...engaging and discerning culture, as a way of life...

February 17, 2005

The Player - 6

A satire about a film executive, which shows the elements that make a good movie, while using the character as the mode to explain the movie to the audience (less confusing while watching the movie, than my explanation of it). It in effect exploits all of the usual formulation that movies have, suspense, sex, violence, hope, and most of all, a "happy" ending. I put happy in quotes because it is often debatable how happy the ending really is. Is it that the character's in the film is happy at the end, or that the audience is happy about how it all worked out? That is the question that this film challenges in the discussion of moral meaning and storied living. Is happiness really the goal, and how can it be pursued? I think that almost every movie deals in some way with this question.

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