Coupla things i'm feeling right now

Mad
Bad
Sad

and before this blog gets any more mind numbing than it already is, lemme make it even drier by talking math. For those of you who just turn their faces away at the sound of "math", well here's something for you. Turn your face away :P

This was something i've been meaning to post since a while.. The other day i was just thinking about something, was probably watching a movie. So then it suddenly strikes me, how similar most plots look like, if you abstract out the minor details. Lemme try and explain. I'm assuming you know what are transitive relations. if A -> B, and B -> C, then A -> C, iff -> is a transitive relation.

Now think of cause effect relations. If A caused B and B caused C, then in effect A caused C. Same goes for effect, since if A caused B, then B is an effect of A. So cause-effect relations are transitive. My first assumption. I suppose it is provable, but i'm assuming it right now.

So what do we have till now? We assumed Cause - Effect relations are transitive. Which i personally think is a harmless assumption.

By now most readers would have already redirected away from this page, but if you still wanna waste time, and still want to see where this is going, best of luck! read on, 0 courageous net-surfer!

Coming to movies, lets talk about plots. I do not proclaim to be an ardent movie-goer. Nor do i understand the art and intricacies of movie-making. But from the few movies that i have seen, what i can garner is this. That plots are basically events that happen to certain characters. Be it murder, be it alien abduction, or simply an everyday Joe getting a promotion at his workplace. or buying a burger for that matter. You always have characters and you always have things happening to them. That's what a movie is about right? (Coming to think of it, can there be movies without players/actors/characters? Even documentaries for that matter have certain characters whom they showcase. Be it the panda or downtrodden cultures. As i said, i'm no pundit on movies, ask Maruti Koppola for more info on that. tee hee i just cudn't resist taking that dig at you :P) So we have plots, and plots have characters, and events happening to these characters. An intelligent/intricate plot is one where seeming disconnected events are weaved into a fine seamless web of happening. Seems like i'm talking mostly about mystery movies. But i support my statement by saying even in comedy movies, events still happen to characters, only here these events are funny. Same goes for thrillers/horrors. Now where is this all going?? what am i writing?? if you haven't already guessed, a li'l more patience, and i think you'll see it.

What i want to say is this. That movie plots could be quantified and analysed using a math basis. Call it Movie-Calculus if you like. A plot can be said to be a network of cause-effect relations, where the elements of this network are the events in the plot. For example, Jim Carrey getting a promotion is an event in Fun with Dick and Jane. This event, say A, causes his wife to quit her job, event B. Continuing this way, there probably could be an evaluation mechanism somewhere to say whether a certain plot is better or worse than a certain other. Or maybe this mechanism can be customised to the viewers choice. Coz sometimes, as intelligent as i might be, i just don't seem to get some movies, like this. Anyways. Coming back to the point, can this be done? seems quite possible to me. I'm not, i repeat not trying to quantify emotions. impossible to say movie X is funnier than movie Y. But what might be possible is to say whether X has a stronger plot than Y, or whether lose strings are tied. That is when a mystery is solved. Like in The Face on the Wall, a short story by EV Lucas, the plot is gripping, complete, and ends when the narrator stops the narration. But the final clincher is not the story, but the end note that the narrator leaves us with.

Now supposing something like this does turn up. Something which quantifies and defies the very nature of an experience like movie-going. Would it be ethical? I mean, if something like this did come up, then imagine yourself sitting at a movie theatre, analysing the movie frame by frame, and saying to yourself Oh so A->B, and C->D, but A->D. So does B->C? is that really what we want? or will it help us screen out the hundreds and hundreds of movies that these *ollywoods keep making day in and day out? so that the really good ones can be watched and enjoyed. Does it mean that Art forms can be "Scientified"? or that science is superior to art? or does the infeasibility of such a thing reiterate the age-old dichotomy, the one between science and art? lotsa questions.. think about em and comment me :P