After a marathon session which involved sitting through
the final 7 episodes, this weekend my wife and I finished watching 'Breaking
Bad' - and what a truly, utterly superb TV series this has been. It boasts what I can safely say is possibly
the greatest acting performance I've seen in anything, film or TV - Bryan Cranston as Walter White; I've never watched anything where the actor is so
submersed in his role that you completely disassociate him from any other roles
I've seen him in. Bryan Cranston becomes
Walter White - his mannerisms, facial expressions, the way he walks, talks -
this is someone who has fully inhabited his character. Of course, the rest of the cast is uniformly
superlative, but this is Cranston's show.
Walter White's transformation in to 'Heisenberg', and - spoilers! - his
eventual downfall are forever seared in to the memory of anyone who has watched
this series. On top of this, the series
is brilliantly written, and directed with no small amount of panache by various
Directors who have handled different episodes.
There are many sequences, camera shots, and memorable scenes which show
that Films have not only been an influence on the visual style and intent of
the show - but it is successfully using the same tools to make the story visually
compelling and interesting. TV has often
felt like it could do with drawing from Films, and I'd argue that Breaking Bad
is just one of several contemporary TV series which demonstrate a desire to
match films and achieve the same visual impact.
 |
| When I grow up, I want to be a bad-ass like Heisenberg. Only, without the drugs, and murder, and criminality, y'know. |
Watching one episode during our marathon, an astounding sequence involving a number of simultaneous 'hits' on different individual prisoners in various prisons, it occurred to me that not only is this series
delivering exhilarating, audaciously shot and edited sequences which match anything most films have to offer, but also it has given me something which
many films often fail to do: a compelling, intelligent and nuanced story. This is the mark of many contemporary TV
series - what is often referred to as 'long form story telling' - taking
multiple series to present and explore all aspects of a narrative. I think that it is now time for films to
start to demonstrate the same amount of ambition that TV series now have, and
embrace this approach of storytelling.
This is already happening to an extent with the series of movies Marvel
Studios have been releasing. Although
each stands on its own rights as a self-contained story, there are threads
which are picked up and carried throughout, culminating in The Avengers
movies. I expect you're probably now
thinking 'well, so what? There have been
movie franchises which have told a story over 2 or more films for decade.' Of course, you'd be right - we've had the
Star Wars saga, the Godfather Trilogy, Lord of the Rings... But to be honest I'm not talking about a
trilogy, or a saga. What I mean is a
series where each film works on its own as a satisfying, self-contained story
in its own right, but there are elements which run throughout and all come
together for a 'final chapter'. Think of
each film as like a 'season' of a TV series - you've got the over-arching
narrative (e.g. with Breaking Bad Walter White's journey from decent man to
creator of a drug empire, until his eventual downfall), but in each season there's
a specific thread (e.g. Breaking Bad's second series where Walter struggles to keep his
dealings from his wife and family, whilst dealing with very dangerous drug
dealers), which comes to fruition by the end.
This, for me, is where the TV storytelling format surpasses film
franchise building - because once each 'season arc' is tied up, TV series allow
for a great deal of exploration of the impact and consequences of the
conclusion of the previous season's arc.
Franchise films - whether trilogy or saga - never really
allow for this; mostly because there is often a passage of time which has
passed between them (often for practical reasons, due to the length of
production on a lot of films) - if there are consequences which have been felt
by a character or have impacted on the story/setting, these are often dealt
with in broad strokes. We often jump
straight back in with the characters having dealt with these and in their
situation accordingly. I think the
nearest any ongoing film series has got to what TV does is in 'Iron Man 3' -
following the events of 'The Avengers' (or 'Avengers Assemble'), there are
suggestions that Tony Stark has been hugely impacted by his encounters with
genuinely super-powered and highly skilled individuals - even as his allies;
and that's before you get to his emerging PTSD as a result of his
experiences. I think there's a lot of
potential for this in films which take a series approach.
So why don't more movie franchises take an ambitious,
long term approach to storytelling?
Firstly, it's down to the potential risk of making films - there's no
guarantee that a new film is going to be successful enough to merit a
sequel. And even if it is, there's no
guarantee the sequel will do well either!
So perhaps this approach is not ideal for big budget, high risk
tent-pole films (e.g. your typical summer blockbuster); but as most TV series
often rewards investment of time and attention on the part of the viewer,
perhaps it requires a more low-key but none-the-less compulsive setting - maybe
a political or espionage thriller, or a family-based drama, or a police
procedural... Okay, so these are staples
of TV drama at the moment - but why couldn't they work on the big screen as
multiple film series? A film in one of
these genres is likely to cost significantly less than a Superhero Blockbuster
to make, so I would argue the financial risk is far smaller; the first film
would only need to be a moderate success to financially justify continuing the
sequel.
This brings me to my second point: movies set out to have
a satisfying, self-contained story which works on its own. Even the Marvel Studio films, linking to each
other as they do, only contain subtle threads which are more likely to be
picked up by fans, either of the series or of the source material; you didn't
have to have seen Captain America: The First Avenger to appreciate what the
Tesseract was in The Avengers. If plot
elements are left unfulfilled at the end of the film it can leave the audience
feeling deeply unsatisfied - or even worse, just plain confused! The challenge
would be to make each film stand on its own rights, but handle the ongoing
threads, which would find resolution and fruition in the final film of the
sequence, not feel like plot-holes or lazy 'sequel-bait' elements. I think any film series which takes this
approach would need at least the first couple of films to feel self-contained,
in terms of having a satisfying conclusion in their own terms (whilst obviously
setting up links to the ongoing narrative arc) - then as the series grows in
terms of success and popularity there would be opportunities to have
cliff-hanger endings, setting up immediate links to the next film. TV Series have long done this - picking
Breaking Bad again, the first two series have pretty solid endings (while
leaving enough open for a continuation) - but Season 3 had a - SPOILER! - pretty
significant cliff-hanger that didn't get resolved until the start of Season 4. So keeping a film satisfying in its own right
shouldn't mean that the writers/makers can't have ambition for continually
evolving and gripping narrative twists.
Finally, what stories could form such a franchise? Well, I've suggested the types of genres
which could form the basis of this approach to film making, but there are
other, already existing works which could also do this. There's Stephen King's 'Dark Tower' series -
8 books so far, and too dense to squeeze in to a trilogy, never mind a single
film; ironically there's been attempts to get this made, and have also considered alternating between films and TV to tell the saga. However, a drawback could be the cost of
bringing this high concept fantasy, mixing elements of Western, sci-fi, post-apocalyptic,
horror to life and doing it justice; the first film on its own would not be
satisfying at all, and might not draw those unfamiliar with the series to keep watching. Another example is the amazing 'Preacher'
series of comics; the biggest obstacle - other than, again, budgeting to
realise a story involving God, Angels, Demons Vampires, Serial Killers and
everything in between! - is the controversy that would be generated if they
really stick to the comics (taking in, as they do, drugs, S&M, suicide, and
a hefty, hefty dose of blasphemy & iconoclasm). Fortunately, the AMC network now have the rights to this series, and it's arguable it will get a more effective and
faithful adaptation. Another suggestion
would be one of the countless crime/thriller novel series out there, by the
like of James Patterson etc etc etc. I
must admit that I'm not too familiar with these as they're not the sort of
books I read, and I'm aware that the above-stated author's 'Alex Cross' books have had a few adaptations, but not as an ongoing, linked series - however the advantage of doing these as they already have an
established 'fan-base' familiar with the work; but beyond that, I'm not sure how
many would lend themselves to an ongoing series that weave in longer narrative
threads through their course.
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