A fellow writer and I were talking about flash backs.  Flash backs takes us back to a time before the current moment of the story, be it novel, TV show, film, etc.  And, as this zombie dog growls, there’s a guideline in storytelling that states don’t use them.

The reason is simple.  The threat of death to the character having the flashback is removed.  Makes sense. Makes even more sense when the reader/audience is supposed to be connected to the main character, the heroine.  We see a lot of supporting characters die.  Rarely do we see the main character die before the climax.

Then the hero can die.  Otherwise, who will finish the story?

The problem is exacerbated when we’re reading a series, watching Showtime’s Dexter (I watched four seasons knowing Dexter wasn’t gonna die), or a movie franchise.

But can flashbacks work?  Yes.  Here are some examples:

Pulp Fiction

Memento

Slumdog Millionaire

Pulp Fiction shows pieces of the story out of order.  And we don’t know who to really support or connect to until the pieces start to fall together like when loyalties form between enemies Butch Coolidge, Bruce Willis, and Marsellus Wallace, Ving Rhames.  Where before we were rooting for Butch to get outta there before Marsellus Wallace gets to his ass.  Then a cop has Marsellus Wallace’s ass, literally, after being kidnapped.  Butch is about to escape but decides to save Marsellus Wallace’s ass, literally.  And at the end of that scene, we feel for both characters.

Memento directed by Jonathan Nolan, Batman Begins and The Dark Knight, was critically acclaimed and has a cult following.  Basically, it shows the movie from end to beginning because the main character has short term memory loss.  A piece of genus.  Here, the end scene shows someone shot, but we don’t know who.  And as we watch the story barrel to the beginning, we’re in anticipation of who died and what happened.

I loved Slumdog Millionaire.  Talk about a sleeper hit!  Most of the movie depends on flashbacks.  But the goal is to figure out whether Jamal Malik, played by Dav Patel, was cheating.  As we go along for the ride, tension rises because of the things that happen to Jamal, and whether the supporting characters will live.  Some do.  Some don’t.

So do flashbacks work?  Hell yeah.

Just as long it serves the story.

Do you know any other movies, shows, or books that depend on flashbacks?  How about any movies, shows, or books that have the main character die before the climax?

There’s a certain satisfaction when I see Hollywood going to books for inspiration for studio production.  Lord of the Rings brings a certain beauty and grit to the silver screen.  The same director, Peter Jackson, did a remake of King Kong, a movie I have on DVD.  I don’t buy DVD’s on the fly, only the ones that I connect to.

His next movie to be released is Lovely Bones, based on the book of the same name by Alice Sebold.

I have the book.  After reading several chapters, I had to stop.  Not because it wasn’t good because it was.  As I read I could tell I was nearing the infamous part where the girl meets her violent death.  It’s something very difficult for me to read through.  So I stopped.

OnYahoo.comthere was a post that talked about Jackson’s production and how the reviews were not good.  The main complaint it seems was the emotion and the cruel reality of the murder was missing:

“Gone is the dismembered body part that alerts the family to Susie’s fate. Gone is her anguished mother’s adulterous affair with the detective who leads the case. Gone is all mention of what really transpired in that lonely 1970s cornfield.”

According to the article, Jackson was tyring to get a PG-13 rating.  If this is true, why?

I’m not saying kids shouldn’t see this.  They should, if they want.  But this subject matter deserves an R rating.  Again, not from a prohibition standpoint.  But from a subject matter standpoint.  I know the movie industry is a business.  It’s also an artistic medium.

Look at the Matrix movies.  All of them carries an R rating.  From a subject point of view, it’s a war.  And yes, I know Star Wars has a PG rating, but clearly that was child’s play.  Matrix and Lovely Bones are not.  There’s a certain level of grit that exists in the way those stories are told that Star Wars is missing.  A good indication are the stormtroopers in the white clad armor.

There’s little that I would prohibit a child to see or learn.  That is not my standpoint here.  But Lovely Bones the movie deserves an R rating out of respect for its art and subject.