Sean Penn’s film The Pledge is based on Dürrenmatt’s novel The Pledge, which criticizes the genre of detective fiction. How does Penn’s film defy genre clichés? Explain.
The Pledge is a mystery film based on Dürrenmatt’s novel from 1958 with the same title. The original story behind the film is extremely well known in European literature as it defies many genre clichés that existed at that time and that still prevail today in movies and novels of this genre. In this essay, three of such clichés will be analyzed so that the reader can have an idea of how the plot had such an impact on people.
The most striking example of where The Pledge defies detective films clichés lies in its ending. In most films of this genre, the criminal is always …show more content…
There is rarely any element of randomness associated with the plot. However, that was where The Pledge really shined. Even though Jack was portrayed as an extremely clever and meticulous investigator who took all aspects of the problem into consideration, he failed at bringing the culprit to justice. This is attributed to the fact that the movie wanted to make people realize that random variables do exist in reality and they can greatly affect the course of a crime investigation. I cannot put it clearer than Dr. H. in the novel, “Reality can be only partially attacked by logic. In your novels, chance plays no part. You don’t try to get mixed up with the kind of reality that is always slipping through our fingers. Instead, you set up a world that you can manage. That world may be perfect – who knows? – but it’s also a lie.” And by the end, we realize that the protagonist was the one to suffer the consequences of that “lie.” Sean Penn was very bold to introduce random elements throughout plot, from the beginning to the very end.
As we have seen, the story behind the film The Pledge was successfully able to challenge it genre clichés in three ways, namely questioning our opinion of good and bad, making us realize that random elements are always
The Pledge is a mystery film based on Dürrenmatt’s novel from 1958 with the same title. The original story behind the film is extremely well known in European literature as it defies many genre clichés that existed at that time and that still prevail today in movies and novels of this genre. In this essay, three of such clichés will be analyzed so that the reader can have an idea of how the plot had such an impact on people.
The most striking example of where The Pledge defies detective films clichés lies in its ending. In most films of this genre, the criminal is always …show more content…
There is rarely any element of randomness associated with the plot. However, that was where The Pledge really shined. Even though Jack was portrayed as an extremely clever and meticulous investigator who took all aspects of the problem into consideration, he failed at bringing the culprit to justice. This is attributed to the fact that the movie wanted to make people realize that random variables do exist in reality and they can greatly affect the course of a crime investigation. I cannot put it clearer than Dr. H. in the novel, “Reality can be only partially attacked by logic. In your novels, chance plays no part. You don’t try to get mixed up with the kind of reality that is always slipping through our fingers. Instead, you set up a world that you can manage. That world may be perfect – who knows? – but it’s also a lie.” And by the end, we realize that the protagonist was the one to suffer the consequences of that “lie.” Sean Penn was very bold to introduce random elements throughout plot, from the beginning to the very end.
As we have seen, the story behind the film The Pledge was successfully able to challenge it genre clichés in three ways, namely questioning our opinion of good and bad, making us realize that random elements are always