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The author of this essay would like to point out,to emphasize that the only soap- opera that is considered to be good by him is "Twin Peaks" and under no circumstances does he acknowledge that "Dallas" is a good one.

Dallas is a beautiful city in the southern part of the United States of America. This city is famous for its landscapes, its amazing ranches and for its people who live there. One of these ranches belongs to the Ewing family,to the heroes of the world-famous series" Dallas",which is popular everywhere in the whole wide world. In my essay,I would like to examine what made this monster series one of the best series in the history of film-making.

In an interview,the Swedish film-director Ingmar Bergman once said(dared to say) that "Dallas" is so bad that he has to watch it. After watching through very carefully all the ten thousand episodes of this hugely successful soap-operas and examining-of course without any prejudice-some so-called `famous' Bergman films I came to the decision that he was absolutely wrong.

Just think of all the wonderful actors and their performance in nearly all of the episodes,think of the very exciting, adventurous plot-line , think of the so-called `miniatures' like directing,lighting,effects or even its essence-what it tries to convey,to get through to the audience.

Compare just two short clips from a Bergman-film and a "Dallas" episode: in "The Seventh Seal" there is an absolutely meaningless shot when the main character(a Knight-isn't it funny?) plays dices with Death for his immortality. What's the point in this ?

Does Bergman really think that you can beat Death and become immortal? Does he want us to believe that non-sense? Give me a break !

On the other hand, how much drama was in those episodes when a man who claimed himself to be miss Ellie ‘s disappeared husband (but eventually turned out to be only a swindler ) appeared and we-the viewers-were very excited: is he really Mr. Ewing? Whom should miss Ellie choose to be her husband: her lover, Clayton or that
swindler?

What are soap-operas usually about? Family problems, love, money, trivial problems. What “ Dallas” adds to these is one of the most important things in the whole wide world: oil! The basis of the whole film, of being enemies is who owns the oil fields of Dallas. In the history of the twentieth century several wars broke out because of oil (e.g.: the Iraque-Iran war ). Oil is one of the life necessities of our lives., we can ‘t imagine our lives without oil. Un fortunately, Hungary has to import lots of oil, being a country that lacks oil as a natural source. So it is very important from whon and for how much money do we import it. Should we import it from Jockey, our good guy (played excellently by Larry Hagman) for 100 dollars per litre or from that wicked evil guy Cliff Barnes for 200 dollars per litre. So it’s no wonder that we sympathise strongly with the Ewing family.

The world we live in is not really bipolarised. Even the ancient Chinese people acknowledged it with their symbol: yin and yang. There are no absolutely good things and there are no absolutely bad things. This is also represented in our series. “Dallas” excellently catches and reinforces the idea that there are no good people without mistakes and there are no bad people without some good characteristics. Jockey and Bobby are good characters but they also have their drawing-backs. Jockey for example neglects his beautiful wife, who cheats on him (again, two very characteristic features of our world). On the other hand, Cliff has a beautiful lover and respects his family, his father-but still he is the bad guy.

Some people argue against “Dallas” on the basis of lousy acting and directing.They base their opinions on the fact that the actors and directors of the series can hardly be seen in any other films, they never ever direct any other films.But-as always- they are wrong:the reason they never appear in other films is due to the hard,professional jobs,performance they have to achieve during the shootings of “Dallas”.The actors get so exhausted and tired that they can’t accept any other work. But the greatest actors-after their huge performances- still accept some minor roles.The beautiful Jenna-for example-appeared in all the three episodes of “Naked gun”.
There is another, not neglectable proof for their excellent work and that is the follow-ing:soap operas have a group of directors,who do all the directing works. Our series has a group of acknowledged directors,but when the story reaches a climax,which requires excellent director works they don’t call out for help to other directors(like Ta-rantino,Wenders or Bergman) no,no,no-they ask the actors. This way Larry Hagman, Linda Grey or Patrick Duffy had an opportunity not only for acting but also for prooving their talents of directing.

Many people critisize “Dallas” by claiming that because of the huge number of cha-racters after twenty or thirty episodes they become very confused. But is it the fault of the series? No, it’s the fault of the viewers-they are so stupid. I am a very ordinary person and I never lost account of the series.

Another critique emerged because of the stupid plot-line, the ‘revival of Bobby’. In my opinion, “Dallas” has the most original story I ever met in a film. Where is mister Ewing,who will win the arguments, where is Pamela- so much thrill, so much adventure-no wonder that Jockey had to be operated on after finishing the series.About Bobby’s revival- again an original idea which was directed excellently.

Finally, in a world like ours,where human relationship has lost its importance,where people rarely talk to each others “Dallas” gives us a very good opportunity for commu nication. If you walk on the streets you can see strangers come together just for the sake of discussing the new episodes. Isn’t it wonderful? And isn’t it wonderful that in the United States of America the shooting of the new episodes has just begun?