| As long as you are reasonably entertained, more power to you. However, a lot of things cannot be conveyed as well undramatized. The mere fact that something is fiction does not mean that it is all lies or fantasy. In profound ways, it might convey truth. Certainly a novel like "The Brothers Karamazov" does. There are a number of things like that: "Vanity Fair" by Thackeray; "The Red and the Black", by Stendahl; "Lord Jim", by Joseph Conrad; "Moby Dick", by Herman Melville; "Jude the Obscure", by Thomas Hardy; "Anna Karenina", by Leo Tolstoy; "The American", by Henry James; "Howard's End", by E.M. Forster; "Main Street", by Sinclair Lewis; and many others. Among films, there are "The Rules of the Game", by Jean Renoir; "Napoleon", by Abel Gance; "M", by Fritz Lang; "Mr. Smith Goes To Washington", by Frank Capra; "Sanjuro", by Akira Kurosawa; "8 1/2", by Federico Fellini; "Cries and Whispers", by Ingmar Bergman; "The Wild Bunch", by Sam Peckinpah; and many others. Among great episodic comedies, on television, have been "The Dick Van Dyke Show", "The Andy Griffith Show", "Taxi", "Barney Miller", and "Seinfeld". Among the great television mini- series have been "Roots", "Roots: The Next Generation", "The Winds of War", "War and Remembrance", and (on PBS) "The Glittering Prizes". Among great drama series have been "The Twilight Zone", "Kojack", "Hill Street Blues", "Law and Order", "NYPD Blue", and "Northern Exposure" (although some would consider it a comedy). There are lots of things out there that are artfully put together and show something about society, or history, or psychology that one might find revealing, and that might stick with one better than a documentary......... |
