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Continued... Page 3 > Developing a Theme that Sells

- Othello: The conflict between the passions of jealously and love. It is not the lesson or moral at the end of the story that involves the audience so much as the struggle between the two opposing points of view in the theme. Actual scenes or units of action which illustrate the theme are more engaging than narrative summaries of facts delivered by lawyers in courtroom recitations of evidence.

Typical kinds of dialectics that can be created in trials are as follows:

- Product liability cases ñ The defendant corporation put profits over people.

- Employment discrimination ñ The defendant doesn't get it ñ While the plaintiff tries hard to earn a living, he just sees her as a sex object.

- Medical negligence ñ Physicians have the power of life and death over their patients. We trust them to do the right thing. The defendant abused that trust here by not taking the right steps.

WHAT SHAPES HUMAN PERCEPTION OF THEMES?

Philosophers, religious figures, psychologists, and artists, among others, have sought to understand the larger issues of human existence, focusing on the meaning of life and death as well as basic human interaction in everyday life. Aristotle looked at the relationship of art to the human soul, defining the function of tragedy in the theater to effect catharsis ñ drawing out the emotions of pity and fear in the audience. Aristotle viewed this as some form of soul therapy, that witnessing the tragic action caused spectators to harmlessly discharge their less than rational passions through vicarious suffering.

In order for any form of art to have an emotional impact, there has to be a degree of audience identification. In a play, film or book, the protagonist can be neither vicious nor perfect. Otherwise, the audience will not feel any degree of sympathy for the suffering of a character.

While he is seen as a legendary filmmaker who brought cinema to the peak of artistic expression, Ingmar Bergman was always acutely aware of the need to use themes that connect with his audience:

I do not intend my work to be solely for the benefit of myself or the few, but for the entertainment of the general public. The wishes of the public are imperative. . . . Each person has the right to understand a film as he sees it. Either he is attracted or repelled. A film is made to create reaction. If the audience does not react one way or the other, it is an indifferent work and worthless.

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