If you've never seen the movie "A Face in the Crowd" I'm going to be spoiling a few things here. If you'd like to not have the experience ruined in any way, please stop reading and start watching. It's available on Netflix and these words will be waiting for you when you get back. If you continue reading, don't blame me!
I've been obsessing over this movie since it just happened to be on TCM last weekend and I flipped it on just to kill some time. I'd seen it before a couple of times, but ever since I became a student of Blake Snyder's "Save the Cat" screenwriting story theory, I now have to at least consider every movie I watch in that context.
According to Snyder's theory, there is a point in every great movie that marks the break between the end of Act II and the start of Act III. This is known as the "Dark Night of the Soul." This is roughly analogous to Joseph Campbell's "The Road Back / Resurrection" moment of classic myth or Dara Mark's "Descent - what life will be like w/o change moment of decision." As you can see, there's plenty of overlap in theories and I personally think they all add to each other rather than cancel one another out.
Normally dialog tells us how the characters want other characters to think they feel about a particular situation and the audience has to infer the real meaning of the subtext via the actions of the character. Not so in the "Dark Night of the Soul." In that scene, all pretext is dropped and the characters voice their true feelings. In doing so, it makes it crystal clear for the audience members that might not have picked up on the subtext and allows the characters to understand what the real crisis of the story is. Upon seeing the crisis, the hero then decides to act.
Just as a side note; I think this is also the scene in most movies where Oscars are earned.
The "Dark Night of the Soul" scene in "A Face in the Crowd" takes place quite literally on a dark and rainy night in a bedroom where two characters bare their souls. What I find fascinating is the character you may have thought was the hero of the story turns out to be the villain and a character you may have thought was a supporting b-story character is actually the hero that has to decide to act at the end of this scene.
http://www.youtube.com/wat
Damn, that's some fine writing and acting.
Also prophetic as hell if you look at how some radio/TV hosts have used the media lately to push political objectives. Budd Schulberg was a genius when he looked at TV and saw the power it had available to it. It's a shame more people aren't familiar with the movie.
