From the course: Creating a Short Film: 02 Writing

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Exploring the theme

Exploring the theme

- One of the things that movies do to touch us on a deeper level is to have a theme, some underlying concept that it wrestles with in order to give the film more meaning. Themes are great, but honestly, they kind of drive me crazy a little bit. No one, no writer, no writing teacher, no author, no one really agrees on a standard definition of a theme or what that truly means, but everyone acts like their definition is the definition. Some treat theme like the moral of the story a lesson that needs to be taught to the audience, like in Aesop's Fables or something. Like, don't put work before your family might be a theme in The Shining. Others see theme like it's an issue to be wrestled with, like a political or moral issue of the day. For example, the Godfather movies dealt with the idea of loyalty to family above all else. Citizen Kane wrestled with the idea of obtaining power and what that does to our innocence. Some writers feel that the theme should be out in the open and obvious…

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