The Uses of Bad Art, Explained by Good Art

(Wherein Sharon agrees with J.R.R. Tolkien, who doesn't need the help.)

My awakening to screenwriting came through two sources, both of which I encountered at that impressionable age around thirteen.  One was a rather sublime movie, which may be the subject of a future post. (Kevin Jarre, requiescat in pace, and thank you.)  The other was a TV show - Mission: Impossible.

Not the 1960s classic, though I have since found and loved that one, too.  No, the too-brief '80s revival starring Peter Graves, Thaao Penghlis, Tony Hamilton, Phil Morris, and Jane Badler.  (If anyone read that last sentence and thought "What about Terry Markwell?" - to such an one, if such there be, I can only shout "Comrade!")

Mission did two main things for me as a writer.  First, it taught me to plot.  This was not a show where you could just throw your characters into an interesting premise and see what happened.  It was a giant puzzle, only comprehensible when the last piece clicked into place.  First and foremost, it was the structure that mattered, and when years later I read the Poetics - "We maintain, therefore, that the first essential, the life and soul, so to speak, of Tragedy is the Plot; and that the Characters come second." - I thought, Well, yes.  As Mission creator Bruce Geller said, "They are what they do."  And because of that structure, it was ultimately a show about the complete mutual trust of five people.  Everyone did his part, knowing absolutely that the others were doing theirs.  Not a bad metaphor.  (In case it isn't obvious, this is why I'm not a fan of the Cruise/DePalma/Koepp/Zaillian/Towne reboot, which systematically destroyed that theme.  The new creative team has made good progress in recovering it, but I have yet to see the Mission movie I really crave.)

The second thing Mission did for me was get bad.  Now, at their best they had never been perfect.  There was always far too much infuriatingly unnecessary exposition - it is never a good idea to have one of your characters say "Our plan is working!" - and the teaser seldom did anything other than say "the bad guys are bad," which we were pretty much going to figure out from the rest of the episode.  But I digress.  From generally sound plotting in the first season, allowing for some nice ensemble acting, they drifted in the second season into sloppy structure and sensationalistic premises.  Eye-opening for a budding writer, as it was an object lesson in how much the script matters.

Then, toward the end, they did an episode that was not just sloppy, not just unbelievable.  It was wrong.  I sat through it thinking "Max would never behave that way, and Shannon wouldn't fall for that, and none of them is so stupid as to…"  I got mad.  So I rewrote it.  And oh, it felt good.  I'm still proud of that story, as a matter of fact.

But where did all that righteous indignation come from?  After all, it was their show, not mine.  The characters were whatever they said, right?

As often happens, Tolkien supplies the answer.

One of my favorite passages in The Silmarillion is the creation of the Dwarves.  Please excuse a lengthy quotation - it's worth it:

Now Ilúvatar knew what was done, and in the very hour that Aulë's work was complete, and he was pleased, and began to instruct the Dwarves in the speech that he had devised for them, Ilúvatar spoke to him; and Aulë heard his voice and was silent.  And the voice of Ilúvatar said to him: 'Why hast thou done this?  Why dost thou attempt a thing which thou knowest is beyond thy power and thy authority?  For thou hast from me as a gift thy own being only, and no more; and therefore the creatures of thy hand and mind can live only by that being, moving when thou thinkest to move them, and if thy thought be elsewhere, standing idle.  Is that thy desire?'

Then Aulë answered: 'I did not desire such lordship.  I desired things other than I am, to love and to teach them, so that they too might perceive the beauty of Eä, which thou has caused to be.  For it seemed to me that there is great room in Arda for many things that might rejoice in it, yet it is for the most part empty still, and dumb.  And in my impatience I have fallen into folly.  Yet the making of things is in my heart from my own making by thee; and the child of little understanding that makes a play of the deeds of his father may do so without thought of mockery, but because he is the son of his father.  But what shall I do now, so that thou be not angry with me for ever?  As a child to his father, I offer to thee these things, the work of the hands which thou hast made.  Do with them what thou wilt.  But should I not rather destroy the work of my presumption?'

Then Aulë took up a great hammer to smite the Dwarves; and he wept.  But Ilúvatar had compassion upon Aulë and his desire, because of his humility; and the Dwarves shrank back from the hammer and were afraid, and they bowed down their heads and begged for mercy.  And the voice of Ilúvatar said to Aulë: 'Thy offer I accepted even as it was made.  Dost thou not see that these things have now a life of their own, and speak with their own voices?  Else they would not have flinched from thy blow, nor from any command of thy will.'

Our desire to create is itself a gift of our Creator, and a part of that gift is that our creations take on a - very limited - life of their own.  Or perhaps it would be better to say a truth of their own, a participation in Truth itself.  They thus become things that we do not entirely control, and it is our job not so much to tell them what we want them to do, as to discover What They Are, or are meant to be.  And the most important part of our job is to offer them back to God, with the prayer that they will serve His will.

Now, if you'll excuse me, I have a Mission movie to write.