"downfall"

Great drama, like life, turns on choices. Good choices usually involve a fair amount of luck. Bad choices tend to roll downhill into a ravine of consequences that can’t be seen from above. Without a very bad decision made by someone, many movies simply would not have a narrative engine.

I’ll never forget the segment on “60 Minutes” a couple of years ago, when Morley Safer interviewed our most famous living historian, David McCullough.