Storytelling: The Power of the Emotional Fuel Behind the Message

From the HD Pro Guide Magazine archive: this article first appeared in HD Pro Guide Magazine, Vol. 2, No. 3 (2014). By Jennifer Grisanti.

The Power of the Emotional Fuel Behind the Message by Jennifer Grisanti When we feel the message in your story, there is an imprint that the storyteller leaves with the receiver. We experience what you wanted to say and we connect our own history and emotions to it and walk away with a stronger sense of fulfillment of what the journey was all about. Stories that make us feel the fuel behind the pursuit are the stories that resonate on a universal level because the message is clear. There is a quote that encapsulates the life experience so well and the idea of choice. Our lives are defined by opportunities, even the ones we miss.

~F. Scott Fitzgerald.

I love this quote. It makes me think that this is what story is all about. With incredible movies, there is a variety of emotions that I feel for stories that comes from a place of depth and a wide array of topic.

With the movie Nebraska, written by Bob Nelson and directed by Alexander Payne, we feel the pursuit of a son’s desire to connect with his father by helping him on a pursuit that others considered frivolous. It is a story about belief. They go on a road trip. The father has to settle scores along the way. For the son, it is about the idea of allowing his father to believe in something as a way to give him purpose. In doing so, he gets a chance to get to know him more. I really connected with this. Now, the timing of just going through cancer with my mom certainly made the idea of this simple pursuit resonate even more. The humor is perfectly placed. There are lines that make you laugh out loud and moments that tug at your heart and really make you feel what the storyteller intends. We understand the fuel behind the pursuit. Universally, the desire to connect with our parents before the time passes is a strong one. I love this film.

With the movie 12 Years A Slave, screenplay written by John Ridley and directed by Steve McQueen, I feel so many emotions. One of the strongest emotions that I feel is anger. I really struggled with the concept of human behavior. This is the first movie I’ve Photo courtesy of Paramount Pictures. Photo by Merie W. Wallace; MMXIII Paramount Vantage, A Division of Paramount Pictures Corporation. SToRyTeLLiNG The Power of the Emotional Fuel Behind the Message been to where I seriously wanted to leave several times because the brutality hurt my heart. The power of the story, the performances and the pursuit of the central character are what kept me there because I wanted to know the answer to his quest. The universal idea of one day we have everything our heart could ever dream of and in a moment, it is taken away. How strong is our desire to get it back? Do we have the strength to survive? What did it all mean? Can we get back to a moment that will forever change as a result of the pursuit and the obstacles hit? This powerful story is a gift. It shows the true meaning of kindness and the will of the human spirit to feel unconditional love.

In the movie American Hustle, written by Eric Singer and David O. Russell and directed by David O. Russell, we feel the fictional story of a con man on a quest to survive with a woman that he loves. The two, Irving and Sydney, are caught in the middle of a con when she accepts a check from an undercover cop, Richie, and is arrested. They are given the choice of her giving up her freedom or the two of them helping Richie to get four more con artists like them. They realize to pull the heist off and regain Sydney’s freedom, they will have to make one final play. The idea of “People believe what they want to believe” resonates throughout. We feel the pursuit of moving from the idea of conning people for a living to the idea of legitimacy and truth. The emotion behind the pursuit and the stakes are clear in this story. I love the themes that are explored. With the movie Philomena, screenplay written by Steve Coogan and Jeff Pope and directed by Stephen Frears, we feel the story of a man who is dismissed from the Labour Party in disgrace and a woman who had her son taken away when she was an “inmate” at a Catholic convent. The pursuit is fueled by a mother’s desire to find out whether she made the right choice in giving up her son. There is strong emotion behind this. He helps her in her pursuit and in doing so finds some of the answers to his own. Through her emotional responses to the obstacles that they hit on their quest, he is able to open his eyes to his own flaw and what is holding him back in his life. It is about a man’s search for meaning as we see this odd couple learn about life through the conflicting perspectives that each of them has toward it and the choice that she thinks she made but discovers was really made for her.

In the movie Her, written and directed by Spike Jonze, we feel the pain of life after divorce through the lead Theodore. He purchases an OSI to help him cope with the loneliness. He falls in love with an OS named Samantha. The gift of this journey is that it is such an internal experience. The writer and director brilliantly figured out how to tell it externally. It is a movie about living after trauma and how we find closure when parts of our story end. I was totally immersed in the gift of this vision. Having gone through divorce, I know what it is to move through the filling of a hole after something major changes in your life. Universally, this hits all of us who’ve known the experience of love and loss.

Storytellers, when we feel your intent with clarity and can define the fuel behind the pursuit, you give us the gift of understanding your message and interpreting it in a way that speaks to our own journey.

Photo by Courtesy of Warner Bros. Picture.

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