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The Beauty of Realism:

My Infatuation with “Pseudo-Fiction”

03_01_19

When we last left off, I had decided the very first certainty of my film: I want to implement pseudo-realism. If that term is confusing, go read my last entry. Then quickly come back. I’ll still be here. Promise.

Now that we’re on the same page, I figured I would explain my fondness and understanding of the style a bit further. I’ve always loved this style of story-telling, but I never fully comprehended it until last year. In my junior year of high school, I was told (forced) to read a book titled “The Things They Carried,” by Tim O’Brien. I love to read, but I absolutely hate to read for school. It takes the curiosity and wonder out of enjoying a book; turning the page becomes a task on the agenda rather than an intrinsic desire. Needless to say, I didn’t read the book. I didn’t read the book at first, that is. One day in class we discussed the first few chapters, what we were meant to have read so far. I listened as my teacher spoke to the class and became enthralled in the conversation. Each quote that was read aloud was insightful and beautiful. Every time one of my classmates raised their hand to offer a piece of insight, something that they gathered from their readings, I became increasingly jealous that they had read and I hadn’t. By the time we discussed the next few chapters in class, I was done with the book, re-reading it before each discussion.

Tim O’Brien’s writing is masterful. Each story within the novel carries so much emotion, readers are convinced of the harrowing war stories that Tim O’Brien is recounting. His experience fighting in the Vietnam war is shared with the readers in piercing honesty. Or is it?

Tim O’Brien is the main character of his own novel, but the O’Brien in text and the O’Brien on the cover are two different people. The O’Brien within each story is a fictional character, living through the same circumstances that the author O’Brien did. That’s not to say that the stories were false, but they weren’t exactly true. O’Brien touches on his beautiful distinction between story truth and happening truth in this interview, as well as within a chapter of the novel. The essence of the stories are true, but not every happening is. This dichotomy epitomizes the idea of a pseudo-fiction story.

Only one more entry will be centered around this simple story-telling concept, I promise. My next article will detail more of my individual usage of it within my film, and what I hope to accomplish.

Thanks for reading.

-f.s