Tragedies - examples?

B

Barry_Green

Moderator
Hey folks, lookin' to do a little research into some full-fledged tragedies and just wanted to get some suggestions from you guys as to films that fit this basic model: a lead character who starts out with what he believes is a morally justifiable position, even if the end justifies the means, and who keeps working at it and working at it, garnering some success but finding that he has to keep going further and further to hold it all together, until at the end it all comes crumbling down.

A possible example would have been Charlie Sheen in Wall Street but he turned it around before it all hit, so that doesn't really count. Maybe A Simple Plan would qualify. Or someone putting together a Ponzi scheme. But it doesn't have to be about money, I mean, it could be a story involving a guy who gets involved in an affair because he truly thinks he's met the love of his life, but the further it goes the harder he has to try to hold it all together and then she turns out to not exactly be "all that" and then by the end he has to reconcile how many lives he's destroyed, including his own... or someone who takes some liberties in business to advance their career, and then the lies start unravelling. Could be a big-scale thing, or a small personal thing, as long as by the end it's really and truly a tragedy.

Looking for classic or modern, high-quality tellings of truly tragic tales.

Suggestions?

Thanks.
 
The Richard Widmark Night and the City is a great film you may not have seen. Obviously The Godfather series, but you probably have seen those.
 
Pretty much anything with Sterling Hayden. Things never go well for that poor guy.
"The Killing" and "Asphalt Jungle" come to mind.

Not exactly 'moral' characters - so not sure they fit what you're looking for.
 
Would Requiem for a Dream be anything like what you're looking for? Also, "This is England" is a fantastic film that follows that sort of pattern. Green Street Hooligans as well. In fact, pretty much any skinhead movie follows that pattern. TIE is one of the most depressing movies I've ever seen, though I think GSH has a slightly more upbeat ending.
 
I still haven't gotten over this one:

beer-accident.jpg
 
Luis Caffesse said:
Pretty much anything with Sterling Hayden. Things never go well for that poor guy.
"The Killing" and "Asphalt Jungle" come to mind.

Not exactly 'moral' characters - so not sure they fit what you're looking for.
Click to expand...

"The Killing" and "Asphalt Jungle" were my first thoughts as well.

The lives of Kattie Scarlett O'Hara and Charles Foster Kane might be some other examples ("Gone With The Wind" and "Citizen Kane" of course").

If you really want to go back, "Sunrise", a classic silent film directed by F.W. Murnau fits the bill also, but of course, being a Hollywood flick, ends on a happy note. This film is outstanding visually and should be seen by anyone interested in film, but it does have the obsessive love/lust element you may be looking for.
 
Not looking for a happy ending. Looking for a true tragic ending.

The key thing is that the central character knows something is amiss in their approach, but they decide to plunge forward anyway. And they keep slapping on bandaids and plastering up the cracks in order to keep building and building, knowing that if they can just hold it together long enough, they'll get the sale or she'll say "yes" or ... you know, whatever the big win is. Going for absolute broke, but in the end, they lose. And while they may have fervently believed that the end would indeed justify the means, it does in fact not, and when the flashlight of objective reality gets shined on all their dealings, it all starts to come unraveled and they realize just how far they've fallen.

(here's a horrible example -- Anakin in SW Ep III, who thinks that the Jedi are wrong, that he knows a better path, he chooses that which is forbidden to Jedi ("love") because he thinks he knows better, and then when Padme ends up rejecting him it all comes unraveled for him and he ends up trying to murder his best friend and gets burned alive and left dying on the shore and a child murderer and ostracized and everything. If it had ended there, and been competently done, that might be a good example, but as it was it was simply so unbelievable and clunky that it just didn't work -- but the idea was there.)

Actually, more I think about it, the whole core nugget of the prequels is kind of what I'm aiming for, if you stripped out all the "suck". He started out as just a little kid, trying to save his mom from slavery, and by the end he's a child-murdering gestapo nazi wifebeating traitorous murderer, pretty much the most evil and hated and despicable being in the galaxy. That's a pretty tragic path for one guy to follow, but all through it, he thought he was doing the right thing, even when he knew deep down it was wrong, he still felt like he could "handle it" and turn it around and that the end would justify the means. Up until he helped kill Mace Windu; at that point he gave up, but until then, he still thought he could do what is right and balance his selfish priorities against the "greater good" end that he was aiming for.

I'll look into the recommendations you folks have already kindly made, and look forward to hearing any more that may be better-done examples of what I'm looking for. Thanks!
 
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For a true tragic ending, you may want to check the Kurosawa or Bergman bodies of work, or films from the Seventies! LOL!
 
Well I just recently watched "Munich" and it sort of fits the bill. When the main character starts doing the assassinations he's okay with it but as the movie goes on he starts to question the moral repurcussions of his actions.
 
Well any movie that starts well for the main character and that isn't what McKee calls "Ironic" will end tragically.
Ironic stories (that starts and ends in a good and bad way at the same time) tend to be the most fullfilling, but that's not what you're looking for, right?

Here are a few examples from my dvd shelf that use the "tragedy" structure and have at least some of the elements I think you're looking for.

************ SPOILERS BELOW IF YOU HAVEN'T SEEN THE FILMS **************

Fargo
Scarface
Pet Sematary
The Fly
First Blood
The Little Shop of Horrors (the original version is probably more what you're after)



****************** END SPOILERS ************
 
Not all fit perfectly but here's a quick list of my favorites.

blow
last of the Mohican's
dances with wolves
American Beauty
Magnolia
Trainspotting
American History X
A Clockwork Orange
Chinatown
Braveheart
Twelve monkeys
the perfect storm
 
Modern interpretations of classic tragedies should fit the bill. Look to Shakespearean movies as examples:

Kurosawa's 'Ran' would be good - the tragedy is heaped on endlessly (and yet the king was warned about the consequences of his actions from the very opening scene).

All of the various movies based on Romeo & Juliet; take your pick of them.

There is a distinction between a movie that has a classic tragic theme, and a movie that happens to have a sad ending (some of the choices above would fall into the latter category methinks).
 
My list

Midnight Cowboy
Raging Bull
Taxi Driver
Fargo (already mentioned)
There Will Be Blood (Not a modern period...but a modern film, with the superb Daniel Day Lewis in a tragic role.)
Owning Mahoney (If you haven't seen this one....it's great. Very tragic character)
The Wrestler
Boogie Nights....(a tragedy of sorts.)

off the top of my head...will post more when I think of them.
 
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Well, since you want a tragedy, why not go for the original?

Iphigenia, an adaptation of Euripides by the Greek director Kakoyanis (I think), has everything you want.

also:

Roman Polansky's Macbeth.
The Conformist by Bertolucci.
Mephisto, directed by István Szabó.
 
COOL HAND LUKE is good character study where a prison inmate keeps pushing it and pushing it with his superiors - the prison guards.

In some ways this dynamic was revisited with Jack Nicholson in ONE FLEW OVER THE CUCKOOS NEST.

Both are great films that I hope you can find inspiration from
 
Training Day
The Pledge
Reservior Dogs
Platoon
Rambo: First Blood
Apocolypse Now
Leaving Las Vegas
 
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