Spoiler alert for the fools who watch House. End of season four.
Which I just finally watched. It reminds me of Boris Vian's word - l'arrache-cœur. He uses it somewhere in L’Écume des jours. The word means something like "the heartwrencher"; arracher means "to tear out", which is exactly what this two-part episode does. The first part is deplorable; supposedly clever and ingenious, it is instead predictable and obtuse. The second part is better, but even then not for the plot, though that too is better. Only for its capability to remind you of what it might feel like.
Unexpected side effects of marriage - well, love: one finds oneself suddenly capable of imagining what it would feel like to lose all this, thereby opening an immense vista of fear and anxiety. After all, once you imagine what it might be like to lose this loved one, why not consider who else one might lose?
So this thing, this fiction, it pulls at my heart, not because it is good, not because it is well-acted, but because it forces me to live through my terrible dread on someone else's face. And Robert Sean Leonard has such a lovely face for emo.
Wednesday, May 13, 2009
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2 comments:
Heartsnatcher is was its eventual translation.
I feel this way whenever watch bits of "Gray's Anatomy." Though the writing is so cliche, I usually get irritated, and busy myself elsewhere so as not bother my spouse with my rants concerning bad writing.
Probably a closer example would be anything by Darren Aronofsky. "The Wrestler" was quite a predictable, manipulative downer, but still quite sad and well acted.
Hmmyes. I don't always mind the writing. What I mind is actually that most of the time, the writing is quite good, but shies away (out of cowardice and convention) from being really good. It's frustrating to watch a great cast and smart writers almost going there time and again. Oh well.
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