What Happened to Great Stories? – What TV and Literature Should Learn from Each Other

Hollywood screenwriter Michael Sonnenschein, The Common Reader essayist, literary critic, and Second Act: What Late Bloomers Can Tell You About Success and Reinventing Your Life writer Henry Oliver, and former screenwriter-playwright and now Interintellect founder-CEO Anna Gát lead a discussion on whether humans have lost their storytelling ability thanks to bitesize phone videos and binge-watching streaming services, or instead we’re living in a Renaissance of great TV and narrative actually. Join us!

“I loved almost every minute of ‘Succession’, but in a different way than I love every page of ‘Pale Fire’ or every line of ‘Hamlet’ (except for the ones I don’t really understand). I think television shows, ‘prestige’ or otherwise, are often ill-served by both their boosters and detractors, who make a category error in trying to find commonalities with literary forms which don’t really pertain. Television isn’t literature; it’s its own (sometimes great, sometimes not) thing that exists in its own aesthetic world, with particular potential creative successes and failures.” – Michael Sonnenschein