Studying Aristotle’s “Poetics” — Part 6(G): Spectacle Sixth

As I’ve been interviewing screenwriters, I typically ask what some of their influences are. One book title comes up over and over again: Aristotle’s “Poetics.” I confess I’ve never read the entire thing, only bits and pieces. So I thought, why not do a daily series to provide a structure to compel me to go through it. That way we’d all benefit from the process.

For background on Aristotle, you can go here to see an article on him in the Stanford Encyclopedia of Philosophy.

To download “Poetics,” you can go here.

Part 6(G): Spectacle Sixth

The Spectacle has, indeed, an emotional attraction of its own, but,
of all the parts, it is the least artistic, and connected least with
the art of poetry. For the power of Tragedy, we may be sure, is felt
even apart from representation and actors. Besides, the production
of spectacular effects depends more on the art of the stage machinist
than on that of the poet.

I was all set to go off on a rant about Hollywood’s obsession with ginormous CGI (Computer Generated Imagery) movies with aliens, robots, monsters, superheroes, vampires, zombies, global disasters…

You know spectacle movies.

Armed with Aristotle’s Totem Pole of Tragedy Elements and spectacle sitting right there at the very bottom of importance, I was going to gleefully dance all over the mindless detritus which was Transformers: Revenge of the Fallen, the paradigm of this type of movie, a product so utterly caught up in the spectacle of violence and destruction, my then almost nine year-old son summed it up aptly when I asked him what the movie was about. His succinct response: “Blowing stuff up.”

But I have to pull my punches here for three reasons:

— That bombast of a movie blew up at the box office, generating a worldwide total of $836M, so that should pretty much shut me up right there.

— Aristotle’s perception of what “spectacle” was is light years away from what the CGI and VFX wizards are capable of producing nowadays, coming a looooooong way from the “stage machinsts” of old.

— That brings up another big point: If Aristotle were alive today, what would he think of the seemingly limitless visual possibilities available to storytellers?

Might he embrace them? Indeed, might he be really into them? What if he was one of those obsessed cosplay Comic-Con souls? Maybe he would have enjoyed Transformers: Revenge of the Fallen?

Or maybe not. For he draws what in effect is equivalent to above-the-line / below-the-line:

Above-The-Line: “The art of poetry.”

Below-The-Line: “The least artistic.”

I’ll have to rely on our Aristotelian experts for further analysis of this question: When Aristotle says, “The Spectacle has, indeed, an emotional attraction of its own,” by emotional attraction is he relegating spectacle to a lesser domain of human experience with poetry providing an intellectual and/or moral (“character”) attraction?

If so, I think the point offered previously still stands: For a story to mean anything, it must be tethered to (especially) Plot, Character, and Thought, as well as Diction and Song.

And if that is true, then we can introduce the idea of a “character driven” story. Yes, it can be high concept. It may have spectacle. But for it to constitute something more than just “blowing stuff up,” the events that happen to the personal agents in a story must be grounded in who, what, why and how those characters are.

A reminder: I am looking at “Poetics” through the lens of screenwriting, what is its relevance to the craft in contemporary times. And I welcome the observations of any Aristotle experts to set me straight as I’m just trying to work my way through this content the best I can.

See you tomorrow for another installment of this series.

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For the entire series, go here.