Loyalty vs. Betrayal When does betrayal look like loyalty and vice versa? Who can your character trust? Can a character be loyal to someone as he or she is betraying that person? Can loyalty be an act of betrayal?

Ally vs. Enemy How does the character’s view of “good” and “evil” shift or change? Who is hiding what? Who is working behind the character’s back for good or ill? How does the character work against him or her self?

Pursuer vs. Pursued What is the character running after and what is he or she running from? How does this change or reverse itself?

Truth vs. Lie How does the “truth” move and morph depending on perspective, or new or reinterpreted information? What is really the truth, how does the truth shift or change depending on shifting perceptions? What is delusion, what is misleading and what is outright active deception?

Desire to Suspect vs. Need to Trust How does the character wrestle with suspicion, paranoia, and the aftereffects of betrayal or seeming betrayal? Can your character fully know the heart of anyone? Can your character fully trust him or her self? Can anyone ever be 100% certain of anyone or anything?

Illusion vs. Reality What is real and what is a set-up, a lie, misinformation, a conspiracy, a delusion, or hidden below the surface of things? How much of perception is preconception, prejudice, ignorance, naivety, pretense, paranoia, duplicity, trickery, or a set up?

Certainty vs. Uncertainty What can be pinned down, proven and quantified, and what will always have an element of the unknown, the mysterious, or the unexplained? Is anyone ever all “good” or all “bad”? How does the character deal with moral ambiguity, shifting perceptions, or shades of gray? Isn’t every situation a shade of gray? Aren’t all people combinations of good and evil?

All great Power of Truth stories — mysteries, thrillers, suspense, and detective stories answer these key questions.

Easy Rawlins (Denzel Washington) loses his job and is offered a quick $100 to find a politician’s girlfriend.  She’s a white girl who likes hot jazz and has been seen frequenting an illegal “colored” nightclub.  Denzel quickly gets caught up in murder and blackmail.

In the best thrillers, (Power of Truth stories) the crime or mystery is a way of going deeper into the main character.  While the investigator is chasing someone or something he is usually running from himself. No such thing happens in Devil In A Blue Dress.  It’s a straight forward by-the-numbers episodic investigation.  No larger deeper truth is revealed.  We learn nothing new about the protagonist and he learns nothing about himself as a result of solving the mystery.

Worse, the devil in a blue dress isn’t devilish at all.  She’s just misguided, believing love will trump her mixed race background and she can marry her white prince charming.  She’s a femme fatale on the run without any dangerous claws.

Roger Ebert summed up my feelings perfectly in his review:

I liked the movie without quite being caught up in it: I liked the period, tone and look more than the story, which I never really cared much about. The explanation, when it comes, tidies all the loose ends, but you’re aware it’s arbitrary – an elegant solution to a chess problem, rather than a necessary outcome of guilt and passion.  http://rogerebert.suntimes.com/apps/pbcs.dll/article?AID=/19950929/REVIEWS/509290302

It doesn’t surprise me there was no second movie adaptation of the Easy Rawlins franchise.

I finally caught up with Shutter Island last night.  I wasn’t interested in the movie when it was released.  Something about the trailer turned me off or was irritating.  I can’t remember what that was.  But I’m preparing for my Thriller Workshop in New York City and thought I should see it.  I’m glad I did.

I liked the movie a lot.  It’s a classic Power of Truth story asking: Who can I trust?  Do I see what I think I see? What’s really going on?  What does it all mean? ** SPOILERS AHEAD **

Shutter Island reminded me very much of Memento.  In both films a man’s wife dies in the aftermath of a violent act.  Each man constructs an elaborate narrative about what happened and who is responsible.  Each man searches for his wife’s “killer.”  After the shock of being confronted with the truth, each man retreats back to his fictional narrative.

The film is an interesting follow up to What The Bleep Do We Know.  That film and my interpretation of it argues:

I am who I say I am.  I am the story I tell about myself– to me and to others.

I chose my story and I continue to chose it consciously or unconsciously every day.

Events in the past do not create or destroy my character– my reaction to, attitude toward and interpretation of those events is what creates or destroys my character.

At the end of Shutter Island, the protagonist (Leonardo DiCaprio), chooses madness.  He can’t face his role in the deaths of his wife and children.  He would rather “Die a good man (his fictional self) than live as a monster (and face what really happened)”.  He cannot do the work to process his grief, forgive himself and resolve his loss.

At the end of Memento, the protagonist (Guy Pearce) chooses to kill the only man who has the key to his wife’s killer.  He can’t face his role in her death. The truth is too painful so he “makes up his own truth”.  He cannot forgive himself and resolve his loss.  So he creates a mystery he can never solve.

Reality is the story we choose to tell about ourselves and our world.  Power of Truth characters struggle to define what reality they can accept and what reality they choose to ignore (or to hide).  Although they seek the truth, the person most often lying to them is themselves.

The protagonists in Shutter Island and Memento choose a story that fictionalizes and twists the truth. Each would rather be insane/lobotomized/lost in a haze of distorted memories rather than face responsibility for the death that haunts him.

Shutter Island is a fascinating psychological thriller that unwraps the protagonist’s psyche in a slow tortuous fashion.  The surprise twist is extremely satisfying.   Although the protagonist is judged insane, he makes a choice that proves his sanity in that he is fully conscious of what he’s doing.

Here is a post from a wonderful blogger Jan O’Hara writing on Tartitude.  She was thinking about Sherlock Holmes and asked if I thought he was a Power of Reason Character.  My answer was:  Sherlock Holmes is indeed a Power of Reason character– Everything can be explained/deduced rationally and logically. “It’s elementary, my dear Watson.” Power of Reason characters care more that something makes sense or is practical and less that it is moral or kind. Moving from a cold clinical analysis toward a more human evaluation (which takes into consideration connection, caring and a real valuing of others) is their journey toward greatness.

Here is Jan’s review of the new BBC re-envisioning of Sherlock Holmes in a modern day setting.  Looks interesting.

1. Have you seen BBC’s Sherlock Holmes? Thus far it’s a three-episode series set in contemporary London, and to podge a British term, it’s brill. Smart, fast-paced, relying more on intellect and issues about character than on the stars’ appearance, it won thumbs up from all four members of my family.

What they do well, IMHO:

a. Respectful blending of past with present: Watson is a recovering war vet, wounded from a tour as a physician in Afghanistan. He’s a blogger!  Despite modernization, though, the essence of the series feels true to the original books.

b. Technology is important in the sleuthing process, but not the focus. This is not a series about gadgets.

c. There’s a fascinating and believable relationship between Watson and Holmes in which each make the other bigger. Without Holmes, Watson would be limping in a half-existence,  devoid of the risk and stimulation which is his life’s blood. Watson, on the other hand, both grounds Holmes and validates him.

d. The writers have set up a central question about Sherlock, articulated by Lestrade in this quote: “He’s a great man. if we’re very lucky, one day he might be a good one.”

Will Sherlock cross from brilliance into psychopathy, perhaps out of sheer boredom? Will he learn to engage emotion and vulnerability along with his impressive intellect, particularly around the female sex? These are great questions to have a viewer asking within a few moments of beginning a series.

Each episode features an FBI case requiring the identification of long buried or hidden human remains. FBI Special Agent Seeley Booth (David Boreanaz) teams with a forensic anthropology team lead by Dr. Temperance “Bones” Brennan (Emily Deschanel). The show is loosely based on the work of real-life forensic anthropologist Kathy Reichs, who is a producer on the show.

Bones is a classic Power of Reason character. Brilliant, analytical, cool, stand-offish and socially awkward.

Agent Booth is a classic Power of Love character. Compassionate, warm, engaging, funny and genuinely sweet.

The two are wonderful foils for each other. Their unfolding attraction has been paced beautifully over four seasons. There is a lesson here for all Romantic comedy writers. The two characters exchange gifts to complement and complete each other. These gifts are personality traits missing in the other, differing points of view necessary to solving the case and critical skills or abilities lacking in their partner. Neither character in the partnership can accomplish the story objective alone. They actually need each other.

In developing any partnership, romantic or otherwise, ask yourself: Why do these two people need each other? What is missing in each person? How do they attract and repel each other? What Leap of Faith must they make to be fully and completely together? What does each fear in the other? What does each person fear most in themselves? How does each person force the other to peel off the mask and reveal what is most vulnerable, secret or shameful about them? How does each person help the other heal?

My comments about her post are in (parenthesis).

Sister Rose writes:

Did you see Without a Trace last night? I thought it was extraordinary – about a weeping statue in a pub, the people who find it, and an authentic and touching look at sadness, faith, lack of faith, doubt, hope, love and mercy.

(Laurie: This episode explored profound Power of Truth questions like: Who can I trust? Did I see what I thought I saw? What is really going on here? Who is hiding something? Am I being deceived? What do I really believe? How can I be absolutely certain? What does it all mean?)

Using the statue (character) of St. Therese, a French Carmelite nun (1873 – 1897) in the episode was so appropriate because she had her own dark night of the soul and she is known for this. The episode, entitled “Miracle Worker”, was a story with layers of dark nights for some of the usual characters (especially Jack played by Anthony La Paglia and Samantha played by Poppy Montgomery) and a teenage girl, her uncle and her father.

The mercy and rays of light that come from faith and wanting to believe play out in very believable ways. It is a complex episode that was deftly written and rendered. I think this long-running show, now in its 7th season (CBS, Tuesdays, 10pm) deserves thoughtful attention because of its consistently human and catholic themes (little “c” and sometimes big “C”). This episode offers much to talk about around the water cooler – and in sermons and homilies too.

“Miracle Worker” is a perfect example of the sacramentality of television and cinema stories: the outward expression of inner realities.

A friend of mine who is a spiritual director told me back in 2002 that she thought Without a Trace is a Good Shepherd show: the FBI characters, despite their flaws, go in search of the lost, often at great personal cost. As they search for others, they search for their own core self, for meaning that transcends their lives.

(Laurie: This classic Power of Truth narrative territory. These stories begin with a obvious question, mystery or crime. During the course of the investigation a larger truth is revealed. In this case, about faith or the lack thereof. In the end, the investigator discovers some truth about him or herself).

Last night’s “Without a Trace” was Episode 12: “Miracle Worker”. I couldn’t find the entire episode online but there are clips. It may run again on Saturday: http://www.cbs.com/primetime/without_a_trace/

(Laurie: Thanks Sister Rose for permission to reprint your post.)