and involving. Hell, Riven is nothing but environment.
In a certain meta way, it also decribes more postmodern fare like Charlie Kaufman and Treasure. In MGS3, Kojima does both at the same time! Resident Evil 4 tries to as well, though it’s a little more clunky in execution.
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A thread here.
Werner Herzog is another filmmaker who has the surrounding environment be a character of its own. In fact, Fata Morgana and Lessons of Darkness are just dedicated to the setting as a character.
Tom Stoppard did a meta thing too with Rosencrantz and Guildenstern are Dead, where Hamlet was a closed off, self-contained universe and Stoppard follows the two doomed side characters as they go towards their inevitable fate.
Exploration is a big part of the movies and games you mention. One of the best things about the Silent Hill games is the little bits of historical or extra information that you get by looking around. It seems it’s mostly that RPGs tend to try to create a characteristic world, if just due to the fantasy heritage or just having so many people to talk to. There a painstaking methods usually done to ensure the world seems rich, complete, and consistant. Tolkien creates detailed languages, many sci-fi authors lovingly create elaborate ships, scientific explanations, histories.
Though, with R&G, Stoppard treats the world they inhabit as incomplete (similar to games where you have glitchy or fragmented surroundings if you go where you’re not supposed to – specifically, Metroid’s hidden rooms), and has Rosencrantz and Guildenstern clash against the limitations of the universe – many times they are in a blank limbo, where the main action of Hamlet takes place off-stage.
Though, you know, Asteroids and Centipede and GTA3 (specifically) each has its own element of this, too. Again, from exploration and other similar relationships with the environment.
Yeah, Herzog’s good there. Curious that he also redid Nosferatu.
Terry Gilliam immediately springs to mind, particularly his mid-career thematic “trilogy”, Time Bandits, Brazil and Munchhausen.
I’ve seen Lang’s Metropolis. Well, a crummy version of it, but I got the gist. These movies and works all tend to yank at the Jungian hero concept. Not that they’re all blanket Joe Campbell heroes (read: Luke Skywalker), but are alternate versions of the same idea. The settings are sometimes fun, in which case Metropolis gets my vote, the only way these settings seem alive is if we see living characters in them, and living characters develop. How they develop, well thats the Jungian archetype fits in, humans are always looking forever onward and upward.
The E.Megas happens to like Xenogears and Wild Arms, as well as I do, because they make the same efforts to develop the characters and produce worlds that are alive. Plot devices aside, Xenogears’ Fei Wong is an incredibly deep character that lends life to his world by learning to live in it. Of course, this is the same character that levels a village and kills dozens within the first 15 minutes of the game, so its more important for him to learn how to coexist.
Environment is the main theme of the LotR books — I’ve often felt that they’re closer to a travelogue than anything else, because Tolkien was so invested in creating a comprehensive world that the books meandered through, both in terms of physical space and in temporal space.
Then again, I really like to read through the Simarillion.
It is a good reason why the second two movies aren’t as compelling as the first, the sense of physical space is much more iffy, especially in the case of Mordor, which was scary and barren and generally affecting in the books. In the movie, it’s a particularly indistinct soundstage that looks like the base of Isengard with more red.