Julian Fellowes says it's hard to dramatise happiness. Tell us if you can think of films that manage to pull it off
Julian Fellowes, the creator of TV drama Downtown Abbey has said that portraying happiness in drama is the hardest feat for a writer to pull off. Fellowes killed Matthew Crawley, a popular character in the series played by Dan Stevens, after Stevens decided to quit the show. Crawley, who up until that point been happily married to Lady Mary, died in a car crash in the Christmas Day episode just after the couple had celebrated the birth of their first child.
Fellowes said that their marital bliss provided a dramatic dilemma and that "actually, nothing is harder to dramatise than happiness. When two people are happy, that's it." He added: "That's why in the old movies, they don't kiss and marry in the middle – they kiss and marry at the end, because in a way that's it."
Fellowes' remarks echo those of the French writer Henry de Montherlant, remembered for his aphorism "Happiness writes in white ink on a white page". Do you agree that on-screen happiness is a dull thing to watch and can you share your favourite onscreen depictions of happiness?
Source: http://www.guardian.co.uk/commentisfree/2013/jan/25/on-screen-bliss-julian-fellowes
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