Presidents' Day Breach
We went to see the movie BREACH this afternoon. Chris Cooper plays Robert Hansson, the FBI veteran who was unmasked as a spy in 2001.
The movie was interesting to watch, and Ryan Philippe, playing the junior recruit set to gather evidence against Hansson, was superb. It's always fun to see one's own city in a movie (and to grouse about all the things that they get wrong. :-) ) It's also interesting to see how a movie deals with a story when everyone knows the end.
If the movie has a flaw, it's that we viewers never come to understand Hansson's motivations. I suspect that failure is because NO ONE understands the man's motivations - he didn't do it for money, or because he thought the Russians were right, or because he wanted to get back at specific individuals, or, or, or...
What are the best examples of known-end movies/books/whatever that you've enjoyed? Do you think that the technique works, in general?
Mindy, musing about storytelling.
The movie was interesting to watch, and Ryan Philippe, playing the junior recruit set to gather evidence against Hansson, was superb. It's always fun to see one's own city in a movie (and to grouse about all the things that they get wrong. :-) ) It's also interesting to see how a movie deals with a story when everyone knows the end.
If the movie has a flaw, it's that we viewers never come to understand Hansson's motivations. I suspect that failure is because NO ONE understands the man's motivations - he didn't do it for money, or because he thought the Russians were right, or because he wanted to get back at specific individuals, or, or, or...
What are the best examples of known-end movies/books/whatever that you've enjoyed? Do you think that the technique works, in general?
Mindy, musing about storytelling.
I guess that's what makes Minority Report work - you *know* that he's going to try to kill someone, you just have to figure out why....
I suspect that genre stories play with this idea more than other writing.