Minimalism: Difference between revisions

Many works of fiction try to be as epic as possible. A new work will try to [[Bigger Is Better|top the ones that came before it]], and [[Sequel Escalation|the sequels try to top their predecessors]].

 

 

Minimalism is when a piece of fiction lowers the scale of the events depicted within it, not simply due to time and budget restraints, but rather for creative reasons.

{{examples}}

 

* ''[http://www.pouet.net/prod.php?which=50234 shifticida]'' is an attempt to make a game by using only 32 bytes of disk space.

* ''[http://pouet.net/prod.php?which=54378 A true story from the life of a lonely cell]'' is trying to tell a story about relationships by using only 3 squares and 256 bytes.

 

 

* Dogme 95 films are based around minimalism, which the inventors, [[Lars von Trier]] and Thomas Vinterberg call "purity." Films following the dogma avoid artificial settings, sound, visual effects, and camera tricks as well non-diegetic sound. The film is supposed to be as accessible and realistic as possible. Notable Dogme 95 films include ''[[The Celebration]]'', ''[[The Idiots]]'', and ''Julien Donkey-Boy.''

* ''[[Alien|Alien3]]'': How do you try to top ''[[Aliens]]'', a film which featured hundreds of Aliens, Space Marines, huge gun battles and a Space Operatic setting? The answer is you don't. Instead you deliberately scale it back so there is only one Alien, no guns, and the whole film is just confined to a dank prison with a few lowly inmates running around, in order to spend more time focusing on the human drama and the terror caused by the Alien.

* ''[[Sleuth]]'', ''[[Cube]]'', ''[[The Breakfast Club]]''. All these movies accomplish so much with so little.

* ''[[Star Trek II: The Wrath of Khan|Star Trek II the Wrath of Khan]]'' is an interesting example of this. It competed with fellow pop culture icon and sci-fi movie ''[[Star Wars]]''. ''Star Wars'' consists of massive warships, epic battles, and huge starbases, whereas ''Star Trek II'' has really short, subtle battles between only two ships, and focuses more on the drama between the protagonist and antagonist.

** There is one action scene, albeit rather subdued for superhero genre.

* The 2010 Spanish film ''[[Buried]]'', which has [[Ryan Reynolds]] as a U.S. truck driver working in Iraq, who gets buried alive. The whole movie takes place inside the coffin, with Reynolds' character being the only person we actually see in the flesh (all other performances are either voiceovers or on his cell phone.) Still, the film never repeats a shot.

 

== Music ==

** In turn, a number of [[Kraut Rock]], post-rock, and electronic musicians incorporate minimalist songwriting.

** John Adams

* [[Three Chords and the Truth]] would be the other way to achieve this in music.

* Lowercase subgenre takes it to the extreme. ''Bernhard Günter'', for an example, has some works where the "music" may be barely heard and sounds are similar of your average background sounds coming out of sensitive headphones.

* Samuel Beckett, anyone? See for instance ''Not I'', in which the only thing on stage is a mouth, speaking for about 15 minutes.

** And then there's ''Breath''. Throw some trash on stage, turn the lights up, wait twenty seconds, turn the lights down. (To his credit, he wrote this one at least partially as a joke. He withdrew it when the producer who originally commissioned it decided to throw some naked people on stage along with the trash to give it the [[Faux Symbolism|illusion of meaning something.]])

** The same is true for many [[Absurdism|absurdist]] playwrights. Eugene Ionesco comes to mind in particular.

* Scenery in ''[[A Chorus Line]]'' is reduced to a cameo role. Except for one brief shining moment in the finale, it takes place on a bare stage, or a bare stage reflected by mirrors.

== [[Video Games]] ==

* [[The Other Wiki]] cites the design of ''[[Quake III Arena]]'' to be minimalistic (compared to [[Unreal Tournament|its competitor, at least]]).

* The ''[[Myst]]'' games exemplify minimalism in the adventure game genre. The protagonist is never defined, there's no inventory collection (aside from occasional journals or pages), there are no enemies or bosses to encounter, and the game expects you to learn everything. [[Late to the Party|And]] [[Solve the Soup Cans|we]] [[Alphabet Soup Cans|mean]] '''''[[Guide Dang It|everything.]]'''''

* ''Oasis'' does that to ''[[Civilization]]''-type games.

 

 

* The design of [[The Best Page in The Universe]] is minimalistic in that its pages consist of minimal colour (large grey text on a black background), and is mostly text oriented, for the most part lacking images, advertisements, animations, and other fancy design gimmicks. The site author, Maddox, claims the purpose of this is in part to minimise bandwidth consumption, but is mostly as protest against "all the slick-looking, contentless web sites out there" and to make the website easier on the eyes as "Staring at a white background while you read is like staring at a light bulb".

* ''[[Wormtooth Nation]]'' was filmed on a shoestring college student budget, and all the sets are warehouses located in the city the writer lives in. The actors are all local drama students. Despite the flaws, it's extremely good for a web series.

* ''[[Everyman HYBRID]]'' is what the cast of ''[[Marble Hornets]]'' pointed to when asked if they were fans of any of their imitators, describing it as doing everything, even the minimalism, exactly right. They arguably have more content, but it's often much less dense; [[No Fourth Wall|sometimes fans find in-game clues;]] one was a piece of paper with a single line of typed text.

* [[Google]] search. A logo, a search box, a couple of buttons and a few links.

 

== Western Animation ==