in the original MVC pattern from smalltalk, when the action modified the model via a message, and the model directly sent messages to the view. the messages were typically small datagrams.
the MVC model with web pages is slightly different. an MVC action is invoked by a browser get/post or Ajax request. the request data to bound to action model. the action processes the action model, and then creates the view model. the view model is passed to the view engine to build the response, which returns the response data (often html) to the browser.
often the same model class is used for the action model and the view model. but do not confuse the action/view models with the database/business models. most tutorials will use the same model for simplicity of the example, and implement simple CRUD operations.