Scott Ventura ([info]tfofurn) wrote,
@ 2007-08-20 22:24:00
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Why Is Fiction Less Appealing?
Today I had the good fortune of seeing the touring production of the musical Aida. This is the stage show with score by Elton John and Tim Rice. The new Aida is only loosely based on the Verdi opera. At the end of the performance, a member of our party remarked that he would've changed the ending. Having spent two hours watching a show set in ancient Egypt, we were eager to believe that the ending was drawn from the historical record, which would've made such a change unthinkable.

Upon regaining access to Wikipedia, we discovered that the modern Aida's ending is, indeed, a change from the Verdi version. Sadly, the Verdi version isn't based on anything real. Attempts to look up character names like Amneris and Radames yielded only the opera. What is it about period pieces like this that increases audience gullibility?


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[info]epicureanangel
2007-08-21 02:36 am UTC (link)
I think it's more the fact that there are references to specific places and people, that makes it unthinkable that it could be fictionalized. It's not just the period nature of it. If it was a movie that referenced, say, the Queen of England, one would think that anything fact presented in the narrative that could be corroborated would have been.

Having said that, I love the Aida ending. It's incredibly poignant and makes it one of my favorite musicals. I'm more than thankful that I weep through fictionalized experiences rather than grief in reality. And I *enjoy* having the opportunity to have various emotions evoked within me.

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[info]tfofurn
2007-08-21 09:15 pm UTC (link)
In the special features on the North by Northwest DVD, the writer relates the time Hitchcock predicted that eventually they would just push buttons for the sequence of emotions they wanted the audience to feel without having to actually make a movie.

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