Flounder doesn't kill the horse. Right? I mean, it's been awhile since I've seen the movie. Either way, really great commentary on the importance of heart on storytelling. I sometimes feel guilty trying to pull too much emotion out of my readers. Like I'm cheating. But I'm sure my technique just needs revision.
You're thinking of Willie V's novel Lean On Pete. When the broken-down race horse dies, that's the heart in THAT book.
In all fondness the heart is easy to find in all of Willy Vlautin's books. The mentally disabled child. The alcoholic hermit. The starving horse. Willie is GREAT at heart.
Just off the cuff, I want to say that the Heart is Boon and Katy, and the Broken Heart is Boon discovering her affair with Prof. Jennings. There are other examples of cheating in the movie that act as gags, whereas their scene reads as sincere (same with their reunion at the Parade, only to be undercut by their title card). They occupy a romantic drama entirely seperate from the rest of the movie.
Katy also acts as Pinto's and Flounder's introduction to the fraternity, and it quickly establishes that her relationship to everyone, but especially Boon, is different. Could be entirely off, but they just stuck out to me as carrying the most emotional weight out of the entire story. (I also could be entirely wrong because I just thought that Trooper dying of a heart was played as a gag. Maybe I'm sick for laughing lol)
Ding, ding, ding! We have a winner. The only scene that's not played for laughs. Please contact Dennis at The Cult and let me know where to send the expensive book!
Don't get your expectations about the book too high... You'll see a big contrast between the book and the movie. That's what makes this a good exercise.
John Belushi is so overused, and I mean that in the most cherished way, God bless his soul. And I’m sure this has nothing to do with the question, but breaking that guitar was a real motherfucker at the time. And the only “heart” I can think of is pure comedy. And destruction. Kevin Bacon. Titties. Prank goes wrong. It’s National Lampoon, the heart is ridiculousness for laughter. But that’s just me. He’s a zit, get it.
What was the Heart in "Animal House": Delta Tau Chi House represented the underdogs, the less privileged, the less-than-perfect . Throughout the movie there was a theme of Delta Chi House members being put in their place by Omega Theta Pi. Right off, the Omega Theta Pi rejected Larry and Kent without even talking to them. Larry and Kent head to Delta Tau Chi where they were immediately accepted and find a place. They had no chance or no place at Omega Theta Pi. The theme repeats throughout the movie in various ways and comes to a head when Delta Tau Chi House lose everything so they had nothing to lose and decided to make a sort of Project Mayhem to balance the scales. The Delta Tau Chi House created a sort of liminal space when the group crashed the Annual Homecoming Parade. By crashing the Annual Homecoming Parade, the group shuts down social norms and hierarchy and reclaim their own authority for a few hours.
Okay I need a moment… a stomped on puppy elicits reader/viewer sympathy but that doesn’t mean the puppy has heart unless it can get back up and do something that requires them to be a “good person” - so are we talking about what character gets victimized in order to be sympathized or are we talking about the character that makes the choices that lets us know they’re fucking solid aka have “heart”?
Just to be a pain, if that puppy gets up after being kicked and starts tearing the faces off babies and eating them, that dog/character will not have heart just because it’s kicked.
So Sir P, can you help me here with a bit more specificity?
The way I see it, "heart" is when something makes someone so helpless without being pathetic. So, terrible things happen to them, but it's not their fault. No self-pity, just Life Means Absolutely Awful Things Happen To People You Love.
The emotional heart of the film is when Otter gets beaten up by "the Hitler youth," the Deltas get kicked out of school, everybody is down and has given up, Stork asks, "What the hell we supposed to do, you moron," and Bluto makes his impassioned speech, declaring, "Nothing is over until we decide it is!"
Yes but if I don't receive any exciting ideas from the book I'm going to sit this one out. After months of thought and plot and cuts and little actual writing, I have emotional authority and 3 dimensional characters and it might be better for me to stick with it. We shall see.
Flounder is trying to live up to his family's legacy throughout the movie, but continuously falls short, suffering the derision of his fraternity brothers.
justification: at this point all we know is that they're two freshmen who want to join a fraternity together. by being rejected at omega, Flounder and Pinto are instantly relatable and we immediately start rooting for them. Flounder is the puppy. This is reinforced by the omegas sitting the two of them with the rejects, forgetting their names, etc. After this point, Pinto and Flounder are willing to pledge anywhere, a decision that changes their lives forever.
Like John Wick's puppy and Walter White's inoperable cancer, this triggers the story and allows us to root for the characters even though they're doing "bad" things.
You're overthinking! Just picture Donald Sutherland, stoned in his underpants and Karen Allen caught having had sex with his sad old-man body in that dumpy apartment. It reeks of heart.
Correct me if I’m wrong, but did David Bowie’s vampire character in “The Hunger” not in some way serve as inspiration for Tyler Durden? I could swear I was told so in a previous SubStack comment section some time back.
After doing some digging, it appears I was in fact tripp’n. However, I appear to have been tripp’n in the right direction. See this receipt from the comments section on the substack post ‘The Better Video’:
“Okay, I'm going to geek-out over the movie "The Hunger" because, just because. It's a good cycle story. And it's almost non-verbal, almost every important element is shown rather than told. Hint: Plot-wise, it had a huge influence on Fight Club. Can you see how?”
Seems I conflated a character from the movie with the plot from said movie when it came to serving as inspiration for “Fight Club”.
And just like that there goes my book of essays exploring how “The Hunger” was a huge influence on “Fight Club” that’s been 3 years in the making down the toilet.
The "heart" of the movie is rebelling against a strict, sanitized view of America. Each of the characters rebels against societal norms. This is why there is a focus on breaking the traditions of the school, ROTC, etc. In particular, they go to the nightclub as the only white guys, who clearly didn't belong. It was a somewhat awkward sequence but it emphasized that the characters were not going to be bound by society's restrictions.
Coming from someone that pledged and underwent a bunch trials, including, but not limited too, sobbing while standing in the ocean because I was (am) afraid of large bodies of water, but I had to do it anyways. I had to be brave. I had to “get in”.
The heart really comes in when it comes to Flounder and the horse. First we see the pledges are dealing with drill work. Flounder is being picked on. Here we meet the horse and the intimidating man riding it. The fraternity boys feel for the pleebs, they’re enraged, so they’re going to do something about it. However, they throw in a little Greek fun and also are going to do a little bit of hazing, these guys want to get in, Flounder, already having been rejected at another house—tough times, I’ve been there. They are having their fun and they bring the horse into the office and have some blanks. At the same time we are thinking “what if the blanks are real and the horse gets shot?”. This is the one time the boys are unsure about this and scared, they’re feeling a thrill, being hazed. And the plan doesn’t go right but not because of being shot, but the horse dies anyways at the sound of the gun going off.
I believe this is the heart. The hazing. The decision. The rejection. Flounder. This is the one moment I “felt” anything for them. This is where I related, maybe through personal experiences of being hazed, who knows. Being told you have to shoot a horse is where the heart is.
from what you wrote it seems the broken heart of breaking bad is stale. how do you think good media is able to come from broken heart concepts that are marketable.
Flounder doesn't kill the horse. Right? I mean, it's been awhile since I've seen the movie. Either way, really great commentary on the importance of heart on storytelling. I sometimes feel guilty trying to pull too much emotion out of my readers. Like I'm cheating. But I'm sure my technique just needs revision.
Trooper, the horse. Died of a heart attack from the sound of the shot.
You're thinking of Willie V's novel Lean On Pete. When the broken-down race horse dies, that's the heart in THAT book.
In all fondness the heart is easy to find in all of Willy Vlautin's books. The mentally disabled child. The alcoholic hermit. The starving horse. Willie is GREAT at heart.
Just off the cuff, I want to say that the Heart is Boon and Katy, and the Broken Heart is Boon discovering her affair with Prof. Jennings. There are other examples of cheating in the movie that act as gags, whereas their scene reads as sincere (same with their reunion at the Parade, only to be undercut by their title card). They occupy a romantic drama entirely seperate from the rest of the movie.
Katy also acts as Pinto's and Flounder's introduction to the fraternity, and it quickly establishes that her relationship to everyone, but especially Boon, is different. Could be entirely off, but they just stuck out to me as carrying the most emotional weight out of the entire story. (I also could be entirely wrong because I just thought that Trooper dying of a heart was played as a gag. Maybe I'm sick for laughing lol)
Ding, ding, ding! We have a winner. The only scene that's not played for laughs. Please contact Dennis at The Cult and let me know where to send the expensive book!
Ahhh thank you! 😭 I'll hit Dennis up right away!
And I went ahead and messaged you about my mailing address to boot ~
I figured it was the horse as well. Also, I didn’t know The Hunger was anything except an awesome movie. Can’t wait to read it!
Don't get your expectations about the book too high... You'll see a big contrast between the book and the movie. That's what makes this a good exercise.
I can’t wait for this discussion. I read the book a while ago and was surprised how fundamentally different it is from the movie.
Vastly different. That's why we're taking a closer look at both.
Double secret probation
John Belushi is so overused, and I mean that in the most cherished way, God bless his soul. And I’m sure this has nothing to do with the question, but breaking that guitar was a real motherfucker at the time. And the only “heart” I can think of is pure comedy. And destruction. Kevin Bacon. Titties. Prank goes wrong. It’s National Lampoon, the heart is ridiculousness for laughter. But that’s just me. He’s a zit, get it.
Yeah, that's all antics. Antics and cringe -- walking into the Black bar is cringe -- but what scene reeks of betrayal and guilt?
What was the Heart in "Animal House": Delta Tau Chi House represented the underdogs, the less privileged, the less-than-perfect . Throughout the movie there was a theme of Delta Chi House members being put in their place by Omega Theta Pi. Right off, the Omega Theta Pi rejected Larry and Kent without even talking to them. Larry and Kent head to Delta Tau Chi where they were immediately accepted and find a place. They had no chance or no place at Omega Theta Pi. The theme repeats throughout the movie in various ways and comes to a head when Delta Tau Chi House lose everything so they had nothing to lose and decided to make a sort of Project Mayhem to balance the scales. The Delta Tau Chi House created a sort of liminal space when the group crashed the Annual Homecoming Parade. By crashing the Annual Homecoming Parade, the group shuts down social norms and hierarchy and reclaim their own authority for a few hours.
Candace, don't overthink this! You're so smart. Heart is the opposite of smart. Heart is directed at the slower folks. Think slower.
The simpler the better?
Thank you, Mr Palahniuk.
Thinking slowly is my specialty.
Hardly, Logan. Not by a long shot.
You're too kind
Okay I need a moment… a stomped on puppy elicits reader/viewer sympathy but that doesn’t mean the puppy has heart unless it can get back up and do something that requires them to be a “good person” - so are we talking about what character gets victimized in order to be sympathized or are we talking about the character that makes the choices that lets us know they’re fucking solid aka have “heart”?
Just to be a pain, if that puppy gets up after being kicked and starts tearing the faces off babies and eating them, that dog/character will not have heart just because it’s kicked.
So Sir P, can you help me here with a bit more specificity?
If the puppy gets up and tears off faces... then you know Foucault wrote that script!
And NBC still won't green light it.
The way I see it, "heart" is when something makes someone so helpless without being pathetic. So, terrible things happen to them, but it's not their fault. No self-pity, just Life Means Absolutely Awful Things Happen To People You Love.
Great insight! Thank you for sharing with me!
The emotional heart of the film is when Otter gets beaten up by "the Hitler youth," the Deltas get kicked out of school, everybody is down and has given up, Stork asks, "What the hell we supposed to do, you moron," and Bluto makes his impassioned speech, declaring, "Nothing is over until we decide it is!"
Note that dialog seldom carries heart. Heart occurs outside of language. If you can say it -- articulate it -- the element is too intellectualized.
When he takes the passed out girl home from the party in the shopping cart?
Being a scumbag party boy but drawing the line at rape passed for emotional authority in the late seventies.
Nope, but thanks for playing...
Yes, when Mozart chooses not to rape the girl, that's a noble choice. But it doesn't break our heart.
No clue what the answer is. Watched it months ago.
I hope you're reading The Shining with a fine-toothed comb.
Yes but if I don't receive any exciting ideas from the book I'm going to sit this one out. After months of thought and plot and cuts and little actual writing, I have emotional authority and 3 dimensional characters and it might be better for me to stick with it. We shall see.
Flounder is trying to live up to his family's legacy throughout the movie, but continuously falls short, suffering the derision of his fraternity brothers.
If Flounder was shown suffering in a realistic way that might qualify as heart but it would skew the entire movie to him.
Put Flounder in pain and you have Full Metal Jacket. THAT is the movie I'd watch.
Ha! That would be as awesome as Homer Simpson's and Mel Gibson's remake of Mr. Smith Goes to Washington
is it at omega house, the door in the face around the 2:30 minute mark?
justification: at this point all we know is that they're two freshmen who want to join a fraternity together. by being rejected at omega, Flounder and Pinto are instantly relatable and we immediately start rooting for them. Flounder is the puppy. This is reinforced by the omegas sitting the two of them with the rejects, forgetting their names, etc. After this point, Pinto and Flounder are willing to pledge anywhere, a decision that changes their lives forever.
Like John Wick's puppy and Walter White's inoperable cancer, this triggers the story and allows us to root for the characters even though they're doing "bad" things.
I think you may have gotten it
Your brains are you enemy here.
You're overthinking! Just picture Donald Sutherland, stoned in his underpants and Karen Allen caught having had sex with his sad old-man body in that dumpy apartment. It reeks of heart.
Correct me if I’m wrong, but did David Bowie’s vampire character in “The Hunger” not in some way serve as inspiration for Tyler Durden? I could swear I was told so in a previous SubStack comment section some time back.
You are tripp'n kid.
After doing some digging, it appears I was in fact tripp’n. However, I appear to have been tripp’n in the right direction. See this receipt from the comments section on the substack post ‘The Better Video’:
“Okay, I'm going to geek-out over the movie "The Hunger" because, just because. It's a good cycle story. And it's almost non-verbal, almost every important element is shown rather than told. Hint: Plot-wise, it had a huge influence on Fight Club. Can you see how?”
Seems I conflated a character from the movie with the plot from said movie when it came to serving as inspiration for “Fight Club”.
Well you've proved that I was tripp'n.
And just like that there goes my book of essays exploring how “The Hunger” was a huge influence on “Fight Club” that’s been 3 years in the making down the toilet.
I remember this! For the longest time, I was hoping you'd revisit it. Because I have a theory, and I've always wondered if I was right.
The "heart" of the movie is rebelling against a strict, sanitized view of America. Each of the characters rebels against societal norms. This is why there is a focus on breaking the traditions of the school, ROTC, etc. In particular, they go to the nightclub as the only white guys, who clearly didn't belong. It was a somewhat awkward sequence but it emphasized that the characters were not going to be bound by society's restrictions.
Your 140-point I.Q. is showing. Huff some gasoline and watch the movie again.
This made me laugh. Very much in the spirit of the movie.
Coming from someone that pledged and underwent a bunch trials, including, but not limited too, sobbing while standing in the ocean because I was (am) afraid of large bodies of water, but I had to do it anyways. I had to be brave. I had to “get in”.
The heart really comes in when it comes to Flounder and the horse. First we see the pledges are dealing with drill work. Flounder is being picked on. Here we meet the horse and the intimidating man riding it. The fraternity boys feel for the pleebs, they’re enraged, so they’re going to do something about it. However, they throw in a little Greek fun and also are going to do a little bit of hazing, these guys want to get in, Flounder, already having been rejected at another house—tough times, I’ve been there. They are having their fun and they bring the horse into the office and have some blanks. At the same time we are thinking “what if the blanks are real and the horse gets shot?”. This is the one time the boys are unsure about this and scared, they’re feeling a thrill, being hazed. And the plan doesn’t go right but not because of being shot, but the horse dies anyways at the sound of the gun going off.
I believe this is the heart. The hazing. The decision. The rejection. Flounder. This is the one moment I “felt” anything for them. This is where I related, maybe through personal experiences of being hazed, who knows. Being told you have to shoot a horse is where the heart is.
I thought of the horse as well. You did a great job describing why.
Thank you. I feel that I could’ve added a lot more to it and am glad to have this feedback. :)
Did you use A.I. to write your response? A.I. can't do heart because it has no soul.
Now reach deep into your soul and try again.
Bahaha. I did not use A.I. to write this. I guess I just related deeply with Flounder and the choice he was faced with.
Congrats to Evan on the correct answer.
from what you wrote it seems the broken heart of breaking bad is stale. how do you think good media is able to come from broken heart concepts that are marketable.
They use seven-year-olds for the test audience. Did the viewers cry? Bingo.
is this a koan? ;_;