Mackendrick - Handout

Mackendrick on Film Student Handout

April 2014

Index Study Sheets Aristotle’s Poetics Walter Kerr: A Matter of Opinion David Mamet: The Perfect Ball Game Lajos Egri: Premise Dramatic Irony William Archer: The School for Scandal The Apartment Start Late John Michael Hayes: Rear Window Walter Kerr: The Slow Boat to Nowhere Richard Walter: Gravity – Cause and Effect Kenneth Thorpe Rowe: Through Structure to Meaning Kenneth Thorpe Rowe: Rising/Falling Action John Howard Lawson: The Process of Selection John Howard Lawson: Progression John Howard Lawson: The Principles of Continuity John Howard Lawson: The Cycle of Conflict Christopher Vogler: The Writer’s Journey The Triangles of On the Waterfront William Archer: Dramatic Construction William Archer: Point of Attack 1 William Archer: Point of Attack 2 William Archer: The Obligatory Scene David Mamet Dramatic Construction: Exercises Viva Zapata! step outline Casablanca step outline Bicycle Thieves step outline Ibsen: The Wild Duck Slogans for the Screenwriter's Wall Once Upon a Time T.E.B. Clarke Max Ophüls Homer: The Iliad The Da Vinci Code Oliver Twist Aguirre, the Wrath of God Persona Sunrise

2 www.alexandermackendrick.com

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The Ladykillers The Man in the White Suit Mandy The Verdict A Streetcar Named Desire Lev Kuleshov Charlton Heston and Touch of Evil Pudovkin: The Plastic Material Dialogue Comparison: Novel and Film The Grapes of Wrath Othello’s Last Speech The Romeo and Juliet Exercise David Mamet: Radio Drama David Mamet: Notes on The Cherry Orchard Robert McKee: Key Question and Ten Commandments Robert McKee: The Writer Must Master Classical Form Pixar’s 22 Rules of Storytelling Michael Arndt: Eight Steps for Setting the Story into Motion John Yorke: What Makes a Good Screenplay? David Mamet’s Memo to the Writers of The Unit Elia Kazan: What Makes a Director? Logan Hill: How to Write TV Drama William Archer Revisited The Man Who Shot Liberty Valance John Howard Lawson’s Theory and Technique A Catechism for Students of Dramatic Construction Dramatic Jargon


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Study Sheets Section One Quitting Hollywood 1. Why did Mackendrick quit film-directing and accept the job of Dean of the School of Film and Video at the California Institute of the Arts? 2. Was Mackendrick’s decision to become a teacher one he was forced into? 3. Can film directors today expect anything like the kind of support that Mackendrick experienced at Ealing Studios in the Fifties? 4. What skills should the director be schooled in beyond the craft of filmmaking? 5. How important is it that directors learn to work with studios and producers? 6. What obligations does the director have to the financial backers of the film he is making? 7. Are there any similarities between directing and teaching? California Institute of the Arts 1. What kind of an educational institution was CalArts in the late Sixties? 2. Why were CalArts teachers encouraged to continue with their own projects while working with students? 3. Does a film need a story? 4. What kind of film-making/storytelling did Mackendrick suggest students concentrate on while at CalArts? 5. Why was Mackendrick so disparaging of much ‘experimental’ work done at CalArts? 6. As an aspiring writer or director, are you drawn more toward mainstream cinema or to ‘independent’/‘experimental’ films?

Section Two The Pre-verbal Language of Cinema 1. 2. 3. 4. 5. 6. 7.

Is there a universal ‘language’ of cinema? Why is it so difficult to ‘think cinematically’? What is the difference between ‘pictorial’ and ‘visual’? Do directors need to have basic drawing ability? Can today’s film-makers learn anything by watching silent films? Why are so many young film-makers interested in dialogue-driven film stories? Is it a bad thing if a film story is constructed primarily using dialogue?


8. In what way can audiences learn about a character by the way he moves and interacts with other people? 9. How can props help the director and the actor tell the story?

Section Three The Director and the Actor 1. 2. 3. 4.

Why is it important for the director to understand the craft of the actor? Does the writer need to have any acting ability? Are too many directors in thrall to the technical aspects of film-making? Why did Mackendrick believe it important that directors be as adept at working in the theatre as with film? 5. In what ways is the actor the most valued collaborator of the director?

Section Four Dramatic Construction 1 1. Are there any principles to consider when conceiving a story? 2. Can today’s writers and directors learn anything by studying ancient texts about dramatic construction? 3. What is a story? What is not a story? 4. In what way is drama ‘anticipation mingled with uncertainty’? 5. What is the difference between the protagonist and the antagonist? 6. Why is theme a potentially problematic starting point for a story? 7. Why might plot be a less important element of story than character? 8. What is ‘character in action’? 9. Why is a ‘character in isolation hard to make dramatic’? 10. What is a foil character? 11. What is ‘triangulation’? 12. What does it mean for a story to be suspenseful?

Section Five Dramatic Construction 2 1. 2. 3. 4. 5. 6.

How do you know when a story is at an end? What is the significance of the obligatory scene? What is the purpose of exposition? What is the best way to establish exposition in a film script? How can the director best express the internal feelings of the characters? ‘Who does what with which and to whom?’ Discuss. 7. What is ‘postcarding’?


Section Six When Not to Write a Shooting Script 1. What is the role of the writer? 2. How aware should the screenwriter be of ‘film grammar’ and the job of the director? 3. Why are some screenwriters tempted put so many technical details into their scripts? 4. How might writers avoid adding technical details yet still convey their ideas? 5. Why might a director consider a script full of details of edits and camera angles to be the work of an amateur? 6. What is the difference between a screenplay and a shooting script? 7. What does the director expect of the screenwriter? 8. Why did Mackendrick suggest students write prose versions of their story before attempting a screenplay? 9. Why do so many film students want to be auteurs (writer/directors) rather than just writers or directors? 10. Why is it useful to compare the screenplay of a film with its dialogue transcript/post-production script? Film as Collaboration 1. In what way is film-making a collaborative process? 2. In what ways are acting, directing and editing three stages of a single process? 3. Why was Mackendrick so antagonistic to what he called the ‘cult of the film director’? 4. Why did Mackendrick believe that film students should start learning their craft through editing? 5. Why is it important for students to start by directing material written by someone else?

Section Seven Film Grammar 1 1. Is there a ‘language’ of the cinema? 2. How do differences in shot size, camera movement and framing help tell the story? 3. Can the ‘form’ of a film ever be entirely distinguished from its ‘content’?


Section Eight Film Grammar 2 The Longest Axis 1. Why should the director look for the ‘longest axis’ on the set? 2. How does the director prepare camera coverage? The Watergate Exercise 1. How relevant is film grammar to non-fiction cinema? 2. Can the basic elements of film grammar be found in any series of moving images? The Imaginary Ubiquitous Winged Witness 1. In what ways is cinema as concerned with reaction as it is with action? 2. How does the director know where to put the camera? 3. What is the film director actually 'directing'?

Section Nine Teaching Film 1. 2. 3. 4. 5. 6.

Can film-making be taught? What is the job of a film school? What can students expect to learn at film school? What are students expected to bring to their studies? Why do students need to learn ‘the capacity to adjust to change’? Why did Mackendrick believe it is important for film-makers to explore their ‘compulsions’ while still students? 7. What does Mackendrick mean when he says ‘many students know they are the new Antonioni’? 8. What does ‘High Tech = low imagination’ mean? 9. Why do you want to work in the film industry? 10. Who are the people Mackendrick suggests ‘really shouldn’t be in the business’? 11. Are you prepared to do the hard work needed to become a writer or director? 12. As an aspiring writer or director, do you feel you have anything original to say, or new ways of saying it?


The ‘Rules’ 1. Are there any conventions and principles about film-making that every writer and director should know? 2. In what ways do ‘rules’ exist to be broken? 3. Do you believe it is necessary to learn the fundamentals of film grammar and dramatic construction before you start work in the industry? 4. Why are students often resistant to the notion of ‘rules’ when it comes to film-making? ‘Mistakes’ 1. What are the only real mistakes a film director can make? 2. Which is more important: ‘ambiguity’ or ‘clarity’? Craft 1. Is film-directing a craft or an art? Instinct and Intellect 1. 2. 3. 4. 5.

What can students learn about film-making from books? Is the only way to learn film-making just to do it? How useful is film theory to the working director? What did Mackendrick mean by ‘process, not product’? Can you explain the notion of ‘no information in advance of need’?


Aristotle Poetics Many of the key issues Mackendrick writes about can be found in Aristotle’s text, one of the earliest surviving works of literary criticism, and one of the most influential. Even though it’s two thousand years old, the relevance of Poetics should not to be underestimated. It remains an extraordinarily useful rulebook for the writing of dramatic literature. That said, like all material of this kind, you’re encouraged to take what you find useful and leave the rest behind. After all, it’s important to bear in mind that these writings are descriptive, not proscriptive. As Swiss playwright Friedrich Dürrenmatt wrote, “Aristotle’s unities do not make Greek tragedy possible; rather, Greek tragedy makes his unities possible.” For further reading, I recommend the translation by N.G.L. Hammond, published by Museum Tusculanum Press (www.mtp.dk), University of Copenhagen (2001), from which the following extracts are taken. Mackendrick used an older and, in my opinion, somewhat less user-friendly translation (Butcher). All text in this section not attributed to Aristotle was written by Mackendrick. (Emphasis below is mine, as are the choices of extracts from Aristotle, and the summary.)

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Aristotle was born in Thrace in 384BC. When he was seventeen he went to Athens to study with Plato, and remained in Athens for twenty years. When he was in his forties, he was appointed tutor to the son of King Phillip of Macedonia, the boy who subsequently became Alexander the Great, teaching him the arts of science and politics. Thereafter he returned to Athens to form his own school, the Lyceum. Aristotle’s treatises and dialogues were circulated during his lifetime. But in 323BC, because of his connections with Macedonia, he was driven out of Athens and his writings were hidden in order that the manuscripts not be destroyed by his enemies. Not until the first century BC was the first Greek edition of his writings published. The year after his escape from Athens he died in Chalcis at the age of sixty-two. The following are some excerpts from Poetics, Aristotle’s essay on the Greek drama that had flourished a couple of hundred years before his time. It is regarded as the first piece of dramatic criticism and dramatic theory. If some of the language in Poetics needs some translation for us in the late Twentieth Century, it is because in the days when Aristotle was writing, the theatre was much nearer to its first beginnings. In the fairly primitive societies of that time, one should remember, there was not much distinction made between what is now considered history, religion and myth. The supernatural figures of Homeric epic poetry – heroes like Odysseus – were indeed fables which described to the Greeks how their world originated, how the great tribal houses of the small city-states of the Attic peninsula came into being at the time of Homer’s Iliad and Odyssey.


In practice, anthropologists argue that this is the real function of dramatic ritual in its earliest stages: to act out how societies and communities began. ‘Myth’ nowadays has taken on a negative connotation. We use the word to mean something that is untrue, a belief that is mistaken, unfounded. But for the student of anthropology, it has another meaning. Myths in primitive societies are ‘poetic’ answers to the kind of questions that were beyond the science of the time, like how the world was created, what the stars in the sky are, and why the seasons change. ‘Poetic’ truth can, at a functional level, be as significant as rational and scientific interpretation of the way in which we understand the great mysteries of human existence. *

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The nature of poetry On the whole poetry seems to have arisen from two causes, both inherent in man’s nature. The first is that from childhood man has an instinct for representation (indeed man is distinguished from the rest of the animal world in that he is most given to representation and learns his first lessons through representation). The second is that all men take pleasure in representation. The reason for their pleasure is that to learn something is most pleasurable not only to philosophers but also to all men alike (although the others’ share in learning is small). The truth of this is obvious when we consider what happens in the cases of works of art. Men take pleasure in looking at pictures, because, as they do so, they learn and ponder what each thing is – saying, for instance, “that is so and so” (of course, if one has never seen the subject, the picture will cause pleasure not as a representation but because of the treatment or the colour or some other aspect). Indeed, when the subject is one which is painful to see in real life – a corpse or a most foul beast – the most accurate portrayal of it gives us pleasure. We were then endowed from the beginning with the instinct of representation and with the sense of tune and rhythm (including, of course, metres as divisions of rhythm). These in particular were gradually developed by men until from their improvisations they brought poetry to birth.

The differences between the forms of poetry The subjects of representation are men in action. Now these men must be either good or bad (for character nearly always falls into these two categories alone, since all men’s characters vary in degree of goodness and badness), they must be either better than we are or worse than we are or such as we are.


The nature and the parts of tragedy Every tragedy must have six parts. Its quality depends on the quality of these parts, namely plot, character, thought (these three being the subjects represented), diction (this being the manner of representation), song and spectacle (these being means of representation). By “plot” I mean in this case the arrangement of the incidents; by “character” I mean that which determines for us the quality of those who are acting; and by “thought” I mean passages where men prove and point the argument or pronounce an opinion. Of these three, “plot” is the part which represents the action. For, while tragedy is itself a representation of an action and is enacted by men in action, “character” and “thought” are the parts which determine the qualities of the men in action. For when we refer to actions being of a certain quality, we really mean the “character” and the “thought” which prompt it, since these two are the causes of every action and it is men’s actions which lead to success or failure. The arrangement of the incidents then is the most important of the six parts. For it must be emphasised that a tragedy is a representation not of men but of action, of life, of faring well or ill (which turns on action); and that the object of tragedy is to represent a piece of action and not a quality. For, while men’s qualities correspond to their characters, their faring well or ill corresponds to their actions. To put it another way, men do not act in order to represent character, but qualities of character emerge as a result of their actions. In short, the aim of tragedy is the expression of the incidents and plot, and the aim is always the most important of all. The plot then is the beginning and, as it were, the soul of tragedy. Character is secondary. Compare painting, wherein the smearing of the most beautiful colours at random gives less pleasure than a likeness drawn in black and white. Further, a tragedy cannot dispense with action but it can dispense with character; for a tragedy is a representation of action and it is for that reason mainly that it represents men in action. Indeed, most of our younger tragedians write tragedies devoid of character, and this is a general feature of many creative artists [...]. Again, suppose someone writes a string of speeches which illustrate qualities of character with excellent diction and thought. He will not achieve the function of tragedy as well as a play which has a plot and an arrangements of episodes although it maybe inferior in diction and thought. […]1 Character (as we have said) comes second. Character is that which portrays choice, indicating what sort of thing a man chooses or rejects in a situation where the course is not obvious. There is thus no “character” in speeches which are entirely devoid of any issue involving choice or rejection on the part of the speaker.2 1

Bywater (online): “beginners succeed earlier with the Diction and Characters than with the construction of a story; and the same may be said of nearly all the early dramatists.” 2 See also: “[C]haracter is revealed… by a choice which is made manifest in the dialogue or in the action.”


Fear and pity may be aroused by the setting of the stage, but it may also be aroused by the actual arrangement of the incidents and this is to be preferred as the mark of a better poet. Indeed the plot should be so constructed that even without seeing the play a man who hears of the sequence of events will shudder with fear and pity at what happens. This would be the experience of anyone who heard the plot of Oedipus Tyrannus. But to obtain this effect by means of spectacle is less artistic and depends upon the help of the producer. Those who use spectacle to obtain an effect which is not terrifying but monstrous have nothing to do with tragedy; for one must not look for every form of pleasure from tragedy but only the pleasure appropriate to tragedy. The poet then should afford the pleasure which results from pity and fear, and he should do so by means of the representation. Therefore it is obvious that this quality should be inherent in the incidents themselves. Finally “spectacle” may transport the imagination but it is the least artistic and the least relevant of the poet’s art – the least artistic because the skill of the carpenter matters more than the art of the poet in gaining spectacular effects, and the least relevant because the power of the tragedy is not dependent on staging and production.3

The plot We have already defined tragedy as the representation of an action which is complete and whole and which has also a certain magnitude, for a thing may be whole and yet have no magnitude. Now to be whole is to have a beginning, a middle and an end. A beginning is that which of necessity does not follow something else and of its very nature must be followed by some event or happening. An end is just the opposite; of its very nature it must follow something else either inevitably or generally so, and it must not be followed by anything else. A middle is that which follows something and is succeeded by something. Well-constructed plots should then not begin casually nor end casually. They should follow the principle we have stated. [T]here is a natural limit for the length of the action; provided that it is comprehensible as a whole, the longer the action the more beautiful it is. As a general definition we may say that the proper limit is one which permits a change from bad fortune to good fortune, or from good fortune to bad fortune 3

Grube: “As for the spectacle, stirs the emotions, but it is less a matter of art than the others, and has least to do with poetry, for a tragedy can achieve its effect even apart from the performance and the actors, Indeed, spectacular effects belong to the craft of the property man rather than to that of the poet.” Heath: “Spectacle is attractive, but it is very inartistic and is least germane to the art of poetry. For the effect of tragedy is not dependent on performance and actors; also, the art of the property-manager has more relevance to the production of visual effects than does that of the poets.”


through a sequence of events which occur in accordance with necessity or with probability. A plot does not, as some suppose, have unity when it concerns one person. For many, indeed innumerable things happen to an individual and yet some of them do not constitute any unity at all; and an individual makes many acts, but they do not constitute any single action. In the other representational arts unity of representation lies in the unity of the subject. So too in tragedy, which represents an action, the unity lies in the unity and the completeness of the action, of which the component incidents must be so arranged that the alteration or the withdrawal of one incident distorts and destroys the whole. For, if its presence or absence makes no visible difference, it is not a part of the whole. [T]he actions with which history generally is concerned are those which, of their very nature, illustrate not a single action but the happenings of a single period. Between these happenings to one or more individuals there is a purely fortuitous relationship. For example, the battle of Salamis and the battle against Carthage in Sicily took place at the same time but did not conduce to the same result; and this is sometimes true of events in a continuum of time, namely that they occur one after another but do not lead to any single result. In poetry, however, and especially in dramatic poetry the plot should be concerned with a single action, whole and complete in itself, with a beginning, a middle and an end, and designed, like a single and complete living organism, to create its own form of pleasure.

Plots Plots divide into two classes, the “simple” and the “complex,” just as the actions which the plots represent are immediately divisible into two such classes. By a “simple” action I mean an action which, being simple and continuous in the sense of our definition, undergoes the transition without a “reversal of fortune” or a “discovery”; and by a “complex” action I mean an action in which the transition coincides with a “discovery” or with a “reversal of fortune” or with both. Of the simple plots and actions the “episodic” ones are worst. By an “episodic” plot I mean a plot in which the sequence of the episodes is not in accordance with probability or necessity. Episodic plays are made by bad poets because they are bad, and by good poets to please the actors; for, writing as they do for a dramatic competition, they expand the plot beyond its capacity and often yield to the necessity of distorting its continuity. Since tragedy is a representation not only of a complete action but also of events which inspire fear and pity, the best arrangement of the incidents is an arrangement in which the incidents occur one in consequence of another and yet are contrary to expectation. In this way the amazement of the spectators will be greater than if the incidents occur fortuitously and spontaneously.


Reversals and discoveries A “reversal” is a change of the situation into the opposite, as we have defined it, and this too should accord, as we say, with necessity or with probability. The Oedipus Tyrannus gives us an example. A man comes to cheer Oedipus and to allay his fears about his mother; but he shows Oedipus who he is, and thereby reverses the situation… A “discovery,” as the word implies, is a change from ignorance to knowledge. […] Of “discovery” the best are those which coincide with reversal, as for example in the discovery in the Oedipus Tyrannus. It is most integral to the plot and most integral to the action. Such a discovery linked with a reversal will move pity and fear, and such actions are by our definition the very subject which tragedy sets out to represent. Moreover, such actions as these will result in adversity and in prosperity. Reversal and discovery are the two parts of the plot which serve this purpose, and they constitute the best means of transporting the audience.

Forms of tragedy In every tragedy there is a “complication” and an “unravelling” [“the untying of the knot”]. The complication is often formed by incidents which are outside the play and by some of the incidents inside the play, and the unravelling is formed by the remainder of the play. To explain what I mean, the complication is that part of the play which extends from the beginning to the point where the transition from adversity to prosperity or from prosperity to adversity commences; and the unravelling is that part which extends from the beginning of the transition to the end of the play. […] Now the unravelling of the plot should obviously result from the plot itself. It should not be brought about by divine intervention, as for instance by the deus ex machina […] The deus ex machina has indeed its uses; but it should be employed only for events outside the play, that is to say either for antecedent events, which a human being could not know, or for subsequent events, which need a prophetic view and utterance. This is logical, for we grant that the gods see all things. On the other hand, in the incidents there should be nothing illogical; and should anything illogical be necessary, it should be outside the play. Many playwrights complicate well but unravel badly. One should always master both.4

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Bywater: ““Yet there are many dramatists who, after a good Complication, fail in the Denouement. But it is necessary for both points of construction to be always duly mastered.” Mackendrick: “If you've got a Beginning, but you don't yet have an end, then you're mistaken. You don't have the right Beginning.”


The tragic hero The structure of the best tragedy should be not simple but complex, and in addition it should represent events which arouse pity and fear, this being a peculiar feature of such representative art. It clearly follows from this that one should not show men of excellence passing from prosperity to adversity, since that does not excite fear and pity but disgust; nor villainous men passing from adversity to prosperity, which is the least tragical of all, since it has none of the appropriate effects, exciting neither sympathy nor pity nor fear; nor again a thoroughly bad man passing from prosperity to adversity, for although such an arrangement might satisfy our feelings, yet it would not excite pity or fear. For we feel pity when a man does not deserve adversity, and we feel fear when a man is like us. The fate, then, of the utterly bad man will not excite pity or fear. We are left with the man who is intermediate between those we have mentioned. He is such a one as is not preeminent in virtue and righteousness; who falls into adversity not because of vice and villainy but because of some fault in character or judgement; and who is one of those who are in high repute and in great prosperity, such as Oedipus and Thyestes and the leading men of such families. The good plot should, of course, have a single rather than a double issue, as some say, meaning that the play ends in opposite ways for the good and bad characters. A single issue should be a change not from adversity to prosperity but from prosperity to adversity, brought on not by villainy but by a great fault in a man who is such as we have described or who is rather superior to us than inferior.

Tragic acts Although it is possible to arouse pity and fear by the spectacular effects of the stage, the superior method and the mark of the better poetry is to do so by the arrangement of the incidents. Indeed the plot should be so constructed that even a man who does not see the play but is only told that the incidents have occurred will be shaken with fear and will be moved to pity by the events.5 Anyone who is told the story of Oedipus will react in this way. On the other hand, to contrive this by spectacular effects is inartistic in the playwright, and its success depends upon the producer’s resources; and to produce by these means a scene which does not excite fear but is simply prodigious is completely alien to tragedy. As the poet should use the art of representation to provide the pleasure which results from feeling pity and fear, and as the incidents should obviously contain the qualities which inspire pity and fear, let us now take up the question: 5

Grube: “Fear and pity can be caused by the spectacle or by the plot structure itself. The latter way is better and argues a better poet.” Heath: “The plot should be constructed in such a way that, even without seeing it, anyone who hears the events which occur shudders and feels pity at what happens; this is how someone would react on hearing the plot of the Oedipus.”


what sort of occurrences seem to be fearful, or what sort of occurrences seem to be pitiable? Such acts must take place either between persons related by blood or friendship, or between enemies, or between persons who are neither related nor enemies. Suppose an enemy acts so towards an enemy, there is nothing pitiable either in the act or in the intention, apart from the actual calamity. Nor is there, if the parties are neither enemies nor related. But when calamities occur between related persons, for instance if brother kills brother, or son father, or mother son, or son mother in fact or in intention or commits some comparable act – that is the situation which we want. We must now state more clearly what we mean by a “skillful” treatment of the incidents in a situation of this kind. The action may be developed in the manner of the early dramatists, the participants acting consciously and deliberately just as in Euripides’ play Medea kills her children. Or they may act without realising the horror of the act and then discover the relationship afterwards, as Oedipus does in Sophocles’ play. In this case, it is true, the act lies outside the play, but the act may occur in the course of the tragedy. […] Or – and this is the third possibility – one may intend to perpetrate some irreparable act in ignorance and discover the truth before one acts. There is no other possibility; for they must either act or not act, either knowing or not knowing. Of these possibilities the least effective is to intend in knowledge and not to act; this is shocking and not tragical, since there is no calamity… Next worst is to intend in knowledge and to act. It is more effective to act in ignorance and after the act to discover the truth; for the shocking quality is absent, and the discovery is striking.

Avoiding too many stories You must remember, as we have often said, not to make a tragedy from an epic unit; by which I mean a unit composed of many stories; one should not, for instance, make a tragedy from the whole story of the Iliad. Within the length of an epic the parts receive their proper proportion, but in a play they far exceed our powers of comprehension.

Plot in epic poetry In epic, as in tragedy, the plot must be constructed in dramatic form. The plot should be concerned with a single action, whole and complete in itself, with a beginning, a middle and an end, designed like a single and complete living organism to create its own form of pleasure. Now a plot does not, as some suppose, have unity when it concerns one person. For many, indeed innumerable things happen to an individual, and yet some of them do not constitute any unity at all; and an individual makes many acts, but they do not constitute any single action. Consequently, all those poets seem to be at fault who have written a


Heracleid or a Theseid or any such poem, thinking that, because Heracles was one man, the plot should have unity. Pre-eminent in all respects, Homer seems to have seen this point clearly in the light of his genius or of his artistic skill; for in writing the Odyssey he did not write everything that happened to Odysseus, the wounding on Parnassus, for instance, and the feigned madness during the gathering of the expedition (neither being a necessary or probable consequence of this other), but he constructed the Odyssey round a single action in our sense of the term, and likewise the Iliad. *

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A modern equivalent of the term ‘diction’ is probably ‘performance,’ the reason being that in the days when Aristotle was writing, drama was more declamatory and probably depended much more on the skill of the actor in elocution than subtleties of acting. ‘Song’ is perhaps the musical score that accompanies a film, or maybe the ‘musicality’ in the actor’s delivery of the texts written in poetic language. Aristotle calls it “the greatest of the sweeteners.” ‘Thought’ seems to be some kind of thematic statement, because when a character ‘enunciates a general truth’ then the character may be speaking for the author and making a point about the theme of the play. For the narrow purposes of our discussion of classic and traditional structure in our classroom narrative/dramatic work, I suggest you reduce his six hierarchical parts to three: Theme An abstract or generalised description of the concepts of the story. In a way, the ‘point’ that you are trying to make with the story, its message or moral. In one way or another, it is the meaning of the story that you carry away when the story is told. In modern parlance, we sometimes use the word to describe not only the topic or general subject but frequently the meaning or ‘moral’ of the story, as in a ‘fable’ where a tag is added that suggests the conclusion that the reader is invited to draw from the way the tale is resolved. This may be easiest to explain by providing examples. We say that the theme of Othello is Jealousy, and of Macbeth Ambition. The theme of On the Waterfront is the Struggle of One Man to Discover His Moral Identity in a Fight Against Corruption. These are, in a way, ‘fables’ about our contemporary world. The ‘theme,’ I suggest, is likely to be the meaning of the events of the story expressed – or just as often left unexpressed but nevertheless explicit – with which the dramatist wants to leave us. It needn’t, of course, be ‘moral’ in the sense that it is uplifting. It has been said that The Godfather is really a metaphor for capitalist America. If so, its ‘moral’ is an exceedingly savage one, a true ‘tragedy’ in the classic tradition. A film that explores what many might consider immoral motives and attitudes, like any crime story, is still dealing with moralities, though in a playful or perverse fashion.


Translated like this, Aristotle is suggesting that the ‘plot,’ meaning the narrative sequence of events, is – or should be – a working-out and reflection of the social or ‘moral’ conflicts that are inherent in the theme. This is why ‘character,’ as for example Oedipus’ tendency to an arrogance that prevents him from humility towards the Gods, or like Othello’s ‘moral’ weaknesses of gullibility and jealousy, or indeed like the ‘punchy’ demoralised Terry Malloy in On the Waterfront, are all aspects of personality which, quite literally, ‘personify’ concepts of the theme. Worth noting too, is that to act out these conflicts it is often essential to create an antagonist (or foil character), a figure that personifies opposing elements. These individuals should have moral qualities that can be contrasted to those of the protagonist. For example: Creon, in Oedipus Rex, who is a foil for the King, Macduff is Macbeth without Macbeth’s character flaw of ambition, Iago is a devious and cunning character in contrast with the naïve and innocent Othello, and Father Barry and Johnny Friendly in On the Waterfront who are both personifications of the interior conflict taking place within Terry Malloy. In On the Waterfront, Terry Malloy and Edie play a scene in the chicken coop on the roof, just before Terry goes down to confront the crooked waterfront trade union leaders. In the scene he enumerates the general truth of the situation, the need for a man to stand up for his rights. This is the theme of the film. In The Third Man, the scene between Harry Lime and Holly Martins on the Ferris wheel is one in which Lime talks of his cynicism, explaining himself and his corruption when challenged by his old school friend. It is a thematic scene. Plot The events of the narrative, the combination of things done in the story, the arrangement of the incidents, the sequence of scenes in which the action unfolds, usually on the spine of cause-and-effect as each action produces a reaction. The tension is likely to be a ‘rising line,’ though not always a steady progression since a relaxation of the tension is valuable before the next crisis. Also, the variety of surprises mixed in with the suspense of expectations. Character(s) Note the plural. It is more truly character-in-action, which means the interaction/interplay of more than one character. Characters are the agents whose clashes are needed to illustrate the conflict inherent in the theme. Aristotle’s point is that action requires characters in order to act out the thematic conflict. It is important to understand that theme, plot and character are inseparable. The terms are useful only as three ways of looking at a work from three points of view. A dramatic work may be strong in one aspect, weaker in others, but it is rare that all three are not present and vigorously contributing to the impact of the subject. Clearly, a problem lies in our interpretation of exactly what Aristotle means. Many of the terms he uses may have meant to the Greeks of the 5th century things that they do not mean to us. To the Greeks of Aristotle’s day, the dramatic theatre


served a very different kind of social purpose than the stage or the cinema does in our times, where it is to a great extent no more than popular entertainment. ‘Fable,’ as we use the word today, is likely to mean a ‘parable,’ a story invented as an illustration of a ‘moral’ concept. But for Aristotle it seems to have meant something more like a ‘myth.’ ‘Plot’ means for us more or less what Aristotle says it does: the events of the narrative, the arrangement of the incidents. This is why Aristotle can equate the ‘Fable’ and the ‘Plot.’ Let me also say something here about the notion of the three ‘unities,’ namely unity of place, unity of time and unity of action. Though attributed to him, it was not in fact Aristotle who first proposed this formulation. As John Howard Lawson has explained, it was Lodovico Castelvetro, an Italian critic writing in 1570, who first wrote of the idea of the three unities, which suggested that the action of a play should take place between sun-up and sun-down of a single day, and that the events should take place in a single setting, for example the exterior of the king’s palace. (One reason why Aristotle is named as the author of these ideas is perhaps because, in the earliest plays, the Greeks staged their plays in the open air arenas that were built in gullies of a hillside and the performances started in the mornings and went on till the light faded.) Escape from these archaic formulas began in the days of the Elizabethan theatre. The plays of Shakespeare, for instance, were staged in daylight, but it was quite common practice to invite the audiences of the Globe Theatre to pretend that the action was taking place at night or in some remote location. On occasion, Shakespeare also foreshadowed cinematic technique by cross-cutting scene of simultaneous action in different environments. The device of the flashback in film also abandons linear time progression. Nevertheless, it is worth pointing out that there are certain advantages to the impact and tension of a story when the place and time are condensed. Modern dramatists talk of the value of the ‘closed world’ in which the dramatic events take place and which give unity of action to the dramatic narrative. Of the three unities, it is the principle of a single, central action that has lasted and that I urge you to consider when thinking about your own stories in the context of this class on narrative and drama. It is Aristotle who first proposed the idea that a sense of structure gives to a dramatic work the feeling of the whole being greater than the sum of its parts. All the elements of a story must be necessary. There should be no element which does not contribute effectively to the functioning of the whole. At all times ask yourself: is there any character in a story, an incident or situation which, if removed, would not seriously weaken the impact of what remains? Finally, some thoughts about drama, within the context of Aristotle’s ideas. Drama is fiction. It involves make-believe and pretence. There is much talk of ‘reality’ in theatre, but the word has to be in quotes, meaning not actual reality, but rather fiction convincingly believed in. Nor is it enough to present people in an interesting situation. There has to be action and reaction. Something has to happen. Implicit also in the term ‘action’ is purpose and intention, and thus the


expectation of future developments. It may seem an obvious point to make, but I promise you that the number of film school projects that seem to concern themselves with figures whose purposes and intentions are not thought out in terms of purposeful action are many. This does not, of course, mean that the project is bad. It may be quite fascinating as a piece of cinematic art, but what it isn’t – or isn’t yet – is dramatic. Or, at least, not dramatic in the traditional Aristotelian sense. The word ‘drama’ is derived from the Greek word for ‘doing.’ Plainly this involves a ‘doer’ and somebody to whom something is done. Drama is inseparable from action, and drama that is descriptive, reflective or simply explanative is liable to be weak and ineffective. The particular way that an individual does something is the clearest indication of the individual’s temperament; or the way in which an individual reacts to circumstance, to what is being done to him or her. It should also be noted that an action is an activity that has some intention, some purpose, some end result. An action causes a change in the situation and advances the narrative. In this respect, an action might not even be immediately visible to the audience, but it is also intimately related to a character’s intention and the choices he or she makes. An action is significantly more than just an ongoing activity. Rather, it is something that leads to an event of some kind that in turn advances the narrative (i.e. action = activity-with-an-intention). Action in the dramatic sense presupposes some other figure who is acted-upon. A character-quality, therefore, is something that is literary and valueless to the story until it is imagined in the context of an event, an incident or situation in a crisis of the action. It is, needless to say, very much easier for a writer to describe qualities in a person and hope that the audience will see these, or that they will be appreciated just by the appearance and personality traits of the performer. Much harder is to invent incidents which dramatise the character’s intentions. The point is that character doesn’t exist until there is action. Character needs intention in order to be expressed theatrically, as distinct from just being described as a passive aspect of personality. Without the doing, characterisation is lifeless and static. Tension, the very essence of drama, requires intention. The reason for stressing this is that many beginners, brought up in a literary tradition, are apt to conceive speech as self-expressive, giving outlet to feeling and thought without much concern to the listeners, the reactions of other characters. It is a dangerous tendency. It is noticeable that even in Shakespearean soliloquies there is more than just talk for the benefit of the talker. ‘To be or not to be…’ is an example. It is a debate – a vigorous and potentially violent conflict – between two aspects of the character of Hamlet, a fight within himself. At issue is the decision of whether or not he will ‘take action.’ It is a weak performance of this famous speech that does not give force to this powerful inner conflict which, from moment to moment, vacillates between anger at himself and the weak despair and fear that ‘doth make cowards of us all’ when ‘we lose the name of action.’ Character, therefore, ought not to be conceived in the singular. For it to be dramatic, character should be thought of as struggle between characters, the action and reaction of individuals. It is the task of the dramatist to make internal struggles


apparent and to externalise them, usually through the invention of some subsidiary figures who act as foils. Critics and theorists of dramatic craft will emphasise this: character has to be evident in what a person does, as well as how he or she reacts to what others do to him or her. This is one of the basic distinctions between work we might consider as being literary and that which is what we call dramatic. A novelist can resort to descriptions of qualities that may or may not result in making events happen. The dramatist cannot. Character is not a static aspect of personality. It cannot be separated from action because intentions, purposes and motives of a character are his or her dramatic characteristics. Simply, character is expressed through action. A ‘character-quality,’ therefore, is something that is literary and valueless to the story until it is imagined in the context of an event, an incident or situation in a crisis of the action. It is, needless to say, very much easier for a writer to describe qualities in a character (in other words to describe in the business of a screenplay or play exactly what he hopes will be achieved by the work) and hope that either the audience will see these, or that these qualities will be appreciated just by the appearance and personality traits of the performer. Much harder is to invent incidents which actually dramatise the character’s intentions. It takes more imagination to devise things happening which will produce the desired effect. ‘Showing’ instead of ‘telling’ requires real ingenuity and effort. I wrote above that explanations in drama are liable to be ineffective. Explanations can be dramatic as long as they are explanations that are designed to have an effect on at least one character in the story. This is why we are apt to insist that passivity is dramatically feeble. Does this mean that characters who are passive cannot be put into a play or a film? Obviously not. Indeed, if this were so then a majority of plays or films would not have been produced, particularly since the dilemma of perhaps a majority of the most interesting protagonists of modern times are figures who are torn by doubts and uncertainties and by the agony of inability to take action. The solution is simple. When the central figure, sometimes called the protagonist, is uncertain and weak, it is the task of the dramatic writer to sharpen and clarify those who are his or her antagonists, the figures who are created by the dramatist to personify the obstacles of the hero (or anti-hero). Negative action is still action. The desire to escape from action, even to avoid decision, is still a decision. Hence the inescapable responsibility of the dramatist to find devices which make the agon (the Greek word for ‘struggle’) visible and apparent through action. *

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Let’s take another look at one of the things Aristotle discusses. He suggests that a tragedy is a representation not of men but of action, of life, of faring well or ill (which turns on action); and that the object of tragedy is to


represent a piece of action and not a quality. For, while men’s qualities correspond to their characters, their faring well or ill corresponds to their actions. To put it another way, men do not act in order to represent character, but qualities of character emerge as a result of their actions. There has been a mass of controversy over this remark by Aristotle, based in my opinion on a misunderstanding. Some have read it as meaning that Aristotle believed that plot was more important than feeling for character, that plot is what the dramatist should work out first. I don’t believe that this is true, nor do I believe it is what Aristotle thought. Aristotle was not talking of dramatists who felt it necessary to write new and original story material (which wasn’t Shakespeare’s assumption either, since he tended to borrow his plots and then transform them). He continues: Again, suppose someone writes a string of speeches which illustrate qualities of character with excellent diction and thought. He will not achieve the function of tragedy as well as a play which has a plot and an arrangement of episodes although it maybe inferior in diction and thought. The point, rather, is that character, as conceived in dramatic terms, doesn’t exist until there is action. A character needs intention and the opportunity to make choices in order to be expressed dramatically, as distinct from just being described as a passive aspect of personality. Without the doing, characterisation is lifeless and static. Tension, the very essence of drama, requires intention. In short, the aim of tragedy is the expression of the incidents and plot, and the aim is always the most important of all. This is an interesting phrase on which Aristotle does not expand. But other critics and theorists have. William Archer, for instance, makes a point that dramatic tension is the tug of two forces pulling against each other. It is our sense of expectation as to what may – or may not – happen next, and especially at the very end, as opposed to our uncertainly about how it will happen. Archer comes very close to making this his definition of dramatic tension: “Expectation mingled with uncertainty.” Note that in Oedipus Rex we in the audience have a pretty sure idea that the man whom Oedipus has sworn to identify, expose and punish is Oedipus himself. Yet we are held in the grip of the tension as to just how and when and through what surprising development the dreadful truth will finally be proved to the tragic king. [A] tragedy cannot dispense with action but it can dispense with character. So says Aristotle. However, to speak only for myself, when a play or film ‘dispenses with character’ or, to be more accurate, when the figures in it have no


depth of character, I will admit to finding them shallow stuff. Others, including a few dramatists who would like to reject conventional and traditional concepts of drama may, ironically, find the statement supports their efforts to escape psychological characterisation in favour of figures that are generalisations or abstractions of humanity.6 The plot, then, is the beginning and, as it were, the soul of tragedy. Make up your own mind on such questions. Commentary © The Estate of Alexander Mackendrick

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Summary of Aristotle All men take pleasure in representation, and the subjects of representation are men in action. Every tragedy has six parts: plot, character, thought, diction, song and spectacle.

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“A great deal of ink has been wasted in controversy over a remark of Aristotle's that the action or muthos, not the character or êthos, is the essential element in drama. The statement is absolutely true and wholly unimportant. A play can exist without anything that can be called character, but not without some sort of action. This is implied in the very word ‘drama,’ which means a doing, not a mere saying or existing. It would be possible, no doubt, to place Don Quixote, or Falstaff, or Peer Gynt, on the stage, and let him develop his character in mere conversation, or even monologue, without ever moving from his chair. But it is a truism that deeds, not words, are the demonstration and test of character; wherefore, from time immemorial, it has been the recognised business of the theatre to exhibit character in action. Historically, too, we find that drama has everywhere originated in the portrayal of an action – some exploit or some calamity in the career of some demigod or hero. Thus story or plot is by definition, tradition, and practical reason, the fundamental element in drama; but does it therefore follow that it is the noblest element, or that by which its value should be measured? Assuredly not. The skeleton is, in a sense, the fundamental element in the human organism. It can exist, and, with a little assistance, retain its form, when stripped of muscle and blood and nerve; whereas a boneless man would be an amorphous heap, more helpless than a jelly-fish. But do we therefore account the skeleton man's noblest part? Scarcely. It is by his blood and nerve that he lives, not by his bones; and it is because his bones are, comparatively speaking, dead matter that they continue to exist when the flesh has fallen away from them. It is, therefore, if not a misreading of Aristotle, at any rate a perversion of reason, to maintain that the drama lives by action, rather than by character. Action ought to exist for the sake of character: when the relation is reversed, the play may be an ingenious toy, but scarcely a vital work of art.” (William Archer, Play-Making, pp.22-23.)


Spectacle is the least artistic because the power of the tragedy should not be dependent on staging and production. It is the skill of the carpenter that matters more than the art of the poet in gaining spectacular effects. Men do not act in order to represent character, but qualities of character emerge as a result of their actions. Character is that which portrays choice, indicating what sort of thing a man chooses or rejects in a situation where the course is not obvious. The plot should be so constructed that even a man who does not see the play but is only told that the incidents have occurred will be shaken with fear and will be moved to pity by the events. The plot should be concerned with a single action, whole and complete in itself, with a beginning, a middle and an end. A beginning is that which of necessity does not follow something else and of its very nature must be followed by some event or happening. An end is just the opposite; of its very nature it must follow something else either inevitably or generally so, and it must not be followed by anything else. A middle is that which follows something and is succeeded by something. A story permits a change from bad fortune to good fortune, or from good fortune to bad fortune through a sequence of events which occur in accordance with necessity or with probability. If a scene’s presence or absence makes no visible difference, it is not a part of the whole. Plots divide into two classes, the “simple” and the “complex,” just as the actions which the plots represent are immediately divisible into two such classes. By a “simple” action I mean an action which, being simple and continuous in the sense of our definition, undergoes the transition without a “reversal of fortune” or a “discovery”; and by a “complex” action I mean an action in which the transition coincides with a “discovery” or with a “reversal of fortune” or with both. The best arrangement of the incidents is an arrangement in which the incidents occur one in consequence of another and yet are contrary to expectation. A “reversal” is a change of the situation into the opposite. A “discovery“, as the word implies, is a change from ignorance to knowledge. Reversal and discovery are the two parts of the plot which serve this purpose, and they constitute the best means of transporting the audience.


In every tragedy there is a “complication” and an “unravelling” [“the untying of the knot”]. The complication is often formed by incidents which are outside the play and by some of the incidents inside the play, and the unraveling is formed by the remainder of the play. To explain what I mean, the complication is that part of the play which extends from the beginning to the point where the transition from adversity to prosperity or from prosperity to adversity commences; and the unravelling is that part which extends from the beginning of the transition to the end of the play. The structure of the best tragedy should be not simple but complex, and in addition it should represent events which arouse pity and fear, this being a peculiar feature of such representative art. It clearly follows from this that one should not show men of excellence passing from prosperity to adversity, since that does not excite fear and pity but disgust; nor villainous men passing from adversity to prosperity, which is the least tragical of all, since it has none of the appropriate effects, exciting neither sympathy nor pity nor fear; nor again a thoroughly bad man passing from prosperity to adversity, for although such an arrangement might satisfy our feelings, yet it would not excite pity or fear. For we feel pity when a man does not deserve adversity, and we feel fear when a man is like us. The fate, then, of the utterly bad man will not excite pity or fear.


Walter Kerr A Matter of Opinion Walter Kerr (1913 – 1996) was a respected American drama critic, and author of several books. In How Not To Write A Play, Kerr rails against what he calls “the drama of ideas” at the expense of the drama of “action” and “character.” One example of the problematic nature of this state of affairs (as he saw it, writing predominantly of the New York theater scene in the mid-Fifties) is the “problem play,” which “has left us no memorable characters, no fascinating narratives.” Another is the character created for a ‘thesis play” that might take on a life of its own within the mind of the playwright: “What happens to my last act?... Do I stick to my character and sacrifice my point, or do I stick to my point and sacrifice my character?” Kerr asks that writers distinguish between a “theme” and a “thesis” (p.60). In short (p.56), “One of the most fascinating struggles to watch in the contemporary theater is that between the upsurging artist and the stubborn dialectician in the same man.”

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Howard Lindsay is credited with the thought that if you are going to write a propaganda play, you had better not let any of your characters know what the propaganda is. Sounder advice never came from mortal man. If there is anything to be added to the injunction, it is that things will be better still when the playwright doesn’t know what the propaganda is. A good way to destroy a play is to force it to prove something. Forced it will always be. Life, caught in its complex immediacy, doesn’t present itself as a tidy equation. A large part of modern drama – more than half of it, I’d say – has been built like an equation. We have inherited not the drama of action, of character, of kinetic intimacy with the human condition, but the drama of ideas. This last is a generic term, and there is, of course, a sense in which everything from Aristophanes to George Meredith can be lumped under its banner. It has, however, been given a very precise and limited meaning during the past seventy years, when it might with equal justice have been called the “drama of rational formulation” or perhaps the “drama of the a priori concept.” Even within the limited meaning the term has taken on, the form has had its variants. For purposes of illustration, I guess we can safely reduce these to three: the problem play, the thesis play, and the propaganda play. No one of these is easy to define nowadays; they are all quite closely related and many a playwright has slipped imperceptibly from one to the other. But let’s have a try at it. The problem play simply states its problem; it plays fair with both sides; it drops its curtain short of any solution. In John Galsworthy’s Strife capital has its innings, labor has its innings, the end of the play is neutral. Mr. Galsworthy wanted to set down the phenomena of contemporary social struggle “without fear, favor, or prejudice,” with “a certain detachment.”


The thesis play takes a further step. It presents the political, social, or moral problem it has in mind and then argues a solution to that problem, or at least a defined interpretation of its meaning. Argument has been added. Ghosts and A Doll’s House are thesis plays: one argues that the inflexibility of the traditional marriage bond is inhuman and, in certain circumstances, disastrous; the other argues that the traditional view of woman's role in society – mother, homemaker, “doll” – is false and unjust. In All My Sons Arthur Miller argues that “business is business” is an immoral concept. In Watch on the Rhine Lillian Hellman argues that we are all inextricably involved in the political fate of our overseas neighbors and that none of us, however innocent or however persecuted, can evade personal responsibility. In Tomorrow the World James Gow and Arnaud d’Usseau argue that an indoctrinated Nazi may be reclaimed by society if he is sufficiently exposed to the democratic way of life. In the thesis play a certain show of fairness, of at least psychological interest in the enemy, is retained; the outcome of the play, however, conforms to – and illustrates – the author’s point of view. The propaganda play takes a third and final step. It outlines a problem, argues the author’s solution, and then strives to incite the audience to immediate action. Where a thesis playwright is content to gain intellectual assent for his proposition, the propagandist is satisfied with nothing short of passionate commitment and practical co-operation. He wants you to storm the barricades, whatever they may be, tomorrow. In this form all fairness disappears; a black-andwhite case is made as boldly and as baldly as possible; the author eliminates anything that might inhibit your prompt response. George Sklar’s and Paul Peters’ Stevedore, John Wexley’s They Shall Not Die, and Clifford Odets’ Waiting for Lefty are propaganda plays. Each of these forms falsifies its human content in one way or another. The problem play sets up an opposition of impersonal forces. Here is Force A: it is Capital, or Militarism, or Tradition. Here is Force B: it is Labor, or Pacifism, or Revolt. Force A must have a squad of slightly varied figures to illustrate it: bankers, idle old colonels, white-haired statesmen with their omnipresent secretaries, demure gentlemen of the cloth. Force B must have another squad: working men, mothers who have lost sons in battle, eager young idealists. The forces take turns: the industrialist states his case, the man who has lost an arm in the machinery states his. The events of the play are dictated by the author’s desire to clarify a social abstraction. The people of the play are handy types clustering about one of two possible poles. These people are without independence. Psychology is directed not toward the unique personality but toward the cerebral generalization. The problem of the play is everywhere larger than the human forces caught in it; they cannot move it, it moves them. And it moves them, like chessmen on an evenly divided board, toward a preordained stalemate. Small wonder that the problem play has left us no memorable characters, no fascinating narratives. It hangs on the wall like an industrial graph.


As the playwright moves toward the thesis and propaganda plays, anxiety to make a given point, to reach a dogmatic conclusion, takes over. Instead of balancing his opposed social forces so perfectly that they will stalemate one another, he is now out to win the game. As a result, his control over his incidents and characters, his manipulation of these things in accordance with an ideological master plan, must become increasingly firm, indeed almost absolute. If, in a thesis play, I want to show that a woman who permits herself to play the traditional “wife-doll” role is something less than a woman, and that she can become a true woman only by storming out of her toy house, I must do two things. I must first illustrate the “doll”: wife, mother, charmer, intellectual idiot. I must also illustrate the “woman”: knowledgeable, dignified, articulate, strong. Suppose, though, that in the course of performing my first task I do my work a little too well: I create a character who is really a doll, the very sod of irresistible scatterbrain who needs to be cooped up and cuddled forever in her bric-a-brac world. What happens to my last act? Where does this lovable incompetent acquire the wisdom, how does she get up the nerve, to take to the freer highways? Do I stick to my character and sacrifice my point, or do I stick to my point and sacrifice my character? If I am a good thesis playwright, determined to pursue my intellectual predisposition, I make whatever character adjustments arc necessary, even violent ones. I may find it necessary to equip my doll, quite suddenly, with a talent for rational debate and a fortitude of staggering proportions. Given a conflict between a growing imaginative reality and the mathematical proposition I originally had in mind, I must choose in favor of the proposition. The point comes first. I must everywhere be prepared to cut my human cloth to fit my ideological coat. At the same time, of course, I am as careful as I can be to camouflage what I am doing. I am not honestly prepared to deal with men, because I am committed to an idea. But I must work very hard to give the factors in my proposition the semblance of reality. Though each figurehead has an intellectual purpose, I must cautiously play down the purpose. I must slip it in unobtrusively. I must distract attention from it steadily, so that the audience will not catch me at my proselytizing: my malleable mannikins must eat, drink, make jokes, do the thousand little things that genuine people do – all the while that I keep them firmly submissive to my initial diagram. I am really engaging in a kind of sleight-of-hand: pretending to write a play and actually defending an opinion. I am playing a shadow game, and I must not be surprised if all I get is shadows. My work may be skilfully done. In All My Sons the businessman-father, Joe Keller, is very nearly a person. He smokes a pipe, speaks a trade lingo, cries a bit, lies plausibly, engages in a certain amount of hearty backslapping, irritably defends himself when his honesty is questioned. Seeing him in the theater, you try to help the author: you push your belief in Joe Keller because you want to be able to believe in what he has done – profiteered on defective airplane parts during a war. You tell yourself that you know men have done just this. But you


never quite believe that Joe Keller has done it, or at least not because he wanted to; he has done it because Arthur Miller wanted him to. Here is Joe speaking: Listen, you gotta appreciate what was doin’ in that shop in the war. The both of you! It was a madhouse. Every half hour the Major callin’ for cylinder heads, they were whippin’ us with the telephone. The trucks were hauling them away hot, damn near. I mean just try to see it human, see it human. All of a sudden a batch comes out with a crack. That happens, that's the business… The thoughts are arranged with a plausible logic. The idiom is studiously unliterary. The man doesn’t pronounce his final g’s, he repeats himself, he inverts sentences, he uses a “lifelike” jargon. The key phrase about “business” drops almost imperceptibly from his lips. Yet there is still something of an echo about him; he is not quite speaking from instinct or passion; he is taking his cues from the wings. Though he is meant to be something of a hollow man, he is one degree hollower than a truly convincing character dare be; for all his energy, and for all his jargon, he cannot completely shake off the chill air of the automaton. I'm not sure that his creator has actually “seen it human”; I think he has seen it abstractly and then labored valiantly to give it a humanizing veneer. If we can’t wholly get at Joe Keller, it is because Joe Keller is not un equivocally open for inspection. One of the most fascinating struggles to watch in the contemporary theater is that between the upsurging artist and the stubborn dialectician in the same man. Ibsen was surely an artist, but an artist who stumbled on a dialectical time and a dialectical form. He had an instinct for character, and a passionate determination to make points. The two are in eternal conflict. Nora nearly got away from him; but he hauled her back. Mrs. Alving nearly got away from him; he hauled her back, too – though not without a struggle. Hedda, I think, got away from him. Hjalmar Ekdal got away from him. Increasingly Ibsen found himself puzzled by his people; complexity broke out like a rash. Where he needed a fool to make his social point, he found himself falling in love with the fool. Where he needed a parasite to make his point, he found him self fascinated by the parasite. The more he allowed his people dimension, the less did they fit into the pattern of his thought. As the characters acquire roundness – a perverse, intractable, baffling identity of their own – their precise social meaning be comes ever more ambiguous. In the early Pillars of Society the point is unmistakable; but the characters are not especially interesting. In the later The Wild Duck the characters are fascinating; but the ultimate point they are meant to make is hopelessly obscure. You can always clarify a thesis by over simplifying what is human. But the moment you begin to give humanity its due you are bound to destroy the patness of your proposition. (In the end, as we have said, Ibsen rejected the whole sorry struggle and took his characters off to the mystical mountains; the man who had perfected the realistic thesis play abandoned it in mid-career, leaving a subsequent generation to work over its scraps.)


In Death of a Salesman Arthur Miller entered the same battlefield. Presumably Mr. Miller started out with a precise social moral he wished to drive home. Mr. Miller has told us, in effect, that this is his principal interest in the theater. It is apparent enough that this moral had something to do with the rightness or wrongness of that American phenomenon, salesmanship. But the play worked out oddly. I have talked with people who regarded it as anti-American propaganda. I have also talked with people who regarded it as a disinterested work of art. There were people who were outraged by it, there were people who were deeply moved by it, there was the man who was heard to mutter, in the men’s room during intermission, “Well, that New England territory never was any good, anyhow.” So far from leaving a single, didactic impression on its audiences, Death of a Salesman seemed susceptible to various, and seriously divergent, interpretations. There was agreement on one thing, though: that the lonely, tormented salesman Willy Loman was a believable, heartbreaking man. Once more a character had taken on stature and independence; in the process he could not help but burst the tidy boundaries that may have been set for him. He is enough of a person to make the play's meaning personal rather than socially prophetic. At the end of the evening, if we pause to work over its “message” at all, we find ourselves asking, “Is this the tragedy of an individual – is it Willy's own fault?” or “Is this a social tract – Willy the helpless victim of forces outside himself?” We aren’t sure. If Willy strikes us as being utterly complete, containing within himself the seeds of his own destruction, we tend to dismiss the peripheral social implications, to allow them a mild function as incidental, and somewhat ambiguous, background. If, on the other hand, we are determined to ferret out the explicit social meaning, we run headlong into further trouble. If Willy is the product of an impersonal force that is evil and destructive, why do we like him so much? And why, as his friends stand over his grave, do they find it in their hearts to praise both Willy and his calling? There is a sudden lyricism in their thought that this man has spent his life “riding on a smile and a shoeshine”; we are inexplicably uplifted by it. We feel, somehow or other, that Willy has been justified after all. The truth is, I guess, that Willy has won the chess game; the author, no matter in what contempt he holds Willy’s philosophy, can no longer desert the man. He may have all sorts of angry things he still wishes to say; in effect, Willy has silenced him. As with Ibsen, so with Miller. The earlier All My Sons had been crystal-clear in its argument, unmemorable in its characterization. Death of a Salesman finds its argument clouded, and Willy unforgettable. The thesis play breeds this conflict, at least in a man who is in any sense an artist. (A mere editorialist can rattle off broadsides forever.) In the process of putting a humanizing wash on his factors in an equation, the artist has found his imaginative – as opposed to his severely rational – energies aroused. Should he give them any free play, he is headed for ideological trouble. In a still later play, The Crucible, Mr. Miller reverted to type and accepted the ideologue’s solution: he thinned out his characters in order to make his meaning unmistakable. John Proctor is an “honest” man. William Danforth is a “blind” one. They confront each


other, in a climactic trial scene, not as troubled, troublesome, unpredictable people, but as indestructible stone images at the door of a temple. These two can never come to know each other’s minds; the author won’t let them. Given the thesis play, the problem will come up; a choice will have to be made. The experience of dramatists from Ibsen to Miller should convince us of one thing: it is better to make a man than to make a point. In the third and frankest of our familiar forms – the propaganda play – all pretense at human complexity is dropped. The equation is laid bare for all to see. A equals virtue. B equals vice. “Do what I say” equals “health and happiness forever.” The virtuous A does nothing that is not virtuous; the villainous B does nothing that is not villainous; the author’s vision is as simple and as urgent as a blow to the stomach. The propaganda play is a play in a hurry; it has no time for the hesitant inflections of the human voice. It is possible to reread Waiting for Lefty and still feel something of the author’s passion; it is not possible to see its characters as anything other than purposeful cartoons. Placed side by side with the people in the same author’s Awake and Sing, these obliging mouthpieces have the approximate validity of those good folk in the television commercials who have just discovered a new brand of coffee. (Odets is an artist, too; he has been engaged in a prolonged struggle between superimposed meaning and simply observed life; his later tendency has been toward uncommitted observation, though he is something of a lost soul in an age that has not yet surrendered its hold on the socially significant drama and is therefore unable to give him confident direction.) The movement of the “drama of ideas” – problem play, thesis play, propaganda play – is always toward greater and greater emphasis on the abstracted idea, the bare-bones equation. It may be asked why the bothersome human baggage was not scuttled altogether, why – for absolute clarity – the equation was not revealed in its nakedness. As a matter of fact, it was. In the 1920s, some thirty or forty years after the drama of ideas had come into being, a form evolved which did just this. It was called Expressionism. In the work of such men as Georg Kaiser and Ernst Toller – Elmer Rice did an American imitation called The Adding Machine – the names and faces of men disappeared. The figures who were shuttled about on a kind of dramatic abacus were frankly labeled X, Y, and Z; they inhabited a geometric world in which propositions could be demonstrated without human interference. The hero of The Adding Machine is Mr. Zero. The principals in Man and the Masses are The Woman, The Husband, The Masses, The Nameless, The State Official, Bankers, and First, Second, Third, Fourth, Fifth and Sixth Shadows. Man has acquired a capital “M” and ceased to exist. Expressionism is sometimes regarded as an erratic offshoot of our drama. It was, on the contrary, the logical dead end toward which our drama had been moving. If we pulled back from it rather quickly, it was, I think, in horror at how far we had gone. The intellectual mathematics which underlay our drama had been


too candidly exposed, rendered altogether too transparent. If we had to have this sort of thing, we preferred it in diluted form, with a little flesh grafted onto it. In general, we went back to the thesis play. The strictly conceived problem play had fallen from favor; it was, no doubt, too cool and too inconclusive for the normally energetic theater. The propaganda play has more or less vanished for other reasons, though not necessarily the right ones: the angry desperation of the 1930s was mitigated by an economic upturn; and a new desperation, born of political tensions in the 1950s, created a fear of outspokenness. The thesis play stood roughly at the center of all these forms, offering an idea but discreetly clothing it in human mannerisms, and it must certainly have seemed the best compromise. It is the form that is most with us today. In fact, it is so much with us that the average young writer at the present time cannot imagine himself writing a play without first having hit on a thesis. The thesis is his play. It is his subject matter, it is what the play is about. It is, he will tell you, his “theme.” Under the pressure of a good half century of argumentative drama, “theme” and “thesis” have come to mean one and the same thing. But they don’t. A thesis is “a position or proposition which a person advances and offers to maintain by argument.” A theme is “a subject or topic of discourse,” or, if we may legitimately borrow from one of the other arts, “a melody constituting the basis of variation, development, or the like, in a composition or movement.” Definitions are academic, and I’m sorry to be bringing up Webster. But there are times when semantic confusion can be damaging; in this instance, I think, an ingrained habit of thought stands squarely in the way of the playwright's clearing his head, or of his sensing the possibilities of another sort of procedure. Ask a playwright what his theme is and he will tell you: “My theme is that all men of good will must join forces before it is too late.” “My theme is that political witch-hunting must be stopped now or it will engulf our society.” “My theme is that the pressures of modern life have destroyed the family.” “My theme is that Hollywood cripples the creative artist.” “My theme is that materialism corrupts whatever finer aspirations a man may have.” “My theme is that mother-love may become ruinously possessive.” “My theme is that children are people.” I once heard a professor of playwriting announce to his class that he hoped to write a play which had for its theme “the meaninglessness of meaning,” a proposition even more advanced in the intellectual order of things than Pirandello’s “reality is illusion, illusion reality.” Not one of these, of course, is a theme to be varied; all are theses to be defended. Even where the subject matter suggests possible thematic treatment – it is possible, after all, to write plays about mothers, Hollywood, children, and even politics – it has been attitudinized into a dogmatic pronouncement. “I am,” the playwright says, “going to show you that such and such is so; my people are


going to prove it.” He does not simply say, “I am going to show you my people; I am going to show you the things they do.” Julius Caesar is a play about politics. It has a theme. Call it “political activity” or “political ambition” or what you will. The play is about a group of men engaged in a struggle for power. There is the shrewd, unstable Cassius. There is the pompous, weary, but not unattractive Caesar. There is the reasonable, responsible Brutus. There is the loyal, passionate Antony. There is the excitable Casca. Each enters the struggle for his own reasons, pursues it in his own way, tries to judge and to shape events out of his own understanding. The interaction of these minds is the entire substance of the play. It has no thesis. So far from adopting or attempting to promulgate an attitude toward this struggle, Shakespeare has been nearly as detached in his treatment of it as the plot summary that appears in The Oxford Companion to English Literature: Distrust of Caesar’s ambition gives rise to a conspiracy against him among Roman lovers of freedom, notably Cassius and Casca; they win over to their cause Brutus, who reluctantly joins them from a sense of duty to the republic. Caesar is slain by the conspirators in the Senate-house. Antony, Caesar’s friend, stirs the people to fury against the conspirators by a skilful speech at Caesar's funeral. Octavius, nephew of Julius Caesar, Antony, and Lepidus, united as triumvirs, oppose the forces raised by Brutus and Cassius. The quarrel and reconciliation of Brutus and Cassius, with the news of the death of Portia, wife of Brutus, provide one of the finest scenes in the play. Brutus and Cassius are, defeated at the battle of Philippi (42 B.c.), and kill themselves. So be it. That’s the way it was. We are not enlisted in the cause of any one of the conspirators. We are not told that Caesar was, in fact, evilly ambitious – only that Cassius and Casca thought he was. We are not urged to take a moral stand on Caesar's murder; we simply watch it as a terrifying image of actual human behavior. We are not asked to decide whether Cassius was right and Brutus wrong in permitting Antony to speak over Caesar's body; we know only that Cassius opposed it, that Brutus favored it, and that things worked out as Cassius had anticipated. Because Cassius was “right” about a given issue, we are not thereafter committed to Cassius. We are not even committed to the most thoughtful, upright, and integrated of the play's characters, Brutus. Brutus is, more than the others, “honest” man. But he is no spokesman. His course is not clearly the course to be taken by all honest men. He too dies of the battle. Nor is the play a paean of pessimism, cynical and bitter as it counts its corpses. It does not say, in the over-all view: “Power corrupts; absolute power corrupts absolutely.” It does not say that ambition is bound to end in failure, that ambition is to be avoided, that political activity is in itself irremediably evil. If it does not say “Go into politics and behave as Cassius, or as Brutus, does,” neither


does it say “Stay out of politics altogether.” Ideologically speaking, it says nothing. It simply shows us certain kinds of men, equipped with certain kinds of minds, engaging in a certain kind of activity. And we are fascinated: by the resourcefulness of these minds, by the intricacy of motive, by the interplay of temperaments, by the ingenuity, the passion, the incredible complexity of living men. The author has here given a theme “variation and development,” has orchestrated what is truly human; he has not garlanded it with excrescent and highly debatable advice. A Streetcar Named Desire has a theme. It is, let’s say, self-deception. (I don’t propose this as an absolute; themes are, almost by nature, difficult to define absolutely; they look to human nature in the round and, like a turning crystal, give off multiple reflections.) The Tennessee Williams play is, in any case, about a girl who deceives herself, or tries to deceive herself, in order to evade a reality which threatens to crush her. The play has no thesis. We do not disapprove of Blanche du Bois for what she has done; we understand her too thoroughly for that. Nor do we approve of what she has done; we see that it is destroying her. In her terrifying clash with the “normal” animal, Stanley Kowalski, we do not assign her to the “wrong” corner and him to the “right” one; we do not even assign her to the “unrealistic” corner and him to the “realistic” one. Labels are inadequate; the people are too complex. Stanley is a realist, all right. He can see sham. But he cannot see the sensitivity that is responsible for the sham. He is clearheaded; but he is also bullheaded. She is fake; but almost all of her aspirations are genuine. These two people are in conflict, but they are not in mathematical conflict. We watch them with horror, with apprehension, with, anguish, and – very often – with open delight. As they grate on each other like matches on a tinderbox, we see them do “right” things and “wrong” things and sometimes both at once. The play ends in a certain defined way. Blanche is at last insane. But the ending is not offered as an equation. It does not say, “Deceive yourself and you will destroy yourself.” You may take this thought from the play, if you wish. You may also take quite different thoughts from it. You may, for instance, wonder what might have happened to Blanche had she not been caught out by this particularly insensitive man. You may wonder to what degree the boor has been responsible for the destruction of the sensitive. You may feel that there was much in Blanche that was worth saving, that the very things which were most worth saving were the things which made her intolerable. Your reaction may, indeed, be as complex as the life you have been observing. No two men have yet agreed on the precise “meaning” of the character Hamlet. There isn't really much more agreement, among literary analysts, on the “meaning” of the play Oedipus the King. But Hamlet is perfectly real to us; as we watch Oedipus in the theater we intuitively accept its narrative. If two masterworks have, after centuries, resisted our efforts to turn them into rational equations, that is our hard luck, not theirs. They do not exist as equations, but as vital, impenetrable images.


It’s an old story that Shakespeare so little intruded personal bias and personal belief upon his materials that to this day we cannot with any certainty what his political, social, or religious beliefs may have been. We know the accuracy of his eye and the honesty of his ear; the rest is silence. It may seem that I am trying to make a virtue out of ambiguity, even moral ambiguity. I am not; I am trying to make a case for complexity. It is true that in many plays, perhaps in most plays, there is a “rightness” or “wrongness” attached to the actions performed. It is wrong for Macbeth to murder his king; we know that. It is wrong for Othello to allow jealousy to possess him; we know that, too. But these are also things we knew quite clearly before we came; we do not require instruction from the playwright. As Chekhov once said, “You scold me for my objectivity, calling it indifference to good and evil, lack of ideas, and so on. When I describe horse-thieves you would have me say ‘Stealing horses is evil.’ But that was known long ago without me.” Nor is the playwright out to intensify our natural moral responses, and so improve us. (Moralists sometimes like to justify drama in this light; it is a left-handed and wholly irrelevant defense.) The playwright is not working at white heat to turn us ever more firmly against murder. He is trying to put us in touch with murder, with the reality of the act and with the strange reality of the man immersed in the act: how he brings himself to it, how he passes through the moment, how he feels and behaves when the moment is over. He is trying to make us intimate with murder as a thing that happens, not trying to revolt us with murder as a thing that is forbidden. The play may follow from, and even rest upon, a widespread moral assumption; but the play is in what follows. A good play does not busy itself trying to enunciate moral values; it assumes them, and gets on with its own work of accurate observation. William Butler Yeats once pointed out that one of the things dramatic action had to do was “burn up its author's opinions.” He pointed it out to Sean O'Casey, who had just abandoned the earlier style of Juno and the Paycock and The Plough and the Stars and begun to experiment with his later, intensely didactic style. Juno has no thesis. A great deal of suffering is mixed with a great deal of laughter; the people who bring about the suffering are funny and endearing; irresponsibility exists, but it is never attacked; the conclusion of the play is no more than a tipsy ne’er-do-well’s assertion that “the world’s in a terrible state of chassis.” The texture of the play is thick and multicolored, patterned after the coherent contradictions – the vices and virtues inseparably bound together – of mulish mankind. In subsequent plays, however, O’Casey not only took sides in the sociological, philosophical, and political arenas; he scrawled giant slogans in bright-colored chalk. His talent for language did not desert him, but his love of the actual went down before his prophetic apprehensions about the future. To read the work of O’Casey in sequence is to wish that Yeats, speaking to him in midcareer, had been more persuasive. What is intrinsically wrong with the thesis play is that it puts the drawing board before the drama. It begins at the wrong end of the creative scale. It begins


with a firm, fast premise, achieved in the intellectual solitude of the study, and thereafter proceeds to make all life dance to a quite debatable tune. This is not to say that the rational mind should play no part in the shaping of a play. Obviously it must always play a very large part indeed. The author observes this or that brilliant facet of life; he catches a glimmering here, a fugitive gesture there. Once caught, these must be nursed, coddled, carefully pared, gently joined. The rational mind does the last-minute weaving, makes all sorts of judgments about what is, and what is not, to be retained. But it does its work as a scalpel, not as a die press. It shapes, but it does not stamp. It does not originate the process, killing the spirit before the spirit can be born; it arrives late, and tidies up. Though the terms “theme” and “thesis” are now used interchangeably, there is an enormous difference between them. In the one, the playwright – uncommitted to any a-priori view – is forced to go out and observe; he must look to life for his materials. He may know, in general, that he wishes to write about jealousy; but he must first see what jealousy looks like. In the other, the dramatic mansion is prefabricated. The playwright comes equipped with an agreeable syllogism, complete in all its parts. He clothes his major premise, and his minor premise, in a semblance of human flesh; but they are only premises after all, pointing to a planned conclusion. What we call the drama of ideas is just that: a drama in which the people are digits, adding up to the correct ideological sum. Our drama of ideas is also a drama in which only the dramatist is allowed to have any ideas. What is “correct” is determined by the playwright. The audience sits in humble tutelage, not so much loving the characters as being lectured at by them, not so much enjoying the varied patterns of life as submitting to their rigid organization by a puritan with a stick. From Walter Kerr, How Not To Write A Play (1955) © Original copyright holders


David Mamet The Perfect Ball Game What do we wish for in the perfect game? Do we wish for Our Team to take the field and thrash the opposition from the First Moment, rolling up a walkover score at the final gun? No. We wish for a closely fought match that contains many satisfying reversals, but which can be seen, retroactively, to have always tended toward a satisfying and inevitable conclusion. We wish, in effect, for a three-act structure. In act 1 Our Team takes the field and, indeed, prevails over its opponents, and we, its partisans, feel pride. But before that pride can mature into arrogance this new thing occurs: Our Team makes an error, the other side is inspired and pushes forth with previously unsuspected strength and imagination. Our Team weakens and retreats. In act 2 of this perfect game Our Team, shaken and confused, forgets the rudiments of cohesion and strategy and address that made them strong. They fall deeper and deeper into the slough of despond. All contrary efforts seem for naught; and just when we think the tide may have turned back their way, a penalty or adverse decision is rendered, nullifying their gains. What could be worse? But wait: just When All Seems Irremediably Lost, help comes (act 3) from an unexpected quarter. A player previously believed second-rate emerges with a block, a run, a throw, that offers a glimmer (a glimmer, mind) of the possibility of victory. Yes, only a glimmer, but it is sufficient to rouse the team to something approaching its best efforts. And the team, indeed, rallies. Our Team brings the score back even and, mirabile dictu, makes That Play that would put them ahead. ONLY TO HAVE IT CALLED BACK, yet again, by fate, or by its lieutenant, a wrongheaded, ignorant, or malicious official. But see: the Lessons of the Second Act7 were not lost on Our Team. This or that one might say it is too late, the clock is too far run down, our heroes are Too Tired, yet they rouse themselves for One Last Effort, One Last Try. And do they prevail? Do they triumph, with scant seconds left on the clock? They all but triumph. As, in the final seconds of the play, the outcome rests on That Lone Warrior, that hero, that champion, that person upon whom, in the Final Moment, all our hopes devolve, that final play, run, pass, penalty kick – Yes. But wait: that Warrior we would have chosen for the task, that Champion is injured. No one is left on the bench save a neophyte, et cetera, et cetera. 7

We, caught up in the drama of that moment, did not recognize at the time that the second act had lessons. We watched and understood it as a series of both random and unfortunate happenings. In retrospect we intuit/perceive its operation as part of a whole – i.e., we perceive it as part of a drama.


In which conceit we see that not only does the game recapitulate the drama, but each act of the game (the Perfect Game, mind you) recapitulates the game (following the paradigm: “Yes! No! But wait... !”), just as each act of the play recapitulates the whole. The ball game, then, is perhaps a model of Eisenstein's Theory of Montage: the idea of a SHOT A is synthesized with the idea of a SHOT B to give us a third idea, which third idea is the irreducible building block upon which the play will be constructed. The Defense of team A and the Offense of team B are synthesized in THE PLAY, the one play, after which the ball will be found at a different position. And to that new position (a ball in the same position but at a later time is, of course, still in a new position) we, the audience, internalize/intuit/create/assign a philosophical meaning. For we rationalize, objectify, and personalize the process of the game exactly as we do that of a play, a drama. For, finally, it is a drama, with meaning for our lives. Why else would we watch it? It is enjoyable, like music, like politics, and like theater, because it exercises, it flatters, and it informs our capacity for rational synthesis – our ability to learn a lesson, which is our survival mechanism. This Play, which May or not Take Place, but which we perceive (we can find a similar satisfaction, for example, if we're feeling philosophical, in the interplay of clouds) because we must, because it is our nature, can, at one end of its operation, makes us better, make the world better, perhaps, because of what we have perceived. At the other end of its operation, it can soothe (or, for that matter, enrage and debauch) simply by exciting our capacity for synthesis – as the lovely kitten playing with the ball of string is happy because she practices torture, as patriotic groups are similarly happy because they rehearse – in however embryonic a form – war. It is difficult, finally, not to see our lives as a play with ourselves the hero – and that struggle is the great task of religion, of which drama used to be a part before the Fall. © Original copyright holders


Lajos Egri: Premise Lajos Egri (1888-1967) published The Art of Dramatic Writing in 1942. Even today the book is regarded by some as one of the key texts on the subject. Egri’s ideas are useful when discussing the notion of “premise,” which can (he notes) be defined as any of the following: “theme, thesis, root idea, central idea, goal, aim, driving force, subject, purpose, plan, plot, basic emotion.” Egri, who believes that a “good premise is a thumbnail synopsis of your play,” presents several examples in his book, including this list.

Bitterness leads to false gaiety. Foolish generosity leads to poverty. Honesty defeats duplicity. Heedlessness destroys friendship. Ill-temper leads to isolation. Materialism conquers mysticism. Prudishness leads to frustration. Bragging leads to humiliation. Confusion leads to frustration. Craftiness digs its own grave. Dishonesty leads to exposure. Dissipation leads to self-destruction. Egotism leads to loss of friends. Extravagance leads to destitution. Fickleness leads to loss of self-esteem.

From Lajos Egri, The Art of Dramatic Writing (1942) © Original copyright holders


Dramatic Irony From 101 Things I Learned in Film School By Landau and Frederick

© Original copyright holders


William Archer The School for Scandal William Archer (1856 – 1924) was a Scottish critic and playwright, and a colleague of George Bernard Shaw. His 1912 book Play-Making was one of the few texts that Mackendrick recommended to students. Here Archer describes the so-called ‘screen scene,’ which is useful in helping to explain how camera placement is so intimately related to the basic notion of dramatic irony. (Emphasis below is mine.)

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I propose to analyse a particular scene, not, certainly, among the loftiest in dramatic literature, but particularly suited to my purpose, inasmuch as it is familiar to every one, and at the same time full of the essential qualities of drama. I mean the Screen Scene in The School for Scandal. In her ‘English Men of Letters’ volume on Sheridan, Mrs. Oliphant discusses this scene. Speaking in particular of the moment at which the screen is overturned, revealing Lady Teazle behind it, she says – It would no doubt have been higher art could the dramatist have deceived his audience as well as the personages of the play, and made us also parties in the surprise of the discovery. There could scarcely be a completer reversal of the truth than this “hopeless comment,” as Professor Brander Matthews has justly called it. The whole effect of the long and highly-elaborated scene depends upon our knowledge that Lady Teazle is behind the screen. Had the audience […] not known that there was anybody there […] where would have been the breathless interest which has held us through a whole series of preceding scenes? When Sir Peter reveals to Joseph his generous intentions towards his wife, the point lies in the fact that Lady Teazle overhears; and this is doubly the case when he alludes to Joseph as a suitor for the hand of Maria. So, too, with the following scene between Joseph and Charles; in itself it would be flat enough; the fact that Sir Peter is listening lends it a certain piquancy; but this is ten times multiplied by the fact that Lady Teazle, too, hears all that passes. When Joseph is called from the room by the arrival of the pretended Old Stanley, there would be no interest in his embarrassment if we believed the person behind the screen to be the French milliner. And when Sir Peter yields to the temptation to let Charles into the secret of his brother's frailty, and we feel every moment more certain that the screen will be overthrown, where would be the excitement, the tension, if we did not know who was behind it? The real drama, in fact, passes behind the screen. It lies in the terror, humiliation, and disillusionment which we know to be coursing each other


through Lady Teazle's soul. And all this Mrs. Oliphant would have sacrificed for a single moment of crude surprise! Now let us hear Professor Matthews's analysis of the effect of the scene. He says: The playgoer’s interest is really not so much as to what is to happen as the way in which this event is going to affect the characters involved. He thinks it likely enough that Sir Peter will discover that Lady Teazle is paying a visit to Joseph Surface; but what he is really anxious to learn is the way the husband will take it. What will Lady Teazle have to say when she is discovered where she has no business to be? How will Sir Peter receive her excuses? What will the effect be on the future conduct of both husband and wife? These are the questions which the spectators are eager to have answered. From Play-Making, William Archer (1912) (pp.166 – 168)


The Apartment Read the opening three paragraphs of this plot summary (taken from Wikipedia) of Billy Wilder’s 1960 film and you’ll see that the first two-fifths of the film is rooted entirely in dramatic irony: we know that the girl Baxter loves is also using his apartment along with his boss, but he doesn’t. Note below in paragraph two: “it is revealed to the audience.” Which is to say: but not to our hero.

C. C. Baxter is a lonely office drone for an insurance company in New York City. Four different company managers take turns commandeering Baxter’s apartment for their various extramarital liaisons. Unhappy with the situation, but unwilling to challenge them directly, he juggles their conflicting demands while hoping to catch the eye of fetching elevator operator Fran Kubelik. Meanwhile the neighbors in the apartment building assume Baxter is a “good time Charlie” who brings home a different drunken woman every night. Baxter accepts their criticism rather than reveal the truth. The four managers write glowing reports about Baxter – a little too glowing, so personnel director Mr. Sheldrake suspects something illicit behind the praise. Sheldrake lets Baxter's promotion go unchallenged on condition that he be allowed to use the apartment as well, starting that night. Sheldrake gives Baxter two tickets to The Music Man to ensure his absence. Delighted about his promotion, Baxter asks Kubelik to meet him at the theatre. She agrees and it is revealed to the audience that she is Sheldrake’s girlfriend, intending to break off their affair that night but is instead charmed by Sheldrake to the apartment. Baxter is disappointed at being stood up, but is willing to forgive Kubelik. At an office party on Christmas Eve, Baxter discovers the relationship between Sheldrake and Kubelik, though he conceals this realization, while Kubelik learns from Sheldrake's secretary that she is merely the latest female employee to be his mistress, the secretary herself having filled that role several years earlier. At the apartment, Kubelik confronts Sheldrake with this information and while he maintains that he genuinely loves her, he leaves to return to his family. Meanwhile, a depressed Baxter picks up a woman in a local bar and, upon returning the apartment, is astounded to find Kubelik in his bed, fully clothed and overdosed on Baxter's sleeping pills. Baxter sends his bar pickup home and enlists the help of his neighbour, a physician, in reviving Kubelik without notifying the authorities. The doctor makes various assumptions about Kubelik and Baxter, which Baxter concedes without revealing Sheldrake’s involvement. Baxter later telephones Sheldrake and informs him of the situation, and while Sheldrake professes gratitude for Baxter’s quiet handling of the matter, he avoids any further involvement. Kubelik recuperates in


Baxter's apartment under his care for two days, during which he tries to entertain and distract her from any possible suicidal afterthoughts, talking her into playing numerous hands of gin rummy, though she is largely uninterested. Baxter and Kubelik’s absence from work is noted and commented on, with Baxter's former “customers” assuming that Baxter and Kubelik were having an affair. Kubelik’s taxi-driver brother-in-law comes looking for her and two of the customers cheerfully direct him to Baxter's apartment, partly out of spite since he has been denying them access since his arrangement with Sheldrake. The brother-in-law also assumes the worst of Baxter and punches him several times. Sheldrake, angered at his secretary for sharing the truth with Kubelik, fires her. She retaliates by telling his wife about his infidelities, leading to the breakup of the marriage. Sheldrake moves into a room at his athletic club and continues to string Kubelik along while he enjoys his newfound bachelorhood. Baxter finally takes a stand when Sheldrake demands the apartment for another liaison with Kubelik on New Year's Eve, which results in Baxter quitting the firm. When Kubelik hears of this from Sheldrake, she realizes that Baxter is the man who truly loves her and abandons him, running to the apartment. Baxter, in the midst of packing to move out, is bewildered by her appearance and her insistence on resuming their earlier game of gin rummy. When he declares his love for her, her reply is the nowfamous final line of the movie: “Shut up and deal.”


Start Late From 101 Things I Learned in Film School By Landau and Frederick



Rear Window John Michael Hayes

THE CAMERA NOW PULLS BACK SWIFTLY and retreats through the open window back into Jefferies' apartment. We now see more of the sleeping man. THE CAMERA GOES IN far enough to show a head and shoulders of him. He is L. B. JEFFERIES. A tall, lean, energetic thirtyfive, his face long and seriouslooking at rest, is in other circumstances capable of humor, passion, naive wonder and the kind of intensity that bespeaks inner convictions of moral strength and basic honesty. He is sitting in an Everest and Jennings wheelchair. THE CAMERA PANS along his right leg. It is encased in a plaster of Paris spica from his waistline to the base of his toes. Along the white cast someone has written “Here lie the broken bones of L. B. Jefferies.” THE CAMERA PANS to a nearby table on which rests a shattered and twisted Speed Graphic Camera, the kind used by fast-action news photographers. On the same table, the CAMERA PANS to an eight by ten glossy photo print. It shows a dirt track auto racing speedway, taken from a point dangerously near the center of the track. A racing car is skidding toward the camera, out of control, spewing a cloud of dust behind it. A rear wheel has come off the car, and the wheel is bounding at top speed directly into the camera lens. THE CAMERA MOVES UP to a framed photograph on the wall. It is a fourteen by ten print, an essay in violence, having caught on film the exploding semi-second when a heavy artillery shell arches into a front-line Korean battle outpost. Men and equipment erupt into the air suspended in a solution of blasted rock, dust and screeching shrapnel. That the photographer was not a casualty is evident, but surprising when the short distance between the camera and the explosion is estimated. A signature in the lower right hand corner of the picture reads – “L. B. Jefferies.”


THE CAMERA PANS to a second photograph of a picket line at an aircraft plant strike. Strikers, non-strikers and police are embroiled in a bitter and confused riot. Clubs, fists and truncheons swing, blood flows, faces twist with emotion and fallen victims struggle to regain their feet. The picture represents no distant, cautious photographic observation, but rather an intimate report, so immediate and real that the viewer has the nervous feeling the fight surrounds him and he had best defend himself. The same signature, “L. B. Jefferies,” is in the corner. THE CAMERA PANS TO another framed picture, this one a beautiful and awesome shot of an atomic explosion at Frenchman’s Flat, Nevada. It is the culde-sac of violence. The picture taken at a distant observation point, shows some spectators in the foreground watching the explosion through binoculars. THE CAMERA MOVES ON to a shelf containing a number of cameras, photographic film, etc. It then PAN ACROSS a large viewer on which is resting a negative of a woman’s head. From this, THE CAMERA MOVES ON to a magazine cover, and although we do not see the name of the magazine, we can see the head on the cover is the positive of the negative we have just passed. THE CAMERA FINALLY COMES TO REST ON a pile of magazines – perhaps a hundred or so. They are all of the same publication. © Original copyright holders


Walter Kerr The Slow Boat to Nowhere In this extract from How Not To Write A Play, Kerr despairs over the slow pacing of a scene from a play by John van Druten, a successful English-born playwright and theatre director. (His 1951 play I Am a Camera, together with Christopher Isherwood's short stories Goodbye to Berlin, formed the basis of Joe Masteroff's book for the Kander and Ebb musical, Cabaret.) One reason the scene is so unimpressive is perhaps because neither character is demanding anything from the other. No choices are being imposed by one on the other. No decisions are being made and nothing in the relationship between these two character has changed.

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A familiar nightmare is that agonizing one in which you are desperately anxious to get somewhere but can move only at a semi-paralyzed pace. The mind darts ahead; the body lags as though deep under water. I don’t know what precise waking experience is supposed to set this nightmare in motion; but I can imagine its taking place after almost any visit to the contemporary theater. Our theater might easily have been invented for the delectation of snails. We are accustomed to the slow-motion photography of the realistic stage and so do not suspect that there is anything unduly sluggish about it or that it in any way accounts for our undisguised boredom. This is what the theater should be – an imitation of life. And this is the way life goes. What else should the playwright do? Well, here is Shakespeare setting a scene: “But, soft! What light through yonder window breaks?” And here is John van Druten: “Olive!” “Sally! Darling!” “Come in. How are you?” “Couldn't be better. (Looks around.) So this is it! It's very grand.” “Do you think so?” “Very. How long have you had it?” “Six weeks.” (Inspecting; impressed): “Um!” “Do you want to see it all?” “Sure.” “Well, this is the living room. It’s sunken. Kitchen’s in here.’ (Opens door. They go through.) “Darling, it’s enormous! You could feed the whole army. Do you have a maid?”


“Colored. Daily. When she comes. Which isn’t very often. I think she’s got a complicated love life.” “Don’t we all? (They return to living room.) How did you find this?” “It’s Claire Henley’s. Claire’s on the road with the Lunts.” “I don’t know how that girl gets the breaks she does. I was sick about your show. Did you get my message, opening night?” “Yes, I didn’t know where to thank you. You were jumping around so.” “Darling, I know. Split weeks and one-night stands. It’s heaven to be through. How long did you run, actually?” “Five days.” “Did you get any notices?” “A couple of mentions. (Opening bedroom door.) Here’s the bedroom.” (Going in.) “Very saucy. (Flippantly) Luxe.” “What?” “Luxe. French, darling. One of those untranslatable expressions. It means luxury. And beds like that!” “Bathroom and dressing room in there.” “Dressing room!” (She peeps in.) (Excusing it) “Well…” “Darling, it’s the cutest place I ever saw in all my life. (Going to window) Where do you look out?” “Onto the summer garden of the ‘Bonne Chanson.’ That French restaurant next door.” “What's that like?” “Lovely. But terribly expensive. You know, no menu. The man just comes and suggests.” “Put yourself right next door to temptation, eh? Or is it for the boy-friends when they come to take you out? (Acting) ‘Where shall we eat?’ Wherever you say. ‘How about the place next door?’ Okay (Back to her own voice) I know. I once thought of taking an apartment over the Colony, myself. What are you paying Claire for this?” “A hundred and a quarter.” “Have you got another job?” “No.” “No! And there's nothing in the offing, this late in the season, for any of us.” “I know. But I still have a little money left over from that radio serial I did. And it’s when you’re out of work you need a place to live. When you’re in work…” “You live at Sardi’s – if you can get in. Yes, but all the same! What did you want to move for, anyway?” “I was tired of a hotel room. And there were reasons.” “What?” (Evasively) “Not now. Come and have a drink.”


One might have thought that in Shakespeare’s sceneryless theater a great deal of time must be devoted to descriptive dialogue, to “setting the stage.” Logic would also have suggested that in our own thoroughly detailed theater the scenery must speak for itself, be taken for granted, be dismissed in favor of the action. But things don’t seem to work out that way. My memory is by no means all that it used to be, and I really did expect, on looking into Shakespeare’s Romeo and Juliet, to find four or five introductory lines describing the Capulet orchard. But there are no more. Romeo makes quick mention of a window, and that’s that. With the next line we are hurried off into Romeo’s passionate feeling for Juliet; the emotional content of the scene is quick upon us. By the time Mr. van Druten’s heroine has hinted that “there were reasons” and then parried any prying questions with the offer of a drink we are verging on emotional content, too. But we’ve been a long time verging; and we’ve still got to make that drink. Let’s allow for the fact that Mr. van Druten, expert craftsman that he is, has subtly insinuated certain other values into his scene-setting. When he has a girl speak of her maid’s “complicated love life” he is distantly preparing us for the subject of the play. When he digs out the fact of a show’s failure, he is telling us something about the professional and financial status of the girl, slipping in bits of information that may conceivably prove useful. When he makes a joke about “untranslatable expressions” he is amusing us by the way. When he lets an actress invent an imaginary conversation with a boy friend he is planning the arrival of an actual boy friend. And so on. But even when we have allowed for these underground thrusts we are left with twenty-five lines directly concerned with the arrangement of the apartment. Add five to ten lines that have no purpose other than moving the characters through the apartment (“Come in. How are you?”) and you have a ratio – between Shakespeare and van Druten – of approximately thirty to one. That is to say, Shakespeare moves about thirty times as fast as van Druten. Mr. van Druten, by the way, is entirely aware of this. In his interesting Playwright at Work he remarks that “every playwright has his own speed, and mine is slower than I wish it were.” © Original copyright holders


Richard Walter Gravity – Cause and Effect From Essentials of Screenwriting Stories move by a kind of gravity. After Newton and until Einstein, gravity could be thought of as an invisible string tugging all objects toward the center of the earth. After relativity, gravity became a more grandiose phenomenon. It can be thought of as an object's reluctance to remain wherever it happens to be. Such tension permeates stories. A well-crafted story does not want to rest; it wants desperately to keep moving. Indeed, nowhere in nature is there anything like true stasis. Were an object somehow to succeed in making its way to the center of the earth, for example, it would not remain there. It would move with the earth itself, revolving on its axis, traveling in its orbit around the sun, flowing with the solar system and the galaxy through space. All any object really “wants” is to travel to its next station on the space-time continuum. Gravity can be thought of as an object’s “discomfort” at being forced to stand still. However far-fetched this all may appear, for writers to view story this way is in fact broadly and practically useful. Something happens, and another event is caused to succeed it, and something else is compelled to follow that – not just anything else but something that fits, something synchronous with the previous events. This is the way story advances. From time to time it may seem to rest, but rest is something it can never really do. Movies ought to move. They should move audiences and they should move story and character. When even so successful a film as Butch Cassidy and the Sundance Kid (William Goldman) abruptly halts its forward motion, requiring the audience to suffer smiling actors riding tricycles up and back across the screen to the insufferable accompaniment of “Raindrops Keep Fallin’ on My Head,” the tale goes cold. Writers must forever dodge the temptation to stand still, to regroup. Movie stories crank relentlessly forward at twenty-four frames per second. Like gravity, they grind ever onward, seeking resolution but never truly finding it. © Original copyright holders


Kenneth Thorpe Rowe Through Structure to Meaning Kenneth Thorpe Rowe (1900 – 1988) was a renowned teacher of drama whose students included playwright Arthur Miller and teacher Robert McKee. Said McKee: “[When I teach] I’m repeating what I was taught, and then adding some little insights I’d had – but basically recycling Kenneth Rowe and John Howard Lawson and Aristotle and putting it into a contemporary context for these people. I’m putting the obvious into a new context.” (Quoted The New Yorker, 20 October 2003.) (Emphasis below is mine.) McKee cites these authors throughout his 1997 book Story, and in his “Suggested Readings” to that volume also cites William Archer and David Mamet.

The basic structure of drama has developed out of the simple fact that the first business of any play at any level is to get and hold with final satisfaction the attention of an audience in a theater. People respond to a story, not to any story in the sense of a simple chronological sequence of events, but to a story of a conflict with its generation of suspect and tension as to outcome. For the purpose of a play a unified conflict within the compass of the play is necessary. If the attention of the audience is to be arrested and drawn forward, not thrown back, the conflict will not be under way when the play opens; rather, the play will open on a situation in which the audience is led to see the potentiality of conflict. Then something happens which precipitates the potential conflict, sets it in motion. The course of the conflict follows as a unified sequence, one situation giving rise to the next, until the conflict is resolved, the tension and suspense satisfied by answer to the question of outcome. Thus we have Aristotle’s beginning, middle and end. At the simplest level of drama, that is, melodrama, the only concern is the attention of the audience, creating and sustaining suspense for the outcome of events to a resolution. When we move into the more complex levels of drama of communication of the mind or inner experience of the author, or revelation of life, suspense and tension expand from focus on the events to the meaning of the events in their nature and sequence, or the effect of events on the characters, and their responses. Tension acquires revelatory function. Under tension surfaces break and what is beneath is exposed. Under the tensions of the situations in which they are involved in the play the characters are revealed. Especially, in dramatic conflict the characters are confronted by situations of choice, and what a man chooses or avoids, as Aristotle notes, is the basis of revelation of character. As plot grows out of interaction of character and situation the question of outcome, the suspense, for the audience can become focused not on the event of what will happen to a character, but on what the character will do in the situation that has arisen. Just as powerfully, the inner consciousness of the audience is opened and exposed to itself in response to the tension of the play. In order to talk conveniently about the structure of drama it is necessary to adopt some terminology. A play opens on a situation of unstable equilibrium.


We recognize, more or less definitely, that the status quo of someone on the stage, the principal character, or protagonist, is vulnerable. Then some new element enters, something happens, which precipitates a conflict. The protagonist is confronted by a choice: either some desired end seems to become available against obstacles, or something undesirable will happen to him except as he opposes it. If he does not choose to fight, there is, of course, no play. Assuming that the character undertakes the conflict, he must exercise his will and faculties against an opposing force to avert disaster or gain a desire. From now on a dramatic movement is inescapable. The question of outcome for the play as a whole, the answer to which will end the play, has been opened. This question is most commonly termed the major dramatic question. The point of inception of the conflict has been designated in various ways: initiation of the conflict, precipitation of the conflict, projection of the question, inciting moment, and attack. Attack is the most generally recognized and the most inclusive and convenient. The attack, then, is the point of precipitation of the conflict and projection of the major dramatic question. It is the point at which an inescapable action becomes evident to the audience, and a question of outcome demanding an answer is created in their minds. It should be noted that, while the playwright knows where he is going from the start, the audience does not. Consequently, while the person experiencing the play for the first time will feel the grip of conflict and a significant question of outcome at the attack, he does not necessarily realize at that moment that it is the major dramatic question, the over-all question of the play. There may be introductory minor dramatic questions leading up to the attack. Also, as the play advances the major dramatic question may undergo development, a rise to a higher level of intensity or of more significance to the character, so that the member of the audience sometimes may even not be situated to formulate by analysis precisely what is the major dramatic question to which the author has constructed his play until he has experienced the final outcome, the resolution. The resolution of a play has now been frequently referred to: it is the best general term for the point at which the major dramatic question, either in its initial or a developed form, is answered, satisfying the tension of the audience. “Catastrophe” and “denouement” are sometimes used in the general sense, but the one is so widely applied specifically to tragedy and the other to comedy that it is better to keep them so and to use resolution as the general term. There is a third principal point of basic structure, the crisis, which is fully as significant as the attack and resolution for opening the way to meaning. The plot of a play from attack to resolution progresses by successive complications. A complication is any new element that enters the situation after the story starts and affects the way the conflict will go. New element does not mean extraneous. The conflict itself either determines what is a complication or generates the complication. In the former case the element is there and revealed as relevant by


the conflict as a touchstone. In the latter, as plot grows out of the conjunction of character and situation, what a character does in response to one situation creates a new situation which in turn becomes a complication. Each complication is a dramatic unit around what is called in relation to the play as a whole a minor dramatic question with its attack, tension and resolution. The entire course of an effective play from attack to resolution is a climatic movement, rising in tension to the culmination of the resolution. The rise is not a smooth rise but a rhythmic advance by the series of climaxes of the successive complications, each gathering momentum from and rising higher than the preceding, and together constituting the over-all climatic movement of the play. Mechanically this structure corresponds to the necessities of audience attention, which would break under a continuous line of tension but can be carried forward by the rise and fall of a succession of minor climaxes, and which similarly would weaken if the over-all movement were not climatic, each complication carrying the play higher in tension than the preceding. However, the same principles work inwardly and this is the structure for generating the highest degree of revealing tension within the play. From A Theater in Your Head, Kenneth Thorpe Rowe (1967) (pp.112 – 114) © Original copyright holders


Kenneth Thorpe Rowe Rising/Falling Action In a good play the action does not progress in a single straight line of alternating advances and setbacks toward the outcome […] It is necessary that there be a climatic rhythm of intensity […] [An audience’s attention] cannot be held at a continuous tension for a long period. That is one of the reasons that a drama requires numerous complications – to break up the continuous main suspense of the play into a series of minor situations of suspense. Each complication creates a new question, which rises to its peak of intensity, and is answered. The answer in each case bears on the outcome of the major dramatic question. But there has been a moment of rest after a high point of tension. The drama progresses, then, rhythmically, with rising and falling intensity. [p.33] […] The situations must follow one another in a rising order of intensity. In other words, the rhythm of intensity of the complications must be climatic to be successful; as each complication rises and falls, giving place to the next in sequence, each must rise higher than the preceding, until finally the peak of intensity of the entire drama is reached, the point which we call the crisis. The crisis is the turning point in the movement of the drama. Up to this point there has been more or less of an alternation between complications tending toward the one solution of the play and the other. At the crisis the accumulation of those complications tending in one direction has gained such momentum that with one more determining complication they become irresistible, and the play moves swiftly in the direction of the final answer to the major dramatic question. In tragedy the crisis is usually the point from which the fortunes of the hero descend. In comedy the process of tangling up a situation proceeds to the crisis, the point of greatest entanglement; from that point the process is one of clearing up the confusion and bringing about the happy ending. Now we might finally define a good plot for drama as “a unified conflict involving sufficient complications for a climatic rhythm of intensity.” In other words, the action of a good drama is a wave movement. We sit on the seashore, or the lakeshore, and watch the waves coming in. A little wave starts far out; we see it rise to a peak and subside, run in again, rise a little higher, in a little farther, and subside; again higher, farther, it subsides. Finally, the wave rushes in to a great crest and breaks on the shore. There is dramatic unity and movement. [pp.34 – 5] […]


A play opens with presentation of a situation that in some way is poised, in a state of unstable equilibrium. The audience recognizes a potentiality of conflict which creates a minor state of question, of suspense, but the question is not formulated; conflict is not yet assured, nor do we know the form and direction the conflict will take. We only recognize, more or less definitely, that the status quo of someone on the stage is vulnerable. Then some new element enters which precipitates the conflict. From now on a dramatic movement is inescapable; the character must exercise his will and faculties against an opposing force to avert disaster or gain a desire. The question of the play as a whole, the answer to which will end the play, is formulated in the minds of the audience. This question will be called the major dramatic question. [pp.53 – 4] […] The turning point has generally been designated as the climax or crisis. “Climax” is misleading because it might with equal fitness be applied to the resolution. Climax applied to the turning point suggests increasing tension up to that point, and relaxation following it. What actually happens is that the tension continues to increase in a well-constructed play from the turning point to the resolution, but is given a new direction and impetus at the turning point. At the attack the principal character knows to a degree the nature of the conflict upon which he is entering, and acts accordingly. The course of the action leads through a rising series of complications to an unforeseen and intensified development of the original situation, and the character is confronted by a crucial and final demand for decision and direction of the will. This is the turning point, the climax of one movement of the play, but not of the play as a whole. The play should move climatically to the resolution. In terms of the analogy of the wave movement used earlier, the turning point is the crest of the final wave. A wave is poised at its crest; then it breaks and delivers its blow in its fall. The blow is the resolution. The tension following the turning point is of a different kind from that preceding, more of the mind and less of the nerves. It is perfectly true that the particular kind of tension which reaches its climax at the turning point breaks at that point, and does not rise again. One more often find himself on the edge of his seat gripping the arms at the crisis than at the resolution of the play. The play may be more exciting to the crisis, but more absorbing after the crisis. Perhaps it would be most accurate to call what follows the turning point intensified interest, or consciousness of significance. Often the major dramatic question changes at the turning point from what will happen to the principle character to how will the character react, what will he do? Character interest may replace external plot interest […]


In planning the construction of a play, the first points for the writer to determine are the attack, crisis, and resolution. These three points fix the main outline of the plot, to which and from which the writer must build. The attack, crisis, and resolution divide the play into two main movements, most commonly called “the rising action” and “the falling action.” This terminology has been objected to on the same ground as “climax” for the crisis, that “rising action” suggests increase of tension to a climax, and “falling action” relaxation. This confusion is unnecessary if the wave movement is kept in mind. The succession of rising waves has developed the impetus which lifts the final wave to its crest. At the poised moment of the crest there is a tension which breaks, but what follows is not relaxation but release of energy; the fall is the delivery of the force accumulated in the rise […] Aristotle used terms which Professor Butcher translates [as] the “Complication” and the “Untangling,” and these terms have been frequently used in modern commentaries. “Untangling” is unfortunate in its suggestion of a rather boring process which at most produces a quickening of interest when the end is in sight. More fundamentally, “untangling” is from the outside, a process from the dramatist and the audience, without suggestion of an inner necessity, a force generated within the drama driving on to a conclusion. “Winding” and “unwinding” would be more apt as derived from the winding of a spring, or of two ropes together, and the release of the tension developed.” [pp.54 – 6] […] So far, the attack, crisis, and resolution have been spoken of as points… [A]ny one of these phases of the movement may be projected in a single speech, or line, or an action. [p.56] […] Complications must be referred to frequently. They are the stuff of which the bulk of the drama structurally is built. A complication [is] any new element that enters the situation after the story starts and affects the way in which the conflict will go. The complication may operate as a simple furtherance or hindrance to the fortunes of the principal character. That is, the will of the principle character is a force moving in a given direction, receiving aid and meeting obstacles. [p.57] […] From the attack the rising action progresses by a series of complications culminating in the crisis. Each complication within the play is itself a unit involving dramatic structure. It starts from an attack creating a question, called a minor dramatic question. It may then either rise to a crisis and turn to a resolution, or in so small a unit, may rise in a straight climax to its resolution without a turning


point. The resolution of one minor dramatic question may at the same time be a new complication, and create the next question. If not, for this sustained suspense the next complication must enter shortly. Complications may also be interwoven by the introduction of a new complication while an earlier complication is still in suspense. The answer to each minor dramatic question points toward an answer to the major dramatic question. [pp.57 – 8] *

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The structure of a play may be diagrammed simply as a short, slightly rising line (the introduction) to the attack. From the point of the attack a longer more acutely rising line (the rising action) to the crisis. From the point of the crisis a descending line (the falling action) to the resolution. From the point of the resolution possibly a short level time, the conclusion. The line of the falling action may be equal in length and of the same angle as that of the rising action; it is more likely to be shorter and more acute angle. In a more elaborated diagram the lines of the rising action, and in most cases that of the falling action, will be saw-toothed, representing the complications, each mounting to a crisis and descending to a resolution, the climactic wave rhythm.


From Write That Play, Kenneth Thorpe Rowe (1939) © Original copyright holders


John Howard Lawson The Process of Selection John Howard Lawson (1894 – 1977) was a leading Hollywood screenwriter and Broadway playwright, and the first president of the Writers Guild of America. His book Theory and Technique of Playwriting and Screenwriting, published in 1949, is one of the better articulations of the fundaments of dramatic construction.

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How does the selection [of events by the playwright] proceed? How is tension sustained and increased? What is the immediate causal connection between the scenes? How about emphasis and arrangement? How does the dramatist decide the precise order, or continuity of events? How does he decide which are the big scenes, and which of secondary importance, and the links between them? How does he decide the length of scenes, the number of characters? How about probability, chance and coincidence? How much of the action must be represented on the stage, and how much may be shown in retrospect or in narrative form? What is the exact relationship between unity of theme and unity of action in the play’s progression? From Theory and Technique of Playwriting and Screenwriting, John Howard Lawson (1949) (p.187) © Original copyright holders


John Howard Lawson Progression If we observe an action as we actually perform it in our daily experience, we find that any action (regardless of its scope) consists in (a) the decision (which includes the consciousness of the aim and of the possibilities of its accomplishment); (b) the grappling with difficulties (which are more or less expected, because the decision has included a consideration of possibilities); (c) the test of strength (the moment toward which we have been heading, when, having done our best to evade or overcome the difficulties, we face the success or failure of the action); (d) the climax (the moment of maximum effort and realization). A play may contain any number of lesser cycles of action, but these can invariably be grouped in four divisions; since the rising action is the longest of the divisions and includes a larger number of subdivisions, the movement of the play is somewhat as follows: AbcdefGH A is the exposition; b c d e f are cycles of the rising action; G is the obligatory scene; H is the climax. A may contain two or more cycles of action. G and H are more concentrated, but may also include several cycles. Since an action is our unit of movement, we are able to divide any of the subordinate actions in the same way. For example, c reaches a climax which is the culmination of a system of action of which the exposition, rising action, and obligatory scene may be traced. The whole group, b c d e f also constitutes a system, of which b may be the exposition, c and d the rising action, e the obligatory scene and f the climax. From Theory and Technique of Playwriting and Screenwriting, John Howard Lawson (1949) (p.246) © Original copyright holders


John Howard Lawson The Principles of Continuity (1) the exposition must be fully dramatized in terms of action; (2) the exposition must present possibilities of extension which are equal to the extension of the stage action; (3) two or more lines of causation may be followed if they find their solution in the root-action; (4) the rising action is divided into an indeterminate number of cycles; (5) each cycle is an action and has the characteristic progression of an action – exposition, rise, clash and climax; (6) the heightening of the tension as each cycle approaches its climax is accomplished by increasing the emotional load; this can be done by emphasizing the importance of what is happening, by underlining fear, courage, anger, hysteria, hope; (7) tempo and rhythm are important in maintaining and increasing tension; (8) the linking of scenes is accomplished by abrupt contrast or by overlapping of interest; (9) as the cycles approach the root-action [climax], the tempo is increased, the subsidiary climaxes are more intense and grouped more closely together, and the action between the points is cut down; (10) probability and coincidence do not depend on physical probability, but on the value of the incident in relation to the root-action [climax]; (11) the play is not a simple continuity of cause and effect, but the inter-play of complex forces; new forces may be introduced without preparation provided their effect on the action is manifest; (12) tension depends on the emotional load which the action will bear before the moment of explosion is reached. From Theory and Technique of Playwriting and Screenwriting, John Howard Lawson (1949) (p.232-3) © Original copyright holders


John Howard Lawson The Cycle of Conflict (a) recognition of difficulties and determination to overcome them; (b) progressive development of struggle; (c) partial achievement; (d) new difficulties and increased determination. From Theory and Technique of Playwriting and Screenwriting, John Howard Lawson (1949) (p.222) © Original copyright holders


Christopher Vogler: The Writer’s Journey Christopher Vogler is a Hollywood development executive. This page from his book The Writer’s Journey is presented here to remind you that archetypal characters and structures have existed in stories since the dawn of man, and that there is nothing problematic with packing your story with such devices. Take a look at Joseph Campbell’s The Hero With a Thousand Faces for more about this. Campbell’s 1949 book, a study of world mythologies, has been a strong influence on filmmakers, notably George Lucas, who recorded a series of interviews with Campbell.

Writer’s Journey

The Hero with a Thousand Faces

Act One

Departure, Separation

Ordinary World Call to Adventure Refusal of the Call Meeting with the Monster Crossing the First Threshold

World of Common Day Call to Adventure Refusal of the Call Supernatural Aid Crossing the First Threshold Belly of the Whale

Act Two

Descent, Initiation, Penetration

Tests, Allies, Enemies Approach to the Innermost Cave Supreme Ordeal

Road of Trials

Reward

Meeting with the Goddess Woman as Temptress Atonement with the Father Apothesis The Ultimate Boon

Act Three

Return

The Road Back

Refusal of the Return The Magic Flight Rescue from Within Crossing the Threshold Return Master of the Two Worlds Freedom to Live

Resurrection Return with Elixir

From The Writer’s Journey: Mythic Structure for Storytellers and Screenwriters, Christopher Vogler (1992) (p.16) © Original copyright holders


The Triangles of On the Waterfront One of the principles of dramatic tension is the triangle: a character is caught in a bind, the two-way tension of forces acting on him or her through his or her relationship with a second and third figure. A strongly structured story is very often a complex cat’s cradle of such interwoven tensions, a web of triangles. Below is a web showing a score of characters from the film On the Waterfront. Note that certain figures are not single individuals, but pairs, trios or even small groups. This doubling up of a character (for example the two detectives or the two bodyguards of Johnny Friendly) has the effect of generalizing them as a single symbolic dramatic element. Most of the connecting strings in the diagram below represent actual confrontations in Elia Kazan’s film, though there are interesting exceptions: Father Barry never has a direct interaction with Johnny Friendly. Charley has no scene with Edie Doyle. Intriguingly, Pop – the father of the murdered Joey – has no scene of confrontation with his son’s killer until the very last incident when he pushes Friendly off the gangplank. The web, of course, is not a static thing. The tensions of the fabric are in a state of constant disequilibrium: a tug in one direction will be followed by a contrary strain in the opposite direction so that the nexus of tension shifts. The lines in these diagrams, therefore, should not be taken to represent forces in a single dimension. They are push-pull. This is particularly true of those between principle figures. Minor characters who are on the fringes of the constellation are maybe somewhat simpler. The goons that surround the antagonist Friendly, for instance, are fairly shallow in their motivations. These are foil figures who are necessary only because they can be used to demonstrate the more complex qualities within the principals. On the other hand, when a story is rich in themes, intricate in plot and has a number of central characters with depth, then the strands of their interaction can have a considerable range of colors. Take an example. (1) to (2) is the line that connects Terry to Johnny Friendly. The story is centered on this relationship which changes a great deal as the plot progresses. There is a backstory to this relationship. As a kid, Terry was probably adopted to some degree by Friendly (who used to take him to the ballgame). Later, Friendly bought a piece of Terry as a young boxer, hired a trainer for him and considered that he owned Terry. But this relationship has been spoiled because of a decision by Friendly, and also Terry’s brother Charley (a crony of Friendly) some years ago. Terry was ordered to lose a fight so they could make money betting against Terry. For whatever reason, Terry accepted this and in doing so lost his self-respect. His disappointment is at the root of his present cynicism.


One way to vivisect a plot is to look at the scenes as a sequence of knitting, as the knots are tied in the web of tensions which grows in density up to the point of final denouement (literally: unknotting). Terry Malloy A waterfront hanger-on in his late twenties, he was once a promising fighter, a contender for a championship title. He works as a docker and is a protégé of Johnny Friendly. Johnny Friendly Boss of the Longshoreman’s Union and organizer of a number of rackets associated with the Union. He has recently been the target of a Crime Commission which is investigating corruption, petty theft, extortion, intimidation, and some incidences of murder on the part of the thugs that hold office in the Union. Charley Malloy Terry’s older brother. A snappy dresser who, on the basis of some college attendance, acts as advisor to Friendly. He is deeply attached to his brother and as the tension develops is torn between a protective feeling for Terry and his allegiance to the Union mobsters. Edie Doyle Sister of Joey Doyle, the young man who is killed in the first scene of the film. raised by her widower father and her brother, she has been brought up by Catholic sisters and is planning to become a teacher when she gets caught up in the struggle to identify the men who murdered her brother. ‘Pop’ Doyle Edie’s father, an old man who has been a docker all his life. Embittered, he has come to accept the inevitability of the Union corruption and shares with the other dockers the code of ‘D and D,’ the rule that one remains deaf and dumb when interrogated by the cops. That his surviving child will escape from the squalor of the docks is his last remaining hope. Father Barry A Catholic priest. New to the docks, he is appalled at the rackets, and is disturbed by Edie’s challenge to him, recognizing that though it is certain to put him in conflict with his superior, he cannot remain uninvolved. Big Mac The hiring boss, close associate of Friendly and accomplice in the protection rackets.


J.P Morgan A loan shark who charges extortionate rates and depends on Big Mac who blackmails the Longshoreman to take out loans through his hiring procedures. Skins A runner for the Mob who disposes of pilfered goods. Jocko Barman at the tavern owned by Friendly and used as headquarters of the Mob. Truck and Sonny Two ‘enforcers’ working for Friendly.

Looking at this diagram, it’s plain why Terry is the central-figure (which may be a better term than ‘protagonist’). Terry at the centre of the story from the beginning, with this conflict between his dumb sense that one has to ‘be somebody, instead of a bum’ and has to ‘stand up for one’s rights,’ and the philosophy of ‘do it to them before they do it to you.’ This inner action is what triggers the whole story. Terry, after Joey’s death, realises that Johnny Friendly was using Terry to set the


traps for Joey, who was Terry’s friend. Terry feels exploited by Friendly and his own brother, Charley. The sense of guilt for Joey’s death strengthens Terry’s latent resentment against being used, just as it had years before ‘that night at the Garden,’ when Friendly forced him to lose a boxing match. The plot events are therefore designed to push Terry further and further, to the point of going up against Johnny Friendly directly by collaborating with Father Barry, Edie and the Crime Commission. In truth, it is really not so much the issue of the Crime Commission as the confrontation with his fellow dockers to whom he has to demonstrate that the ‘deaf and dumb’ code they live by is more cowardly than loyalty. Note, too, that Johnny Friendly and Father Barry (and Edie) are kept apart because their fight is fought through Terry. Were they to meet, Terry’s story would be superfluous. It is interesting to study this diagram and then ask: how could Johnny Friendly be moved in the center of a similar diagram of character interplay in On the Waterfront? This isn’t nearly as simple as it looks. The classic dilemma is that character-in-action, plot and theme are inseparable. For Friendly’s character to be central, there really has to be some inner conflict of theme which is in Friendly’s personality and which is expressed overtly in the interaction with other characters. Friendly has to be made more of a complex of character forces, at the expense of simplifying the others. One problem is that Friendly doesn’t seem to have any character progression. His outward situation plainly changes. He is put on the stand by the Crime Commission and, when last seen, had begun to lose control of the dockers. But although this is a sound enough plot, it’s a lot less interesting as theme and character. So how could the story be refashioned for emphasis on character motivation? What is there inside Johnny Friendly that could be the equivalent of Terry’s conscience as expressed in the scenes between Terry and Edie, and Terry and Father Barry? Moreover, how can Friendly be made more vulnerable on an emotional level? © The Estate of Alexander Mackendrick


William Archer Dramatic Construction Perhaps I insist too strongly on the advisability of treating a dramatic theme as clay to be modelled and remodelled, rather than as wood or marble to be carved unalterably and once for all. If so, it is because of a personal reminiscence. In my early youth, I had, like everybody else, ambitions in the direction of play-writing; and it was my inability to keep a theme plastic that convinced me of my lack of talent. It pleased me greatly to draw out a detailed scenario, working up duly to a situation at the end of each act; and, once made, that scenario was like a castiron mould into which the dialogue had simply to be poured. The result was that the play had all the merits of a logical, well-ordered essay. My situations worked out like the Q.E.D.’s of Euclid. My characters obstinately refused to come to life, or to take the bit between their teeth. They were simply cog-wheels in a prearranged mechanism. In one respect, my two or three plays were models – in respect of brevity and conciseness. I was never troubled by the necessity of cutting down – so cruel a necessity to many playwrights. My difficulty was rather to find enough for my characters to say – for they never wanted to say anything that was not strictly germane to the plot. It was this that made me despair of playwriting, and realize that my mission was to teach other people how to write plays. And, similarly, the aspirant who finds that his people never want to say more than he can allow them to say – that they never rush headlong into blind alleys, or do things that upset the balance of the play and have to be resolutely undone – that aspirant will do well not to be over-confident of his dramatic calling and election. There may be authors who can write vital plays, as Shakespeare is said (on rather poor evidence) to have done, without blotting a line; but I believe them to be rare. In our day, the great playwright is more likely to be he who does not shrink, on occasion, from blotting an act or two. There is a modern French dramatist who writes, with success, such plays as I might have written had I combined a strong philosophical faculty with great rhetorical force and fluency. The dramas of M. Paul Hervieu have all the neatness and cogency of a geometrical demonstration. One imagines that, for M. Hervieu, the act of composition means merely the careful filling in of a scenario as neat and complete as a schedule. But for that very reason, despite their undoubted intellectual power, M. Hervieu’s dramas command our respect rather than our enthusiasm. The dramatist should aim at being logical without seeming so.


It is sometimes said that a playwright ought to construct his play backwards, and even to write his last act first. This doctrine belongs to the period of the well-made play, when climax was regarded as the one thing needful in dramatic art, and anticlimax as the unforgivable sin. Nowadays, we do not insist that every play should end with a tableau, or with an emphatic mot de la fin. We are more willing to accept a quiet, even an indecisive, ending. Nevertheless it is and must ever be true that, at a very early period in the scheming of his play, the playwright ought to assure himself that his theme is capable of a satisfactory ending. Of course this phrase does not imply a “happy ending,” but one which satisfies the author as being artistic, effective, inevitable (in the case of a serious play), or, in one word, “right.” An obviously makeshift ending can never be desirable, either from the ideal or from the practical point of view. Many excellent plays have been wrecked on this rock. The very frequent complaint that "the last act is weak" is not always or necessarily a just reproach; but it is so when the author has clearly been at a loss for an ending, and has simply huddled his play up in a conventional and perfunctory fashion. It may even be said that some apparently promising themes are deceptive in their promise, since they are inherently incapable of a satisfactory ending. The playwright should by all means make sure that he has not run up against one of these blind-alley themes. He should, at an early point, see clearly the end for which he is making, and be sure that it is an end which he actively desires, not merely one which satisfies convention, or which “will have to do.” From Play-Making, William Archer (1912) (pp.59 – 61)


William Archer Point of Attack 1 If [the playwright’s work] be a comedy, and if his object be gently and quietly to interest and entertain, the chances are that he begins by showing us his personages in their normal state, concisely indicates their characters, circumstances and relations, and then lets the crisis develop from the outset before our eyes. If, on the other hand, his play be of a more stirring description, and he wants to seize the spectator’s attention firmly from the start, he will probably go straight at his crisis, plunging, perhaps, into the very middle of it, even at the cost of having afterwards to go back in order to put the audience in possession of the antecedent circumstances. In a third type of play, common of late years, and especially affected by Ibsen, the curtain rises on a surface aspect of profound peace, which is presently found to be but a thin crust over an absolutely volcanic condition of affairs, the origin of which has to be traced backwards, it may be for many years. Let us glance at a few of Shakespeare's openings, and consider at what points he attacks his various themes. Of his comedies, all except one begin with a simple conversation, showing a state of affairs from which the crisis develops with more or less rapidity, but in which it is as yet imperceptibly latent. In no case does he plunge into the middle of his subject, leaving its antecedents to be stated in what is technically called an “exposition.” Neither in tragedy nor in comedy, indeed, was this Shakespeare's method. In his historical plays he relied to some extent on his hearers' knowledge of history, whether gathered from books or from previous plays of the historical series; and where such knowledge was not to be looked for, he would expound the situation in good set terms, like those of a Euripidean Prologue. But the chronicle-play is a species apart, and practically an extinct species: we need not pause to study its methods. In his fictitious plays, with two notable exceptions, it was Shakespeare's constant practice to bring the whole action within the frame of the picture, opening at such a point that no retrospect should be necessary, beyond what could be conveyed in a few casual words. The exceptions are The Tempest and Hamlet, to which we shall return in due course.


How does The Merchant of Venice open? With a long conversation exhibiting the character of Antonio, the friendship between him and Bassanio, the latter’s financial straits, and his purpose of wooing Portia. The second scene displays the character of Portia, and informs us of her father’s device with regard to her marriage; but this information is conveyed in three or four lines. Not till the third scene do we see or hear of Shylock, and not until very near the end of the act is there any foreshadowing of what is to be the main crisis of the play. Not a single antecedent event has to be narrated to us; for the mere fact that Antonio has been uncivil to Shylock, and shown disapproval of his business methods, can scarcely be regarded as a preliminary outside the frame of the picture. In As You Like It there are no preliminaries to be stated beyond the facts that Orlando is at enmity with his elder brother, and that Duke Frederick has usurped the coronet and dukedom of Rosalind's father. These facts being made apparent without any sort of formal exposition, the crisis of the play rapidly announces itself in the wrestling-match and its sequels. In Much Ado About Nothing there is even less of antecedent circumstance to be imparted. We learn in the first scene, indeed, that Beatrice and Benedick have already met and crossed swords; but this is not in the least essential to the action; the play might have been to all intents and purposes the same had they never heard of each other until after the rise of the curtain. […] In The Tempest the poet employs a form of opening which otherwise he reserves for tragedies. The first scene is simply an animated tableau, calculated to arrest the spectator's attention, without conveying to him any knowledge either of situation or character. Such gleams of character as do, in fact, appear in the dialogue, are scarcely perceived in the hurly-burly of the storm. Then, in the calm which ensues, Prospero expounds to Miranda in great detail the antecedents of the crisis now developing. It might almost seem, indeed, that the poet, in this, his poetic last-will-and-testament, intended to warn his successors against the dangers of a long narrative exposition; for Prospero's story sends Miranda to sleep. Be this as it may, we have here a case in which Shakespeare deliberately adopted the plan of placing on the stage, not the whole crisis, but only its culmination, leaving its earlier stages to be conveyed in narrative. It would have been very easy for him to have begun at the beginning and shown us in action the events narrated by Prospero. This course would have involved no greater leap, either in time or space, than he had perpetrated in the almost contemporary Winter's Tale; and it cannot be said that there would have been any difficulty in compressing into three acts, or even two, the essentials of the action of the play as we know it. His reasons for departing from his usual practice were probably connected with the particular occasion for which the play was written. He wanted to produce a masque rather than a drama.


[…] Coming now to the five great tragedies, we find that in four of them Shakespeare began, as in The Tempest, with a picturesque and stirring episode calculated to arrest the spectator's attention and awaken his interest, while conveying to him little or no information. The opening scene of Romeo and Juliet is simply a brawl, bringing home to us vividly the family feud which is the root of the tragedy, but informing us of nothing beyond the fact that such a feud exists. This is, indeed, absolutely all that we require to know. There is not a single preliminary circumstance, outside the limits of the play, that has to be explained to us. The whole tragedy germinates and culminates within what the prologue calls “the two hours’ traffick of the stage.” […] King Lear necessarily opens with a great act of state, the partition of the kingdom. A few words between Kent and Gloucester show us what is afoot, and then, at one plunge, we are in the thick of the drama. There was no opportunity here for one of those picturesque tableaux, exciting rather than informative, which initiate the other tragedies. It would have had to be artificially dragged in; and it was the less necessary, as the partition scene took on, in a very few lines, just that arresting, stimulating quality which the poet seems to have desired in the opening of a play of this class. Finally, when we turn to Hamlet, we find [that there is a] cogent reason for beginning the play after the commission of the initial crime or crimes… By a piece of consummate ingenuity, which may, of course, have been conceived by the earlier playwright, the initial incidents of the story are in fact presented to us, in the guise of a play within the play, and as a means to the achievement of one of the greatest dramatic effects in all literature. The moment the idea of the play-scene presented itself to the author’s mind, it became absolutely unthinkable that he should, to put it vulgarly, ‘queer the pitch’ for the Players by showing us the real facts of which their performance was to be the counterfeit presentment. The dramatic effect of the incidents was incalculably heightened when they were presented, as in a looking-glass, before the guilty pair, with the eye of the avenger boring into their souls. And have we not here, perhaps, a clue to one of the most frequent and essential meanings of the word ‘dramatic’? May we not say that the dramatic quality of an incident is proportionate to the variety and intensity of the emotions involved in it? [Note that Archer, when writing about Hamlet (p.115) explains that the story does not “come within the frame of the picture” also because “Hamlet unpacks his heart to us in a series of soliloquies--a device employed scarcely at all in the portrayal of Othello and Lear, and denied to the modern dramatist.”]


[…] In sum, then, it was Shakespeare’s usual practice, histories apart, to bring the whole action of his plays within the frame of the picture, leaving little or nothing to narrative exposition. […] Let us now look at the practice of Ibsen, which offers a sharp contrast to that of Shakespeare. To put it briefly, the plays in which Ibsen gets his whole action within the frame of the picture are as exceptional as those in which Shakespeare does not do so. Ibsen’s practice in this matter has been compared with that of the Greek dramatists, who also were apt to attack their crisis in the middle, or even towards the end, rather than at the beginning. It must not be forgotten, however, that there is one great difference between his position and theirs. They could almost always rely upon a general knowledge, on the part of the audience, of the theme with which they were dealing. The purpose even of the Euripidean prologue is not so much to state unknown facts, as to recall facts vaguely remembered, to state the particular version of a legend which the poet proposes to adopt, and to define the point in the development of the legend at which he is about to set his figures in motion. Ibsen, on the other hand, drew upon no storehouse of tradition. He had to convey to his audience everything that he wanted them to know; and this was often a long and complex series of facts. […] [S]urveying the whole series of [Ibsen’s later works] in which he had stage presentation directly in view, we find that in only two out of the fifteen plays does the whole action come within the frame of the picture. These two are The League of Youth and An Enemy of the People. In neither of these have any antecedents to be stated; neither turns upon any disclosure of bygone events or emotions. We are, indeed, afforded brief glimpses into the past both of Stensgaard and of Stockmann; but the glimpses are incidental and inessential. It is certainly no mere coincidence that if one were asked to pick out the pieces of thinnest texture in all Ibsen's mature work, one would certainly select these two plays. Far be it from me to disparage An Enemy of the People; as a work of art it is incomparably greater than such a piece as Pillars of Society; but it is not so richly woven, not, as it were, so deep in pile. Written in half the time Ibsen usually devoted to a play, it is an outburst of humorous indignation, a jeu d'esprit, one might almost say, though the jeu of a giant esprit. Observing the effect of comparative tenuity in these two plays, we cannot but surmise that the secret of the depth and richness of texture so characteristic of Ibsen's work, lay in


his art of closely interweaving a drama of the present with a drama of the past. An Enemy of the People is a straightforward, spirited melody; The Wild Duck and Rosmersholm are subtly and intricately harmonized. Going a little more into detail, we find in Ibsen's work an extraordinary progress in the art of so unfolding the drama of the past as to make the gradual revelation no mere preface or prologue to the drama of the present, but an integral part of its action. It is true that in The Vikings he already showed himself a master in this art. The great revelation – the disclosure of the fact that Sigurd, not Gunnar, did the deed of prowess which Hiördis demanded of the man who should be her mate – this crucial revelation is brought about in a scene of the utmost dramatic intensity. The whole drama of the past, indeed – both its facts and its emotions – may be said to be dragged to light in the very stress and pressure of the drama of the present. Not a single detail of it is narrated in cold blood, as, for example, Prospero relates to Miranda the story of their marooning, or Horatio expounds the Norwegian-Danish political situation. I am not holding up The Vikings as a great masterpiece; it has many weaknesses both of substance and of method; but in this particular art of indistinguishably blending the drama of the present with the drama of the past, it is consummate. […] In Ghosts, Ibsen makes a sudden leap to the extreme of his retrospective method. I am not one of those who consider this play Ibsen's masterpiece: I do not even place it, technically, in the first rank among his works. And why? Because there is here no reasonable equilibrium between the drama of the past and the drama of the present. The drama of the past is almost everything, the drama of the present next to nothing. As soon as we have probed to the depths the Alving marriage and its consequences, the play is over, and there is nothing left but for Regina to set off in pursuit of the joy of life, and for Oswald to collapse into imbecility. It is scarcely an exaggeration to call the play all exposition and no drama. Here for the first time, however, Ibsen perfected his peculiar gift of imparting tense dramatic interest to the unveiling of the past. While in one sense the play is all exposition, in another sense it may quite as truly be said to contain no exposition; for it contains no narrative delivered in cold blood, in mere calm retrospection, as a necessary preliminary to the drama which is in the meantime waiting at the door. In other words, the exposition is all drama, it is the drama. The persons who are tearing the veils from the past, and for whom the veils are being torn, are intensely concerned in the process, which actually constitutes the dramatic crisis. The discovery of this method, or its rediscovery in modern drama, was Ibsen's great technical achievement. In his best work, the progress of the unveiling occasions a marked development, or series of changes, in the actual and present relations of the characters. The drama of the past and the drama of the present proceed, so to speak, in


interlacing rhythms, or, as I said before, in a rich, complex harmony. In Ghosts this harmony is not so rich as in some later plays, because the drama of the present is disproportionately meagre… In An Enemy of the People, as already stated, he momentarily deserted that method, and gave us an action which begins, develops, and ends entirely within the frame of the picture. But in the two following plays, The Wild Duck and Rosmersholm, he touched the highest point of technical mastery in his interweaving of the past with the present. I shall not attempt any analysis of the fabric of these plays. The process would be long, tedious, and unhelpful; for no one could hope to employ a method of such complexity without something of Ibsen's genius; and genius will evolve its methods for itself. Let me only ask the reader to compare the scene between old Werle and Gregers in the first act of The Wild Duck with the scene between Nora and Mrs. Linden in the first act of A Doll's House, and mark the technical advance. Both scenes are, in a sense, scenes of exposition. Both are mainly designed to place us in possession of a sequence of bygone facts. But while the Doll's House scene is a piece of quiet gossip, brought about (as we have noted) by rather artificial means, and with no dramatic tension in it, the Wild Duck scene is a piece of tense, one might almost say fierce, drama, fulfilling the Brunetière definition in that it shows us two characters, a father and son, at open war with each other. The one scene is outside the real action, the other is an integral part of it. The one belongs to Ibsen's tentative period, the other ushers in, one might almost say, his period of consummate mastery. From Play-Making, William Archer (1912) (pp.86 – 108)


William Archer Point of Attack 2 There is a peculiar interest in watching the rise and development out of nothing, as it were, of a dramatic complication. For this class of play (despite the Shakespearean precedents) a quiet opening is often advisable, rather than a strong einleitende Akkord [‘introductory chord’]. “From calm, through storm, to calm,” is its characteristic formula; whether the concluding calm be one of life and serenity or of despair and death. To my personal taste, one of the keenest forms of theatrical enjoyment is that of seeing the curtain go up on a picture of perfect tranquillity, wondering from what quarter the drama is going to arise, and then watching it gather on the horizon like a cloud no bigger than a man's hand. Of this type of opening, An Enemy of the People provides us with a classic example; and among English plays we may cite Mr. Shaw’s Candida, Mr. Barker’s Waste, and Mr. Besier’s Don, in which so sudden and unlooked-for a cyclone swoops down upon the calm of an English vicarage. […] There is much to be said, however, in favour of the opening which does not present an aspect of delusive calm, but shows the atmosphere already charged with electricity. Compare, for instance, the opening of The Case of Rebellious Susan, by Mr. Henry Arthur Jones, with that of a French play of very similar theme – Dumas’s Francillon. In the latter, we see the storm-cloud slowly gathering up on the horizon; in the former, it is already on the point of breaking, right overhead. Mr. Jones places us at the beginning, where Dumas leaves us at the end, of his first act. It is true that at the end of Mr. Jones's act he has not advanced any further than Dumas. The French author shows his heroine gradually working up to a nervous crisis, the English author introduces his heroine already at the height of her paroxysm, and the act consists of the unavailing efforts of her friends to smooth her down. The upshot is the same; but in Mr. Jones's act we are, as the French say, “in full drama” all the time, while in Dumas’s we await the coming of the drama, and only by exerting all his wit, not to say over-exerting it, does he prevent our feeling impatient. I am not claiming superiority for either method; I merely point to a good example of two different ways of attacking the same problem.


In The Benefit of the Doubt, by Sir Arthur Pinero, we have a crisply dramatic opening of the very best type. A few words from a contemporary criticism may serve to indicate the effect it produced on a first-night audience – We are in the thick of the action at once, or at least in the thick of the interest, so that the exposition, instead of being, so to speak, a mere platform from which the train is presently to start, becomes an inseparable part of the movement. The sense of dramatic irony is strongly and yet delicately suggested. We foresee a “peripety,” apparent prosperity suddenly crumbling into disaster, within the act itself; and, when it comes, it awakens our sympathy and redoubles our interest. […] When the whole of a given subject cannot be got within the limits of presentation, is there any means of determining how much should be left for retrospect, and at what point the curtain ought to be raised? The principle would seem to be that slow and gradual processes, and especially separate lines of causation, should be left outside the frame of the picture, and that the curtain should be raised at the point where separate lines have converged, and where the crisis begins to move towards its solution with more or less rapidity and continuity. The ideas of rapidity and continuity may be conveniently summed up in the hackneyed and often misapplied term, unity of action. Though the unities of time and place are long ago exploded as binding principles – indeed, they never had any authority in English drama – yet it is true that a broken-backed action, whether in time or space, ought, so far as possible, to be avoided. An action with a gap of twenty years in it may be all very well in melodrama or romance, but scarcely in higher and more serious types of drama. […] There are cases, no doubt, when verbal exposition may advantageously be avoided by means of a dramatised “Prologue” – a single act, constituting a little drama in itself, and generally separated by a considerable space of time from the action proper. But this method is scarcely to be commended, except, as aforesaid, for purposes of melodrama and romance. […] The question whether a legato or a staccato opening be the more desirable must be decided in accordance with the nature and opportunities of each theme. The only rule that can be stated is that, when the attention of the audience is required for an exposition of any length, some attempt ought to be made to awaken in


advance their general interest in the theme and characters. It is dangerous to plunge straight into narrative, or unemotional discussion, without having first made the audience actively desire the information to be conveyed to them. Especially is it essential that the audience should know clearly who are the subjects of the discussion or narrative--that they should not be mere names to them. It is a grave flaw in the construction of Mr. Granville Barker’s otherwise admirable play Waste, that it should open with a long discussion, by people whom we scarcely know, of other people whom we do not know at all, whose names we may or may not have noted on the playbill. […] There is, however, one limitation to this principle. A great effect is sometimes attained by retarding the entrance of a single leading figure for a whole act, or even two, while he is so constantly talked about as to beget in the audience a vivid desire to make his personal acquaintance. Thus Molière’s Tartuffe does not come on the stage until the third act of the comedy which bears his name. Ibsen's John Gabriel Borkman is unseen until the second act, though (through his wife's ears) we have already heard him pacing up and down his room like a wolf in his cage. Dubedat, in The Doctor’s Dilemma, is not revealed to us in the flesh until the second act. But for this device to be successful, it is essential that only one leading character should remain unseen, on whom the attention of the audience may, by that very fact, be riveted. […] The advantage of a staccato opening – or, to vary the metaphor, a brisk, highly aerated introductory passage – is clearly exemplified in A Doll’s House. It would have been quite possible for Ibsen to have sent up his curtain upon Nora and Mrs. Linden seated comfortably before the stove, and exchanging confidences as to their respective careers. Nothing indispensable would have been omitted; but how languid would have been the interest of the audience! As it is, a brief, bright scene has already introduced us, not only to Nora, but to Helmer, and aroused an eager desire for further insight into the affairs of this – to all appearance – radiantly happy household. Therefore, we settle down without impatience to listen to the fireside gossip of the two old school-fellows. From Play-Making, William Archer (1912) (pp.115 – 128)


William Archer The Obligatory Scene In Les Fourchambault, by Emile Augier, the first act introduces us to the household of a merchant, of Havre, who has married a wealthy, but extravagant woman, and has a son and daughter who are being gradually corrupted by their mother's worldliness. We learn that Fourchambault, senior, has, in his youth, betrayed a young woman who was a governess in his family. He wanted to marry her, but his relations maligned her character, and he cast her off; nor does he know what has become of her and her child. In the second act we pass to the house of an energetic and successful young shipowner named Bernard, who lives alone with his mother. Bernard, as we divine, is secretly devoted to a young lady named Marie Letellier, a guest in the Fourchambault house, to whom young Leopold Fourchambault is paying undesirable attentions. One day Bernard casually mentions to his mother that the house of Fourchambault is on the verge of bankruptcy; nothing less than a quarter of a million francs will enable it to tide over the crisis. Mme. Bernard, to her son's astonishment, begs him to lend the tottering firm the sum required. He objects that, unless the business is better managed, the loan will only postpone the inevitable disaster. “Well, then, my son,” she replied, “you must go into partnership with M. Fourchambault.” “I! with that imbecile!” he exclaims. “My son,” she says gravely, and emphatically, “you must – it is your duty – I demand it of you!” “Ah!” cries Bernard. “I understand – he is my father!” After ecstatically lauding this situation and the scenes which have led up to it, [the French drama critic] Sarcey continues – When the curtain falls upon the words “He is my father,” I at once see two scènes à faire [obligatory scenes], and I know that they will be faites: the scene between the son and the father whom he is to save, the scene between Bernard and his half-brother Leopold, who are in love with the same woman, the one dishonourably and the other secretly and nobly. What will they say to each other? I have no idea. But it is precisely this expectation mingled with uncertainty that is one of the charms of the theatre. I say to myself, “Ah, they will have an encounter! What will come of it?” And that this is the state of mind of the whole audience is proved by the fact that when the two characters of the scènes à faire stand face to face, a thrill of anticipation runs round the whole theatre.


This, then, is the obligatory scene as Sarcey generally understands it – a scene which, for one reason or another, an audience expects and ardently desires. I have italicised the phrase “expectation mingled with uncertainty” because it expresses in other terms the idea which I have sought to convey in the formula “foreshadowing without forestalling.” But before we can judge of the merits of M. Sarcey’s theory, we must look into it a little more closely. I shall try, then, to state it in my own words, in what I believe to be its most rational and defensible form. An obligatory scene is one which the audience (more or less clearly and consciously) foresees and desires, and the absence of which it may with reason resent. From Play-Making, William Archer (1912) (pp.225 – 7)


David Mamet David Mamet (b.1947) is a leading American playwright, film director and essayist. Over the years his writings have mirrored many of the ideas found in the work of Aristotle and John Howard Lawson, and he himself has written of his high regard for Mackendrick’s films and teachings. Here are a selection of entertaining and, above all, useful quotes from various sources.

Dramatic structure is… an exercise of a naturally occurring need or disposition to structure the world as thesis/antithesis/synthesis. Three Uses of the Knife (p.66) Dramatic structure is not an arbitrary – or even a conscious – invention. It is an organic codification of the human mechanism for ordering information. Event, elaboration, denouement; thesis, antithesis, synthesis; boy meets girl, boy loses girl, boy gets girl; act one, two, three. Three Uses of the Knife (p.73) The rule in question here is Aristotle’s notion of unity of action: in effect, that the play should be about one thing, and that thing should be what the hero is trying to get. Unstinting application of this rule makes great plays because the only thing we, as audience, care about in the theater is WHAT HAPPENS NEXT? ‘A Playwright in Hollywood’ Screening is a craft based on logic. It consists of the assiduous application of several very basic questions: What does the hero want? What hinders him from getting it? What happens if he does not get it? On Directing Film (p. xv) The most important thing I learned at the Neighborhood Playhouse was the idea of a through-line, which was Aristotle filtered through Stanislavski and Boleslavsky. That idea is a couple of thousand years old. Also the idea from Stanislavski of the subjugation of all aspects of the production – not just the script but the acting and the plastic elements – to the through-line of the play. That has stood me in very, very good stead in film directing. 1988 interview (p.74)


[T]heoretically, perfectly, what one wants to do is put the protagonist and the audience in exactly the same position. The main question in drama, the way I was taught, is always: What does the protagonist want? That’s what drama is. It comes down to that. It’s not about theme, it’s not about idea, it’s not about setting but what the protagonist wants. What gives rise to the drama, what is the precipitating event, and how, at the end of the play, do we see that event culminated? Do we see the protagonist’s wishes fulfilled or absolutely frustrated? That’s the structure of drama. You break it down into three acts. Does this explain why your plays have so little exposition? Yes. People only speak to get something. If I say, “Let me tell you a few things about myself,” already your defenses go up; you go, “Look, I wonder what he wants from me,” because no one ever speaks except to obtain an objective. That’s the only reason anyone ever opens their mouth, on stage or off stage. They may use a language that seems revealing, but, if so, it’s just coincidence, because what they’re trying to do is accomplish an objective. “Well, well, if it isn’t my younger brother, just returned from Australia… have a good break?” The question is, where does the dramatist have to lead you? Answer: the place where he or she thinks the audience needs to be led. But what does the character think? Does the character need to convey that information? If the answer is no, then you’d better cut it out, because you aren’t putting the audience in the same position with the protagonist. You’re saying, in effect, “Let’s stop the play.” That’s what the narration is doing: stopping the play. Now, there’s a certain amount of essential information, without which the play does not make sense… And how do you fit that information in? As obliquely as possible. You want to give the people information before they know it’s been give to them. So, to you a character is… It’s action, as Aristotle said. That’s all that it is: exactly what the person does. It’s not what they “think,” because we don’t know what they think. It’s not what they say. It’s what they do, what they’re physically trying to accomplish on the stage. Which is exactly the same way we understand a person’s character in life: not by what they say but by what they do. 1997 interview (pp.110 – 1)


[I]f I’m not writing for the audience, if I’m not writing to make it easier for them, then who the hell am I doing it for? And the way you make it easier is by following those tenets: cutting, building to a climax, leaving out exposition, and always progressing toward the single goal of the protagonist. They’re very stringent rules, but they are, in my estimation and experience, what makes it easier for the audience. 1997 interview (pp.111 – 2) Have you considered putting stage directions in your screenplays? No, because if you’re writing a drama, to get involved in it is kind of nonsense. It’s like, you read a screenplay, and it says, “BRENDA comes into the room. She’s beautiful, she’s sassy, she’s smart, she’s twenty-five, she’s built like a brick shithouse: this is the kind of girl you’ll leave your wife for. When you see those deep blue eyes…” I mean, you’re going to cast an actress, and she’s going to look like something, right? Some idiot script reader from Yale is going to get a kick out of what you’ve thrown in, but it has nothing to with making the movie, because you’re going to cast an actress who will have qualities that are going to have nothing to do with what you made up. When you write stage directions, unless they’re absolutely essential for the understanding of the action of the play (“He leaves,” “She shoots him”), something else is going to happen when the actors and directors get them on the stage. 1997 interview (pp.120 – 1) Part of the art of the play is to introduce information in such a way, and at such a time, that the people in the audience don’t realize they have been given information. They accept it as a matter of course, but they aren’t really aware of it so that, later on, the information pays off. It has been consciously planted by the author… Now, in a bad play, the author will introduce the information frontally. You actually tell the audience that you are about to give them some information and that it is important to what happens later in the play. In a good play the information is delivered almost as an aside. 1995 interview (p.127) I decided that I was going to plan out the whole movie, shot by shot, according to my understanding of the theories of Sergei Eisenstein. I found Eisenstein’s theories particularly refreshing, as they didn’t seem to call for any visual talent. The shot, he said, not only need not, but must not be evocative. The shot should stand as one unemotional term of a sequence, the totality of which should create in the mind of the audience a new idea, e.g. rather than the shot of a distraught woman crying, or the same woman describing to her friend over the telephone how she found out her husband was cheating on her, Eisenstein would suggest


the following: (1) shot of woman reading a note; (2) shot of the note which reads, “Honey, I’ll be home late tonight. Going bowling, I love you”; (3) shot of woman putting down the note, looking down at something on the floor; (4) her point of view, shot of the bowling ball in the bowling ball bag. In [this example] each of the shots is uninflected and unemotional and so the shots could be determined by someone without visual “talent,” but who knew the “meaning” of the sequence, i.e. a woman discovers her husband is cheating on her. So I thought, Well, that’s for me; I’m not going to be John Ford or Akira Kurosawa, but I do know the meaning of each of the sequences, having written them, and if I can reduce the meaning of each of sequences to a series of shots, each of them clean and uninflected (i.e., not necessitating further narration), then the… audience will understand the story through the medium of pictures. Some Freaks (pp.118 – 9) There is a wonderful book called The Profession of a Stage Director, by Georgi Tovstonogov, who writes that a director may fall into one of the deepest pits by rushing immediately to visual or pictorial solutions. This statement influenced and aided me greatly in my career as a stage director; and, subsequently, in my work as a screenwriter. If one understands what the scene means, and stages that, Mr. Tovstonogov was saying, one will be doing one’s job for both the author and the viewer. If one rushes, first, into a pretty, or pictorial, or even descriptive staging, one may be hard-pressed to integrate that staging into the logical progression of the play. On Directing Film (p. xiv) Eisenstein suggested [a movie should be made through] a succession of images juxtaposed so that the contrast between these images moves the story forward in the mind of the audience… You always want to tell the story in cuts. Which is to say, through a juxtaposition of images that are basically uninflected. Mr. Eisenstein tells us that the best image is an uninflected image. A shot of a teacup. A shot of a spoon. A shot of a fork. A shot of a door. Let the cut tell the story. Because otherwise you have not got dramatic action, you have narrative. If you slip into narration, you are saying, “you’ll never guess why what I just told you is important to the story.” It’s unimportant that the audience should guess why it’s important to the story. It’s important simply to tell the story. Let the audience be surprised. […] Documentaries take basically unrelated footage and juxtapose it in order to give the viewer the idea the filmmaker wants to convey. They take footage of birds snapping a twig. They take footage of a fawn raising his head. The two shots have nothing to do with each other. They were shot days or years, and miles, apart. And the filmmaker juxtaposes the images to give the viewer the idea of great alertness. The shots have nothing to do with each other. They are not a record of what the protagonist did. They are not a record of how the deer


reacted to the bird. They’re basically uninflected images. But they give the viewer the idea of alertness to danger when they are juxtaposed. That’s good filmmaking. Now, directors should want to do the same thing. We should all want to be documentary filmmakers. And we will have this advantage: we can go out and stage and film exactly those uninflected images we require for our story. And then juxtapose them. In the editing room, one is constantly thinking, “I wish I had a shot of…” Well, you’ve got all the time in the world before the film is shot: you can determine what shot you are going to require later, and go out and shoot it. On Directing Film (pp.2 – 4) I have a great deal of pride and, I suppose, a large admixture of arrogant pride. I, in my generally losing contest with… self-styled “producers,” many times console myself by thinking that after society falls apart, I will be able to eke out at least my meals and shelter by putting on plays that may make people laugh; but that these “producers” would have to wait until I and those like me went to work before they could eat. Yes, that is how I see “producers.” They are “let me take that cow to the fair for you, son.” On Directing Film (p.49) Interview extracts from David Mamet in Conversation (2001), edited by Leslie Kane © Original copyright holders


Dramatic Construction Exercises Construct obstacles for the following: 1. A pretty young stenographer in Minnesota has weak lungs and wants a heavy winter coat 2. A lawyer is running for the legislature 3. A schoolteacher wants to accept a good position in a distant town 4. Two men want to marry the same girl (the girl is the protagonist) 5. A group of miners demands a wage increase 6. A fifteen-year-old girl has learned a serious piece of scandal about someone she idolises (state her objective as well as her obstacle) 7. A fifteen-year-old boy is determined to enter the Navy 8. A young wife wants her husband to be proud of her 9. A factory-owner wants to replace an incompetent foreman 10. A doctor wants to spare a patient the knowledge that she has borne an idiot child For the following protagonists, find a clear, dynamic objective, and a way to make these objectives appealing to an audience of (a) businessmen, (b) farmers, (c) university students, and (d) church members. 1. Shakespeare 2. A man who inherits a farm (and likes farming) 3. A pioneer in the American Midwest 4. The mother of a soldier killed in the war 5. A woman who married five old men (all living, none divorced) 6. A saint 7. A gangster 8. The daughter of a moderately rich elderly widow 9. A woman whose husband lets her know she bores him 10. A man of mediocre ability who had a great ancestor


Follow these stories through, and consider what the obligatory scene of each could be. 1. The attractive but prudish protagonist constantly reprimands two delightful old friends of her father for taking a drink. She becomes engaged to a fine, lively young man, the proprietor of a tavern. 2. Two women are close friends. One of them discovers that her husband is ruining the husband of the other and forcing him into bankruptcy. 3. One of the guests at a dinner party, a newcomer to the town, is particularly nervous. Another guest seems to recall meeting him before. Still another finds that he makes her nervous. 4. After a hard day at the office, Jack plans to lounge with the papers all evening. He does not know that his wife has asked her parents to dinner. 5. A woman in love with her husband does not know him to be a criminal. Follow these stories through, this time using the ‘Once Upon a Time…’ format. 1. Start with the ending of a crime story. Regard the murdered individual as the objective, the murder as the obstacle. Find a protagonist and plan a course of action. 2. Start with a news story: a prize fighter discovered that his wife, a former chorus girl, was being unfaithful with his manager. In the divorce court he asked for custody of their son on the grounds that his wife was unfit to rear the boy. Find protagonist, objective, and course of action. 3. Starting with a character of your acquaintance, find or invent an objective that would place him in clearer harmony with his universe. Assume he recognises the need for this objective, or for a substitute he thinks he needs. Explain what might stand in his way and let these constitute the obstacles. Plan a course of action in which he gets the objective, another where he fails to get it. © The Estate of Alexander Mackendrick


Viva Zapata! Elia Kazan’s 1952 film Viva Zapata!, taken from famed American novelist John Steinbeck’s screenplay, is the story of Emiliano Zapata, the man who helped defeat Mexican President Diaz during the revolution that started in 1910. The script is, in many ways, a textbook example of a number of Mackendrick’s ideas about dramatic construction. I have prepared something like a Step Outline, based on my viewing of the film, for several reasons. First, when preparing something like this one is forced to look closely at the mechanics of plot and character. At every moment ask yourself why specific actions are taking place and what each character is doing at any one time. Who is doing what, with which and to whom? Second, when pulling apart a story like this, one realises actually just how few scenes there are, how densely constructed each is, and how much information each of them convey to the audience. Third, what is left out of a narrative is just as important as what is included. Look carefully below at how the story is presented to us and then watch the film. Study the scenes below and consider any number of unwritten scenes that could appear in their place. The point is that the scenes detailed below have, folded into them, information that might just as easily have been delivered elsewhere. Give ten writers a stack of books and the task of telling the story of Emiliano Zapata, and you will surely get ten wildly different screenplays, each focusing on different incidents in the man’s life. For example, there is no explanation between scenes 2 and 3 as to precisely what has happened to Zapata since the opening meeting with the President and how he is now, seemingly, the leader of an open rebellion against the Mexican state. Through the character of Fernando, who in scene 3 represents the outside world bringing information, we learn everything we need to know. A useful conceptual foundation for this idea comes from Russian director Andrei Tarkovsky, in his book Sculpting in Time (pp.62 – 3;65): “What is the essence of the director’s work? We could define it as sculpting in time. Just as a sculptor takes a lump of marble, and, inwardly conscious of the features of his finished piece, removes everything that is not part of it – so the film-maker, from a ‘lump of time’ made up of an enormous, solid cluster of living facts, cuts off and discards whatever he does not need, leaving only what is to be an element of the finished film, what will prove to be integral to the cinematic image… This is how I conceive an ideal piece of filming: the author takes millions of metres of film, on which systematically, second by second, day by day and year by year, a man’s life, for instance, from birth to death, is followed and recorded, and out of all that come two and half thousand metres, or an hour and a half of screen time. (It is curious also to imagine those millions of metres going through the hands of several directors for each to make his film – how different they would all be!)… The point is to pick out and join together the bits of sequential fact, knowing,


seeing and hearing precisely what lies between them and what kind of chain holds them together. That is cinema.” As scholar Robert Morsberger writes in the published edition of Steinbeck’s screenplay, “The Mexican Revolution was so complex that it would be impossible for any film to reproduce it in close detail… Steinbeck made no effect to do so. The structure of Viva Zapata! is like Shakespeare’s chronicle histories, episodic yet tightly coherent, with a few skirmishes to sketch in an entire war. His screenplay is not so much history as folklore, parable, and poetry.” As screenwriting teacher Richard Walter has written (Essentials of Screenwriting, p.54), “Time, space, story, and character are configured and reconfigured at the writer’s will.” In short, a fictional story can play fast and loose with reality. Things are changed and rearranged for one purpose only: to hold the audience’s attention. In this respect, storytelling is an expressionistic, not realistic, art. (Wasn’t it Alfred Hitchcock who said that drama was “life with all the dull bits cut out”? And as theorist Lajos Egri often reminds us, “art is not the mirror of life, but the essence of life.” A story might be an ‘imitation of life,’ but does it have to be a wholly accurate imitation?) Morsberger again (p13): “A complexity of events sprawling over a great deal of time and space is telescoped into a compelling drama… Kazan was aware of this quality and commented that ‘Shakespeare is more contemporary than the plays that are being written today. He leaps from here to there, he goes to climaxes, and the figures are big-sized.’” As Steinbeck himself believed (p.47), “[T]his script should have the quality of folklore from the beginning. It should have a quality of simplicity and simplification, which is the quality of folklore.” His approach was to abstract all that he found admirable about Zapata and the man’s extraordinary life as a revolutionary which, Steinbeck explains (p.46), had a “beginning, middle, and end.” “Zapata was a greater man than his people,” continues Steinbeck (p.48). “He belongs to the whole world, and his symbol of piracy and violence, and of resistance against oppression, is a world symbol. Because this is so, I propose to write this script, taking it out of the exact place of Mexico, taking it out of exact people.” Viva Zapata! is, of course, set in Mexico during the first two decades of the Twentieth Century, but Steinbeck has created such a comprehensible story, one that contains key narrative tropes about war, revolution, family, commitment and betrayal (and one full of archetypical yet detailed characters), that his film in some way moves beyond the specifics of the Mexican conflict. Steinbeck has created something like an Everyman figure that the oppressed everywhere are able to respect, and would-be revolutionaries can try to emulate: “It occurs to me that I could solve many problems if I used no names. The president, who was Porfirio Diaz, will simply in my script be the Presidente… The people who fought against [Zapata], I think, can be named simply by their military titles, the General, the Colonel, the Sergeant, etc.” When you read this Step Outline, and when you write your own (based on your own favourite films), remember what Mackendrick asked: “What is true at the end of a scene that wasn’t true at the beginning?” You should always be able to


explain precisely how the end of a scene is different from its starting point. How has the action shifted? Who is doing what, with which and to whom? How have the primary characters changed? What have they achieved? What obstacles have been placed in their way? Think also about dramatic irony. At any time do we know something that the characters on screen don’t? (One example here might be the film’s finale, when it is clear to us that Zapata is heading to his death. I write ‘might’ because as Marlon Brando plays it in the film, he seems to know just what is going to happen to him.) And what about foil characters? Morsberger explains (p.12) that Steinbeck and Kazan were fascinated by Zapata because “unlike most revolutionaries, who too often turned totalitarian, Zapata not only did not seek power but relinquished it rather than let it corrupt him.” In short, “Zapata’s role is that of an agrarian reformer, not a revolutionary remolder of society.” As a foil to Zapata, the final shooting script introduces to us “the ruthless revolutionary Fernando, who is a friend to no one and believes in nothing but the necessity of killing and the elimination of all opposition… Fernando is a fictitious character, a composite of all those who have betrayed democratic revolutions and replaced them with repression.” And consider the fundamental idea of a protagonist and his goal. President Diaz was a ruthless leader who made sure that even after the de jure abolition of slavery, the population of Mexico remained enslaved, growing poorer by the day. He even started re-distributing land that the ancestors of the Mexican farmers had owned for two thousand years, enforcing his rule with brutal, local, rural police who made sure that the rich landholders – those who owned the haciendas, the great landholdings – maintained their power. As Steinbeck writes in his lengthy prose treatment of the story, “Even the grazing land was in many cases taken away from the villages, so that the cows, upon which the Indians depended for their livelihood, had no place to feed. The slightest sign of rebellion or revolt was put down with a ferocity that was incredible. The Indians were treated like animals… We have, then, at the time of our story, the explosive quality which destroys, eventually, all systems: property accumulated in very few hands and the great mass of the people dispossessed and hungry.” Enter Emiliano Zapata. Worth noting is that Steinbeck wrote a prose narrative of 337 pages before embarking on his script. He spoke Spanish and spent time in Mexico researching (including interviewing people who had actually known Zapata) before starting work on his screenplay. In short, he understood Zapata, as well as details of the life of the average Mexican farmer – his customs and traditions in the early years of the Twentieth Century – with extraordinary depth. This seems very much in line with Mackendrick’s suggestion that the requisite research be done before the task of writing begins. *

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Scene 1 A caption: ‘Mexico City, 1909. A delegation of Indians from the State of Morelos have come to the Capitol for an audience with their President, Porfirio Diaz.’ The opening shots show the citizens being searched by soldiers before they enter, thus setting the scene: this is something of a military dictatorship where, one assumes, threats to the President are commonplace. Immediately upon their entrance, as they gaze up at a garish portrait of the President, a distinct separation is made between the hardworking farmers and the man who runs the country. The men explain that their land has been stolen by the wealthy residents of a local estate and they have been left with only barren areas where no crops will grow. Their land has been fenced off and their cattle are starving to death. The President is patronising and condescending. He insists that accusations of this kind can be dealt with only in court, asking them “Can you prove that you own this field?” and telling them to “verify your boundaries.” The farmers, who have brought various property deeds with them, are about to leave, content that their claims will be supported, when Zapata speaks, challenging the authority of President Diaz. He is a brazen, strong and outspoken man, a natural leader, and the President is immediately taken aback. “The land is fenced and guarded by armed men. They are planting sugar cane in our corn fields right now,” explains Zapata. “Courts?” he questions, in flagrant opposition to the President. “Do you know of any land suit that was ever won by country people?” Again the President insists that the courts are the place to settle such issues and that the farmers must be patient. “We make our tortillas out of corn, not patience,” replies Zapata. Diaz, who has a list of the farmers’ names in front of him, circles ‘Emiliano Zapata.’ The conflict is palpable, and establishes the primary dramatic tension of the entire story. Will Zapata take on the might of the Mexican military and government? Will he win and lead his people to liberation? A fuse has been lit, and we the audience fully expect this conflict to play itself out throughout the film. Scene 2 The farmers and their families arrive at their field, which is fenced in. They pass under the barbed wire before cutting it, whereupon they are attacked by soldiers with machine guns. Zapata, on a white horse, leads the fight as women and children are mown down. Zapata escapes. Scene 3 Some time later. Zapata, his brother Eufemio and an associate, Pablo, have taken refuge at the top of a mountain. They issue warning shots at a man who, as he comes closer, is shouting Zapata’s name. The man claims to be sent from Zapata’s friends, “people of the village.” Eufemio searches the man, Fernando, who carries a typewriter, which he calls a “sword of the mind.”


Fernando comes “with news from Madero, leader of the fight against Diaz.” He explains that Madero is in Texas, preparing to lead an assault against the President. “He is sending out many people like me to spread the word and search out leaders in other parts of Mexico,” says Fernando. Zapata chides Pablo for never having taught him to read, and tells Pablo to go to Texas and talk to Madero. “I want you to go see if we can trust him,” says Zapata. “If you like what you see in his face, tell him about our troubles here, and tell him that we recognise him as a leader against Diaz.” The three men wander off, leaving Fernando to exclaim, “This is all very disorganised!” Scene 4 In town, Zapata and Eufemio follow two women to the church. Hiding from the police, by now they are clearly wanted men. Entering the church, Eufemio grabs the older woman, while Zapata speaks with Josefa. He hopes to marry her and wants to know when he can see her father to ask for her hand. She tells him she will never marry him, that she doesn’t intend to end up “washing clothes in a ditch and patting tortillas like an Indian.” Zapata is furious, making clear that the “Zapatas were chieftains here when your grandfather lived in a cave.” Josefa tells him that “without luck you’ll probably be in jail tomorrow.” Zapata makes clear he has been offered a job by Don Nacio and that he will likely be pardoned. Josefa is still resistant, threatening even him to kill him. She wants “to live a safe life, protected, uneventful, without surprises, and preferably with a rich man.” Another fuse has been lit, as we wonder if Zapata will ever be able to win her over. Scene 5 Zapata is working as a horse trainer, but his egalitarian streak is revealed when he attacks a man for beating a starving young boy. Don Nacio chastises him, insisting that “violence is no good” and telling him that he “can’t be the conscience of the whole world.” Zapata’s interplay with the Indians working in the stables makes clear whose side he is really on. Don Nacio reminds Zapata he now has a good job and money, and encourages him to speak with Josefa’s father. Zapata spots Eufemio and Pablo, who has just returned from Texas. Fernando is also with them and this time Zapata is much friendlier to him. The situation is made clear to Zapata: the time has come to launch an attach on Diaz, who is ready to drop “like an old bull with a sword under his shoulder.” Zapata is still resistant, exclaiming that he doesn’t “want to be the conscience of the world” and that he has “private affairs” to attend to. Scene 6 Zapata, on his white horse, along with Eufemio, Pablo and Fernando, is riding though the countryside and encounters a friend, Innocente, who has a rope around his neck and is being led to jail by policemen who are on horseback. Zapata confronts the captors, telling them, simply, “I think you better let him go.” He kills one of them but the other rides off at speed, with Innocente in tow. Zapata


cuts the rope but Innocente is severely injured. “You should have cut the rope without talking,” says the increasingly ruthless Fernando. We discover what Innocente’s crime is: he crawled through the fence at night to plant corn. “Now they’ll be after you,” a farmer tells Zapata. “You can hide in my house,” says another. “Thank you,” replies Zapata, a man with an increasing sense of responsibility to his community. Scene 7 Zapata is talking with Josefa’s father. He explains that Don Nacio “has assured me that I will be a man of substance.” Josefa’s father makes it clear that Zapata will never marry his daughter. “What is wrong with me?” asks Zapata. “You are a rancher without land, a gentleman without money, a man of substance without substance. A fighter, a drinker, a brawler,” replies the father, who delivers the same line about tortillas that Josefa herself threw at Zapata earlier. Zapata, furious, manhandles him, and says, “Find her a merchant, a musty moth-eaten man like yourself.” As he leaves, Zapata is arrested. Eufemio and Josefa look on. Eufemio signals to the townsfolk and they immediately rally around Zapata as he is marched out of town, a rope around his neck. Fernando witnesses this and is astonished. By the time the column of horses has reached the countryside, the farmers start following, machetes in hand. Workmen come down from the mountains and join the group as it passes them. Within minutes the police are surrounded and Eufemio confronts them with a shotgun. Zapata is released, aware of his new role and high status within the community. Fernando tells him to cut the telegraph wire and they ride off. Scene 8 A train rides through the mountains and is attacked by Indians. Zapata, increasingly the military leader, is disappointed that there is no ammunition on board, though there is plenty of dynamite. Scene 9 Women approach a fortified encampment occupied by soldiers who have clearly already been fighting against Zapata’s forces. The women place dynamite at the gates and blow them open. Several are killed in the process. Fighters on horseback arrive and defeat the military. Scene 10 Later, Zapata and his forces are celebrating their victory. Zapata is introduced to a young boy who, with his brother, destroyed an enemy machine gun. Upon hearing that the boy’s brother was killed, Zapata offers him a reward. The boy wants Zapata’s white horse, which Zaptata gives him.


Josefa’s father approaches and addresses Zapata as ‘Don.’ He brings Fernando with him, who has a letter from Madero appointing Zapata a General. Zapata is unimpressed, though Josefa’s father seems to be warming to him. Scene 11 Zapata, wearing a bandolier bullet belt, spends time with Josefa’s family, though Eufemio is contemptuous of such socialising. Zapata continues to push for Josefa’s hand, stating that “He who has a good wife, wears Heaven in his hat.” Josefa’s father now considers Zapata a worthy match for his daughter. Pablo arrives announcing that President Diaz has fled from Mexico, news that brings Zapata and Josefa closer together. Scene 12 Zapata and Josefa’s wedding. Scene 13 Zapata and Josefa on their wedding night. Eufemio, Pablo and Fernando talk outside. Fernando impresses upon Eufemio that the battle has only just begun. “There will be a lot more bloodshed,” says Fernando to the drunken Eufemio. Zapata seems restless. Josefa asks him what he is worried about. “We’ll find a good piece of land someplace and settle down,” she tells him, believing that the fighting is over. “Madero is in the capital,” Zapata tells her, “and tomorrow I’ll go see him.” Josefa announces that they will name all their children Francisco, “after Madero, because he brought peace.” Zapata is clearly skeptical, and expresses his embarrassment that he cannot read. She takes a book and starts to teach him. Scene 14 Zapata, Fernando, Eufemio and Pablo are with Madero in his office. A portrait of President Diaz is being removed from the wall. Zapata asks Madero a simple question: “When will the village lands be given back? The country people are asking.” Madero stalls, insisting “We will build slowly and carefully,” and hides behind the same legal arguments as Diaz did earlier. Madero offers Zapata some property as a reward for his contribution to the revolution. Zapata is furious. “I did not fight for a ranch,” he says. “The land I fought for was not for myself.” He insists the land distribution be done immediately. Madero leaves. “This mouse in the black suit talks too much like Diaz,” Zapata tells Pablo and Eufemio. Only Fernando sides with Zapata, telling him that the government needs to be cleaned out of people like Diaz and Madero. Madero returns and asks Zapata and his forces to hand in their weapons, and submit to the rule of law. Zapata knows that a disarmed population can achieve nothing. He leaves, telling Madero he is going home to “wait, but not for long.”


Huerta, another of Madero’s generals, enters and advises Madero to kill Zapata. Madero refuses and challenges Huerta when the general suggests he assist in the disarming of Zapata. Pablo returns, telling Madero that he should visit with Zapata outside of Mexico City. Madero agrees, and tells Huerta that “troops are not necessary… There is such a thing as an honest man.” Madero leaves, and Huerta reiterates that as long as Zapata is alive, progress cannot be made. For this ruthless general, Madero is a mouse who “can be handled. Zapata is a tiger. You have to kill a tiger.” Another fuse has been lit. Scene 15 Zapata’s forces are handing in their arms as Madero watches. While Pablo expresses happiness about this, Zapata clearly does not. News arrives that Huerta’s forces are converging on the town. Madero is genuinely flabbergasted, Fernando insists that Madero is not to be trusted. Pablo challenges Zapata and Fernando, saying that only Madero can bring peace. Eufemio suggests Zapata now kill Madero. Zapata, Eufemio and their men ride off, without Pablo, to fight Huerta. Scene 16 Zapata’s men attack Huerta’s soldiers, leading them into a trap and massacring them. Scene 17 President Madero is being held a prisoner by Huerta in his government office. He is taken to what he thinks is a meeting with Huerta but is assassinated by soldiers as Huerta watches. Scene 18 A makeshift tribunal, where Eufemio and the rebels interrogate a man accused of consorting with the enemy. Eufemio wants the man shot. Zapata explains the situation as it presently stands: “Two hundred and forty-four good farmers, your relatives, with victory in their mouths, will never chew it. Now do you see why we have hard discipline?” Zapata orders the man shot. Zapata, Fernando and Pablo talk. Pablo admits meeting with Madero, explaining that the dead president was a good man who wanted “to build houses, plant fields. If we could begin to build, even while we’re burning, if we could plant while we destroy...” Pablo asks Zapata if “a good thing can come from a bad act. Can peace come from so much killing? Can kindness finally come from so much violence?” We hear the shots of executions in the background. Zapata has no answer to Pablo’s questions and orders his execution. Pablo asks that Zapata himself be his executioner. Zapata kills Pablo.


Scene 19 Josefa and her father at home. He exclaims that Zapata has made nothing of his status of a general, unlike the well-dressed Pancho Villa. “Being a general is a business opportunity, and he’s not taking advantage of it,” Josefa’s father explains. Zapata arrives with news that Huerta’s forces have been defeated. “We have won,” he says. Scene 20 Zapata meets Pancho Villa in Mexico City for a photo opportunity, something he clearly feels uncomfortable with. Scene 21 Zapata and Villa talk. Villa announces that he has a ranch where he now wants to live. We note Eufemio’s reaction. “I’ve been fighting too long. Lost my appetite for it,” he says. “What about Mexico?” asks Fernando. “I’ve figured it out,” says Villa, and turning to Zapata says, “Only one man I can trust.” He appoints Zapata President. Zapata refuses, but, as Villa explains, “There isn’t anyone else.” Scene 22 Zapata and Fernando are in the government palace. Zapata now finds himself in precisely the same situation that Diaz did earlier. A delegation from Morelos arrives. They explain that Eufemio has taken over a ranch, taken land distributed to the farmers, and killed a man. Zapata asks if this is really true. He is convinced that he must return to Morelos immediately. Fernando begs him to stay. Zapata tells Fernando he has “no fields, no home, no wife, no woman, no friends, no love. You only destroy. That is your love.” Scene 23 Zapata finds Eufemio drunk in a ranch house, and is furious with his brother. Eufemio is equally angry. “I can’t even buy a bottle of Tequila,” he says. “I have to beg pennies in my own village from people who never fired a gun.” Zapata sits with the farmers and tells them the land is theirs, but they must protect it. “There are no leaders but yourself. A strong people is the only lasting strength,” he says. As he leaves the house, Eufemio is shot and killed. Zapata is distraught. Scene 24 Generals in Mexico City decide to wipe out Zapata and his guerilla army. Fernando (who, convinced that Zapata is not sufficiently revolutionary, has switched sides), explains that the problem is Zapata himself. “Cut off the head of the snake and the body will die,” he says. “Kill Zapata and your problem is solved.”


Scene 25 Zapata’s forces arrive telling him they have made contact with a general who has been stripped of his rank, and in retaliation offers Zapata a cache of arms and ammunition. “It sounds like a trap,” one of the rebels says. Zapata decides it is worth the risk. Josefa begs him not to go, convinced he will be killed. Zapata insists he must do “what is needed.” Scene 26 Zapata and Josefa talk. “If anything happens to you, what would become of these people?” she asks him. “What would they have left?” “Themselves,” he replies. Zapata tells her the people don’t need to be led any longer. They can lead themselves. “Strong people don’t need a strong man.” He leaves. Scene 27 Soldiers await Zapata’s entrance into the garrison town. He inspects the weapons and is reunited with his white horse. Zapata is shot down by soldiers as the horse escapes. Fernando screams at them to shoot the horse. Scene 28 Zapata’s body is dumped in public. The locals doubt the body is Zapata’s. “They can’t kill him,” they say. “He’s in the mountains… If we ever need him again, he’ll be back.” Scene 29 Zapata’s white horse on a mountain cliff-top.


Casablanca Scene 1 A line traces its way across a map of Europe. The narrator tells of the tortuous route refugees must take when fleeing occupied France. It leads through Marseilles, across the Mediterranean and Oran, ending in Casablanca, where exit visas are few and far between. Scene 2 A gendarme receives a wire and orders all police in Casablanca to search all suspicious persons for letters of transit stolen from two murdered German couriers. Two police officers arrest a man with expired papers, and when he runs they shoot him down. Bystanders observe arrested people being herded into the police station and, with painful longing, observe a plane land. Scene 3 At the airport the plane lands and MAJOR STRASSER exits to meet the waiting Vichy officials. RENAULT informs him that the murderer of the couriers is to be arrested at Rick’s Café that evening. STRASSER tells him that he has heard of Rick. Scene 4 Inside Rick’s Café that evening is a strange conglomeration of Germans, Frenchmen, traitors and refugees all plotting various endeavors. CARL, the headwaiter, speaks to some patrons about the notable people who have been reduced to menial positions in the café. While RICK is refusing admission to the gambling casino to a person with bad credit, UGARTE enters. UGARTE reveals to RICK that he has the letters of transit, and persuades RICK to hold onto them for a few hours. RICK conceals the letters in SAM’s piano during a song. FERRARI enters and attempts to buy first the café, then SAM. Both RICK and SAM decline his offer. RICK encounters YVONNE, who is drunk and makes a scene when he refuses to tell her where he was the night before. RICK gets SASHA, the bartender, to drive her home. RENAULT sees this and chides him on his flagrant waste of women. RENAULT also informs him of UGARTE’s impending arrest, and warns RICK not to interfere. He also tells RICK of the arrival of VICTOR LASZLO. RICK is impressed by the name and RENAULT takes note of this. They make a wager of ten thousand francs: RICK says he will succeed in escaping, RENAULT bets against it. Worried about RICK’s impartiality, RENAULT brings up his past: running guns for Ethiopia, fighting for the Loyalists in Spain. It seems that RICK is partial to underdogs. RICK tells him that he only did it for the money. Exit RENAULT.


Scene 5 UGARTE is playing roulette when the gendarmes arrest him. He asks to be allowed to cash in his chips, and after he does he bolts out the door and holds it shut behind him. When the police break through he shoots two of them and runs to RICK begging for help. RICK refuses to get involved, and UGARTE is dragged off. The café returns to normal. Scene 6 RENAULT calls RICK to the table where he is seated with STRASSER and the rest of the Germans. He introduces him to STRASSER, who begins questioning him on his past and political beliefs. RICK professes complete neutrality on all issues, and when pressed for an opinion on VICTOR LASZLO he excuses himself and leaves. RENAULT assures STRASSER that he has nothing to worry about from RICK. Scene 7 ILSA and LASZLO enter the café. They are there to meet UGARTE. ILSA sees SAM, who ignores her. BERGER sees them and attempts to make contact by trying to sell them a ring with the symbol of the French underground on it. LASZLO agrees to meet him at the bar later. RENAULT introduces himself to them. ILSA inquires about the piano player and he tells her that his name is SAM and that he came to Casablanca with RICK. ILSA looks thoughtful. STRASSER approaches the table and demands that LASZLO meet him in the prefect’s office the next morning at ten o’clock. STRASSER and RENAULT leave, and LASZLO goes to meet BERGER at the bar. Scene 8 LASZLO seats himself at the bar next to BERGER, who informs him of UGARTE’s arrest. He also tells him of an underground meeting the next evening and requests that he attend. Scene 9 ILSA requests that the piano player come to her table. The waiter goes to fetch him. Scene 10 RENAULT arrives at the bar and BERGER leaves, intimidated. LASZLO attempts to leave as well, but RENAULT orders him another cocktail. Scene 11 SAM wheels his piano over to where ILSA is seated. They say hello, and ILSA asks how RICK is, confirming that she knows him. SAM is evasive and ILSA


requests that he play “As Time Goes By.” After a bit of hedging, he complies. RICK explodes into the café and begins to tell SAM that he told him never to play that song, but seeing ILSA he stops short. RENAULT and LASZLO return to the table. Introductions are exchanged and it is established that RICK and ILSA know each other, and that RICK is very impressed with LASZLO. Breaking a longstanding policy he has a drink with them, surprising RENAULT. RENAULT is even more surprised when RICK proceeds to foot the bill. Everyone says goodbye. RENAULT reminds LASZLO of his appointment the next morning, and they drive off. Scene 12 Inside the closed café RICK is getting drunk while SAM cleans up. RICK tells SAM that he is waiting for ILSA. SAM tries to dissuade him. RICK is not to be deterred and makes SAM play “As Time Goes By.” RICK begins to reminisce. Scene 13 In flashback we see RICK and ILSA together in Paris in the days before the occupation. They take boat rides and drives, and ILSA explains that the reason there is currently no man in her life is because he is dead. Scene 14 (Flashback continued.) RICK and ILSA are in his apartment. A loudspeaker from the street announces the approach of the German army. ILSA tells RICK that due to his past it will not be safe for him to remain in Paris. Scene 15 (Flashback continued.) A small café. SAM, RICK and ILSA are helping the owner drink all his champagne so that there will be none left for the Germans when they arrive. The loudspeaker blares again, telling the people to act happy when the Germans arrive the next day. RICK and ILSA agree to leave together the next day, and RICK proposes marriage. They will meet at the station the next day because ILSA says she has some business to attend to in town. She is strangely sad and tells RICK to kiss her as if “it were for the last time.” Scene 16 (Flashback continued.) SAM and RICK are standing at the train station in the rain. ILSA is not there and SAM gives RICK a note she left for him. It says that although she loves him, she can never see him again. SAM drags the stunned RICK onto the train.


Scene 17 (Present day.) Rick’s Café at night. RICK is now very drunk and SAM leaves as ILSA enters. She attempts to explain to RICK her motives for leaving him, but he is very bitter and tells her off. ILSA leaves without finishing her story. Scene 18 RENAULT’s office. STRASSER tells RENAULT to search Rick’s Café for the missing documents, and orders that LASZLO be put under surveillance. LASZLO and ILSA enter the office. STRASSER and RENAULT inform them that there is no possibility of him being granted an exit visa unless he is willing to furnish them with a list of all the underground leaders and their whereabouts. LASZLO refuses, and when he asks to speak with UGARTE he is told that UGARTE is dead. RENAULT says that they haven’t yet decided whether he killed himself or died trying to escape. LASZLO and ILSA leave, and RENAULT speculates that their next step will probably be to the black market. Scene 19 A foreigner is informed that FERRARI has a virtual monopoly on the black market. FERRARI can be found at the Blue Parrot café. Scene 20 The interior of FERRARI’s Blue Parrot café. He is refusing ANNINA and JAN’s request for a visa. Perhaps she can come to terms with RENAUT, he says. As they leave RICK enters and sits with FERRARI. FERRARI suspects that RICK has the letters, and RICK tells him that he is only there to give the police long enough to search his café. FERRARI offers to sell the letters for RICK for a share in the profit, but RICK says no. Through the window RICK sees ILSA in the street. He leaves, passing LASZLO on his way out. Scene 21 On the street. A salesman is trying to sell ILSA a tablecloth which he begins to mark down when he realises she knows RICK. RICK walks up behind ILSA and apologizes for his behavior of the night before. He asks ILSA to tell him why she left him and she refuses, saying that he is not the same person anymore. All the same, he tells her, sooner or later she will lie to LASZLO and pay him a visit. She tells him she won’t because LASZLO is her husband, and was even when she knew RICK in Paris. She turns and leaves. Scene 22 Inside the Blue Parrot. ILSA sits at a table with LASZLO and FERRARI. LASZLO tells her that FERRARI thinks it is only possible to get an exit visa for her. FERRARI leaves to let them discuss it, but ILSA says either both of them are going or neither of them are. When they tell FERRARI their decision, he tells them that he believes that RICK has the letters of transit.


Scene 23 Inside Rick’s Café much is going on. RENAULT questions RICK about the letters of transit. RICK refuses to give a straight answer. YVONNE enters with a German officer who proceeds to get in a fight with a Frenchman at the bar. RICK breaks it up and tells them if they want to talk politics they must go outside. At STRASSER’s table RENAULT says that he blows with the wind politically. STRASSER intimates that it may be necessary to have LASZLO murdered. At RICK’s table ANNINA asks him if RENAULT is honest. Knowing that RENAULT means to seduce her he advises her to go home instead. He gets up and leaves. ILSA and LASZLO enter and RICK seats them next to SAM. RICK enters the casino where JAN is losing at roulette. He arranges for JAN to win enough money to pay for the exit visas. LASZLO approaches RICK and asks if they can speak in private. Scene 24 In RICK’s office, LASZLO attempts to buy the letters of transit. RICK refuses to part with them at any cost, and when LASZLO asks him why, RICK tells him to ask his wife. They hear the sound of Germans singing “Wacht an Rhein” downstairs. LASZLO leads the band in La Marsillaise and the crowd joins in. STRASSER is not amused and he orders RENAULT to close the café. This RENAULT does under the pretext of illegal gambling, as he accepts his own illicit winnings. STRASSER tells ILSA that LASZLO must either return to occupied France with him, or face being thrown in a French concentration camp, or worse. Scene 25 ILSA and LASZLO’s hotel room. LASZLO is preparing to go to the underground meeting as soon as the man watching them is asleep. He tells ILSA that RICK would not give him the letters and that he told him to ask her why. He asks her if she has anything to tell him and she says she doesn’t. LASZLO goes to the meeting. Scene 26 Inside RICK’s closed café. RICK and CARL are closing out his books. He can afford to stay closed for three weeks, CARL says. Scene 27 RICK’s apartment. ILSA enters and asks RICK for the letters. After several ploys, all of which fail, she pulls a gun. RICK still won’t give them to her and she drops the gun. She explains that LASZLO was sent to a concentration camp and she received news that he had been killed trying to escape. She had no found that he was alive until shortly before she was due to leave with RICK from Paris. She tells RICK that she doesn’t have the strength to leave him again. RICK agrees to do the thinking for both of them.


Scene 28 CARL and LASZLO are sneaking into the café, hiding from the police. RICK and ILSA hear their voices and peek out. RICK makes ILSA stay in the room and goes down to speak with them. CARL tells him that the police broke up the underground meeting. RICK tells him to turn out the light at the rear entrance so that he will take ILSA home. LASZLO is cut on one hand he tells RICK that he knows that they are both in love with ILSA. He requests that RICK take the letters of transit and use them to take ILSA away from Casablanca. At this point the police break in and arrest LASZLO. Scene 29 RENAULT’s office the next morning. RICK is there trying to convince RENAULT to release LASZLO. RENAULT refuses. RICK tells him that he is leaving Casablanca with ILSA and he doesn’t want STRASSER to make her stay to testify against LASZLO. He proposes a plan to incriminate LASZLO in the deaths of the couriers so that he can be sent back to the concentration camps. He tells RENAULT to release LASZLO and he will tell him to pick up the letters of transit at the café a half hour before the plane is due to leave. RENAULT can then be present to arrest him. RICK tells RENAULT not to have LASZLO followed and he agrees. Scene 30 The Blue Parrot. RICK is selling his cafe to FERRARI on the condition that all the employees are kept on. FERRARI agrees. Scene 31 RENAULT enters Rick’s Café and prepares to arrest LASZLO. He asks RICK where the letters had been hidden and RICK tells him. As ILSA and LASZLO arrive RENAULT hides in RICK’s office. ILSA enters first and she is worried because LASZLO still thinks she is leaving with him. RICK tells her not to worry. LASZLO enters and starts to pay RICK for the letters, but RICK tells him to keep his money. RENAULT arrests LASZLO for the murder of the couriers, but he barely has time to gloat before RICK pulls a gun on him. RICK forces him to call the airport and insure their place on the plane. RENAULT dials the number of the German consulate instead. Scene 32 STRASSER is puzzled by RENAULT’s call and orders a car to take him to the airport and a squad of police to meet him there.


Scene 33 At the airport, RICK has RENAULT fill out the letters of transit with the names “Mr. and Mrs. Victor Laszlo.” ILSA is stunned. RICK tells her that if she stays they will both end up in a concentration camp. They will always have Paris, he says. When LASZLO returns from loading the luggage, RICK tells him of ILSA’s visit the night before. He says he let her pretend to still be in love with him to get the letters. They get on the plane. RENAULT accuses RICK of being a sentimentalist as STRASSER pulls up, demanding to know what the phone call was all about. RENAULT tells him that ILSA and LASZLO are on the plane, and STRASSER grabs a phone to tell the tower to stop the plane. RICK tells him not to move or he will shoot him. STRASSER moves and he shoots him. The police squad arrives and RENAULT tells them that STRASSER has been shot. He pauses for a moment, then tells them to round up the “usual suspects.” RENAULT and RICK decide it is a good time to start being patriotic, and RENAULT kicks over a bottle of Vichy water as the plane takes off. RENAULT tells RICK that he might be able to get him an exit visa so he could join a free French garrison, but that the ten thousand francs which he now owes him should just about cover their expenses as fellow fugitives. © The Estate of Alexander Mackendrick


Bicycle Thieves Scene 1 The public square in a working class district on the outskirts of Rome. Crowds of unemployed. On the steps of a public building, an official of the government employment agency appears to announce the few available jobs. A billposter is wanted. RICCI’s name is called. There’s one condition: the applicant must supply his own bicycle. RICCI hesitates, but then assures the official: he has a bicycle. Scene 2 Outside the tenement building, RICCI finds MARIA, his wife. She is in the queue at the outdoor pumps, where she has to collect heavy pails of water to carry up to their flat. He tells MARIA the news, and the problem: his bicycle has been pawned and they have no money to redeem it. Scene 3 In their apartment, it is MARIA who is practical. She produces their most treasured possession, their wedding sheets. They can pawn these for money to redeem the bicycle so that RICCI can get the job. Scene 4 The pawn shop. At one window, MARIA pawns the sheets for 7500 lire. At another, RICCI redeems the bicycle for 6500. Scene 5 The agency. Jealously guarding the precious bicycle, RICCI reports to his employers. He gets the job. With it goes a uniform and a cap, a symbol of status. RICCI is to start tomorrow. Scene 6 Rejoining his wife, RICCI discusses his good fortune. There is even an allowance for new boots. On their way home, MARIA insists on paying a call on a friend. RICCI waits in the street outside the house. Growing curious, he follows her inside, discovers that she has joined a pathetic little crowd which has congregated in the waiting room of a FORTUNE TELLER. RICCI is exasperated, annoyed that his wife wastes the little money they have on such superstition. She insists that it was the FORTUNE TELLER who predicted that RICCI would at last find a job. Now that their luck has changed, the FORTUNE TELLER should be paid.

Scene 7 Next morning. The Ricci family consists of MARIA, her husband, their baby and BRUNO, a sturdy little boy of ten years old. MARIA fusses over the fit of RICCI’s uniform. BRUNO proudly polishes the bicycle. BRUNO also has a job: he works at a gas station. RICCI accompanies his son to the station before he mounts the bicycle to ride off to his own employment. Scene 8 At the government depot, a fellow worker instructs RICCI. Armed with ladders, brush and glue pots, the squad of billposters set off on their bicycles, in search of the billboards and city walls on which the posters have to be displayed. RICCI has a roll of advertisements for a current movie, a picture of Rita Hayworth in a bathing suit. Scene 9 A city street in downtown Rome. To climb his ladder, RICCI has to leave his bicycle leaning against the wall. He is not yet expert at the work and preoccupied with the brush, the poster and the glue pot, does not notice the three men among the crowds of passersby. These are the thieves. Scene 10 A police station. RICCI, in despair, reports the robbery. Can’t the police do anything? An Inspector, on his way to a meeting, has no time for RICCI. He advises RICCI to look for his bike on his own. Scene 11 RICCI is hours late at the gas station where he picks up his son. RICCI has come by bus. BRUNO notes the absence of the bike. Where is it? RICCI, walking off ahead of his son, will not explain or discuss the matter. Scene 12 Sending BRUNO home, RICCI goes to the Working Man’s Club, headquarters of the union. He is looking for a friend, a stout man who works as a city GARBAGE COLLECTOR who is also an activist in local labor movement politics. RICCI find him in the middle of rehearsals for some amateur theatricals, and once more has to wait before his friend is free to discuss his dilemma. When the GARBAGE COLLECTOR finishes a heated debate over some political issue, RICCI tells him the story of the theft. His friend, who seems to know something of the local underworld, promises to help. MARIA, coming to look for her husband, finds the two men. Hearing the news, she begins to cry. The GARBAGE COLLECTOR agrees to meet RICCI the next day.


Scene 13 Next morning, RICCI and the friend, accompanied by BRUNO, explore the openair marketplace from which the black marketeers and the thieves operate. There is a lively trade in dismantling, reassembling and repainting all kinds of bicycles. It seems to be a minor industry. At one point, RICCI finds a vendor repainting bicycle frame which he is certain is his own. Accusing the man, he insists on summoning a policeman. On inspection, however, the serial number on the frame proves RICCI in the wrong. Scene 14 Another marketplace. Now on their own, RICCI and BRUNO continue their hopeless searching. It begins to rain. The owners of the stalls close up their business and the marketplace empties. Suddenly, however, RICCI catches a glimpse of two figures. One of these he recognizes as the YOUNG THIEF, still mounted on the missing bicycle. RICCI runs towards them but once more the younger man is able to take off at high speed. With BRUNO, RICCI returns to capture the second figure, an OLD MAN who has also run off. Chasing him, they see him disappear into a church, a building adapted to a mission which offers free meals of bread and soup to those who attend the Mass. Scene 15 The Mass. Obviously trying to evade them, the OLD MAN joins the worshippers on the benches. RICCI sticks close to him, trying to get his help in identifying the man with the bicycle. Where does he live? How can he be found? Prevaricating, the OLD MAN tries to deny all knowledge of his companion. To the embarrassment of the assembly, RICCI creates a scene, threatening the OLD MAN. In the ensuing confusion, the OLD MAN escapes from them, leaving the church. Scene 16 Outside, RICCI and BRUNO can find no trace of him. BRUNO, frustrated at his father, makes a sarcastic comment, an implied criticism of his gullibility. Stung, RICCI slaps him. The son and the father confront each other. The son is unable to understand, the father is ashamed at himself but unable to apologize. As they continue their quest, both are angry and miserable. RICCI orders his son to wait for him on the bridge while he heads for the riverbank to look for the OLD MAN. After a little while, RICCI hears some shouting, an alarm because someone has fallen into the river. For an agonizing moment, RICCI fears that it could be Bruno. He is vastly relieved to discover the small boy still waiting for him.


Scene 17 In an effort to make amends, RICCI insists on taking BRUNO to a restaurant. This is obviously something that they can afford only on special occasions, and both are self-conscious in the presence of the other diners. The menu is, by RICCI’s standards, expensive. BRUNO is hungry but also in awe, very aware of another boy at a nearby table who is better dressed, obviously a child of wealthy parents. Scene 18 Later, as RICCI and BRUNO give up the search and start for home, RICCI passes the house of the FORTUNE TELLER. Depressed, he now makes BRUNO wait while he goes to visit the old woman. Can she give him any advice The FORTUNE TELLER is unhelpful. Her only prediction is that if he doesn’t find the bicycle today then it is lost forever. Scene 19 As RICCI and BRUNO make for home, RICCI catches a glimpse of a young man whom he thinks is the thief. The YOUNG THIEF, seeing Ricci, breaks into a run. Scene 20 Both RICCI and BRUNO pursue him into a house which proves to be a brothel. The MADAM and the girls are indignant at the disturbance, trying to defend the thief. But RICCI will not give him up, dragging the THIEF into the street. Scene 21 In the street, a crowd collects. Roughly handled by RICCI, the YOUNG THIEF collapses. He appears to have an epileptic fit, falling to the ground. The crowd becomes hostile, siding with the sick youth against RICCI. As the crowd corners his father against a wall, BRUNO runs for help, returning with a POLICEMAN who breaks up the mob. Scene 22 At RICCI’s insistence, the POLICEMAN accompanies RICCI, BRUNO and the YOUNG THIEF to the thief’s home. It is in a slum area. Scene 23 The THIEF’S MOTHER protests as their miserable little room is searched. There is evidence of other pilfered material, but no sign of the bicycle. Privately, the POLICEMAN expresses sympathy with RICCI but warns him that there is very little that can be done. He might as well give up. As RICCI and BRUNO leave the slum street, they are followed by an angry crowd.


Scene 24 RICCI and his son return to the downtown thoroughfare to catch their bus home. The streets are very crowded. People are attending a sports event at a big stadium. RICCI is depressed and bitter. He studies the hundreds of bicycles parked outside the stadium. He also notes a single, unattended bicycle that has been left in a side street. BRUNO is squatting on the curb, waiting for his father. To BRUNO’s surprise, his father gives him some money, telling him to make his own way home by bus. When the small boy hesitates, his father yells at him to hurry. BRUNO runs after the bus. Scene 25 Left alone, RICCI returns to the unattended bicycle. His intention is obvious. He will himself turn thief. Scene 26 Meanwhile, BRUNO fails to catch up with the bus. Just as RICCI finds courage to seize the bicycle, its OWNER appears, shouting, “Thief! Thief!” RICCI’s escape is obstructed by the large crowds spilling out of the stadium. Some of them join the BICYCLE OWNER in his attempt to catch RICCI. As RICCI turns into the main thoroughfare, BRUNO sees his father chased by the crowd. They overtake him, pull him off the bicycle and begin to assault him. BRUNO in tears, tries to intervene. The OWNER of the bicycle, having recovered his property, sees the small boy’s pitiful attempts on behalf of his father. Scathingly, the OWNER declares his contempt for a man who would let his own son be witness to such a situation, then tells the crows that he will not make any charge against RICCI. The crown let RICCI go. As RICCI is released, BRUNO walks beside his father. BRUNO is weeping. Falling into step beside RICCI, the small boy takes his father’s hand. RICCI is weeping now. The two continue walking. © The Estate of Alexander Mackendrick


Ibsen The Wild Duck Mackendrick used this extract – the opening of Ibsen’s 1884 play The Wild Duck – as an example of what he considered poor dramatic construction. As he writes in his book: “The Norwegian playwright Henrik Ibsen, according to many theater critics, was one of the great masters of dramatic construction of the nineteenth century. His play The Wild Duck opens with a scene of exposition not untypical of the way many plays of his era began, and is worth studying. It says something of the changes in theatrical fashion and the craft of writing for the stage that the scene – which involves a manservant and a couple of hired waiters in a study, behind the scenes at a dinner party – was obviously quite acceptable technique for exposition of that period. In fact, for many decades the typical opening of a play was an exchange between servants who exchanged gossip about their employers and, in the course of this, gave the audience necessary information about the background of the principal characters before they made their entrances. It has no doubt been a great loss to the novice playwright that dramas cannot be so easily set in the kind of household where the servants are available in supporting roles to perform this ever so useful narrative function. “With due respect to the great Ibsen, however, I suggest you study the scene as an example of very weak craftsmanship by today’s standards, and certainly by the standards of the very best contemporary screenwriting. The reason is simple: the two primary characters who appear in this opening scene are not important characters. In fact, they never again appear in the play and have been devised for no other purpose than to provide background to the story and characters we have yet to see. Though they may be said to be foils, they are utterly uninteresting since neither has any real relationship with the main action of the plot or any relationship with the main characters that is particularly revealing. And even in this exchange, one that takes place between two figures who are essentially irrelevant to the subsequent drama, there is very little tension or conflict. Nothing is at stake and nothing really happens. There is no conflict, even at a minor level. The probable result is that the audience is likely to remember very little about what the characters are saying. It’s just all talk.”

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PETTERSEN: You hear that, Jensen? Now the old man’s at it, proposing a toast to Mrs Soerby. JENSEN (moves an armchair forward): Is it true what they say, that there’s something between them? PETTERSEN: I wouldn’t know. JENSEN: They say he’s been a regular old billy-goat in his time. PETTERSEN: Could be. JENSEN: Did you say he’s giving this party for his son? PETTERSEN: Yes. He came home yesterday. JENSEN: I never knew old Werle had a son.

PETTERSEN: Oh yes, he’s got a son. The boy spends all his time up at the Sawmill, though, out at Hoydal. He’s never set foot in town all the years I’ve worked in this house. HIRED WAITER (in the doorway to the large room): Pettersen, there’s an old fellow here who wants to – PETTERSEN (beneath his breath): What the devil? – Oh, not now! Old Ekdal enters from the large room, right. He is wearing a threadbare coat with a high collar, and woollen gloves, and carries a stick and a fur hat in his hand and a brown paper parcel under his arm. He has a dirty, reddish-brown wig and small grey moustache. PETTERSEN (goes towards him): Oh, Jesus! What do you want here? EKDAL (in the doorway): Got to get into the office, Pettersen. It’s very important. PETTERSEN: The office has been shut for an hour – EKDAL: They told me that downstairs, my boy. But Grasberg’s still in there. Be a good lad, Pettersen, and let me nip in this way. (Points at the concealed door.) I’ve been this way before. PETTERSEN: Oh, all right. (Opens the door.) But make sure you leave by the proper way. We’ve got company. EKDAL: Yes, I know that – hm! Thanks, Pettersen, my boy, You’re a good pal. (Mutters quietly.) Damn fool! He goes into the office, Pettersen shuts the door after him. JENSEN: Does he work in the office, too? PETTERSEN: No, he just takes stuff home to copy, when they’ve more than they can manage. Mind you, he’s been quite a gentleman in his time, has old Ekdal. JENSEN: Yes, he looked as if he might have been around a bit. PETTERSEN: Oh, yes. He was a lieutenant. JENSEN: What – him a lieutenant? PETTERSEN: That’s right. But then he went into timber or something of that sort. They say he did the dirty in old Werle once. The two of them used to work together at Hoydal. Oh, I know old Ekdal well. We often have a nip and a bottle of beer together down at Madam Eriksen’s. JENSEN: But he can’t have much to spend, surely? PETTERSEN: I’m the one who does the spending. The way I look at it is, it’s only right to lend a helping hand to gentry who’ve come down in the world. JENSEN: What, did he go bankrupt? PETTERSEN: Worse. He went to prison. JENSEN: Went to prison! PETTERSEN: Ssh, they’re getting up now.


Alexander Mackendrick Slogans for the Screenwriter’s Wall Movies SHOW… and then TELL. A true movie is likely to be 60% to 80% comprehensible if the dialogue is in a foreign language. PROPS are the director's key to the design of 'incidental business': unspoken suggestions for behavior that can prevent 'Theatricality.' A character in isolation is hard to make dramatic. Drama usually involves CONFLICT. If the conflict is internal, then the dramatist needs to personify it through the clash with other individuals. Self pity in a character does not evoke sympathy. BEWARE OF SYMPATHY between characters. That is the END of drama. BEWARE OF FLASHBACKS, DREAM SEQUENCES and VISIONS. In narrative/dramatic material these tend to weaken the dramatic tension. They are more suited to 'lyric' material. Screenplays are not written, they are RE-WRITTEN and RE-WRITTEN and RE-WRITTEN. Screenplays come in three sizes: LONG, TOO LONG and MUCH TOO LONG. Student films come in three sizes: TOO LONG, MUCH TOO LONG and VERY MUCH TOO LONG. If it can be cut out, then CUT IT OUT. Everything non-essential that you can eliminate strengthens what's left. Exposition is BORING unless it is in the context of some present dramatic tension or crisis. So start with an action that creates tension, then provide the exposition in terms of the present developments. The start of your story is usually the consequence of some BACKSTORY, i.e. the impetus for progression in your narrative is likely to be rooted in previous events often rehearsals of what will happen in your plot.


Coincidence may mean exposition is in the wrong place, i.e. if you establish the too-convenient circumstances before they become dramatically necessary, then we feel no sense of coincidence. Use coincidence to get characters into trouble, not out of trouble. PASSIVITY is a capital crime in drama. A character who is dramatically interesting is intelligent enough to THINK AHEAD. He or she has not only thought out present intentions, but has foreseen reactions and possible obstacles. Intelligent characters anticipate and have counter moves prepared. NARRATIVE DRIVE: the end of a scene should include a clear pointer as to what the next scene is going to be. Ambiguity does not mean lack of clarity. Ambiguity may be intriguing when it consists of alternative meanings, each of them clear. 'Comedy is hard' (last words of Edmund Kean). Comedy plays best in the mastershot. Comic structure is simply dramatic structure but MORE SO: neater, shorter, faster. Don't attempt comedy until you are really expert in structuring dramatic material. The role of the ANTAGONIST may have more to do with the structure of the plot than the character of the PROTAGONIST. When you are stuck for a third act, think through your situations from the point of view of whichever characters OPPOSE the protagonist's will. PROTAGONIST: the central figure in the story, the character 'through whose eyes' we see the events. ANTAGONIST: the character or group of figures who represent opposition to the goals of the protagonist. DRAMATIC IRONY - a situation where one or more of the characters on the screen is ignorant of the circumstances known to us in the audience. If you've got a Beginning, but you don't yet have an end, then you're mistaken. You don't have the right Beginning. In movies, what is SAID may make little impression - unless it comes as a comment or explanation of what we have seen happening.


What is happening NOW is apt to be less dramatically interesting than what may or may not HAPPEN NEXT. What happens just before the END of your story defines the CENTRAL THEME, the SPINE of the plot, the POINT OF VIEW and the best POINT OF ATTACK. Make sure you're chosen the correct point of attack. Common flaw: tension begins to grip too late. Perhaps the story has to start at a later point and earlier action should be 'fed in' during later sequences. What happens at the end may often be both a surprise to the audience and the author, and at the same time, in retrospect, absolutely inevitable. Character progression: when you've thought out what kind of character your protagonist will be at the end, start him or her as the opposite kind of person at the Beginning, e.g. Oedipus who starts out arrogant and ends up humiliated, Hamlet who is indecisive at the start and ends up heroic. ACTION speaks louder than words. Most stories with a strong plot are built on the tension of CAUSE AND EFFECT. Each incident is like a domino that topples forward to collide with the next in a sequence which holds the audience in a grip of anticipation. 'So, what happens next?' Each scene presents a small crisis that as it is revolved produces a new uncertainty. DRAMA IS EXPECTATION MINGLED WITH UNCERTAINTY. A SHOOTING SCRIPT IS NOT A SCREENPLAY. The beginning screenwriter should be discouraged from trying to invent stories in screenplay format. A FOIL CHARACTER is a figure invented to ask the questions to which the audience wants answers (asking the question may be more important than getting the answer.) NEGATIVE ACTION (something not happening) needs to be dramatised in positive action terms. You show something starting to happen which then is stopped. TWO ELEMENTS OF SUSPENSE ARE HALF AS SUSPENSEFUL AS ONE. Aristotle's principle of unity means that one dramatic tension should dominate. All others are subordinate to it.


CONFRONTATION SCENE is the obligatory scene that the audience feels it has been promised and the absence of which may reasonably be disappointing. What you leave out is as important as what you leave in. Screenplays are STRUCTURE, STRUCTURE, STRUCTURE. Never cast for physical attributes. Every character is important.

© The Estate of Alexander Mackendrick


Once Upon a Time In every scene of your script, you should know precisely what your characters are doing, what they want from everyone around them, what their ultimate goals are, what the obstacles are to those goals, and how the character is ultimately to overcome or be defeated by those goals (i.e. how the story will end). Mackendrick used this handout as a way to steer students back on target if they were unable to provide instant answers to these basic questions.

‘Once Upon a Time…’ The genre (e.g. a Western, spy thriller, historical epic, ghost story). The place and time period, the closed world of the story, the social and/or ideological values in the subject, the conventions belonging to the often imaginary setting. ‘There lived a…’ The protagonist. The central figure in the story, the character through whose eyes we see the events. Sometimes, but not necessarily, the hero. Implied in the choice of the protagonist is often the point of view that the dramatist wants us to take. ‘…who…’ The action of the protagonist. We use the word action in the sense of what the character wants and does, the will or purpose of the character. ‘But…’ The obstacle, whatever or whoever stands in opposition to the action, the goals of the protagonist. This is often personified in the role of the antagonist (villain). In contemporary drama it is a character (or group of figures) who represents opposition to the goals of the protagonist. Note that if there is to be dramatic tension, a passive or weak protagonist is apt to call for a strong antagonist. ‘So One Day it Happened That…’ The ‘Point of Attack’ (the initiating incident or the premise). This is the moment at which the action starts. In nineteenth century plays it was common that the dramatic tension didn’t really start to grip until somewhere near the end of the first act, and all that went before was exposition (establishing the backstory). But in tightly-knit contemporary story structures it is often preferable to begin the story with some dramatic event and only then retrace its origins through exposition, since exposition is more dramatic as soon as there is something at stake. ‘So then, as a result of which…’ Narrative progression. Most stories that have a strong plot are built on the tension of cause-and-effect. Each incident is like a domino that topples forwards to collide with the next in a sequence that holds the audience in the grip of anticipation. The pattern is likely to be that each scene presents a small crisis that, as it is resolved,


produces a new uncertainty (defined in the classic term ‘expectation mingled with uncertainty,’ almost a definition of drama in itself). ‘But meanwhile…’ Simultaneous development: subplot. The tumbling domino can set off a second trail of collisions. Some complication in the plot. ‘So that Unbeknownst to…’ Dramatic irony, a common and indeed almost essential ingredient in strong story structure. ‘Until the time came that…’ A confrontation scene. There may be several such scenes throughout a suspenseful story, but in stories that provide the simple but intricate satisfactions that popular audiences desire, dramatic structure is often a graph of rising and falling tensions. The progressive high points are the crises, separated by relaxations of tension. Early scenes, often after the initial hook of the premise, are generally less suspenseful than later ones. Conflict or tension starts off as not being so strong, but progressively the oscillations on the graph grow more extreme with the big showdowns usually taking place near the end. Note that a story can become quickly monotonous if tension is constant. During relaxation in tension the basic suspense is still present – latent but still present. The return to the central plot inevitably gains an additional impact because of a temporary respite (the example often quoted from Shakespeare is the farcical interlude in Macbeth with the porter that follows the murder of Duncan and precedes the discovery of the crime). ‘When suddenly – to the surprise of…’ A peripety, the Greek term for a turn of the wheel, used by Aristotle to describe the unexpected shift in relationships, often a form of role reversal that produces a resolution of the drama. It is likely to require a strong element of dramatic irony ‘So it turned out that…’ The resolution, the denouement, literally the unknotting of all of the tensions in the story. ‘And forever after…’ Closure, the sense of having come full circle. It need not, obviously, be in the form of a happy ending, but it should provide some level of satisfaction. Classically, the end may be surprising, though in retrospect, it is recognised to be inevitable (it is what ‘had to happen’). © The Estate of Alexander Mackendrick


T.E.B. Clarke T.E.B. Clarke (1907-1989) was one of Ealing Studio’s foremost screenwriters. His original scripts include Passport to Pimlico (1949) and The Lavender Hill Mob (1951), for which he won an Academy Award.

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As soon as I knew I was to be a screenwriter, I had bought all the books I could find about my new craft. Some of them included passages from scripts of wellknown films, and reading these I was dismayed by my lack of technical knowledge. How, with only three months in which to prove myself, could I hope to learn when a long shot should be cut to a medium shot, camera panning with one character and another moving into close shot? I told Robert [Hamer] of my misgivings. He laughed them away. “Each of those excerpts came from a post-production script,” he explained. “What you read was a record of how a particular scene had actually been shot. I doubt if the original writer gave a thought to camera angles or moving the actors about the set. If he did, you can be sure the director won’t have taken the slightest notice of his efforts.” After that I made no further attempts to master the technicalities of bringing a screenplay to life – and, indeed, I never met a director who expected the writer of his script to tell him how a scene should be shot; that was always for the director himself to work out, with perhaps his cameraman putting in a few late suggestions. From This is where I came in (1974) by T.E.B. Clarke (pp.142 – 3) © Original copyright holders


Max Ophüls Ophüls was an influential German-born director who worked in both France and Hollywood. His films include Letter from an Unknown Woman (1948), Caught (1949), La Ronde (1950) and Madame de… (1953). Below Ophüls writes about shooting scripts, and his ideas seem similar to Mackendrick’s. His example below about the script of the King reading Hamlet corresponds with Mackendrck’s fundamental idea that a shooting script is not a screenplay. Ophüls seems to be suggesting that perhaps the basic story beat is wrong, that the King should not be reading Hamlet at all. But such a fundamental mistake has been obscured by the technical jargon of the shooting script. As Mackendrick often told students, “a screenplay and a shooting script are categorically different.” Ophüls, who wanted to avoid technical specificity, would have agreed. In an interview, Ophüls’ long-time secretary explained that he would write a rough sketch before attempting a shooting script: “This document, which could reach up to thirty pages, then served as a basis for the work on the adaptation.” (Quotes from Lutz Bacher, The Mobile Mise en Scene, pp.120 – 2.)

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A love poem is what it is it. A novel has its fully realized life. A play can be here tomorrow as it is written in the text, one only has to interpret it. But a shooting script attempts to fix from the outset what is not yet complete, a universe of anticipations; anticipations of images, movements, word, performance, sound, rhythm and image succession. They live for the time being only as something irrevocable and absolute in the brain and heart of a filmmaker. Joyful, painful and obstinate. But he can only really show and embody them when they have become a strip of film. For weeks and months he carries the vision which he has imaged and worked out for himself through offices and typewriters into the nerves of his actors, forces them through editing tables and laboratories into the cinema on the evening of the premiere. Up to that moment, the shooting script seems to me to be only a full score for his fantasy. On each page and after each shot number he attempts with trepidation to pass it on in the form of instructions to those who are to help him translate it into celluloid. The shooting script seeks to be firmly, but unobtrusively, a performance and imagination recipe for the actor, the sound engineer, the operator, the set designer, the costume designer, the editor, the composer, a time-table for the director of photography and the assistant directors, and furthermore a memory skeleton for the director, so that he knows how he meant it to be once, what occurred to him once, before the merciless spotlights of the industry demanded technical specificity for the execution from him. “Where is my script?” he demands nervously. Excited echoes resound through the turmoil of the studio. “Perhaps it’s better if you’ve lost it,” my wife offered once on the phone, “for either it’s in your head or you might as well think up something else.”


Since that time one always finds in my films certain moments which appear spontaneous. It really is that way: the shooting script must exist in order to be overcome. *

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The shooting script must beware that this imagination does not get lost in explanations and technical definitions. For example: the King, at home with his mistress, is lying on the floor. It is evening, and he is reading Hamlet. The standard professional shooting script for this looks like this: ‘Fade-in.’ Then, in the center of the page, capital letters, ‘Small palace.’ Line underneath, capital letters: ‘Boudoir. Towards evening. Winter.’ Right side: ‘Distant music, leitmotiv.’ Left side: ‘Shot 231-32. Medium shot, descending, small crane, slow tracking.’ Under the window (moonlight from the outside, snow on the roofs of opposite houses) among the confusion of the boudoir (half-cleared tea table, King’s coat over a chair, etc.) lies the King (reflected light from the fireplace): ‘Shot 233. Close-up, the book. Shot 234: Close-up, title page Hamlet.’ This is all precise and technically irreproachable. Only – because of the great effort required to make it so minutely precise – one really does not know anymore whether it is appropriate that the King should be reading Hamlet. Perhaps he should he reading something entirely different, or perhaps he should not be reading at all. © Original copyright holders


Homer The Iliad As you read this extract from Homer, written several thousand of years before the motion picture camera was invented, think about how to use the stylistic choices Homer has made here as you write your scripts. Many of the dramatic moments below immediately (and probably unconsciously) summon up specific shots in our minds. This is precisely what you need to be able to do when writing your screenplays. Rather than detailing specific shots (e.g. ‘Close-up on Hector’s wife’), much more subtle and effective methods are possible. Describing the headband of Hector’s wife would almost certainly not be a long-shot in a film version of the scene, just as Homer’s description of the room “inside their lofty home” is almost certainly not a close-up.

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But so far Hector’s wife knew nothing of all this, for no messenger had come to tell her clearly that her husband had remained outside the gates. She was in a room inside their lofty home, weaving purple fabric for a double cloak, embroidering flowers on it. She’d told her well-groomed servants in the house to place a large tripod on the fire, so Hector could have a hot bath when he came home from battle. Poor fool! She’d no idea that a long way from that bath, Athena with the glittering eyes had killed Hector at Achilles’ hands. Then she heard the wailing, laments coming from the walls. Her limbs began to shake. The shuttle fell out of her hands onto the floor. She spoke out once more to her well-groomed housemaids. “Come here you two and follow me. Let’s see what’s happened. For I’ve just caught the sound of my husband’s noble mother’s voice. In my chest, my heart leapt in my mouth, my lower limbs are numb. Something disastrous has taken place to Priam’s children. I hope reports like these never reach my ears, but I’m dreadfully afraid that godlike Achilles may have cut off my bold Hector from the city, driving him into the plain all by himself, then ended that fearful courage which possessed him. He’s never one to hold back or remain within the crowd of men – he always moves ahead, well in front, second to none in fury.”


Saying this, she hurried through the house, heart pounding, like some mad woman, accompanied by servants. Once she reached the wall crowded with men, she stopped, stood there, and looked out from the wall. She saw Hector as he was being dragged past before the city, with swift horses pulling him ruthlessly away to the Achaeans’ hollow ships. At the sight, black night eclipsed her eyes. She fell back in a faint, gasping her life away. From her head she threw off her shining headdress – frontlet, cap, woven headband, the veil that golden Aphrodite gave her when Hector of the shining helmet led her from Eëtion’s house as his wife, once he’d paid an immense price for his bride. Around her stood her husband’s sisters and his brother’s wives. They all helped pick her up, almost dead from shock. When she’d recovered and her spirit had returned, she started her lament.


Dan Brown The Da Vinci Code

Prologue Louvre Museum, Paris 10:46 P.M. Renowned curator Jacques Saunière staggered through the vaulted archway of the museum’s Grand Gallery. He lunged for the nearest painting he could see, a Carravaggio. Grabbing the gilded frame, the seventy-three-year-old man heaved the masterpiece toward himself until it tore from the wall and Saunière collapsed backward in a heap beneath the canvas. As he anticipated, a thundering iron gate fell nearby, barricading the entrance to the suite. The parquet floor shook. Far off, an alarm began to ring. The curator lay a moment, gasping for breath, taking stock. I am still alive. He crawled out from under the canvas and scanned the cavernous space for someplace to hide. A voice spoke, chillingly close. “Do not move.” On his hands and knees, the curator froze, turning his head slowly. Only fifteen feet away, outside the sealed gate, the mountainous silhouette of his attacker stared through the iron bars. He was broad and tall, with ghost-pale skin and thinning white hair. His irises were pink with dark red pupils. The albino drew a pistol from his coat and aimed the long silencer through the bars, directly at the curator. “You should not have run.” His accent was not easy to place. “Now tell me where it is.” “I told you already,” the curator stammered, kneeling defenseless on the floor of the gallery. “I have no idea what you are talking about!” “You are lying.” The man stared at him, perfectly immobile except for the glint in his ghostly eyes. “You and your brethren possess something that is not yours.” The curator felt a surge of adrenalin. How could he possibly know this?


“Tonight the rightful guardians will be restored. Tell me where it is hidden, and you will live.” The man leveled his gun at the curator's head. “Is it a secret you will die for?” Saunière could not breathe. The man tilted his head and closed one eye, peering down the barrel of his gun. Saunière held up his hands in defense. “Wait,” he said slowly. “I will tell you what you need to know.” The curator spoke his next words carefully. The lie he told was one he had rehearsed many times… each time praying he would never have to use it. When the curator had finished speaking, his assailant smiled smugly. “Yes. This is exactly what the others told me.” Saunière recoiled. The others? *

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Chapter One Robert Langdon awoke slowly. A telephone was ringing in the darkness – a tinny, unfamiliar ring. He fumbled for the bedside lamp and turned it on. Squinting at his surroundings he saw a plush Renaissance bedroom with Louis XVI furniture, hand-frescoed walls, and a colossal mahogany four-poster bed. Where the hell am I? The jacquard bathrobe hanging on his bedpost bore the monogram: Hotel Ritz Paris. Slowly, the fog began to lift. Langdon picked up the receiver. “Hello?” “Monsieur Langdon?” a man’s voice said. “I hope I have not awoken you?” Dazed, Langdon looked at the bedside clock. It was 12:32 A.M. He had been asleep only an hour, but he felt like the dead.


“This is the concierge, monsieur. I apologize for this intrusion, but you have a visitor. He insists it is urgent.” Langdon still felt fuzzy. A visitor? His eyes focused now on a crumpled flyer on his bedside table. The American University of Paris proudly presents an evening with Robert Langdon Professor of Religious Symbology, Harvard University Langdon groaned. Tonight’s lecture – a slide show about pagan symbolism hidden in the stones of Chartres Cathedral – had probably ruffled some conservative feathers in the audience. Most likely, some religious scholar had trailed him home to pick a fight. ‘I’m sorry,” Langdon said, “but I’m very tired and – “ “Mais monsieur,” the concierge pressed, lowering his voice to an urgent whisper. “Your guest is an important man.” © Original copyright holders


Charles Dickens Oliver Twist

Chapter XXI The Expedition It was a cheerless morning when they got into the street; blowing and raining hard; and the clouds looking dull and stormy. The night had been very wet: large pools of water had collected in the road: and the kennels were overflowing. There was a faint glimmering of the coming day in the sky; but it rather aggravated than relieved the gloom of the scene: the sombre light only serving to pale that which the street lamps afforded, without shedding any warmer or brighter tints upon the wet housetops, and dreary streets. There appeared to be nobody stirring in that quarter of the town; the windows of the houses were all closely shut; and the streets through which they passed, were noiseless and empty. By the time they had turned into the Bethnal Green Road, the day had fairly begun to break. Many of the lamps were already extinguished; a few country waggons were slowly toiling on, towards London; now and then, a stage-coach, covered with mud, rattled briskly by: the driver bestowing, as he passed, an admonitory lash upon the heavy waggoner who, by keeping on the wrong side of the road, had endangered his arriving at the office a quarter of a minute after his time. The public-houses, with gas-lights burning inside, were already open. By degrees, other shops began to be unclosed, and a few scattered people were met with. Then, came straggling groups of labourers going to their work; then, men and women with fish-baskets on their heads; donkey-carts laden with vegetables; chaise-carts filled with live-stock or whole carcasses of meat; milk-women with pails; an unbroken concourse of people, trudging out with various supplies to the eastern suburbs of the town. As they approached the City, the noise and traffic gradually increased; when they threaded the streets between Shoreditch and Smithfield, it had swelled into a roar of sound and bustle. It was as light as it was likely to be, till night came on again, and the busy morning of half the London population had begun. Turning down Sun Street and Crown Street, and crossing Finsbury Square, Mr. Sikes struck, by way of Chiswell Street, into Barbican: thence into Long Lane, and so into Smithfield; from which latter place arose a tumult of discordant sounds that filled Oliver Twist with amazement.


It was market-morning. The ground was covered, nearly ankle-deep, with filth and mire; a thick steam, perpetually rising from the reeking bodies of the cattle, and mingling with the fog, which seemed to rest upon the chimney-tops, hung heavily above. All the pens in the centre of the large area, and as many temporary pens as could be crowded into the vacant space, were filled with sheep; tied up to posts by the gutter side were long lines of beasts and oxen, three or four deep. Countrymen, butchers, drovers, hawkers, boys, thieves, idlers, and vagabonds of every low grade, were mingled together in a mass; the whistling of drovers, the barking of dogs, the bellowing and plunging of oxen, the bleating of sheep, the grunting and squeaking of pigs, the cries of hawkers, the shouts, oaths, and quarrelling on all sides; the ringing of bells and roar of voices, that issued from every public-house; the crowding, pushing, driving, beating, whooping, and yelling; the hideous and discordant din that resounded from every corner of the market; and the unwashed, unshaven, squalid, and dirty figures constantly running to and fro, and bursting in and out of the throng; rendered it a stunning and bewildering scene, which quite confounded the senses. Mr. Sikes, dragging Oliver after him, elbowed his way through the thickest of the crowd, and bestowed very little attention on the numerous sights and sounds, which so astonished the boy. He nodded, twice or thrice, to a passing friend; and, resisting as many invitations to take a morning dram, pressed steadily onward, until they were clear of the turmoil, and had made their way through Hosier Lane into Holborn. “Now, young un!” said Sikes, looking up at the clock of St. Andrew's Church, “Hard upon seven! You must step out. Come, don’t lag behind already, Lazylegs!” Mr. Sikes accompanied this speech with a jerk at his little companion’s wrist; Oliver, quickening his pace into a kind of trot, between a fast walk and a run, kept up with the rapid strides of the housebreaker as well as he could.


Below are paragraphs from Eisenstein’s book Film Form. He has broken down Dickens’ text in the same way you might read the Homer and Dan Brown extracts above, and shows how each sentence or phrase might represent a shot in the completed film.

How many such “cinematic” surprises must be hiding in Dickens's pages! However, let us turn to the basic montage structure, whose rudiment in Dickens’s work was developed into the elements of film composition in Griffith’s work. Lifting a corner of the veil over these riches, these hitherto unused experiences, let us look into Oliver Twist. Open it at the twenty-first chapter. Let’s read its beginning Chapter XXI (For demonstration purposes I have broken this beginning of the chapter into smaller pieces than did its author; the numbering is, of course, also mine.) 1. It was a cheerless morning when they got into the street; blowing and raining hard; and the clouds looking dull and stormy. The night had been very wet: for large pools of water had collected in the road: and the kennels were overflowing. There was a faint glimmering of the coming day in the sky; but it rather aggravated than relieved the gloom of the scene: the sombre light only serving to pale that which the street lamps afforded, without shedding any warmer or brighter tints upon the wet housetops, and dreary streets. There appeared to be nobody stirring in that quarter of the town; for the windows of the houses were all closely shut; and the streets through which they passed, were noiseless and empty. 2. By the time they had turned into the Bethnal Green Road, the day had fairly begun to break. Many of the lamps were already extinguished; a few country waggons were slowly toiling on, towards London; and now and then, a stage-coach, covered with mud, rattled briskly by: the driver bestowing, as he passed, an admonitory lash upon the heavy waggoner who, by keeping on the wrong side of the road, had endangered his arriving at the office, a quarter of a minute after his time. The public-houses, with gas-lights burning inside, were already open. By degrees, other shops began to be unclosed; and a few scattered people were met with. Then, came straggling groups of labourers going to their work; then, men and women with fish-baskets on their heads: donkey-carts laden with vegetables; chaise-carts filled with live-stock or whole carcasses of meat; milk-women with pails; and an unbroken concourse of people, trudging out with various supplies to the eastern suburbs of the town.


3. As they approached the City, the noise and traffic gradually increased; and when they threaded the streets between Shoreditch and Smithfield, it had swelled into a roar of sound and bustle. It was as light as it was likely to be, till night came on again; and the busy morning of half the London population had begun… 4. It was market-morning. The ground was covered, nearly ankle-deep, with filth and mire; and a thick steam, perpetually rising from the reeking bodies of the cattle, and mingling with the fog, which seemed to rest upon the chimney-tops, hung heavily above… Countrymen, butchers, drovers, hawkers, boys, thieves, idlers, and vagabonds of every low grade, were mingled together in a dense mass; 5. the whistling of drovers, the barking of dogs, the bellowing and plunging of oxen, the bleating of sheep, the grunting and squeaking of pigs; the cries of hawkers, the shouts, oaths and quarrelling on all sides; the ringing of bells and roar of voices, that issued from every public-house; the crowding, pushing, driving, beating, whooping and yelling; the hideous and discordant din that resounded from every corner of the market; and the unwashed, unshaven, squalid, and dirty figures constantly running to and fro, and bursting in and out of the throng; rendered it a stunning and bewildering scene, which quite confounded the senses. © Original copyright holders


Aguirre, the Wrath of God Written by Werner Herzog Night camp by the river Several fires are burning and along the edge of the jungle, armed guards are watching. They have positioned themselves in pairs. Around the fires, the evening meal is almost over. Some of the Spaniards are baking a few milky translucent turtle eggs, which are covered with a soft skin, in the faint, glimmering ashes. Subdued conversation, the men lying leisurely and expectantly, trying to protect themselves from the mosquitoes. Aguirre walks calmly between the fires, talking quietly to individual groups of Spaniards. Bermudez, Perucho, and Fuenterrabia are whispering to each other. It looks as if something has been planned for the coming day. Juan de Arnalte is sitting by the sedan with Flores, whispering to her of his mountains at home and of his brothers and the waterfall behind his house. He seems to be homesick, and Flores is aware of this, listening to him patiently and with great interest. Aguirre disturbs the two. He sends Arnalte away, he should go and sleep, for at midnight he will have to watch. This New Year's Day was the beginning of significant events, this will be a meaningful year, all of them will alter the course of history. When Aguirre is alone with Flores, he tells her to inform Inez that he, Aguirre, will not do her any harm, on the contrary, he would treat her as a lady of honor. She was compelled only by the course of events to follow the expedition further, even if this did not agree with her wishes. © Original copyright holders


Persona Written by Ingmar Bergman I have not produced a film script in the normal sense. What I have written seems more like the melody line of a piece of music, which I hope with the help of my colleagues to be able to orchestrate during production. On many points I am uncertain and at one point at least I know nothing at all. I discovered that the subject I had chosen was very large and that what I wrote or included in the final film (horrid thought) was bound to be entirely arbitrary. I therefore invite the imagination of the reader or spectator to dispose freely of the material that I have made available. *

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– Good morning, Mrs Vogler. I’m Sister Alma and I’ve been employed to look after you for a while. Mrs Vogler watches her attentively. – If you like, I’ll tell you a bit about myself. I took my nursing certificate two years ago. I’m twenty-five years old and engaged. My parents have a farm in the country. My mother was also a nurse before she got married. Mrs Vogler listens. – Now I’ll go and get your dinner tray. Fried liver and fruit salad. I thought it looked quite nice. Mrs Vogler smiles. – I’ll just raise your pillows a little, so that you’ll be comfortable. 3 – Well Sister, what do you think? – I don’t know, Doctor. It’s difficult to say. I was looking at her eyes the whole time. First you think her face is so soft, almost childish, but then you look at her eyes and that's different. I don’t know how to put it. She looks at you so severely,


in a way. I wondered for a moment whether she didn’t like me talking to her. Not that she seemed impatient at all. No, I don’t know. Perhaps I should… – Say what you were thinking, Sister. – For a moment I thought I ought to refuse the job. 4 Sister Alma has given Mrs Vogler her injection and helps arrange her pillows, puts out the bedside lamp, goes over to the window and pulls back the curtains. It is dusk, but the sky shines out over the heavy autumn tree-tops. Just above the cross on the window is a little reddish sickle of moon. – I thought, Mrs Vogler, that you might like to lie and look at the twilight. I can pull the curtains a bit later on. Shall I turn the radio on for a bit, quietly? I think there’s a play of some kind. Sister Alma moves quickly, almost soundlessly, through the room, but she feels that Mrs Vogler is watching her the whole time. From the radio we hear an indescribable female voice. – Forgive me, forgive me darling, you have to forgive me. All I want is your forgiveness. Forgive me so that I can breathe again – and live again. The actress’s diction is interrupted by Mrs Vogler’s laugh, which is warm and hearty. She laughs until the tears come to her eyes. Then she grows quiet, in order to listen. The female voice continues indefatigably. – What do you know of mercy, what do you know of a mother’s suffering, the bleeding pain of a woman? Mrs Vogler bursts out in another, equally cheerful, laugh. She raises her arm and takes Alma’s hand, pulls her down by the bedside, fumbles with the volume control on the radio and the female voice swells to supernatural proportions. – Oh God, God, somewhere out there in the darkness that surrounds us all. Look in mercy upon me. Thou who art love. Sister Alma, in terror, turns off the radio and the steaming female voice. She looks with an uncertain smile at Mrs Vogler, whose forehead is wrinkled with quiet laughter. Mrs Vogler slowly shakes her head and placidly regards Sister Alma.


– No, Mrs Vogler, that sort of thing’s beyond me. I like going to the theatre and cinema, but unfortunately I don’t get round to it very often. I’m usually too tired by the evening. Though I do have a tremendous admiration for artists and I think art is tremendously important in life – particularly for people who are in some kind of difficulty. This last, Sister Alma says with some embarrassment. Mrs Vogler looks at her with attentive dark eyes. – I don’t think I’d better talk about these things when you’re listening, Mrs Vogler. I’ll be getting into deep waters. Shall I turn the radio on again? No? There might be some music. No music? Well good night, Mrs Vogler. Sleep well. She releases the large, slightly moist hand with the high blue veins – a heavy, beautiful hand that seems older than the still young face. Then she leaves the room, we hear the two doors snap shut, the inner and the outer. We hear her say something in the corridor. Finally, everything is quiet. Elisabeth Vogler presses her head back against the hard pillow. Her injection is beginning to afford her a dozy sense of well-being. She listens in the silence to her own breathing and finds it alien but agreeable company. Tears well up in her eyes and run slowly to the sides over her temples down into the disarranged waves of hair. Her mouth is large, soft, half open. It is growing dark. Trees dissolve and vanish as the sky darkens. She hears remote, deep voices moving against her own calm respiration. Meaningless words, fragments of sentences, syllables, mixed together or dropping at even intervals. Her eyes are still filled with tears.



Sunrise Written by Carl Mayer





The Ladykillers Written by Bill Rose










The Man in the White Suit Written by Roger MacDougall, John Dighton and Alexander Mackendrick




Mandy Written by Nigel Balchin G.6

INT. CLASSROOM. DAY A CLOSE SHOT of MANDY. She looks more confident, watching with interest a rather odd procedure. Overscene we hear a teacher who is talking to LEONIE. MISS STOCKTON’S VOICE Once again, Leonie. With more voice. Feel your voice.

G.7

MISS STOCKTON. LEONIE AND MANDY MANDY in background. In foreground, MISS STOCKTON is sitting with Leonie astride her knees. Between them she holds up the back of her hand on which there is a feather. LEONIE makes a small explosive noise, “Puh” which blows off the feather. It’s more wind than noise. MISS STOCKTON taps her on the breast bone. MISS STOCKTON More voice. LEONIE (a little better) Puh! Puh! MISS STOCKTON (putting her down) Good girl. It’s coming. Mandy. It’s your turn.

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MANDY LEONIE is set down into shot beside her. MANDY glances at her friend before accepting the invitation with some reluctance. CAMERA PULLS BACK with her as she lets herself be lifted up on to Miss Stockton’s lap. LEONIE now watches. MISS STOCKTON Ups-a-daisy. Now. Like this! Puh! MISS STOCKTON demonstrates. MANDY cautiously mimics her. But she makes no sound. The lip movement is there. And the puff of breath that blows the feather. But no sound.


MISS STOCKTON No, Mandy. Feel my voice. Like this. She takes Mandy’s small hand and holds it flat to her chest while she demonstrates. G.9

C.U. HANDS A detail of Mandy’s small hand pressed against the teacher’s chest. MISS STOCKTON (overscene) Puh! (Note: the sound quality here should be filtered with a ‘buzz’ of slight reverberation.) CAMERA PULLS BACK as MISS STOCKTON moves Mandy’s hand and holds it flat against the child’s own chest. MISS STOCKTON Try. MANDY repeats the puff. Without sound. She doesn’t know what sound is. Patiently MISS STOCKTON pockets the feather and reaches to pick up a large, inflated balloon. Holding the child’s fingers to its stretched surface, she leans close to it and makes a ‘babbling’ noise. MISS STOCKTON Try the balloon, then, Mandy. Ba… ba… ba… ba… ba… Do you feel it? MANDY mimics the teacher’s lip movements, still without a sound. MISS STOCKTON No, Mandy. Like this… BA… BA… BA…BA…

G.10 C.S. LEONIE She watches hopefully.


G.11 C.S. MANDY CAMERA IS MOVING CLOSER on her. Overscene we hear Miss Stockton’s voice, firmly insistent. MISS STOCKTON Try it, Mandy. Try hard. BA... BA… BA… BA… But as CAMERA REACHES a BIG HEAD OF MANDY, the sound fades out as it has done before. In silence we see Mandy’s face grow unhappy. She knows she is failing in something that is very important. G.12 B.C.U. MISS STOCKTON Her mouth ‘babbles’ in silence. CAMERA MOVES CLOSER to the lips alone. The lens is very wide angle, giving the picture an ugly distortion. G.13 B.C.U. MANDY Eyes full of tears. She struggles to get away, Miss Stockton’s hand reaches out to detain her. MANDY strikes it. All in silence. G.14 C.S. MANDY On the table are some cups. MANDY runs into shot, fighting off the advancing teacher. We see that she is shrieking hysterically. But we hear nothing. She snatches at a cup and smashes it on the floor. G.15 INSERT. CUP It shatters into pieces. Silently. G.16 C.U. MANDY She screams. Silently. G.17 C.S. MISS STOCKTON She drops down to her knees. MISS STOCKTON (loudly) Again!


(This abrupt return of sound should make us jump). MISS STOCKTON (urgently) Again! She snatches another cup. G.18 MANDY, MISS STOCKTON Thrusting the cup into the child’s hand, MISS STOCKTON urges her. MISS STOCKTON Again! MANDY smashes the cup and screams. And this time we hear it. MISS STOCKTON is holding the child’s hand to its own chest. Once more she urges it to give voice. MISS STOCKTON That’s it, Mandy. Again. Mandy’s rage is changing into a mixture of anger and curiosity. The resultant cry is a curious animal sound. But it is a voice. CAMERA PULLS BACK. Some other children are watching half in fascination, half in dismay. In the background is MISS MASON. As MISS STOCKTON leads the breathless, tearstained child back to the chair, CAMERA REMAINS on MISS MASON who is in a state of some emotion. G.19 C.S. MANDY AND MISS STOCKTON They are babbling at the balloon again. But now MANDY is making a hoarse noise. Her eyes are still full of tears, but we see them shift to indicate that her finger-tips feel something on the surface of the balloon. MANDY Ba… ba… ba… ba… G.20 C.U. MISS STOCKTON From Mandy’s viewpoint across the top of the balloon, MISS STOCKTON has done this minor miracle with scores of children before. But each time it


strikes at the heart to hear the first conscious sound made by a deaf child. Her smile to MANDY is a very lovely thing. G.21 C.U. MANDY The child has begun to smile, too. This new sensation is clearly something very enjoyable. She sense that from the teacher’s reaction. CAMERA RISES from the child’s face to a figure behind her. It is MISS MASON. G.22 INT. HALL. L.S. CHRISTINE A LONG SHOT. Christine’s figure is seen waiting to receive MANDY and take her home. MANDY, led by MISS MASON, enters from behind CAMERA. As the child sees her mother, she runs forward. Leaving MISS MASON behind. MANDY clutches at her mother, who does not at first understand that the noises she is making have any significance. CHRISTINE What is it, Mandy? G.23 C.S MISS MASON Looking at them, MISS MASON wears an expression that is unlike any we have seen on her face before. Overscene we hear the child’s babbling voice. (From the shooting script, pp.59 – 62) © Original copyright holders


The Verdict Written by David Mamet




A Streetcar Named Desire Elia Kazan Sometimes the key to a scene is buried deep within, and isn’t immediately obvious (for example, think about the sequence from Coal Miner’s Daughter we watched). Elia Kazan, the renowned Broadway and Hollywood director, explains here how it is important to find a ‘spine’ for the story and ensure that all action revolves around that spine. He suggests that every scene in Tennessee Williams’ play A Streetcar Named Desire needs to be understood in terms of Blanche, even if she isn’t even on stage/screen. This is what Stanislavsky called the ‘through-action,’ “where each actor searches for a uniting thread that links together all the characters’ actions to produce an overall sense of what the play conveys to the audience. Lady Macbeth might strive to control the uncontrollable, a through-action that might explain her trust in the witches, her ambition to be queen, her ability to overlook the immorality of Duncan’s murder.” (Carnicke, p.24.)

1. Blanche comes to the last stop at the end of the line. 2. Blanche tries to make a place for herself. 3. Blanche breaks them [Stanley and Stella] apart, but when they come together, Blanche is more alone than ever! 4. Blanche, more desperate because more excluded, tries the direct attack and creates the enemy who will finish her. 5. Blanche finds that she is being tracked down for the kill. She must work fast. 6. Blanche suddenly finds Mitch, suddenly makes for herself the only possible, perfect man for her. 7. Happy only for a moment, Blanche comes out of the bathroom to find that her doom has caught up with her. 8. Blanche fights her last fight. Breaks down. Even Stella deserts her. 9. Blanche’s last desperate effort to save herself by telling the whole truth. The truth dooms her. Blanche escapes out of this world. She is brought back by Stanley and destroyed. 10. Blanche is disposed of. From Kazan On Directing, p.45. © Original copyright holders


Lev Kuleshov “In every art there must be firstly a material, and secondly a method of composing this material specially adapted to this art.” For Russian film director and theorist Lev Kuleshov (1899 – 1970), the essence of cinema was editing, the juxtaposition of one shot with another. To illustrate this principle he created what has come to be known as the Kuleshov Experiment. In this now-famous editing exercise, Kuleshov edited together a short film in which a shot of the expressionless face of well-known film star Ivan Mozzhukhin was alternated with various other shots (a plate of soup, a girl, an old woman’s coffin). The film was shown to an audience who believed that the expression on Mozzhukhin’s face was different each time he appeared, depending on whether he was ‘looking at’ the plate of soup, the girl, or the coffin, showing an expression of hunger, desire or grief respectively. Actually the footage of Mozzhukhin was the same shot repeated over and over again. Director and theorist Vsevolod Pudovkin (who later claimed to have been the co-creator of the experiment) described in 1929 how the audience “raved about the acting… the heavy pensiveness of his mood over the forgotten soup, were touched and moved by the deep sorrow with which he looked on the dead woman, and admired the light, happy smile with which he surveyed the girl at play. But we knew that in all three cases the face was exactly the same. Such is the powerful effect of montage.” Kuleshov used the experiment to indicate the usefulness and effectiveness of film editing. The implication is that viewers bring their own emotional reactions to this sequence of images, and then attribute those reactions to the actor, investing his impassive face with their own feelings. The experiment demonstrated the necessity of considering montage as the basic tool of cinema art. In Kuleshov’s view, the cinema consists of fragments and the assembly of those fragments, the assembly of elements which in reality are distinct. It is therefore not the content of the images in a film which is important, but their combination. The raw materials of such an art work need not be original, but are pre-fabricated elements which can be disassembled and re-assembled by the artist into new juxtapositions. *

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Pudovkin on Kuleshov (pp.167 – 8) Film-art begins from the moment when the director begins to combine and join together the various pieces of film. By joining them in various combinations, in different orders, he obtains differing results. Suppose, for example, we have three such pieces: on one is somebody’s smiling face, on another is a frightened face, and on the third is a revolver pointing at somebody. Let us combine these pieces in two different orders. Let us suppose that in the first instance we show, first the smiling face, then the revolver, then the frightened face; and that the second time we show the frightened face first, then the revolver, then the smiling face. In the first instance the impression we get is that the owner of the face is a coward; in the second that he is brave. This is certainly a crude example, but from contemporary films we can see more subtly that it is only by an able and inspired combination of pieces of the shot film that the strongest impression can be effected in the audience. Kuleshov and I made an interesting experiment. We took from some film or other several close-ups of the well-known Russian actor Mosjukhin. We chose closeups which were static and which did not express any feeling at all – quiet closeups. We joined these close-ups, which were all similar, with other bits of film in three different combinations. In the first combination the close-up of Mosjukhin was immediately followed by a shot of a plate of soup standing on a table. It was obvious and certain that Mosjukhin was looking at this soup. In the second combination the face of Mosjukhin was joined to a shot showing a coffin in which law a dead woman. In the third the close-up was followed by a shot of the little girl playing with a funny toy bear. When we showed the three combinations to an audience which had not been let into the secret the result was terrific. The public raved about the acting of the artist. They pointed out the heavy pensiveness of his mood over the forgotten soup, were touched and moved by the deep sorrow with which he looked on the dead woman, and admired the light, happy smile with which he surveyed the girl at play. But we knew that in all three cases the face was exactly the same. © Original copyright holders


Charlton Heston and Touch of Evil February 18, 1957 Well, we began shooting with drama I’ve no doubt Orson planned. We rehearsed all day, lining up a dolly shot covering the entire first scene in Sanchez’s apartment. We never turned a camera all morning or all afternoon, the studio brass gathering in the shadows in anxious little knots. By the time we began filming at a quarter to six, I know they’d written off the whole day. At seven-forty, Orson said, “OK, print. That’s a wrap on this set. We’re two days ahead of schedule.” Twelve pages in one take, including inserts, two-shots, over-shoulders; the whole scene in one, moving through three rooms, with seven speaking parts. From The Actor’s Life by Charlton Heston (p.21). © Original copyright holders


Pudovkin: The Plastic Material The scenario-writer must bear always in mind the fact that every sentence he writes must appear plastically upon the screen in some visible form. Consequently, it is not the words he writes that are important, but the externally expressed plastic images that he describes in these words. As a matter of fact, it is not so easy to find such plastic images. They must, before anything else, be clear and expressive. Anyone familiar with literary work can well represent to himself what is an expressive word, or an expressive style; he knows that there are such things as telling, expressive words, as vividly expressive wordconstructions – sentences. Similarly, he knows that the involved, obscure style of an inexperienced writer, with a multitude of superfluous words, is the consequence of his inability to select and control them. What is here said of literary work is entirely applicable to the work of the scenarist, only the word is replaced by the plastic image. The scenarist must know how to find and to use plastic (externally expressive) material: that is to say, he must know how to discover and how to select, from the limitless mass of material provided by life and its observation, those forms and movements that shall most clearly and vividly express the whole content of his idea. Let us quote certain illustrative examples. In the film Tol’able David there is a sequence in which a new character – an escaped convict, a tramp – comes into the action. The type of a thorough scoundrel. The task of the scenarist was to give his characteristics. Let us analyse how it was done, by describing the series of following shots. 1. The tramp – a degenerate brute, his face overgrown with unshaven bristles – is about to enter a house, but stops, his attention caught by something. 2. Close-up of the face of the watching tramp. 3. Showing what he sees – a tiny, fluffy kitten asleep in the sun. 4. The tramp again. He raises a heavy stone with the transparent intention of using it to obliterate the sleeping little beast, and only the casual push of a fellow, just then carrying objects into the house, hinders him from carrying out his cruel intention. In this little incident there is not one single explanatory title, and yet it is effective, clearly and vividly. Why? Because the plastic material has been correctly and suitably chosen. The sleeping kitten is a perfect expression of complete innocence and freedom from care, and thus the heavy stone in the hands of the huge man immediately becomes the symbol of absurd and senseless cruelty to


the mind of the spectator who sees this scene. Thus the end is attained. The characterisation is achieved, and at the same time its abstract content wholly expressed, with the help of happily chosen plastic material. Another example from the same film. The context of the incident is as follows: misfortune is come upon a family of peasants – the eldest son has been crippled by a blow with a stone; the father has died of a heart-attack; the youngest son (the hero of the film), still half a boy, knows who is responsible for all their ills – the tramp, who had treacherously attacked his brother. Again and again in the course of the picture the youngster seeks to be revenged upon the blackguard. The weapon of revenge – an old flint-lock. When the disabled brother is brought into the house, and the family, dazed with despair, is gathered round his bed, the boy, half crying, half gritting his teeth, secretly loads the flint-lock. The sudden death of the father and the supplications of the mother, clinging in despair to the feet of her son, restrain his outbreak. The boy remains the sole hope of the family. When, later, he again reaches secretly for the flint-lock and takes it from the wall, the voice of his mother, calling him to go and buy soap, compels him to hang the gun up again and run out to the store. Note with what mastery the old, clumsylooking flint-lock is here employed. It is as if it incarnated the thirst for revenge that tortures the boy. Every time the hand reaches for the flint-lock the spectator knows what is passing in the mind of the hero. No titles, no explanations are necessary. Recall the scene of soap fetched for the mother just described. Hanging up the flint-lock and running to the store implies forgetfulness of self for the sake of another. This is a perfect characterisation, rendering on the one hand the naïve directness of the man still half a child, on the other his awakening sense of duty. Another example, from the film The Leather Pushers. The incident is as follows. A man sitting at a table is waiting for his friend. He is smoking a cigarette, and in front of him on the table stand an ash-tray and a glass half-empty of liquid, both filled with an enormous number of cigarette ends. The spectator immediately visualises the great space of time the man has been waiting and, no less, the degree of excitement that has made him smoke nearly a hundred cigarettes. From the examples quoted above it will be clear what is to be understood by the term: expressive plastic material. We have found here a kitten, a tramp, a stone, a flint-lock, some cigarette ends, and not one of these objects or persons was introduced by chance; each constitutes a visual image, requiring no explanation and yet carrying a clear and definite meaning. Hence an important rule for the scenarist: in working out each incident he must carefully consider and select each visual image; he must remember that for each concept, each idea, there may be tens and hundreds of possible means of plastic expression, and that it is his task to select from amongst them the clearest and most vivid. Special attention, however, must be paid to the special part played in pictures by objects. Relationships between human beings are, for the most part, illuminated by conversations, by words; no one carries on conversation with objects, and that is why work with them, being expressed by visual action, is of


special interest to the film technician, as we have just seen in these examples. Try to imagine to yourself anger, joy, confusion, sorrow, and so forth, expressed not in words and the gestures accompanying them, but in action connected with objects, and you will see how images saturated with plastic expression come into your mind. Work on plastic material is of the highest importance for the scenarist. In the process of it he learns to imagine to himself what he has written as it will appear upon the screen, and the knowledge thus acquired is essential for correct and fruitful work. One must try to express one's concepts in clear and vivid visual images. Suppose it be a matter of the characterisation of some person of the action – this person must be placed in such conditions as will make him appear, by means of some action or movement, in the desired light (remember the tramp and the kitten). Suppose it be a matter of the representation of some event – those scenes must be assembled that most vividly emphasise visually the essence of the event represented. © Original copyright holders


Dialogue Comparison Novel and Film This lengthy Mackendrick handout is designed to introduce students to his idea of ‘the pre-verbal language of cinema,’ as seen through literary adaptation. Rarely will a script have more dialogue than its source material.

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Implied in the principle that the screenwriter should be thinking in terms of ‘Things Left Unspoken’ is the idea that at it’s most cinematic, film dialogue is the craft of writing between the lines. Evidence of this is to be seen in the fact that when dialogue that is theatrical or literary is translated to the screen, it is apt to be quite drastically shortened, more elliptic. Compare the opening chapter of the novel The Grapes of Wrath by John Steinbeck with Nunally Johnson’s adaptation, as filmed by John Ford in 1940. [Note that John Howard Lawson also uses the example of The Grapes of Wrath when discussing the differences between writing for the stage and for the screen.] One of the tasks of the movie director as he transfers a screenplay to the medium of the moving-image-with-sound is to work backwards from the text. He should, as a first step, ‘forget’ what the characters say and re-imagine the scene as mute behaviour in which the thoughts and feelings, impulses and motives of characters are understood without speech. There is a curious paradox here, for when, as a director, one has reconstituted the scene in this fashion, one can then bring back the dialogue in a way that tends to make it vastly more effective. ORIGINAL NOVEL TRUCKDRIVER: (to waitress) They was a big dance in Shawnee. I heard somebody got killed or somepin. You hear anything? WAITRESS: No. TRUCKDRIVER: (getting no score on the slot machine) They fix ‘em so you can’t win nothing. WAITRESS: Guy took the jackpot not two hours ago. Three-eighty he got. How soon you gonna be back by? TRUCKDRIVER: Week – ten days. Got to make a run to Tulsa, an’ I never get back soon as I think. WAITRESS: (as he holds the door open)

ADAPTED SCREENPLAY

WAITRESS: When you be back? TRUCKDRIVER: Coupla weeks. Don’t do nothing you wouldn’t want me to hear about.


Don’t let the flies in. Either go out or come in. TRUCKDRIVER: (as he leaves) So long Outside, the truckdriver is approached by a HITCHHIKER (Tom Joad, the protagonist of the novel and the film) HITCHHIKER: Could ya give me a lift, mister? TRUCKDRIVER: Didn’t you see the No Rider sticker on the win’shield? HITHCHIKER: Sure – I seen it. But sometimes a guy’ll be a good guy even when some rich bastard makes him carry a sticker. TRUCKDRIVER: (after a pause, getting in) Scrunch down on the running board ‘till we got round the bend. HITCHHIKER: Thanks, buddy. My dogs was pooped out TRUCKDRIVER: New shoes. You oughtn’ to take to walk in new shoes – hot weather. HITCHHIKER: Didn’t have no other shoes. Guy to wear ‘em if he got no others TRUCKDRIVER: Goin’ far? HITCHHICKER: Uh-huh. I’d a walked her if my dogs wasn’t pooped out.

TOM: How about a lift, mister? TRUCKDRIVER: Can’t you see that sticker? TOM: Sure I see it. But a good guy don’t pay no attention to what some heel makes him stick on his truck. TRUCKDRIVER: Scrunch down on the running board ‘till we got round the bend.

TRUCKDRIVER: Goin’ far? HITCHHIKER: Just a few miles. I’d a walked her if my dogs wasn’t pooped out. TRUCKDRIVER: Lookin’ for a job? TRUCKDRIVER: Lookin’ for a job? HITCHHIKER: No, my old man’s got a HITCHHIKER: No, my old man’s got place, forty acres. He’s a cropper, but we a place, forty acres. He’s a been there a long time. sharecropper, but we been there a long time. TRUCKDRIVER:A forty-acre cropper and TRUCKDRIVER: Oh. he ain’t been dusted out and he ain’t been tractored out? (The TRUCKDRIVER’s eyes drop to TOM’s shoes – new, stiff and bulky.) HITCHHIKER: ’Course I ain’t heard lately. TRUCKDRIVER: Long time. Croppers going fast now. Tear in and shove the cropper out. Cat’s all over hell now. Tear


in and shove the croppers out. How’s your old man hold out? HITCHHIKER: Well, I ain’t heard lately. I never was no hand to writer, nor my old man neither. Both of us can, if we want. TRUCKDRIVER: Been doing a job? HITCHHIKER: Sure have. TRUCKDRIVER: Thought so. I seen your hands. Been swingin’ a pick or an ax or a sledge. That shines up your hands. I notice stuff like that. Take a pride in it.

TRUCKDRIVER: Been doing a job? TOM: Yeah TRUCKDRIVER: I seen your hands. You been swinging a pick or a sledge – that shines up your hands. I notice little things like that all the time. (pause) Got a trade?

HITCHHIKER: (staring at him) Like to know anything else? I’ll tell you. You ain’t got to guess. TRUCKDRIVER: Now don’t get sore. I wasn’t getting; nosy. HITCHHIKER: I’ll tell you anything. I ain’t hidin’ nothin’. TRUCKDRIVER: Now don’t get sore. I just like to notice things. Makes the time pass. HITCHHIKER: I’ll tell you anything. Name’s Joad. Tom Joad. Old man is ol’ Tom Joad. TRUCKDRIVER: Don’t get sore. I didn’t mean nothin’. HITCHHIKER: I don’t mean nothin’ either. I’m just tryin’ to get along without shovin’ nobody around. TRUCKDRIVER: (after a silence) A guy that never been a truck skinner don’t know nothin’ what it’s like. Owners don’t want us to pick up nobody. So we got to set here an’ just skin her along ’less we want to take a chance of gettin’ fired like a just done with you. HITCHHIKER: ’Preciate it. TRUCKDRIVER: I’ve knew guys that done screwy thing while they’re drivin’ trucks. I remember a guy use’ to make up poetry. It passed the time. I remember a piece of poetry this guy wrote down. It


was about him and a couple other guys goin’ all over the world drinkin’ and raisin’ hell and screwin’ around. I wisht I could remember how that piece went. This guy had words in it that Jesus H. Christ wouldn’t know what they meant. Part of it was like this: ‘An’ then we spied a nigger, with a trigger that was bigger than an elephant’s proboscis or the whanger of a whale.’ That proboscis is a nose – like. With an elephant it’s his trunk. Guy showed me in a dictionary. Carried that dictionary all over hell with him. He’d look in it while he’s pulled up getting’ his pie an’ coffee. (pause) Ever know a guy that said big words like that? HITCHHIKER: Preacher. TRUCKDRIVER: Well, it makes you mad to hear a guy use big words. ’Course with a preacher it’s allright because nobody would fool around with a preacher anyway. But this guy was funny. You didn’t give a damn when he said a big word ’cause he done it just for ducks. He wasn’t puttin’ on no dog. Like I was sayin’, guy that driver a truck does screwy things. He got to. He’d go nuts just setting; here an’ the road sneakin’ under the wheels. Fella says once that truck skinners eats all the time – all the time in hamburger joints along the road. HITCHHIKER: Sure seem to live there. TRUCKDRIVER: Sure they stop, but it ain’t to eat. They ain’t hardly every hungry. They’ve just goddam sick of goin’ – get sick of it. Joints is the only place you can pull up, an’ when you stop you got to buy somepin so you can sling the bull with the broad behind the counter. So you get a coffee and a piece pie. Kind of gives a guy a little rest.


HITCHHIKER: (without emphasis) Must be tough. TRUCKDRIVER: (testily) Well, it ain’t no goddam cinch. Look easy, jus’ setting here till you put in your eight or maybe your ten or fourteen hours. But the road gets into a guy. He’s got to do somepin. Some sings an’ some whistles. Company won’t let us have no radio. A few takes a pint along, but them kind don’t stick long. I don’t never take a drink till I’m through. HITCHHIKER: Yeah? TRUCKDRIVER: Yeah! A guy got to get ahead. Why, I’m thinkin’ of takin’ one of them correspondence school courses. Mechanical engineering. It’s easy. Just study a few easy lessons at home. I’m thinkin’ of it. Then I won’t drive no truck. Then I’ll tell other guys to drive trucks HITCHHIKER: (taking a bottle from his pocket) Sure you won’t have a snort? TRUCKDRIVER: No, by God. I won’t touch it. A guy can’t drink liquor all the time and study like I’m going to. HITCHHIKER: (drinking) You’re all wound up. What’s the matter – got a girl? TRUCKDRIVER: Well, sure. But I want to get ahead anyway. I been training my mind for a hell of a long time. HITCHHIKER: (rolling a cigarette) I ain’t got a hell of a lot further to go. TRUCKDRIVER: I don‘t need no shot. I train my mind all the time. I took a course in that two years ago. Suppose I pass a guy on the road. I look at him, ’an after I’m past I try to remember ever’thing about him, kind of clothes an’ shoes an’ hat, an’ how he walked an’ maybe how tall an’ what weight an’ any scars. I do it pretty good. I can jus’ make a whole picture in my head. Sometimes I think I ought to take a course to be a fingerprint expert. You’d be su’prised how much a


guy can remember. HITCHHIKER: (after a silence) You sure took a long time to get to it, buddy. TRUCKDRIVER: Get to what? How do you mean? HITCHHIKER: (harshly) You know what I mean. You give me a once over when I first got in. I seen you. You know where I come from. Don’t you? TRUCKDRIVER: Well – sure. That is – maybe. But it ain’t none of my business. I mind my own yard. It ain’t nothing to me. I don’t stick my nose in nobody’s business. HITCHHIKER: You got me wrong, mister. I ain’t keepin’ quiet about it. Sure I been in McAlester. Been there four years. Sure these is the clothes they give me when I come out. I don’t give a damn who knows it. An’ I’m goin’ to my old man’s place so I don’t have to lie to get a job. TRUCKDRIVER: Well – that ain’t none of my business. I ain’t a nosy guy. HITCHHIKER: The hell you ain’t. That big old nose of yours been stickin’ out eight miles ahead of your face. You has that big nose of yours goin’ over me like a sheep in a vegetable patch. TRUCKDRIVER: You got me all wrong. HITCHHIKER: You been a good guy. You give me a life. Well, hell! I done time. So what! You want to know what I don’t for, don’t you? TRUCKDRIVER: That ain’t none of my affair. HITCHHIKER: Nothin’ ain’t none of your affair except skinnin’ this here bull-bitch along an’ that’s the least thing you work at. Now look. See that road up ahead? TRUCKDRIVER: Yeah.

TOM: Why don’t you get to it, buddy. TRUCKDRIVER: (uneasily) Get to what? TOM: You know what I mean. You been givin’ me a goin’ over ever since I got in. Whyn’t you go on and ask me where I been? TRUCKDRIVER: I don’t stick my nose in nobody’s business.

TOM: Naw – not much!

TRUCKDRIVER: (a little frightened) I stay in my own yard. TOM: (without emotion) Listen. That big nose of yours has been goin’ over me like a sheep in a vegetable patch. But I ain't keepin’ it a secret. I been in the penitentiary. Been there four years. Like to know anything else? TRUCKDRIVER: I didn’t mean nothing.

TOM: Me neither. I’m just tryin’ to get along without shovin’ anybody around, that’s all. (pause) See that road up ahead? TRUCKDRIVER: Yeah.


HITCHHIKER: Well, I get off there. Sure, I know you’re wettin’ your pants to know what I done. (The truck rolls to a stop. The HITCHHIKER gets out, leans closer to the TRUCKDRIVER) HITCHHIKER: Homicide. That’s a big word – means I killed a guy. Seven years. I’m sprung in four for keepin’ my nose clean. TRUCKDRIVER: I never asked you nothin’ about it. I mind my own yard. HITCHHIKER: You can tell about it in every joint from here to Texola. So long, fella, You been a good guy. But look, when you been in the stir for a little while, you can smell a question comin’ from hell to breakfast. You telegraphed yours the first time you opened your trap. Thanks for the lift. So long.

TOM: That’s where I get off. (The truck stops, Tom gets out) You’re about to bust to know what I done, ain’t you. Well, I ain’t a guy to let you down. (confidentially) Homicide!

TRUCKDRIVER: I never asked you! TOM: (as the truck moves on) Sure, but you’d have throwed a fit if I hadn’t tol’ you.

Commentary © The Estate of Alexander Mackendrick


The Grapes of Wrath John Steinbeck The music stopped in the restaurant and a man's voice spoke from the loudspeaker, but the waitress did not turn him off, for she didn't know the music had stopped. Her exploring fingers had found a lump under her ear. She was trying to see it in a mirror behind the counter without letting the truck driver know, and so she pretended to push a bit of hair to neatness. The truck driver said, "They was a big dance in Shawnee. I heard somebody got killed or somepin. You hear anything?" "No," said the waitress, and she lovingly fingered the lump under her ear. Outside, the seated man stood up and looked over the cowl of the truck and watched the restaurant for a moment. Then he settled back on the running board, pulled a sack of tobacco and a book of papers from his side pocket. He rolled his cigarette slowly and perfectly, studied it, smoothed it. At last he lighted it and pushed the burning match into the dust at his feet. The sun cut into the shade of the truck as noon approached. In the restaurant the truck driver paid his bill and put his two nickels' change in a slot machine. The whirling cylinders gave him no score. "They fix 'em so you can't win nothing," he said to the waitress. And she replied, "Guy took the jackpot not two hours ago. Three-eighty he got. How soon you gonna be back by?" He held the screen door a little open. "Week-ten days," he said. "Got to make a run to Tulsa, an' I never get back soon as I think." She said crossly, "Don't let the flies in. Either go out or come in." "So long," he said, and pushed his way out. The screen door banged behind him. He stood in the sun, peeling the wrapper from a piece of gum. He was a heavy man, broad in the shoulders, thick in the stomach. His face was red and his blue eyes long and slitted from having squinted always at sharp light. He wore army trousers and high laced boots. Holding the stick of gum in front of his lips he called through the screen, "Well, don't do nothing you don't want me to hear about." The waitress was turned toward a mirror on the back wall. She grunted a reply. The truck driver gnawed down the stick of gum slowly, opening his jaws and lips wide with each bite. He shaped the gum in his mouth, rolled it under his tongue while he walked to the big red truck. The hitch-hiker stood up and looked across through the windows. "Could ya give me a lift, mister?" The driver looked quickly back at the restaurant for a second. "Didn' you see the No Riders sticker on the win'shield?" "Sure – I seen it. But sometimes a guy'll be a good guy even if some rich bastard makes him carry a sticker."


The driver, getting slowly into the truck, considered the parts of this answer. If he refused now, not only was he not a good guy, but he was forced to carry a sticker, was not allowed to have company. If he took in the hitch-hiker he was automatically a good guy and also he was not one whom any rich bastard could kick around. He knew he was being trapped, but he couldn't see a way out. And he wanted to be a good guy. He glanced again at the restaurant. "Scrunch down on the running board till we get around the bend," he said. The hitch-hiker flopped down out of sight and clung to the door handle. The motor roared up for a moment, the gears clicked in, and the great truck moved away, first gear, second gear, third gear, and then a high whining pick-up and fourth gear. Under the clinging man. the highway blurred dizzily by. It was a mile to the first turn in the road, then the truck slowed down. The hitch-hiker stood up, eased the door open, and slipped into the seat. The driver looked over at him, slitting his eyes, and he chewed as though thoughts and impressions were being sorted and arranged by his jaws before they were finally filed away in his brain. His eyes began at the new cap, moved down the new clothes to the new shoes. The hitch-hiker squirmed his back against the seat in comfort, took off his cap, and swabbed his sweating forehead and chin with it. "Thanks, buddy," he said. "My dogs was pooped out." "New shoes," said the driver. His voice had the same quality of secrecy and insinuation his eyes had. "You oughtn' to take no walk in new shoes – hot weather." The hiker looked down at the dusty yellow shoes. "Didn't have no other shoes," he said. "Guy got to wear 'em if he got no others." The driver squinted judiciously ahead and built up the speed of the truck a little. "Goin' far?" "Uh-uh! I'd a walked her if my dogs wasn't pooped out." The questions of the driver had the tone of a subtle examination. He seemed to spread nets, to set traps with his questions. "Lookin' for a job?" he asked. "No, my old man got a place, forty acres. He's a cropper, but we been there a long time." The driver looked significantly at the fields along the road where the corn was fallen sideways and the dust was piled on it. Little flints shoved through the dusty soil. The driver said, as though to himself, "A forty-acre cropper and he ain't been dusted out and he ain't been tractored out?" "Course I ain't heard lately," said the hitch-hiker. "Long time," said the driver. A bee flew into the cab and buzzed in back of the windshield. The driver put out his hand and carefully drove the bee into an air stream that blew it out of the window. "'Croppers going fast now," he said. "One cat' takes and shoves ten families out. Cat's all over hell now. Tear in and shove the croppers out. How's your old man hold on?" His tongue and his jaws became busy with the neglected gum, turned it and chewed it. With each opening of his mouth his tongue could be seen flipping the gum over.


"Well, I ain't heard lately. I never was no hand to write, nor my old man neither." He added quickly, "But the both of us can, if we want." "Been doing a job?" Again the secret investigating casualness. He looked out over the fields, at the shimmering air, and gathering his gum into his cheek, out of the way, he spat out the window. "Sure have," said the hitch-hiker. "Thought so. I seen your hands. Been swingin' a pick or an ax or a sledge. That shines up your hands. I notice all stuff like that. Take a pride in it." The hitch-hiker stared at him. The truck tires sang on the road. "Like to know anything else? I'll tell you. You ain't got to guess." "Now don't get sore. I wasn’t gettin' nosy." "I'll tell you anything. I ain't hidin' nothin'." "Now don't get sore. I just like to notice things. Makes the time pass. " "I'll tell you anything. Name's Joad, Tom Joad. Old man is ol' Tom Joad." His eyes rested broodingly on the driver. "Don't get sore. I didn't mean nothin'." "I don't mean nothin' neither," said Joad. "I'm just tryin' to get along without shovin' nobody around." He stopped and looked out at the dry fields, at the starved tree clumps hanging uneasily in the heated distance. From his side pocket he brought out his tobacco and papers. He rolled his cigarette down between his knees, where the wind could not get at it. The driver chewed as rhythmically, as thoughtfully, as a cow. He waited to let the whole emphasis of the preceding passage disappear and be forgotten. At last, when the air seemed neutral again, he said, "A guy that never been a truck skinner don't know nothin' what it's like. Owners don't want us to pick up nobody. So we got to set here an' just skin her along 'less we want to take a chance of gettin' fired like I just done with you." " 'Preciate it," said Joad. "I've knew guys that done screwy things while they're drivin' trucks. I remember a guy use' to make up poetry. It passed the time." He looked over secretly to see whether Joad was interested or amazed. Joad was silent, looking into the distance ahead, along the road, along the white road that waved gently, like a ground swell. The driver went on at last, "I remember a piece of poetry this here guy wrote down. It was about him an’ a couple other guys goin' all over the world drinkin' and raisin' hell and screwin' around. I wisht I could remember how that piece went. This guy had words in it that Jesus H. Christ wouldn't know what they meant. Part was like this: 'An' there we spied a nigger, with a trigger that was bigger than a elephant's proboscis or the whanger of a whale.' That proboscis is a nose-like. With a elephant it's his trunk. Guy showed me in a dictionary. Carried that dictionary all over hell with him. He'd look in it while he's pulled up gettin' his pie an' coffee." He stopped, feeling lonely in the long speech. His secret eyes turned on his passenger. Joad remained silent. Nervously the driver tried to force him into participation. "Ever know a guy that said big words like that?" "Preacher," said Joad.


"Well, it makes you mad to hear a guy use big words. 'Course with a preacher it's all right because nobody would fool around with a preacher anyway. But this guy was funny. You didn't give a damn when he said a big word 'cause he just done it for ducks. He wasn't puttin' on no dog." The driver was reassured. He knew at least that Joad was listening. He swung the great truck viciously around a bend and the tires shrilled. "Like I was sayin'," he continued, "guy that drives a truck does screwy things, He got to. He'd go nuts just settin' here an' the road sneakin' under the wheels. Fella says once that truck skinners eats all the time – all the time in hamburger joints along the road." "Sure seem to live there," Joad agreed. "Sure they stop, but it ain't to eat. They ain't hardly ever hungry. They're just goddamn sick of goin' – get sick of it. Joints is the only place you can pull up, an' when you stop you got to buy somepin so you can sling the bull with the broad behind the counter. So you get a cup of coffee and a piece pie. Kind of gives a guy a little rest." He chewed his gum slowly and turned it with his tongue. "Must be tough," said Joad with no emphasis. The driver glanced quickly at him, looking for satire. "Well, it ain't no goddamn cinch," he said testily. "Looks easy, jus' settin' here till you put in your eight or maybe your ten or fourteen hours. But the road gets into a guy. He's got to do somepin. Some sings an' some whistles. Company won't let us have no radio. A few takes a pint along, but them kind don't stick long." He said the last smugly. "I don't never take a drink till I'm through." "Yeah?" Joad asked. "Yeah! A guy got to get ahead. Why, I'm thinkin' of takin' one of them correspondence school courses. Mechanical engineering. It's easy. Just study a few easy lessons at home. I'm thinkin' of it. Then I won't drive no truck. Then I'll tell other guys to drive trucks." Joad took a pint of whisky from his side coat pocket. "Sure you won't have a snort?" His voice was teasing. "No, by God. I won't touch it. A guy can't drink liquor all the time and study like I'm goin' to." Joad uncorked the bottle, took two quick swallows, re-corked it, and put it back in his pocket. The spicy hot smell of the whisky filled the cab. "You're all wound up," said Joad. "What's the matter – got a girl?" "Well, sure. But I want to get ahead anyway. I been training my mind for a hell of a long, time." The whisky seemed to loosen Joad up. He rolled another cigarette and lighted it. "I ain't got a hell of a lot further to go," he said. The driver went on quickly, "I don't need no shot," he said. "I train my mind all the time. I took a course in that two years ago." He patted the steering wheel with his right hand. "Suppose I pass a guy on the road. I look at him, an' after I'm past I try to remember ever’thing about him, kind a clothes an' shoes an' hat, an' how he walked an' maybe how tall an' what weight an' any scars. I do it pretty good. I can jus' make a whole picture in my head. Sometimes I think I ought to


take a course to be a fingerprint expert. You'd be su'prised how much a guy can remember." Joad took a quick drink from the flask. He dragged the last smoke from his raveling cigarette and then, with callused thumb and forefinger, crushed out the glowing end. He rubbed the butt to a pulp and put it out the window, letting the breeze suck it from his fingers. The big tires sang a high note on the pavement. Joad's dark quiet eyes became amused as he stared along the road. The driver waited and glanced uneasily over. At last Joad's long upper lip grinned up from his teeth and he chuckled silently, his chest jerked with the chuckles. "You sure took a hell of a long time to get to it, buddy." The driver did not look over. "Get to what? How do you mean?" Joad's lips stretched tight over his long teeth for a moment, and he licked his lips like a dog, two licks, one in each direction from the middle. His voice became harsh. "You know what I mean. You give me a goin'-over when I first got in. I seen you." The driver looked straight ahead, gripped the wheel so tightly that the pads of his palms bulged, and the backs of his hands paled. Joad continued, "You know where I come from." The driver was silent. "Don't you?" Joad insisted. "Well – sure. That is – maybe, But it ain't none of my business. I mind my own yard. It ain't nothing to me." The words tumbled out now. "I don't stick my nose in nobody's business." And suddenly he was silent and waiting. And his hands were still white on the wheel. A grasshopper flipped through the window and lighted on top of the instrument panel, where it sat and began to scrape its wings with its angled jumping legs. Joad reached forward and crushed its hard skull-like head with his fingers, and he let it into the wind stream out the window. Joad chuckled again while he brushed the bits of broken insect from his fingertips. "You got me wrong, mister," he said. "I ain't keepin' quiet about it. Sure I been in McAlester.' Been there four years. Sure these is the clothes they give me when I come out. I don't give a damn who know it. An' I'm goin' to my old man's place so I don't have to lie to get a job." The driver said, "Well – that ain't none of my business. I ain't a nosy guy." "The hell you ain't," said Joad. "That big old nose of yours been stickin' out eight miles ahead of your face. You had that big nose goin' over me like a sheep in a vegetable patch." The driver's face tightened. "You got me all wrong – " he began weakly. Joad laughed at him. "You been a good guy. You give me a lift. Well, hell! I done time. So what! You want to know what I done time for, don't you?" "That ain't none of my affair." "Nothin' ain't none of your affair except skinnin' this here bull-bitch along, an' that's the least thing you work at. Now look. See that road up ahead?" "Yeah.” "Well, I get off there. Sure, I know you're wettin' your pants to know what I done. I ain't a guy to let you down." The high hum of the motor dulled and the song of the tires dropped in pitch. Joad got out his pint and took another short drink. The truck drifted to a stop where a dirt road opened at right angles to the


highway. Joad got out and stood beside the cab window. The vertical exhaust pipe puttered up its barely visible blue smoke. Joad leaned toward the driver. "Homicide," he said quickly. "That's a big word – means I killed a guy. Seven years. I'm sprung in four for keepin' my nose clean." The driver's eyes slipped over Joad's face to memorize it. "I never asked you nothin' about it," he said. "I mind my own yard." "You can tell about it in every joint from here to Texola." He smiled. "So long, fella. You been a good guy. But look, when you been in stir a little while, you can smell a question comin' from hell to breakfast. You telegraphed yours the first time you opened your trap." He swatted the metal door with the palm of his hand. "Thanks for the lift," he said. "So long." He turned away and walked into the dirt road. For a moment the driver stared after him, and then he called, "Luck!" Joad waved his hand without looking around. Then the motor roared up and the gears clicked and the great red truck rolled heavily away. © Original copyright holders


Alexander Mackendrick Othello’s Last Speech This handout mirrors Mackendrick’s work on Romeo and Juliet, as seen in the piece below and also the filmed project he worked on for some years at CalArts, A Director Prepares. Think about how a character’s desires and goals, and their attempts to overcome the obstacles to those goals (as well as that character’s connections and relationships with other characters in the story), dictate blocking and, inevitably, camera placement. For Mackendrick, film grammar and dramatic construction were so intimately connected that one could never be considered without the other. Mackendrick references an article by director Harold Clurman below. In that article, Clurman re-iterates Mackendrick’s basic idea of ‘the pre-verbal language of cinema’: “The question most frequently put to me about my work in Israel, where I am staging Caesar and Cleopatra in a Hebrew translation, is how a director can put on a play in a language of which he understand no more than a few words… I am glad to take up this problem because it necessitates a discussion of the nature of stage direction. Structurally a play is not a series of speeches but a series of actions. The first question a dramatist asks himself – and this is even truer of the director – is not what do the characters say as they enter the stage but what do they do, what do they intend to do, what do they succeed or fail to do in the course of the scene…. Once the director discovers what happens in a scene not in obvious physical action, the spoken words become instruments of that action and can be heard as such. (Deaf people, it is said, are often much more acute judges of acting than people who hear the words of a play for their surface meaning only, because the deaf try to see what is actually going on. When actors do no more than repeat words – that his, recite their lines – nothing is going on, and the stage under these circumstances becomes dull and theatrically uncommunicative.) The director chases actions for the actors to carry out as notes are set down for the musicians to play. If these notes are clear to the director, and the actors play them well, the director can hear as well as see them distinctly, no matter what language is being spoken.”

One of the tasks of both the director and the actor, whether they are working on a stage play or a film scene, is to study the written text closely in order to discover the impulses that lie underneath the dialogue. Words, after all, are to some extent the external manifestation of feelings and intentions, an aftereffect of emotions. Director and actor have to uncover the motives and thoughts which are often unspoken and which prompt the action (using the term ‘action’ not just in its physical but also in its dramatic sense of the word). Before deciding how to say the words, before exploring how the actor should sit, stand, move or behave, it is necessary to work on the subtext of the character’s inner feelings. One method many actors have found useful is simply to repeat over and over and over again, in a purely mechanical and meaningless fashion, the words, deliberately repressing the impulse to speak them expressively. The idea behind this process is that by refusing to jump at once to the most obvious interpretation of the line and by rejecting the obvious phrasing and intonation, the actor can reach less self-conscious levels of feeling and stimulate unexpected colours of emotion (a process that has been called the ‘Italian Method’). Some actors make a habit of learning their lines so that they can be rattled off at breakneck speed.


This plainly has the same effect, assuring that the actor has the dialogue so much at the tip of his tongue that the lines can come out without thinking, without any self-consciousness concerning their delivery, and thus freeing the actor’s imagination to explore the intuitive behaviour of the character. Harold Clurman, a great theater critic who was also a practicing stage director, once wrote an article about his experiences in directing a production of George Bernard Shaw’s play Caesar and Cleopatra in Israel. His problem was that the play was a translation in Hebrew, a language which Harold doesn’t speak. His article describes his experience which, as he recounts, was a lesson to him in the importance of exploring not the way a speech should be delivered, but the dramatic sense of the situation regardless of the words. He also remarked that ‘deaf people are often by the far the best judges of an actor’s performance.’ As an illustration of this principle, I have attached a very famous Shakespearean monologue, the last speech by Othello, which leads up to his suicide. It is all too often performed as a set piece, a recitation of powerful theatrical poetry. It is indeed a superb piece of dramatic literature, and any actor worth his salt will see that the poetry in the language is given its due. But, to speak for myself at least, I see the challenge in different terms: to stage the scene, to design the grouping of the characters on the stage and the behaviour of Othello and his intentions in the scene, the director should make a detailed study of the sequence of feelings that are not quite so explicit in the text. In planning both the general staging of the scene as well as the film grammar of its coverage (the angles and their screen sizes, the camera moves etc.), you first start from an analysis of the text, but also of the subtext of the thoughts and feelings at each given instant. In a sense this may mean that you have to examine the words and phrases but think them out in terms of mute behaviour. Think of the images of gesture, action and (even more important) reaction to the emotional impulses from which the words originate. Rethink it like a silent movie. Consider: what is Othello doing? The answer, as usual, lies in what happens at the end. Othello has decided to commit suicide and the speech is his preparation for doing so. To make this effective in the blocking of Othello’s moves on the stage, it is useful to ask why he needs to make such a speech. One obvious answer springs to mind: he is at this moment under arrest and has been ordered to accompany his captors from the room in which his wife, Desdemona, lies dead. His immediate need is to disguise from his captors his purpose so that they will not try to prevent him from killing himself. In a word, he is stalling for time. At what point has he made the decision to commit suicide? Reading and re-reading the scene, to me it seems that moment must come very early in the scene. It could in fact be before the start of the speech. This prompted me to ask: what are the practical difficulties of Othello doing what he intends to do? At once it occurred to me that the guards who have come to arrest him for the murder of his wife might sensibly have disarmed him, not so much to prevent him from doing injury to himself as in order that he does not use his weapons either to effect escape or to kill Iago (who is at present onstage, also in custody). Think of the


story up to this point: the tragedy has been brought about through the malice of lago. Emilia, Iago’s wife, has given to Iago a handkerchief belonging to Desdemona. Iago has managed to persuade Othello that the handkerchief was given to a man who was Desdemona’s lover. It is proof of Desdemona’s adultery. Insane with jealousy, Othello has strangled his innocent wife and her body lies on the bed in this room where the scene takes place. Now the guards have come to arrest Othello, a general who has commanded them in battle and whom they both respect and probably also, in such a situation, fear. He is a potentially violent man, proud and given to dangerous outbursts when he angered. As the guards arrive, however, Emilia has been shocked into exposing her husband as the man who made her steal from Desdemona the handkerchief. Iago, in fury, has stabbed Emilia. Nothing but the fact that he has been disarmed would seem to be the reason that Othello has not himself killed the man who so manipulated him into suspicion of his wife that he had been driven to murder. Iago, who will probably be subjected to torture, is now under the protection of the guards. This is all plot. But the machinery of the melodrama is far from being irrelevant to the lyric verse of Shakespeare’s text. Indeed, it supplies the underpinning of here-and-now-and-onstage tension, the imminence of violence, that gives power to the poetic words. Soft you; a word or two before you go. Othello stalls. He has made his decision: he does not mean to leave this room alive. He has decided to kill himself. Practical problem: he has to get a weapon from one of the guards and find a way to distract them as he does so. As he speaks, he would be studying the geography, planning his move, as any born fighter does. I have done the state some service and they know’t. This to the Guards to assert his status. Partly to put them off guard, of course, but also a demonstration of his dignity. Pride and authority. No more of that. I pray you, in your letters, When you shall these unlucky deeds relate, Speak of them as I am; nothing extenuate, He is still planning his move, positioning himself. But at the same time, he is also preparing himself. He is presenting himself to the men whom he has commanded as a stoic who is not going to plead for sympathy, wanting to be remembered not as a coward but as a man who died the Roman way. Nor set down aught in malice: This feels like a moment in which he might be looking in the direction of Iago, the creature whose malice has created the tragedy. But he might turn away.


then you must speak Of one that loved not wisely but too well; He addresses the dead woman in the bed. For this moment, he may allow himself to show depth of feeling, real emotion. Combine it with an inability to understand how a man such as himself could have been made such a fool. An arrogant man, his agony is not that he has killed Desdemona – killing has been his trade – only that he has been so manipulated by Iago. Of one not easily jealous, but being wrought, Perplex’d in the extreme; of one whose hand, Like the base Indian, threw a pearl away Richer than all his tribe; of one whose subdued eyes, Albeit unused to the melting mood, Drops tears as fast as the Arabian trees Their medicinal gum. This, of course, is very much the kind of extravagantly romantic language that belongs to tragic theater, the kind of speech that the sentimental actor usually tries to play for unadulterated emotion to the point of rhetorical indulgence. Nothing is lost, however, if you also recognise that Othello may actually be playing to the gallery in another sense and for another reason. The emotion is all too genuine, but he could be using such language in order to move himself into position for the move that comes next: the action that he has been preparing since the start of the speech. Set you down this; And say besides, that in Aleppo once, Where a malignant and turban’d Turk Beat a Venetian and traduced the state, Another sharp switch in tone. From the note of pathos – almost bordering on selfpity – Othello switches to an anecdote about some remembered act of violence. It is on the one hand a hint that Othello has been putting on an act, while at the same time the abrupt resurgence of aggression is his own cue for the final action. I took by the throat the circumcised dog Having distracted his listeners by the display of emotions that are swiftly contradictory, he might now, in the course of seeming to illustrate his anecdote, reach out to touch one of the unsuspecting guards, taking him, perhaps, by the neck with a left hand so that the man raises his arms, allowing Othello to whip from his belt the sword that he needs. And smote him, thus. The stage instruction in the Shakespearean text is famous for its brevity: ‘He stabs himself.’ The marvel of the scene’s structure, of course, is the shock effect of the action that comes as total surprise, both to characters on the stage and to the audience. As director, on the other hand, part of the satisfaction which you give to the


audience is that in the performance, the surprise may be total, but that – in this instant – we feel we have been watching its preparation. On the one hand, it is a scene expressing the sequences of savagely contradictory emotions, ranging from dignity, manly stoicism, bitterness, self-pity and then back to anger again. On the other hand it is a pyrotechnic display by a cunning and violent man of how to defeat his captors. Othello is always in danger of being a character whom we may pity to some degree, but he may be also be regarded as so gullible that we have more interest in the incomprehensibly villainous Iago. The value of a not-too-sentimental approach to Othello’s suicide is that it saves the man from sentimentality. © The Estate of Alexander Mackendrick


Alexander Mackendrick The Romeo and Juliet Exercise Shakespeare, as we know, wrote his plays to be performed in daylight and on a stage where there was no scenery. He used the language of the text to create visual imagery. If you read the plays carefully, you will find that the playwright’s imagination is astonishingly fertile in its invention of the settings, the time of day, the weather and the circumstances of the scene. In his book, The Empty Space, the director Peter Brook writes about a scene in Shakespeare’s Romeo and Juliet.8 Brook invites the reader to consider how, if the scene had been written as a screenplay, the dramatist might have replaced a large proportion of the lines with cinematographic images, drastically cutting the dialogue. In Brook’s words, the actors were asked to select only those words that they could play in a realistic situation, the words that they could use unselfconsciously in a film… Then [they] played this as a genuine scene from a modern play full of living pauses – speaking the selected words out loud, but repeating the missing words silently to themselves to find the uneven lengths of the silences. The fragment of the scene would have made good cinema, for the moments of dialogue linked by a rhythm of silences of unequal duration in a film would be sustained by close shots and other silent, related images. As I see it, this exercise relates closely to what every film director must do when confronted by any text. In making the action playable, the director and his team of collaborators will work backwards from the words, retracing the work that the writer has done before the lines of dialogue were even written. Though screenwriters are apt to declare that ‘In the Beginning is the Word,’ the truth is that in all dramatic writing, the first step is visual. The writer’s literal sense of imagining is actually the process of creating images in his head – the visualizing of people, places and activities – and out of these mental pictures comes the impulse for dialogue. This was understood as early as the days of Aristotle who urged the poet (Greek for ‘maker’) to act the lines as they come to mind. Gesture, the so-called body language of the character, is a stimulant to the discovery of the words. The verbalizing of these images comes only after the split-second of initial impulse. Moreover, between the impulse which is instant and can be censored there is an shift in which the idea is rationalized, and actually distorted in the very process of its becoming conscious. For the film director, it is important to read and re-read the lines and build in his mind’s eye not just the sets as they may be constructed for the camera, but 8

See The Empty Space (Penguin, 1990), pp.135-6.


also to create as vividly as possible the entire offstage environment. The task of the actors and the director is simply to make the action playable. It has been said by more than one theatre director that working with the production designer on a play is so important that when a set has been really well thought out, during rehearsal the play begins to ‘direct itself.’ What this means, I think, is that when the director is working out the plan of the imaginary environment where the action takes place, he is putting together a layout of the performing areas, the centers of activity, and the objects, the furnishing and the props which will lead the actors, as they spontaneously explore in rehearsal, to the concepts that the director has prepared for them. If this is true of directing a stage play, then it is ten times more true of planning a scene for cameras. Here are the lines from Shakespeare. Juliet Wilt thou be gone? It is not yet near day: It was the nightingale, and not the lark, That pierced the fearful hollow of thine ear; Nightly she sings on yon pomegranate-tree: Believe me, love, it was the nightingale. Romeo It was the lark, the herald of the morn, No nightingale. Look, love, what envious streaks Do lace the severing clouds in yonder east. Night’s candles are burnt out, and jocund day Stands tiptoe on the misty mountain tops. I must be gone and live, or stay and die. Juliet Yon light is not daylight, I know it, I. It is some meteor that the sun exhaled To be to thee this night a torchbearer And light thee on thy way to Mantua. Therefore stay yet. Thou need'st not to be gone. Romeo Let me be ta’en, let me be put to death. I am content, so thou wilt have it so. I’ll say yon grey is not the morning’s eye, ’Tis but the pale reflex of Cynthia’s brow; Nor that is not the lark, whose notes do beat The vaulty heaven so high above our heads. I have more care to stay than will to go. Come, death, and welcome; Juliet wills it so. How is’t, my soul? Let’s talk; it is not day.


Having studied the text of the scene, try your hand at blocking the actor’s moves. Here, for instance, were questions that I found I had to explore. How does the scene start? Even before either of the characters speak, what is the event? Romeo and Juliet are in bed. Where is the bed? Who wakens first? I decide that it must be Romeo. On which side of the bed is he lying? Immediately, I realise the most important fact of the scene: this is the room of the daughter of the Capulet family, mortal enemies of the Montagues (Romeo’s kin). This young man is in a situation where, if he is discovered, he will be instantly killed. So I decide that not only is it he who is first awake, but that he sleeps on the inside so that he can be aware of the light from the window. At once, this establishes for us the key to the staging. The axis has to be the line between Juliet’s bed and the window that opens on the exterior. It is Romeo’s route of escape if he is in trouble. In fact, Shakespeare himself has seen it this way. The first lines establish that the light coming from the window is warning of danger for the young man. Plainly, Romeo has to get away from this place before the sun is up and before the Capulet household is up and about. How is he dressed? In his superb film of the scene, the Italian director Franco Zefferelli played the scene of the two adolescent lovers so that, while avoiding censorable camera angles, both were clearly in the nude. It has to be this way if the point about the danger is to be made. But it prompts me to ask the next question: what has Romeo done with his weapons? And his footwear? I decide that he has his boots at the bottom of the bed and that, as soon as he has recovered his tights and put on his boots, his first move is toward the window where he has left his sword and belt, and where he goes first to take a very careful and cautious look out at the orchard which is under the balcony and across which he must escape. Romeo is certainly in love with the girl, but at this moment his more urgent concern is for his own life. What has wakened him? The increasing light from the window? The birdsong? Or the breeze blowing from the window as signal of the dawn that has not yet risen? I decide that it could be any of these and perhaps all of them. The birdsong, whether it is lark or nightingale, is romantic. But I also imagine other offstage sounds. At what time of day does the Capulet household stir? Probably even before daylight, as far as the servants are concerned, and it is from the servants that Romeo is likely to be first in danger. So I begin to invent other sounds: dogs barking is a standard sign of activity, or sounds of cattle. These can be more than just the incidental noises that help bring alive the time of day and the surroundings; they are useful because, properly punctuated, they help create the tension in the scene. They are the business which provide for the actor the reality of the scene, an immense help in avoiding the staginess in delivery of self-consciously poetic lines. In fact, it is out of this that I quickly discover how the action of the scene must be blocked. I find the moves. First move: Romeo wakes. Juliet is still asleep. Without rousing her, he gets out of the bed, recovers his clothes, his weapon and moves to the window. Second move: Juliet wakes. She is still half-asleep. Finding herself alone, she sees Romeo at the window. She recovers some clothes, moves


to him, embraces him. Does she really expect him to stay with her? Of course not. Her appeal to him not to leave just yet is hardly serious, only a gesture of love. Third move: but Romeo, in similar romantic affection, teases her, pretending to take her at her word. So he embraces her and brings her back again to the bed as if to resume their lovemaking. What stops them? It occurs to me that this is the moment to use again the sounds from the exterior. Maybe the barking of the dogs. Now it is Juliet’s turn to panic. Mischievously, Romeo threatens that he will indeed risk his life for a few more minutes with her, forcing her to drag him back again towards the window. The formula I use is an old one: in order to explore the non-verbal – or is it preverbal cinematic aspects of the text – I try to imagine how it could play without dialogue. Paradoxically, the result is that when staged like this, the action that is an anticipation of the meanings becomes more effective. The staging is rooted in the subtext, the unspoken impulses. Laurence Olivier, when he acted in and directed his film version of Hamlet, photographed the scene ‘To be or not to be…’ in extreme close-up. For most of the speech, the soundtrack was voice-over, whispering aloud the private thoughts, but with some of the key lines (the more extroverted thoughts) spoken in lipsynch. Using Brook’s exercise, it might be interesting to make three versions: (1) The Shakespearean dialogue played in a ‘theatrical’ movie, (2) a compromise version, as in the Olivier treatment: the ‘thoughts’ would be whispered as voice-over, and (3) Brook’s version, using only the few ‘activating’ lines spoken with the scene are filmed so that the actors’ silent pauses – with support from music and sound effects – are substituted for the Shakespearean poetry. In The Empty Space is Brook’s script for (3). Juliet Wilt thou be gone? It is not yet near day. It was the nightingale [pause] not the lark [pause] Romeo It was the lark [pause] no nightingale. Look, love [pause] I must be gone and live, or stay and die. Juliet Yon light is not daylight; [pause] therefore stay yet. Thou needest not to be gone.


Romeo Let me be ta’en, let me be put to death. I am content, so thou wilt have it so. [pause] Come, death and welcome! Juliet wills it so. How is’t, my soul? Let’s talk. It is not day. Here is another script for a possible version of (3). INT. JULIET’S BEDROOM. DAWN. ROMEO moves from the bed where JULIET still sleeps, approaching the window. Outside the distant sound of birdsong before sunrise, and a soft wind blowing. JULIET, waking, turns towards her lover at the window where he stands in the soft light that comes before the dawn. JULIET Wilt thou be gone? ROMEO I must be gone and live, or stay and die. JULIET Stay yet. Thou need’st not to be gone. ROMEO Let me be ta’en, let me be put to death. I am content, so thou wilt have it so. (he embraces her) Tis not day. So much for poor old Shakespeare. We’ve thrown him away, there’s nothing left of all that marvelous language, nothing but words that are bald and banal. I wouldn’t have had the nerve to suggest this exercise – a castration of a kind – if I hadn’t found it first in Peter Brook’s book. The point that I think the exercise makes is an important one: how does the director start when he begins to plan the staging? One answer is that he has to dig underneath the written text to explore for something else: the action of the scene, regardless of what the characters are saying and doing. The exercise confronts the most basic difference between theatre and cinema: the play is the art of the spoken word, while cinema is storytelling in images that move. Commentary © The Estate of Alexander Mackendrick


David Mamet Radio Drama Sunday nights we would go visiting. Coming home we'd play the car radio. It was dark and we'd be rolling through the prairies outside of Chicago. CBS “Suspense” would be on the air, or “Yours Truly, Johnny Dollar – the Man with the MillionDollar Expense Account.” And the trip home always ended too soon; we'd stay in the car until my dad kicked us out – we wanted to hear how the story ended; we wanted the trip to be endless – rolling through the prairies and listening to the intimate voices. But we went into the house. It never occurred to us to turn on the radio when we got in. We were the very first television generation. My dad was proud of the television, and we grew up considering the radio déclassé – it was used for information or background but not for entertainment. We grew up with the slogans, overheard from our parents and their friends, enigmatic catchwords of their youth: “Boston Blackie, enemy to those who make him an enemy, friend to those who have no friends.” “Who knows what evil lurks in the hearts of men? The Shadow do...” (That wonderful apocryphal transposition.) “Gangbusters... !” “Can a young girl from Ohio find happiness…” Et cetera. I had written a piece called The Water Engine. It was set in 1933 Chicago, during the Century of Progress Exposition, and concerned a young man who invented an engine which ran solely on water. I wrote it as a short story, and it was rejected by many publications. I wrote it as a movie treatment and it was rejected by various studios. I threw it in the wastebasket and, later that day, someone introduced me to Howard Gelman, who was the producer of Earplay, an outfit which commissions, produces, and distributes radio drama to the National Public Radio network. Howard knew my playwriting from Chicago. He asked me if I wanted to write for the radio, and I said yes, went home, and got The Water Engine out of the wastebasket. Earplay has since produced other plays of mine: Reunion, A Sermon, and Prairie Du Chien. And writing for radio I learned a lot about playwriting. Bruno Bettelheim, in The Uses of Enchantment, writes that the fairy tale (and, similarly, the Drama) has the capacity to calm, to incite, to assuage, finally, to affect, because we listen to it nonjudgmentally – we identify subconsciously (noncritically) with the protagonist. We are allowed to do this, he tells us, because the protagonist and, indeed, the situations are uncharacterized aside from their most essential elements. When we are told, for example, that a Handsome Prince went into a wood, we realize that we are that Handsome Prince. As soon as the prince is


characterized, “A Handsome Blond Prince with a twinkle in his eye, and just the hint of a mustache on his upper lip...” and if we lack that color hair, twinkle, and so on, we say, “What an interesting Prince. Of course, he is unlike anyone I know…” and we begin to listen to the story as a critic rather than as a participant. The essential task of the drama (as of the fairy tale) is to offer a solution to a problem which is nonsusceptible to reason. To be effective, the drama must induce us to suspend our rational judgment, and to follow the internal logic of the piece, so that our pleasure (our “cure”) is the release at the end of the story. We enjoy the happiness of being a participant in the process of solution, rather than the intellectual achievement of having observed the process of construction. And the best model for this drama is The Story around the Campfire. We hear “…a windswept moor” and immediately supply the perfect imaginary moor. And the moor we supply is not perfect “in general,” but perfect according to our subconscious understanding of the significance of the moor to the story. This is why radio is a great training ground for dramatists. More than any other dramatic medium it teaches the writer to concentrate on the essentials, because it throws into immediate relief that to characterize the people or scene is to take time from the story – to weaken the story. Working for radio, I learned the way all great drama works: by leaving the endowment of characters, place, and especially action up to the audience. Only by eschewing the desire to characterize can one begin to understand the model of the perfect play. The model of the perfect play is the dirty joke. “Two guys go into a farmhouse. An old woman is stirring a pot of soup.” What does the woman look like? What state is the farmhouse in? Why is she stirring soup? It is absolutely not important. The dirty-joke teller is tending toward a punch line and we know that he or she is only going to tell us the elements which direct our attention toward that punch line, so we listen attentively and gratefully. Good drama has no stage directions. It is the interaction of the characters' objectives expressed solely through what they say to each other – not through what the author says about them. The better the play, the better it will fare on the radio. Put Streetcar, Waiting for Godot, Long Day's Journey, Lear on the radio, and what do you miss? Nothing. Our enjoyment is increased by the absence of the merely descriptive. (A note here, as long as I have the forum, to beginning pIaywrights. A lesson from radio: don't write stage directions. If it is not apparent what the character is trying to accomplish by saying the line, telling us how the character said it, or whether or not she moved to the couch isn't going to aid the case. We might understand better what the character means but we aren’t particularly going to care.) In An Actor Prepares, Stanislavsky is asked by a student actor how, faced with all the myriad choices open to an actor onstage, Stanislavsky always manages to make the correct choice, a choice which puts forward the play. He responds that once on a Volga steamer he approached the captain and asked


how, when faced with the myriad decisions involved in navigating such a dangerous river, the captain always managed to make the correct choice. The captain, he tells us, replied, “I stick to the channel.” So, Stan tells the student, “Stick to the channel and you cannot be wrong. The choices that you make will not be ‘in general,’ but in aid of the story, and, so, they must be correct.” Writing for radio forces you and teaches you to stick to the channel, which is to say, the story. The story is all there is to the theater – the rest is just packaging, and that is the lesson of radio. Stan Freberg, a fiendishly inventive writer, once did a radio commercial for radio advertising, a dialogue between a television and a radio ad exec. The radio exec says, “Here's my ad: You take Lake Michigan and drain it. Bombers of the Royal Canadian Air Force fly over, laden with whipped cream. They drop the whipped cream in the lake until the lake is full. A huge helicopter circles Chicago carrying a forty-five ton cherry and drops it on the top of the whipped cream, as the tops of the Chicago skyscrapers explode and paint the evening sky with fireworks from horizon to horizon. Do that on TV.” Broadway theater by no means withstanding, the best production is the least production. The best production takes place in the mind of the beholder. We, as audience, are much better off with a sign that says A BLASTED HEATH, than with all the brilliant cinematography in the world. To say “brilliant cinematography” is to say, “He made the trains run on time.” Witness the rather fascistic trend in cinema in the last decade. Q. How’d you like the movie? A. Fantastic cinematography. Yeah, but so what? Hitler had fantastic cinematography. The question we have ceased to ask is, “What was the fantastic or brilliant cinematography in aid of?” As “fantastic cinematography” has been the death of the American film, “production” has been the death of the American theater. “Production” or “production values” is code for forsaking the story. “Production values” is a term invented by what used to be called “angels” when they were in the theater to meet members of the chorus, and who are now called producers, and God knows why they are in the theater. Writing for the radio teaches there is no such thing as “production values.” The phrase means “Pour money on it,” and it has been the ruin of television, movies, and the professional stage. It is The Triumph of the General – The Celebration of Nothing to Say. If Mount St. Helens could fit in a theater some producer would suggest teaming it with Anthony Hopkins and doing Huey. That is “production values.” But radio drama, God bless it, needs inventive actors, an inventive soundeffects person, and a good script. You can produce it for next to nothing. The writer and the actor can both practice and perfect their trade away from the countervailing influence of producers, critics, and money; and if it doesn't work they can do another one just as simply and cheaply without ruining either their


career or a large hunk of risk capital which might have meant an addition to the house in Larchmont. Martin Esslin helped reinvent the British drama as head of BBC Radio Drama after World War II by commissioning Pinter, Joe Orton, and others. He helped re-create a national theater by enfranching creative talent. In the same way Howard Gelman of Earplay, in commissioning Wendy Wasserstein, Terry Curtis Fox, Romulus Linney, Lanford Wilson, and so on, is supporting the American theater in the best way: by encouraging freedom of though – by hiring the writers and letting them be free. We live in oppressive times. We have, as a nation, become our own thought police; but instead of calling the process by which we limit our expression of dissent and wonder “censorship,” we call it “concern for commercial viability.” Whatever we call it, it is censorship. It is curtailment of freedom of speech and of imagination, and, as Tolstoy says, this oppression, as usual, is committed in the name of public tranquility. How different is saying, “It would create public unrest,” from saying, “It’s not going to sell. They aren't going to buy it?” It’s hard to find a Great American Play on Broadway. It’s getting too expensive to produce. To mount a three-character, one-set drama costs around $750,000, and the people with the money aren't going to put it up to enjoy a succès d’estime. They’re putting it up in the hopes it is going to make money, which means they are doing everything in their power to appeal to the widest possible audience, which makes it difficult for a play to be produced that questions, investigates, and so, probably, disturbs. Similarly with the movies. They aren’t administered by Miss Dove, but by people interested solely in making a buck on the buck they have put out. And television people who put out a news special on nuns being trampled to death by elephants would turn it into a series if the viewer response were great enough. These media (and we might as well include publishing) have, in an introverted time, become self-censoring – and they refer to the process not as thought policing but as cost accounting. But radio is inexpensive to produce. God bless it – the essential nature of the form is that it suffers immediately from the addition of production values, just as would a dirty joke (when you introduce the Farmer's Daughter you don’t put your hair in braids to illustrate). Radio drama can be produced by anybody with a microphone and a tape recorder. The time is auspicious for a rebirth of American Theater, and radio would be a good place to look for it to happen. © Original copyright holders


David Mamet Notes on The Cherry Orchard When playing poker it is a good idea to determine what cards your opponents might hold. There are two ways to do this. One involves watching their idiosyncrasies – the way they hold their cards when bluffing as opposed to the way they hold them when they have a strong hand; their unconscious selfrevelatory gestures; the way they play with their chips when unsure. This method of gathering information is called looking for “tells.” The other way to gather information is to analyze your opponent's hand according to what he bets. These two methods are analogous – in the Theater – to a concern with characterization, and a concern with action; or, to put it a bit differently: a concern with the way a character does something and, on the other hand, the actual thing that he does. I recently worked on an adaptation of The Cherry Orchard. My newfound intimacy with the play led me to look past the quiddities of the characters and examine what it is that they are actually doing. I saw this: The title is a flag of convenience. Nobody in the play gives a damn about the cherry orchard. In the first act Lyubov returns. We are informed that her beloved estate is going to be sold unless someone acts quickly to avert this catastrophe. She is told this by the rich Lopakhin. He then immediately tells her that he has a plan: cut down the cherry orchard, raze the house, and build tract housing for the summer people. This solution would save (although alter) the estate. Lopakhin keeps reiterating his offer throughout the play. Lyubov will not accept. Lopakhin finally buys the estate. “Well,” one might say, “one cannot save one's beloved cherry orchard by cutting it down.” That, of course, is true. But in the text other alternatives are offered. Reference is made to the rich aunt in Yaroslavl (“who is so very rich”), and who adores Lyubov’s daughter, Anya. A flying mendicant mission is proposed but never materializes. The point is not that this mission is viewed as a good bet – it isn’t – but that, if the action of the protagonist (supposedly Lyubov) were to save the cherry orchard, she would vehemently pursue and grasp any possibility of help. The more real hope of salvation is fortuitous marriage. Gaev, Lyubov’s brother, enumerates the alternatives: inheriting money, begging from the rich aunt, marrying Anya off to a rich man. The first is idle wishing, and we've struck off the second, but what about the third alternative?


There’s nobody much around for Anya. But what about her stepsister, Varya? Varya, Lyubov’s adopted daughter, is not only nubile, she is in love. With whom is she in love? She is in love with the very wealthy Lopakhin. Why, hell. If I wanted to save my cherry orchard, and my adopted daughter was in love (and we are told that her affections are by no means abhorrent to their recipient) with the richest man in town, what would I do? What would you do? It's the easy way out, the play ends in a half hour, and everybody gets to go home early. But Lyubov does not press this point either, though she makes reference to it in every act. She does not press on to a happy marriage between Varya and Lopakhin. Nor, curiously, is this match ever mentioned as a solution for the problem of the cherry orchard. The problem of the botched courtship of Varya and Lopakhin exists only as one of a number of supposed subplots. (More of this later.) In the penultimate scene of the play, Lyubov, who is leaving her now-sold estate to return to Paris, attempts to tie up loose ends. She exhorts Lopakhin to propose to Varya, and he says he will. Left alone, Lopakhin loses his nerve and does not propose. Why does Lyubov, on learning this, not press her case? Why did she not do so sooner? Even now, at the end of the play, if Lyubov really cared about the cherry orchard, she could save it from the ax. She could easily force Lopakhin to propose to Varya, and then get the bright idea that all of them could live on the estate as one happy family. And Lopakhin, who reveres her, would not refuse her. But she does not do so. Is this from lack of inventiveness? No. It is from lack of concern. The cherry orchard is not her concern. What about Lopakhin? Why is he cutting down the cherry orchard? He has been, from his youth, infatuated with Lyubov. She is a goddess to him, her estate is a fairyland to him, and his great desire in the play is to please her. (In fact, if one were to lapse into a psychological overview of the play at this point, one might say that the reason Lopakhin can’t propose to Varya is that he is in love with Lyubov.) Lopakhin buys the estate. For ninety thousand rubles, which means nothing to him. He then proceeds to cut down the trees, which he knows will upset his goddess, Lyubov, and to raze the manor house. His parents were slaves in that house; Lyubov grew up in the house; he doesn't need the money; why is he cutting down the trees? (Yes, yes, yes, we encounter halfhearted addenda in regard to future generations being won back to the land. But it doesn’t wash. Why? If Lopakhin wanted to build a summer colony, he could build it anywhere. He could have built it without Lyubov's land and without her permission. If his objective were the building of summer homes and he were faced with two tracts, one where he had to cut down his idol's home, and one where be did not, which would he pick? Well, he has an infinite number of tracts. He can build anywhere he wants. Why cut down the trees and sadden his beloved idol? Having bought


the estate he could easily let it sit, and, should the spirit move him subsequently, build his resort elsewhere.) What, in effect, is going on here? Nothing that has to do with trees. The play is a series of scenes about sexuality, and, particularly, frustrated sexuality. The play was inspired, most probably, by the scene in Anna Karenina between Kitty's friend Mlle Varenka and her gentleman companion Koznyeshev. The two of them, lonely, nice people, are brought together through the office of mutual, friends. Each should marry, they are a perfect match. In one of the finest scenes in the book we are told that each knew the time had arrived, that it was Now or Never. They go for a walk, and Mr. Koznyeshev is about to propose when he is distracted by a question about mushrooms. And so the two nice people are doomed to loneliness. If this description sounds familiar, it should. Chekhov, pregnant of his theme, lifted it shamelessly (and probably unconsciously) from Tolstoy and gave it to Lopakhin and Varya. Not only do Lopakhln and Varya play out the scene, everybody in the play plays out the same scene. Anya is in love with Pyotr Trofimov, the tutor of her late brother. Trofimov is in love with her, but is too repressed to make the first move. He, in fact, declares that he is above love, while, in a soliloquy, refers to Anya as "My springtime, my dear Morning Sun." Yepiliodov, the estate bookkeeper, is in love with Dunyasha, the chambermaid. He keeps trying to propose, but she thinks him a boor and will not hear him out. She is in love with Yasha, Lyubov's footman. Yasha seduces and abandons her, as he is in love with himself. Lyubov herself is in love. She gave her fortune to her paramour and nursed him through three years of his sickness. He deserted her for a younger woman. Now, this is the reason she has returned to the estate. It is purely coincidental that she returns just prior to the auction of the orchard. Why is it coincidental? Because, as we have seen, she doesn't come back to save it. If she wanted to she could. Why does she come back? What is the event that prompts her return? Her jilting. What is the event that prompts her to return again to Paris? The continual telegrams of her lover begging for forgiveness. Why did Lyubov come home? To lick her wounds, to play for time, to figure out a new course for her life. None of these is a theatrically compelling action. (The last comes closest, but it could be done in Seclusion and does not require other characters. As, indeed, the role of Lyubov is, essentially a monologue – there's nothing she wants from anyone on stage.) If Lyubov is doing nothing but these solitary, reflective acts, why is she the protagonist of the play? She isn't.


The play has no protagonist. It has a couple of squad leaders. The reason it has no protagonist is that it has no through-action. It has one scene repeated by various couples. To continue: Lyubov’s brother is Gaev. He is a perennial bachelor, and is referred to several times in the text as an Old Lady. What does he want? Not much of anything. Yes, he cries at the end when the orchard is cut down. But he appears to be just as happy going to work in the bank and playing caroms as he is lounging around the Morning Room and playing caroms. The other odd characters are Firs, the ancient butler, who is happy the mistress has returned, and Simeonov-Pishchik, a poor neighbor who is always looking on the bright side. Pishchik, Firs, and Gaev are local color. They are all celibate and seen as somewhat doddering in different degrees. And they are all happy. Because they are not troubled by Sex. They are not involved in the play’s one and oft-repeated action: to consummate, clarify, or rectify an unhappy sexual situation. The cherry orchard and its imminent destruction is nothing other than an effective dramatic device. The play is not “If you don't pay the mortgage I'll take your cow.” It is “Kiss me quick because I'm dying of cancer.” The obstacle in the play does not grow out of, and does not even refer to, the actions of the characters. The play works because it is a consolidation of brilliant scenes. I would guess – judging from its similarity to many of his short stories – that Chekhov wrote the scenes between the servant girl Dunyasha and Yepihodov first. That perhaps sparked the idea of a scene between Dunyasha and the man she loves, Yasha, a footman just returned from Paris. Who did this fine footman return with? The mistress. Et ensuite. To continue this conceit: What did Chekhov do when he had two hours’ worth of scene and thirteen characters running around a country house? He had, as any playwright has, three choices. He could shelve the material as brilliant sketches; he could examine the material and attempt to discern any intrinsically dramatic through-action, and extrapolate the play out of that. Compare that structure of The Cherry Orchard with that of The Seagull. In The Seagull, the famous actress Arkadina wants to recapture her youth, which causes her to devote herself to a younger man and ignore the needs of her son, whose age is an affront to her pretensions of youth. He struggles to obtain her respect and the respect and love of Nina (another actress), who represents one split-off aspect of Arkadina’s personality: her available sexuality. The Seagull is structured as a tragedy. At the end of the play the hero, Treplev, undergoes recognition of his state and reversal of his situation – he kills himself. What happens at the end of The Cherry Orchard? Everyone goes home – they go back to doing exactly what they were doing before the play began. You might say The Cherry Orchard is structured as a farce. That is the dramatic form to which it is closest. One might


also say that it is close to a series of review sketches with a common theme, and, in fact, it is. The play is most closely related to, and is probably the first example of, the twentieth-century phenomenon of the revue-play… the theme plays, for example, La Ronde, Truckline Cafe, Men in White, Detective Story, Waters of the Moon, etc. To return: Chekhov has thirteen people stuck in a summer house. He has a lot of brilliant scenes. His third alternative is to come up with a pretext which will keep all thirteen characters in the same place and talking to each other for a while. This is one of the dilemmas of the modem dramatist: “Gosh, this material is fantastic. What can I do to just Keep the People in the House?” One can have a piece of jewelry stolen. One can have a murder committed. One can have a snowstorm. One can have the car break down. One can have The Olde Estate due to be sold for debts in three weeks unless someone comes up with a good solution. I picture this pretext occurring to Chekhov, and his saying, “Naaaa, they'll never go for it.” I picture him watching rehearsals and wincing every time Lopakhin says (as he, says frequently): “Just remember, you have only three (two, one) weeks until the cherry orchard is to be sold.” Fine, he must have thought. That's real playwriting. One doesn't see Horatio coming out every five minutes and saying, “Don’t forget, Hamlet, your uncle killed your dad and now he's sleeping with your ma!” Oh, no, he must have thought, I'll never get away with it. But he did, and left us a play we cherish, Why do we cherish the play? Because it is about the struggle between the Old Values of the Russian aristocracy and their loosening grasp on power? I think not. For, finally, a play is about – and is only about – the actions of its characters. We, as audience, understand a play not in terms of the superficial idiosyncrasies or social states of its characters (which, finally, separate us from the play), but only in terms of the action the characters are trying to accomplish. Set Hamlet in Waukegan and it's still a great play. The enduring draw of The Cherry Orchard is not that it is set in a dying Czarist Russia or that it has rich folks and poor folks. We are drawn to the play because it speaks to our subconscious – which is what a play should do. And we subconsciously perceive and enjoy the reiterated action of this reiterated scene: two people at odds – each trying to fulfill his or her frustrated sexuality. © Original copyright holders


Robert McKee Key Questions and Ten Commandments McKee (b. 1941) is perhaps the leading teacher of screenwriting on the commercial workshop circuit today. It seem fashionable to dismiss him and his ideas, but actually much of it is very good stuff (his book Story is worth close study). The fact is, what he writes and lectures about is what John Howard Lawson, Kenneth Thorpe Rowe and Mackendrick said decades before him.

Key Questions 1. What event starts my story so the crisis and climax must occur? 2. What is the relationship between the inciting incident and the crisis/climax of this story? 3. Does the inciting incident and the way in which it occurs make the crisis/climax eventually necessary? 4. The inciting incident occurs and creates branching probability. Given this, do you feel the ending you’ve designed absolutely must occur? 5. What event starts the story so that the protagonist must go into action? Even if the action is saying, “I’m not going into action,” the protagonist must react to that inciting incident. Even if it is to deny action. 6. What does my protagonist want that comes out of this inciting incident? What drives the protagonist on? What goal must the protagonist accomplish? What has he/she failed to accomplish? 7. What position does the character meet? What are the sources of antagonism? From what levels of reality? Always try to create three dimensional stories in which conflict is coming from ALL THREE LEVELS OF REALITY. 8. Is the opposition equal to if not greater than the protagonist? The protagonist cannot be up against forces which he can easily handle and overwhelm. Do these forces really test him/her as a human being? Do these forces become so powerful and cumulative in their power that they are severely testing the deepest human qualities in this person? 9. As we move toward the ending, do we become more deeply involved? Not staying the same, not losing interest, but more deeply involved. 10. Have we grown to identify with and/or like the protagonist?


11. As we near the ending, do we feel an exhilaration/acceleration of action and reaction? 12. Does the action in the crisis/climax fully express my root idea WITHOUT the aid of dialogue? 13. Every movie is about one idea. How does each scene in the film bring out an aspect of that one idea, positively or negatively? 14. What is the worst possible thing that could happen to my character? How could that turn out to be the best possible thing? Or vice versa. McKee’s Ten Commandments One: Thou shalt not take the crisis/climax out of the protagonist’s hands. The antideus ex machina commandment. Two: Thou shalt not make life easy for the protagonist. Nothing progresses in a story, except through conflict. Three: Thou shalt not give exposition for strictly exposition’s sake. Dramatize it. Convert exposition to ammunition. Use it to turn the ending of a scene, to further conflict. Four: Thou shalt not use false mystery or cheap surprise. Don’t conceal anything important that the protagonist KNOWS. Keep us in step with the hero. We know what he/she knows. Five: Thou shalt respect your audience. The anti-hack commandment. Six: Thou shalt know your world as God knows this one. The pro-research commandment. Seven: Thou shalt not complicate when complexity is better. Don’t multiply the complications on one level. Use all three: Intra-Personal, Inter-Personal, Extra-Personal. Eight: Thou shalt seek the end of the hero, the negation of the negation, taking characters to the farthest reaches and depth of conflict imaginable within the story’s own realm of probability. Nine: Thou shalt not write on the nose. Put a subtext under every text. Ten: Thou shalt rewrite. © Original copyright holders


Robert McKee The Writer Must Master Classical Form By instinct or study, fine writers recognize that minimalism and antistructure are not independent forms but reactions to the Classical. Miniplot and Antiplot were born out of the Archplot – one shrinks it, the other contradicts it. The avant-garde exists to oppose the popular and commercial, until it too becomes popular and commercial, then it turns to attack itself. If Nonplot “art films” went hot and were raking in money, the avant-garde would revolt, denounce Hollywood for selling out to portraiture, and seize the Classical for its own. These cycles between formality/freedom, symmetry/asymmetry are as old as Attic theatre. The history of art is a history of revivals: Establishment icons are shattered by an avant-garde that in time becomes the new establishment to be attacked by a new avant-garde that uses its grandfather's forms of weapons. Rock ’n roll, which was named after black slang for sex, began as an avant-garde movement against the white-bread sounds of the postwar era. Now it’s the definition of musical aristocracy and even used as church music. The serious use of Antiplot devices not only has gone out of fashion but has become a joke. A vein of dark satire has always run through antistructure works, from UN CHIEN ANDALOU to WEEKEND, but now direct address to camera, inconsistent realities, and alternative endings are the staples of film farce. Antiplot gags that began with Bob Hope and Bing Crosby’s THE ROAD TO MOROCCO have been worked into the likes of BLAZING SADDLES, the PYTHON films, and WAYNE’S WORLD. Story techniques that once struck us as dangerous and revolutionary now seem toothless but charming. Respecting these cycles, great storytellers have always known that, regardless of background or education, everyone, consciously or instinctively, enters the story ritual with Classical anticipation. Therefore, to make Miniplot and Antiplot work the writer must play with or against this expectancy. Only by carefully and creatively shattering or bending the Classical form can the artist lead the audience to perceive the inner life hidden in a Miniplot or to accept the chilling absurdity of an Antiplot. But how can a writer creatively reduce or reverse that which he does not understand? Writers who found success in the deep corners of the story triangle knew that the starting point of understanding was at the top and began their careers in the Classical. Bergman wrote and directed love stories and social and historical dramas for twenty years before he dared venture into the minimalism of THE SILENCE or the antistructure of PERSONA. Fellini made I VITIONI and LA STRADA before he risked the Miniplot of AMARCORD or the Antiplot of 872. Godard made BREATHLESS before WEEKEND. Robert Altman perfected his story talents in the TV series BONANZA and ALFRED HITCHCOCK PRESENTS. First, the masters mastered the Archplot.


I sympathize with the youthful desire to make a first screenplay read like PERSONA. But the dream of joining the avant-garde must wait while, like the artists before you, you too gain mastery of Classical form. Don't kid yourself into thinking that you understand Archplot because you've seen the movies. You'll know you understand it when you can do it. The writer works at his skills until knowledge shifts from the left side of the brain to the right, until intellectual awareness becomes living craft. © Original copyright holders


Pixar’s 22 Rules of Storytelling 1. You admire a character for trying more than for their successes. 2. You gotta keep in mind what’s interesting to you as an audience, not what’s fun to do as a writer. They can be very different. 3. Trying for theme is important, but you won’t see what the story is actually about til you’re at the end of it. Now rewrite. 4. Once upon a time there was ___. Every day, ___. One day ___. Because of that, ___. Because of that, ___. Until finally ___. 5. Simplify. Focus. Combine characters. Hop over detours. You’ll feel like you’re losing valuable stuff but it sets you free. 6. What is your character good at, comfortable with? Throw the polar opposite at them. Challenge them. How do they deal? 7. Come up with your ending before you figure out your middle. Seriously. Endings are hard, get yours working up front. 8. Finish your story, let go even if it’s not perfect. In an ideal world you have both, but move on. Do better next time. 9. When you’re stuck, make a list of what WOULDN’T happen next. Lots of times the material to get you unstuck will show up. 10. Pull apart the stories you like. What you like in them is a part of you; you’ve got to recognize it before you can use it. 11. Putting it on paper lets you start fixing it. If it stays in your head, a perfect idea, you’ll never share it with anyone. 12. Discount the 1st thing that comes to mind. And the 2nd, 3rd, 4th, 5th – get the obvious out of the way. Surprise yourself. 13. Give your characters opinions. Passive/malleable might seem likable to you as you write, but it’s poison to the audience. 14. Why must you tell THIS story? What’s the belief burning within you that your story feeds off of? That’s the heart of it.


15. If you were your character, in this situation, how would you feel? Honesty lends credibility to unbelievable situations. 16. What are the stakes? Give us reason to root for the character. What happens if they don’t succeed? Stack the odds against. 17. No work is ever wasted. If it’s not working, let go and move on – it’ll come back around to be useful later. 18. You have to know yourself: the difference between doing your best & fussing. Story is testing, not refining. 19. Coincidences to get characters into trouble are great; coincidences to get them out of it are cheating. 20. Exercise: take the building blocks of a movie you dislike. How d’you rearrange them into what you DO like? 21. You gotta identify with your situation/characters, can’t just write ‘cool.’ What would make YOU act that way? 22. What’s the essence of your story? Most economical telling of it? If you know that, you can build out from there. © Original copyright holders


Michael Arndt Eight Steps for “Setting the Story Into Motion” 1. Show Your Main Character Introduce the audience to your main character. As most of the story follows their perspective, you need to establish him in the mind of the audience. In the case of Toy Story, this is Woody. He is a toy that comes alive when humans aren’t watching. 2. Introduce the Universe that They Live In Give your audience a chance to see the world that the protagonist lives in. In the case of Toy Story, we see that Woody lives in Andy’s room with the other toys. 3. Show Your Character’s Grand Passion Show your character doing the thing that they love the most. What is their Grand Passion? In Woody’s case, his grand passion is his place as Andy’s favourite toy. He has the favoured position Andy’s bed and the introductory playtime sequences always show him as the star of Andy’s imagination. 4. Show Your Character’s Hidden Flaw Only boring protagonists are perfect. Show the audience your main character’s flaw. Give them a flaw that comes out of their grand passion, that comes out of the thing they love doing the most. In Woody’s case, it’s pride. As Andy’s favourite toy, he has a lot of pride about his place in Andy’s bedroom. It is only natural that he gets his comeuppance. 5. Hint at Storm Clouds on the Horizon Very subtly, hint to your audience that there is trouble out on the horizon. In the case of Toy Story, those storms clouds are Andy’s birthday party. All of the other toys are afraid of being replaced. Only Woody, proud of his status as Andy’s favourite tool, is unworried.


6. Turn Your Character’s World Upside Down Something comes into your hero’s life and turns it upside down. It takes away their grand passion. In the case of Woody, the introduction of Buzz Lightyear changes everything. Because Buzz is such a cool tool, Andy and all of the other toys prefer him. Woody finds himself relegated to the Toy Chest while Buzz gets the preferred spot on Andy’s bed. Woody has lost his greatest possession: his status as Andy’s favourite toy. 7. Add Insult to Injury If that is not enough, you have to add insult to injury. It is not enough to take away your protagonist’s grand passion, you always have to humiliate him in the process. In the case of Toy Story, not only does he lose his place as favourite toy to Buzz, Buzz has no idea that he’s a toy! As Woody loses favour, you can see his frustration at Buzz’s cluelessness. He’s being replaced by an imbecile! This step is important to show your character’s frustration at a world that is completely unfair. 8. Have Your Character Make the Wrong Choice This is the big one. Bring your main character to a fork in the road. At this fork, they have two choices: a right choice and a wrong choice. Of course the character makes a wrong choice. Having seen what he has gone through, we understand perfectly why he makes the wrong choice. We even WANT him to make the wrong choice. This wrong choice comes out of his grand passion and provokes a crisis that sets us on our way to Act 2. Let’s take Toy Story again. In Toy Story, Woody, having been displaced and insulted by the deluded Buzz Lightyear, decides to try to knock Buzz behind the dresser so that Andy will have to take him to Pizza Planet. The plan goes awry, Buzz is knocked out the window, and the other toys blame Woody, leaving him no choice but to find and return Buzz to Andy’s room. That leads us right into Act 2. Michael Arndt wrote Little Miss Sunshine and Toy Story 3.


John Yorke What Makes a Great Screenplay? Once upon a time, in such and such a place, something happened." In basic terms that's about it – the very best definition of a story. What an archetypal story does is introduce you to a central character – the protagonist – and invite you to identify with them; effectively they become your avatar in the drama. So you have a central character, you empathise with them, and something then happens to them, and that something is the genesis of the story. Jack discovers a beanstalk; Bond learns Blofeld plans to take over the world. The “something” is almost always a problem, sometimes a problem disguised as an opportunity. It's usually something that throws your protagonist’s world out of kilter – an explosion in the normal steady pace of their lives: Alice falls down a rabbit hole; spooks learn of a radical terrorist plot; Godot doesn’t turn up. Your character has a problem that he or she must solve: Alice has to get back to the real world; our spooks have to stop a bomb going off in central London; Vladimir and Estragon have to wait. The story is the journey they go on to sort out the problem presented. On the way they may learn something new about themselves; they'll certainly be faced with a series of obstacles to overcome; there will be a moment near the end where all hope seems lost, and this will almost certainly be followed by a last-minute resurrection of hope, a final battle against the odds, and victory snatched from the jaws of defeat. You'll see this shape (or its tragic counterpart) working at some level in every story. It might be big and pronounced, as in Alien or Jaws, it might be subtler, as in Ordinary People, or it might represent a reaction against it (Jean-Luc Godard’s Weekend) – but it will be there. It reveals itself most clearly in the framework of the classic crime or hospital drama. A murder is committed or someone gets sick; the detective or doctor must find the killer or make their patient well. That's why detective fiction is so popular; the unifying factors that appear at some level in all stories are at their most accessible here. The protagonist Normally the protagonist is obvious. It’s Batman, it’s James Bond, it’s Indiana Jones. If it’s difficult to identify a protagonist then perhaps the story is about more than one person (say EastEnders, or Robert Altman’s Short Cuts) but it will always be the person the audience cares about most. But already we encounter difficulties. “Care” is often translated as “like,” which is why so many screenwriters are given the note (often by non-writing executives)

“Can you make them nice?” Frank Cottrell Boyce, a graduate of Brookside and one of Britain’s most successful screenwriters, puts it more forcibly than most: “Sympathy is like crack cocaine to industry execs. I’ve had at least one wonderful screenplay of mine maimed by a sympathy-skank. Yes, of course the audience has to relate to your characters, but they don’t need to approve of them. If characters are going to do something bad, Hollywood wants you to build in an excuse note.” We don’t like Satan in Paradise Lost – we love him. And we love him because he’s the perfect gleeful embodiment of evil. Niceness tends to kill characters. Much more interesting are the rough edges, the darkness – and we love these things because, though we may not want to admit it, they touch something deep inside us. If you play video games such as Grand Theft Auto or Call of Duty: Modern Warfare (and millions do), then you occupy literal avatars that do little but kill, maim, destroy, or sleep with the obstacles in your path. David Edgar justified his play about Nazi architect Albert Speer by saying: “The awful truth – and it is awful, in both senses of the word – is that the response most great drama asks of us is neither ‘yes please’ nor ‘no thanks’ but ‘you, too?’ Or, in the cold light of dawn, ‘there but for the grace of God go I.’” The key to empathy, then, does not lie in manners or good behaviour. Nor does it lie, as is often claimed, in the understanding of motive. It’s certainly true that if we know why characters do what they do, we will love them more. However, that’s a symptom of empathy, not its root cause. It lies in its ability to access and bond with our unconscious. Why are so many fictional policeman and doctors mavericks? Laziness on the writers’ behalf possibly, but can that really account for the widespread prevalence of one particular character trait? Why did so many find themselves drawn to Sarah Lund in The Killing? Like her pulp-fiction counterparts, she broke the rules, ignored her bosses and went behind their backs; like them she was told by her bosses: “You’ve got 24 hours or I’m taking you off the case.” Why did she – and why do all mavericks – prove so popular? Largely because that’s how many of us feel at times, too. When we watch Sarah Lund rejecting her bosses, we think, “I wish I could do that”; when we watch Miranda Hart’s Chummy in Call the Midwife, we bleed for her clumsiness. There is something immensely attractive in living through a character who does obtain revenge, who is proved to have value or, like Lund, is finally proved right. The attraction of wish fulfilment, benevolent or masochistic, can’t be underestimated – what else can explain the ubiquity of Cinderella or the current global dominance of the Marvel franchise? Isn’t there a Peter Parker in most of us, longing to turn into Spider-Man? We may recoil at the idea of empathising with Adolf Hitler but, as Downfall attests, we can and do.


The antagonist So something happens to a central character that throws them off the beaten track and forces them into a world they’ve never seen. A beanstalk grows; a patient collapses, a murder is committed. All of these actions have consequences; which in turn provoke obstacles that are commonly dubbed forces of antagonism – the sum total of all the obstacles that obstruct a character in the pursuit of their desires. The detective and “monster” templates illustrate this well, but antagonism can manifest itself in many different ways, most interestingly when it lies within the protagonist. Cowardice, drunkenness, lack of self-esteem – all will serve as internal obstacles that prevent a character reaching fulfilment; all make the person more real. While antagonists can be external (James Bond), internal (The Diving Bell and the Butterfly) or both (Jaws), all have one thing in common, which Hitchcock summarised succinctly: “The more successful the villain, the more successful the picture.” What do Bond and Blofeld, Sarah Connor and the Terminator, Sam Tyler and Geme Hunt (Life on Mars), Fiona and Frank Gallagher (Shameless) have in common? They’re all opposites. “We’re not so very different, you and I,” says Karla to Smiley in Tinker Tailor Soldier Spy. “We both spend our lives looking for the weaknesses in one and another's systems.” As the Joker, displaying an uncharacteristic grasp of story structure, says to Batman in The Dark Knight, “You complete me.” All forces of antagonism embody the qualities missing in their protagonist's lives. The desire If a character doesn't want something, they’re passive. Aaron Sorkin, writer of The West Wing put it succinctly: “Somebody’s got to want something, something’s got to be standing in their way of getting it. You do that and you’ll have a scene.” The Russian actor, director and theoretician Konstantin Stanislavski first articulated the idea that characters are motivated by desire. To find Nemo, to put out the Towering Inferno, to clear their name, to catch a thief, purpose must be bestowed and actively sought. Why do characters in EastEnders offer up the mantra, “It’s all about family”? Because it gives them something to fight for; it gives them a goal – it brings them to life. “Tell me what you want,” said Anton Chekhov, “and I will tell you what manner of man you are.”


Whether simple (kill the shark) or profound (return the key in Channel 4’s The Promise), the underlying “grail quest” structure is ever present. Cops want to catch the killer, doctors want to heal their patient. In North by Northwest, everyone is simply chasing microfilm of an unspecified variety. Again, Hitchcock says it best: “[We] have a name in the studio, and we call it the ‘MacGuffin.’ It is the mechanical element that usually crops up in any story. In crook stories it is almost always the necklace and in spy stories it is most always the papers.” When “something happens” to a hero at the beginning of a drama, that something, at some level, is a disruption to their perceived security. Duly alarmed, they seek to rectify their situation; their “want” is to find that security once again. They may often, however, choose to find that security in the wrong place. What a character thinks is good for them is often bad. This conflict is one of the fundamental tenets of structure, because it embodies the battle between external and internal desire. External and internal desire Blockbusters, with one or two exceptions, are two–dimensional. It’s a world where desire is simple: the hero wants something – to kill Bill or find the secret of the Unicorn. In pursuit of that goal the multiplex hero doesn't change. The cynic might say that’s because of the demands of the franchise – we want James Bond to be the same in every film. But Bond is the refined, simplified bastardisation of a deeper archetype. He is white bread: impurities removed, digestion eased; a product of the demand for the thrill of story, minus its more troubling and disturbing elements. Bond just wants; he is an embodiment of pure desire. Three-dimensional characters, however, do change. When we first meet Thelma and Louise they are living in darkness, mortgageholders in a conservative American society. In The Lives of Others, Hauptmann Wiesler is a Stasi agent, the product of a world where empathy doesn’t exist. Here he can flourish – his power and steel are terrifying Thelma, Louise and Wiesler are all flawed characters, and it is this concept of “flaw” that is critical in three-dimensional storytelling. Wiesler cannot care; the women are unknowingly repressed. Flaw or need isn’t the same as want or desire. Wiesler wants to punish the dissident couple he has been sent to spy on; Thelma and Louise want to escape the police and get to Mexico. Both sets of characters go on a journey to recognise that what they want stands in direct opposition to what they need. Going to Mexico or imprisoning dissidents will not make them complete.


The Russian formalist Vladimir Propp coined the beautiful term “lack” for what a protagonist is missing in the initial stages of any story, and it’s this lack that threedimensional stories exploit. While it’s possible for characters to get what they want and what they need (certainly that's what happens in Aliens or Star Wars), the true, more universal and powerful archetype occurs when the initial, ego-driven goal is abandoned for something more important, more nourishing, more essential. In Rocky, Cars, Saving Private Ryan, Little Miss Sunshine, Midnight Run and Tootsie, the heroes find a goal they weren’t aware they were looking for. The inciting incident All stories have a premise – “What if?” This is almost always the inciting incident, or the “something” that happens. In The Long Good Friday Harold Shand is a gangster, planning to develop London's derelict docklands. He’s invited the mafia to London to secure their investment when, without warning, one of his gang, charged with taking Harold’s mother to church, is blown up in his car. That’s the inciting incident – or part of it, because what the inciting incident must also do is awaken a desire. We go back to our story shape: a problem occurs; a solution is sought. Harold’s solution is to track down the perpetrators and destroy them: “I’ll have his carcasses dripping blood by midnight,” he mutters. That’s his “want,” and that’s the film. Hollywood tends to insist that inciting incidents are massive explosions. But as Fawlty Towers demonstrates, they may just be the arrival of a guest followed by an ever-growing complication AW Schlegel first codified the structural point in 1808, calling them “first determinations.” In many ways, it remains the perfect term. The journey In Terminator 2,Arnold Schwarzenegger was turned from villain into hero, arguably helping position him as a family-friendly star, but the far more significant adjustment was the upgrade the character underwent. The new model Terminator, the T2, was programmed to learn from his surroundings and experience. Cunningly, his ability to undergo internal change was actually built into the script. Compare From Russia with Love with Casino Royale, and The Terminator with Terminator 2: the former in each case is a brilliantly slick product, but the latter has a far greater depth and resonance. As the heroes pursue their goals, their journeys in the latter films move us beyond visceral thrill to touch not just our senses but something deeper. In both sequels, the protagonists’ superficial wants


remain unsated; they’re rejected in favour of the more profound unconscious hunger inside. The characters get what they need. Expecting one thing on our quest, we find ourselves confronted with another; traditional worldviews aren’t reinforced, prejudices aren’t reaffirmed; instead the protagonists’ worldviews – and ours too – are realigned. The quest is an integral ingredient of all archetypal stories, internal or external, and, perhaps most rewardingly, both. Change of some kind is at the heart of this quest, and so too is choice, because finally the protagonist must choose how to change. Nowhere is this more clearly embodied than in the crisis. The crisis The crisis is a kind of death: someone close to the hero dies (The Godfather), the heroes themselves appear to die (ET) but more commonly all hope passes away. Some US TV drama series refer to it as the “worst case,” and in BBC continuing drama, “worst point” has become an almost ubiquitous term. Not for nothing; it’s the point of maximum jeopardy in any script, the moment the viewer should be shouting “Oh no!” at the screen, the moment where it seems impossible for the hero to “get out of that.” The crisis is also, in self-contained stories, almost always the cliffhanger before the last commercial break and the ending of every episode of EastEnders, of the 1960s Batman TV series and every American serial film of the 1940s from Superman to Flash Gordon. The crisis occurs when the hero's final dilemma is crystallised, the moment they are faced with the most important question of the story; just what kind of person are they? This choice is the final test of character, because it’s the moment where the hero is forced to face up to their dramatic need or flaw. In the Pilgrim’s Progress-type structure that underlies Star Wars, Luke’s choice is between that of being a boy and a man; in Casablanca Rick has to confront and overcome his selfishness (“I stick my neck out for no man”), and in Aliens Ripley learns, by choosing to save Newt, that she can be a mother once again. In all you can see the cleverness of the structural design, where the external antagonists are the embodiments of what each protagonist fears most. To overcome that which lies without, they must overcome the chasm within. Hence the stench of death – every crisis is the protagonists’ opportunity to kill off their old selves and live anew. Their choice is to deny change and return to their former selves, or confront their innermost fears, overcome them and be rewarded. When Gary sings, “Am I a man or a Muppet?” at his crisis point in 2011’s The Muppets, he's articulating the quintessential dilemma all protagonists face at this crucial structural point. Being a “man” is the road less travelled, and it's the much harder choice.


The climax The climax is the stage at which the protagonist finds release from their seemingly inescapable predicament. It's the final showdown with their antagonist, the battle in which the hero engages with their dramatic need and overcomes their flaw. Historically it is sometimes referred to as the “obligatory scene” (a term coined in the 19th century by French drama critic Francisque Sarcey). When Thelma and Louise shoot the rapist and decide to run from the law, there’s one essential sequence that has to happen: they must do battle with the law. Once Elliot has adopted ET and saved him from the faceless hordes of government, he has to face the “villains” he’s hidden him from. During each film we watch as Thelma, Louise and Elliot develop the skills they need to overcome their flaws; the two women need to believe in themselves and each other; Elliot needs to find the tenacity and selflessness within. And here, in the climax, they apply them. Both are classically structured films, where the flaws of the protagonists are embodied in the characterisation of the antagonists, so that in ET, when Elliot overcomes his external obstacle, his internal need is liberated, and when the women renounce society they become (we are led to believe) emancipated and whole. A climax can be subverted (the Coen brothers’ No Country For Old Men kills its protagonist at the crisis point, but it’s very much an exception) but the effect is akin to Bond running from Blofeld. Unless it’s part of a wider schematic plan it feels wrong – the writer has set up something and then refused to pay it off. The inciting incident provokes the question “What will happen?” and the climax (or obligatory act) declares, “this.” It is the peak of the drama. Protagonist faces antagonist – all come together to fight it out and be resolved. The resolution The word “denouement” is a derivation of dénouer, meaning “to untie,” and that’s what it is – the knots of plot are undone and complications unravelled. But it is also a tying up of loose ends. In a classically structured work there must be a payoff for every set-up, no strand left forgotten. Traditionally, stories always ended happily ever after, with all action resolved. Either the tragic hero died or the romantic couple got married. As the journalist and author Christopher Booker has observed, a number of significant changes took place as a result of the industrial revolution in the way we tell stories. “Open endings” have become more commonplace, partly to add an air of uncertainty and partly because, in a godless universe, death doesn’t mean what it once did. As


Shakespearean scholar Jan Kott noted: “Ancient tragedy is loss of life, modern tragedy is loss of purpose.” Characters nowadays are just as likely to drift into meaningless oblivion as to die (The Godfather: Part II); just as likely not to marry as to find themselves at the altar (Four Weddings and a Funeral). Archetypal endings can also be twisted to great effect. The Wire found an extremely clever way of subverting the normal character arc, by brutally cutting it off at an arbitrary point. The death of Omar Little at the hands of a complete stranger works precisely because it’s so narratively wrong; it undercuts the classic hero’s journey by employing all its conventions up to the point of sudden, tawdry and unexpected death. In effect, saying this is a world where such codes don't operate, such subversion also has the added bonus of telling us just how the cruel and godless world of Baltimore drug-dealing really works. Putting it all together These building blocks are the primary colours of storytelling. To a greater or lesser extent they either occur in all stories, or else their absence (the missing bit of Omar's arc in The Wire; the early death of the hero in No Country for Old Men) has an implied narrative effect. In archetypal form these are the elements that come together to shape the skeleton of almost every story we see, read or hear. If you put them all together, that skeleton structure looks like this: Once upon a time a young friendless boy called Elliot discovered an alien in his backyard. Realising that unless he helped the creature home it would die, he took it on himself to outwit the authorities, win over sceptics and in a race against time, in a true act of courage, set his friend free. It sounds very simplistic, and in some senses it is, but like the alphabet or the notes on a musical stave, it is an endlessly adaptable form. Just how adaptable starts to become clear when we see how it lends itself to conveying a tragic tale. Tragedy When we first meet Michael Corleone in The Godfather he’s in an army uniform. Every inch the war hero, he explains the nefarious deeds of his father and his brothers to his fiancee, before mollifying her: “That’s my family, Kay, that’s not me.” Macbeth bears an uncanny resemblance. As he emerges from the mists of battle, Duncan cannot help but be impressed: “So well thy words become thee, as thy wounds: They smack of honour both.” Michael Corleone and Macbeth are both flawed, but their faults are not what are traditionally described as tragic flaws or blind spots. They are, instead, good qualities: selflessness and bravery, and it is this that provides the key to how tragic story shape really works.


Tragedies follow exactly the same principles as Jaws or ET but in reverse. In tragedy a character’s flaw is what conventional society might term normal or good – a goodness that characters overturn to become evil in their own way. Historically, critics have focused on the Aristotelian definition of a fatal malignant flaw to describe tragic heroes, but it is just as instructive, I would argue, to chart how their goodness rots. It’s a common trope of liberal American movies (in both The Good Shepherd and The Ides of March idealistic patriots find their morals slowly eaten away) but it’s equally apparent in Hilary Mantel’s Wolf Hall, where Thomas Cromwell undergoes a similar corruption. It is Cromwell’s goodness that corrodes him, his loyalty to Cardinal Wolsey that fixes him on the same tragic trajectory as both Macbeth and Michael Corleone. Furthermore, it’s a goodness that is corroded according to an absolutely archetypal pattern. From Line of Duty to Moby-Dick, Dr Faustus to Lolita (“good” is a relative concept), there’s a clear pathway the characters follow as, in pursuit of their goal, their moral centre collapses. The initial goals can be good (The Godfather or Line of Duty), seemingly innocuous (Carmen, Dr Faustus), but the end-result is the same: the characters are consumed by overwhelming egotistical desire. It seems impossible to understand how, with only eight notes in an octave, we don't simply run out of music. But just as tones give rise to semi-tones and time signatures, tempo and style alter content, so we start to see that a simple pattern contains within it the possibility of endless permutations. Feed in a different kind of flaw; reward or punish the characters in a variety of ways; and you create a different kind of story. What’s more fascinating perhaps is just why the underlying pattern exists, and why we reproduce it whether we've studied narrative or not. Every act of perception is an attempt to lasso the outside world and render it into meaning. Elliot’s journey to maturity, just like the Terminator's journey to human understanding, are interpretations of that basic act. Both metaphorically (and literally in the case of ET) every story can therefore be seen as a journey into the woods to find the secret that lies outside the self. It’s in that journey that narrative shape is forged. © Original copyright holders


David Mamet Memo to the writers of The Unit TO THE WRITERS OF THE UNIT. GREETINGS. AS WE LEARN HOW TO WRITE THIS SHOW, A RECURRING PROBLEM BECOMES CLEAR. THE PROBLEM IS THIS: TO DIFFERENTIATE BETWEEN DRAMA AND NONDRAMA. LET ME BREAK-IT-DOWN-NOW. EVERYONE IN CREATION IS SCREAMING AT US TO MAKE THE SHOW CLEAR. WE ARE TASKED WITH, IT SEEMS, CRAMMING A SHITLOAD OF INFORMATION INTO A LITTLE BIT OF TIME. OUR FRIENDS, THE PENGUINS, THINK THAT WE, THEREFORE, ARE EMPLOYED TO COMMUNICATE INFORMATION – AND, SO, AT TIMES, IT SEEMS TO US. BUT NOTE: THE AUDIENCE WILL NOT TUNE IN TO WATCH INFORMATION. YOU WOULDN’T, I WOULDN’T. NO ONE WOULD OR WILL. THE AUDIENCE WILL ONLY TUNE IN AND STAY TUNED TO WATCH DRAMA. QUESTION: WHAT IS DRAMA? DRAMA, AGAIN, IS THE QUEST OF THE HERO TO OVERCOME THOSE THINGS WHICH PREVENT HIM FROM ACHIEVING A SPECIFIC, ACUTE GOAL. SO: WE, THE WRITERS, MUST ASK OURSELVES OF EVERY SCENE THESE THREE QUESTIONS: 1) WHO WANTS WHAT? 2) WHAT HAPPENS IF HE DOESN’T GET IT? 3) WHY NOW? THE ANSWERS TO THESE QUESTIONS ARE LITMUS PAPER. APPLY THEM, AND THEIR ANSWER WILL TELL YOU IF THE SCENE IS DRAMATIC OR NOT.


IF THE SCENE IS NOT DRAMATICALLY WRITTEN, IT WILL NOT BE DRAMATICALLY ACTED. THERE IS NO MAGIC FAIRY DUST WHICH WILL MAKE A BORING, USELESS, REDUNDANT, OR MERELY INFORMATIVE SCENE AFTER IT LEAVES YOUR TYPEWRITER. YOU THE WRITERS, ARE IN CHARGE OF MAKING SURE EVERY SCENE IS DRAMATIC. THIS MEANS ALL THE “LITTLE” EXPOSITIONAL SCENES OF TWO PEOPLE TALKING ABOUT A THIRD. THIS BUSHWAH (AND WE ALL TEND TO WRITE IT ON THE FIRST DRAFT) IS LESS THAN USELESS, SHOULD IT FINALLY, GOD FORBID, GET FILMED. IF THE SCENE BORES YOU WHEN YOU READ IT, REST ASSURED IT WILL BORE THE ACTORS, AND WILL, THEN, BORE THE AUDIENCE, AND WE’RE ALL GOING TO BE BACK IN THE BREADLINE. SOMEONE HAS TO MAKE THE SCENE DRAMATIC. IT IS NOT THE ACTOR’S JOB (THE ACTOR’S JOB IS TO BE TRUTHFUL). IT IS NOT THE DIRECTOR’S JOB. HIS OR HER JOB IS TO FILM IT STRAIGHTFORWARDLY AND REMIND THE ACTORS TO TALK FAST. IT IS YOUR JOB. EVERY SCENE MUST BE DRAMATIC. THAT MEANS: THE MAIN CHARACTER MUST HAVE A SIMPLE, STRAIGHTFORWARD, PRESSING NEED WHICH IMPELS HIM OR HER TO SHOW UP IN THE SCENE. THIS NEED IS WHY THEY CAME. IT IS WHAT THE SCENE IS ABOUT. THEIR ATTEMPT TO GET THIS NEED MET WILL LEAD, AT THE END OF THE SCENE, TO FAILURE – THIS IS HOW THE SCENE IS OVER. IT, THIS FAILURE, WILL, THEN, OF NECESSITY, PROPEL US INTO THE NEXT SCENE. ALL THESE ATTEMPTS, TAKEN TOGETHER, WILL, OVER THE COURSE OF THE EPISODE, CONSTITUTE THE PLOT. ANY SCENE, THUS, WHICH DOES NOT BOTH ADVANCE THE PLOT, AND STANDALONE (THAT IS, DRAMATICALLY, BY ITSELF, ON ITS OWN MERITS) IS EITHER SUPERFLUOUS, OR INCORRECTLY WRITTEN. YES BUT YES BUT YES BUT, YOU SAY: WHAT ABOUT THE NECESSITY OF WRITING IN ALL THAT “INFORMATION?” AND I RESPOND “FIGURE IT OUT.” ANY DICKHEAD WITH A BLUESUIT CAN BE (AND IS) TAUGHT TO SAY “MAKE IT CLEARER” AND “I WANT TO KNOW MORE ABOUT HIM.”


WHEN YOU’VE MADE IT SO CLEAR THAT EVEN THIS BLUESUITED PENGUIN IS HAPPY, BOTH YOU AND HE OR SHE WILL BE OUT OF A JOB. THE JOB OF THE DRAMATIST IS TO MAKE THE AUDIENCE WONDER WHAT HAPPENS NEXT. NOT TO EXPLAIN TO THEM WHAT JUST HAPPENED, OR TO *SUGGEST* TO THEM WHAT HAPPENS NEXT. ANY DICKHEAD, AS ABOVE, CAN WRITE, “BUT, JIM, IF WE DON’T ASSASSINATE THE PRIME MINISTER IN THE NEXT SCENE, ALL EUROPE WILL BE ENGULFED IN FLAMES.” WE ARE NOT GETTING PAID TO REALIZE THAT THE AUDIENCE NEEDS THIS INFORMATION TO UNDERSTAND THE NEXT SCENE, BUT TO FIGURE OUT HOW TO WRITE THE SCENE BEFORE US SUCH THAT THE AUDIENCE WILL BE INTERESTED IN WHAT HAPPENS NEXT. YES BUT, YES BUT YES BUT YOU REITERATE. AND I RESPOND: FIGURE IT OUT. HOW DOES ONE STRIKE THE BALANCE BETWEEN WITHHOLDING AND VOUCHSAFING INFORMATION? THAT IS THE ESSENTIAL TASK OF THE DRAMATIST. AND THE ABILITY TO DO THAT IS WHAT SEPARATES YOU FROM THE LESSER SPECIES IN THEIR BLUE SUITS. FIGURE IT OUT. START, EVERY TIME, WITH THIS INVIOLABLE RULE: THE SCENE MUST BE DRAMATIC. IT MUST START BECAUSE THE HERO HAS A PROBLEM, AND IT MUST CULMINATE WITH THE HERO FINDING HIM OR HERSELF EITHER THWARTED OR EDUCATED THAT ANOTHER WAY EXISTS. LOOK AT YOUR LOG LINES. ANY LOGLINE READING “BOB AND SUE DISCUSS...” IS NOT DESCRIBING A DRAMATIC SCENE. PLEASE NOTE THAT OUR OUTLINES ARE, GENERALLY, SPECTACULAR. THE DRAMA FLOWS OUT BETWEEN THE OUTLINE AND THE FIRST DRAFT. THINK LIKE A FILMMAKER RATHER THAN A FUNCTIONARY, BECAUSE, IN TRUTH, YOU ARE MAKING THE FILM. WHAT YOU WRITE, THEY WILL SHOOT. HERE ARE THE DANGER SIGNALS. ANY TIME TWO CHARACTERS ARE TALKING ABOUT A THIRD, THE SCENE IS A CROCK OF SHIT.


ANY TIME ANY CHARACTER IS SAYING TO ANOTHER “AS YOU KNOW,” THAT IS, TELLING ANOTHER CHARACTER WHAT YOU, THE WRITER, NEED THE AUDIENCE TO KNOW, THE SCENE IS A CROCK OF SHIT. DO NOT WRITE A CROCK OF SHIT. WRITE A RIPPING THREE, FOUR, SEVEN MINUTE SCENE WHICH MOVES THE STORY ALONG, AND YOU CAN, VERY SOON, BUY A HOUSE IN BEL AIR AND HIRE SOMEONE TO LIVE THERE FOR YOU. REMEMBER YOU ARE WRITING FOR A VISUAL MEDIUM. MOST TELEVISION WRITING, OURS INCLUDED, SOUNDS LIKE RADIO. THE CAMERA CAN DO THE EXPLAINING FOR YOU. LET IT. WHAT ARE THE CHARACTERS DOING *LITERALLY* – WHAT ARE THEY HANDLING, WHAT ARE THEY READING. WHAT ARE THEY WATCHING ON TELEVISION, WHAT ARE THEY SEEING. IF YOU PRETEND THE CHARACTERS CAN’T SPEAK, AND WRITE A SILENT MOVIE, YOU WILL BE WRITING GREAT DRAMA. IF YOU DEPRIVE YOURSELF OF THE CRUTCH OF NARRATION, EXPOSITION, INDEED, OF SPEECH, YOU WILL BE FORCED TO WORK IN A NEW MEDIUM: TELLING THE STORY IN PICTURES (ALSO KNOWN AS SCREENWRITING). THIS IS A NEW SKILL. NO ONE DOES IT NATURALLY. YOU CAN TRAIN YOURSELVES TO DO IT, BUT YOU NEED TO START. I CLOSE WITH THE ONE THOUGHT: LOOK AT THE SCENE AND ASK YOURSELF “IS IT DRAMATIC? IS IT ESSENTIAL? DOES IT ADVANCE THE PLOT?” ANSWER TRUTHFULLY. IF THE ANSWER IS “NO” WRITE IT AGAIN OR THROW IT OUT. IF YOU'VE GOT ANY QUESTIONS, CALL ME UP. LOVE, DAVE MAMET SANTA MONICA 19 OCTOBER 2005 (IT IS NOT YOUR RESPONSIBILITY TO KNOW THE ANSWERS, BUT IT IS YOUR, AND MY, RESPONSIBILITY TO KNOW AND TO ASK THE RIGHT QUESTIONS OVER AND OVER UNTIL IT BECOMES SECOND NATURE. I BELIEVE THEY ARE LISTED ABOVE.) © Original copyright holders


Elia Kazan What Makes a Director? At the Yale Drama School and elsewhere I had a valuable time as a backstage technician. I was a stage carpenter and I lit shows. Then there was a tedious time as a radio actor, playing hoodlums for bread. I had a particularly educational four years as a stage manager helping and watching directors and learning a great deal. And, in between, I had a lively career as a stage actor in some good plays. In time I was fortunate enough to have directed the works of the best dramatists of a couple of the decades which have now become history. I was privileged to serve Williams, Miller, Bill Inge, Archie MacLeish, Sam Behrman, and Bob Anderson and put some of their plays on the stage. I thought of my role with these men as that of a craftsman who tried to realize as well as he could the author's intentions in the author’s vocabulary and within his range, style, and purpose. I have not thought of my film work that way. The auteur theory is partly a critic’s plaything. Something for them to spat over and use to fill a column. But it has its point, and that point is simply that the director is the true author of the film. The director TELLS the film, using a vocabulary the lesser part of which is an arrangement of words. A screenplay's worth has to be measured less by its language than by its architecture and how that dramatizes the theme. A screenplay, we directors soon enough learn, is not a piece of writing as much as it is a construction. We learn to feel for the skeleton under the skin of words. Meyerhold, the great Russian stage director, said that words were the decoration on the skirts of action. He was talking about theatre, but I’ve always thought his observations applied more aptly to film. It occurred to me that it might be fun if I were to try to list for you and for my own sport what a film director needs to know as what personal characteristics and attributes he might advantageously possess. How must he educate himself? What skills is his craft made? Without elaborating, I will try to list the fields of knowledge necessary to him, and later those personal qualities that would best serve the role of director. Literature. Of course. All periods, all languages, all forms. Naturally a film director is better equipped if he's well read. Jack Ford, who introduced himself with the words, “I make Westerns,” was an extremely well and widely read man. The Literature of the Theatre. For one thing, so the film director will appreciate the difference from film. He should also study the classic theatre literature for construction, for exposition of theme, for the means of characterization, for dramatic poetry, for the elements of unity, especially that unity created by pointing to climax and then for climax as the essential and final embodiment of the theme.


The craft of screen dramaturgy. Every director, even in those rare instances when he doesn’t work with a writer or two – Fellini works with a squadron – must take responsibility for the screenplay. He has not only to guide rewriting but to eliminate what's unnecessary, cover faults, appreciate nonverbal possibilities, ensure correct structure, have a sense of screen time, how much will elapse, in what places, for what purposes. Robert Frost’s advice “Tell Everything a Little Faster” applies to all expositional parts. In the climaxes, time is unrealistically extended, “stretched,” usually by close-ups. The film director knows that beneath the surface of his screenplay there is a subtext, a calendar of intentions and feelings and inner events. What appears to be happening, he soon learns, is rarely what is happening. This subtext is one of the film director's most valuable tools. It is what he directs. You will rarely see a veteran director holding a script as he works – or even looking at it. Beginners, yes. Most directors’ goal today is to write their own scripts. But that is our oldest tradition. Chaplin would hear that Griffith Park had been flooded by a heavy rainfall. Packing his crew, his stand-by actors and his equipment in a few cars, he would rush there, making up the story of the two-reel comedy en route, the details on the spot. The director of films should know comedy as well as drama. Jack Ford used to call most parts “comics.” He meant, I suppose, a way of looking at people without false sentiment, through an objectivity that deflated false heroics and undercut self-favoring and finally revealed a saving humor in the most tense moments. The Human Comedy, another Frenchman called it. The fact that Billy Wilder is always amusing doesn't make his films less serious. Quite simply, the screen director must know either by training or by instinct how to feed a joke and how to score with it, how to anticipate and protect laughs. He might well study Chaplin and the other great two reel comedy-makers for what are called sight gags, non-verbal laughs, amusement derived from “business,” stunts and moves, and simply from funny faces and odd bodies. This vulgar foundation – the banana peel and the custard pie – are basic to our craft and part of its health. William Wyler and George Stevens began by making two reel comedies, and I seem to remember Frank Capra did, too. American film directors would do well to know our vaudeville traditions. Just as Fellini adored the clowns, music hall performers, and the circuses of his country and paid them homage again and again in his work, our filmmaker would do well to study magic. I believe some of the wonderful cuts in Citizen Kane came from the fact that Orson Welles was a practicing magician and so understood the drama of sudden unexpected appearances and the startling change. Think, too, of Bergman, how often he uses magicians and sleight of hand. The director should know opera, its effects and its absurdities, a subject in which Bernardo Bertolucci is schooled. He should know the American musical stage and its tradition, but even more important, the great American musical films. He must not look down on these; we love them for very good reasons.


Our man should know acrobatics, the art of juggling and tumbling, the techniques of the wry comic song. The techniques of the Commedia dell’arte are used, it seems to me, in a film called O Lucky Man! Lindsay Anderson’s master, Bertolt Brecht, adored the Berlin satirical cabaret of his time and adapted their techniques. Painting and Sculpture, their history, their revolutions and counter revolutions. The painters of the Italian Renaissance used their mistresses as models for the Madonna, so who can blame a film director for using his girlfriend in a leading role – unless she does a bad job. Many painters have worked in the Theatre. Bakst, Picasso, Aronson and Matisse come to mind. More will. Here, we are still with Disney. Which brings us to Dance. In my opinion, it's a considerable asset if the director's knowledge here is not only theoretical but practical and personal. Dance is an essential part of a screen director's education. It's a great advantage for him if he can "move." It will help him not only to move actors but move the camera. The film director, ideally, should be as able as a choreographer, quite literally so. I don't mean the tango in Bertolucci’s Last Tango in Paris or the High School gym dance in American Graffiti as much as I do the baffle scenes in D.W. Griffith’s Birth of a Nation which are pure choreography and very beautiful. Look at Ford’s Cavalry charges that way. Or Jim Cagney's dance of death on the long steps in The Roaring Twenties. The film director must know music, classic, so called – too much of an umbrella word, that! Let us say of all periods. And as with sculpture and painting, he must know what social situations and currents the music came out of. Of course he must be particularly INTO the music of his own day – acid rock; latin rock; blues and jazz; pop; tin pan alley; barbershop; corn; country; Chicago; New Orleans; Nashville. The film director should know the history of stage scenery, its development from background to environment and so to the settings inside which films are played out. Notice I stress “inside which” as opposed to “in front of.” The construction of scenery for filmmaking was traditionally the work of architects. The film director must study from life, from newspaper clippings and from his own photographs, dramatic environments and particularly how they affect behavior. I recommend to every young director that he start his own collection of clippings and photographs and, if he’s able, his own sketches. The film director must know costuming, its history through all periods, its techniques and what it can be as expression. Again, life is a prime source. We learn to study, as we enter each place, each room, how the people there have chosen to present themselves. “How he comes on,” we say. Costuming in films is so expressive a means that it is inevitably the basic choice of the director. Visconti is brilliant here. So is Bergman in a more modest vein. The best way to study this again is to notice how people dress as an expression of what they wish to gain from any occasion, what their intention is. Study your husband, study your wife, how their attire is an expression of each


day's mood and hope, their good days, their days of low confidence, their time of stress and how it shows in clothing. Lighting. Of course. The various natural effects, the cross light of morning, the heavy flat top light of midday – avoid it except for an effect – the magic hour, so called by cameramen, dusk. How do they affect mood? Obvious. We know it in life. How do they affect behavior? Study that. Five o'clock is a low time, let's have a drink! Directors choose the time of day for certain scenes with these expressive values in mind. The master here is Jack Ford who used to plan his shots within a sequence to best use certain natural effects that he could not create but could very advantageously wait for. Colors? Their psychological effect. So obvious I will not expand. Favorite colors. Faded colors. The living grays. In Baby Doll you saw a master cameraman – Boris Kaufman – making great use of white on white, to help describe the washed out Southern whites. And, of course, there are the instruments which catch all and should dramatize all; the tools the director speaks through, the CAMERA and the TAPE RECORDER. The film director obviously must know the Camera and its lenses, which lens creates which effect, which one lies, which one tells the cruel truth. Which filters bring out the clouds. The director must know the various speeds at which the camera can roll and especially the effects of small variations in speed. He must also know the various camera mountings, the cranes and the dollies and the possible moves he can make, the configurations in space through which he can pass this instrument. He must know the zoom well enough so he won't use it or almost never. He should be intimately acquainted with the tape recorder. Andy Warhol carries one everywhere he goes. Practice “bugging” yourself and your friends. Notice how often speech overlaps. The film director must understand the weather, how it's made and where, how it moves, its warning signs, its crises, the kind of clouds and what they mean. Remember the clouds in Shane. He must know weather as dramatic expression, be on the alert to capitalize on changes in weather as one of his means. He must study how heat and cold, rain and snow, a soft breeze, a driving wind affect people and whether it's true that there are more expressions of group rage during a long hot summer and why. The film director should know the City, ancient and modern, but particularly his city, the one he loves like DeSica loves Naples, Fellini, Rimini, Bergman, his island, Ray, Calcutta, Renoir, the French countryside, Clair, the city of Paris. His city, its features, its operation, its substructure, its scenes behind the scenes, its functionaries, its police, firefighters, garbage collectors, post office workers, commuters and what they ride, its cathedrals and its whorehouses. The film director must know the country – no, that’s too general a term. He must know the mountains and the plains, the deserts of our great Southwest, the heavy oily-bottom-soil of the Delta, the hills of New England. He must know the water off Marblehead and Old Orchard Beach, too cold for lingering and the water


off the Florida Keys, which invites dawdling. Again, these are means of expression that he has and among them he must make his choices. He must know how a breeze from a fan can animate a dead-looking set by stirring a curtain. He must know the sea, first-hand, chance a shipwreck so he’ll appreciate its power. He must know under the surface of the sea; it may occur to him, if he does to play a scene there. He must have crossed our rivers and know the strength of their currents. He must have swum in our lakes and caught fish in our streams. You think I'm exaggerating. Why did old man [Robert] Flaherty and his Mrs. spend at least a year in an environment before they exposed a foot of negative? While you’re young, you aspiring directors, hitchhike our country! And topography, the various trees, flowers, ground cover, grasses. And the subsurface, shale, sand, gravel, New England ledge, six feet of old river bottom? What kind of man works each and how does it affect him? Animals, too. How they resemble human beings. How to direct a chicken to enter a room on cue. I had that problem once and I'm ashamed to tell you how I did it. What a cat might mean to a love scene. The symbolism of horses. The family life of the lion, how tender! The patience of a cow. Of course, the film director should know acting, its history and its techniques. The more he knows about acting, the more at ease he will be with actors. At one period of his growth, he should force himself on stage or before the camera so he knows this experientially, too. Some directors, and very famous ones, still fear actors instead of embracing them as comrades in a task. But, by contrast, there is the great Jean Renoir, see him in Rules of the Game. And his follower and lover, Truffaut, in The Wild Child, now in Day for Night. The director must know how to stimulate, even inspire the actor. Needless to say, he must also know how to make an actor seem NOT to act. How to put him or her at their ease, bring them to that state of relaxation where their creative faculties are released. The film director must understand the instrument known as the VOICE. He must also know SPEECH. And that they are not the same, as different as resonance and phrasing. He should also know the various regional accents of his country and what they tell about character. All in all he must know enough in all these areas so his actors trust him completely. This is often achieved by giving the impression that any task he asks of them, he can perform, perhaps even better than they can. This may not be true, but it's not a bad impression to create. The film director, of course, must be up on the psychology of behavior, “normal” and abnormal. He must know that they are linked, that one is often the extension or intensification of the other and that under certain stresses which the director will create within a scene as it’s acted out, one kind of behavior can be seen becoming the other. And that is drama. The film director must be prepared by knowledge and training to handle neurotics. Why? Because most actors are. Perhaps all. What makes it doubly


interesting is that the film director often is. Stanley Kubrick won’t get on a plane – well, maybe that isn't so neurotic. But we are all delicately balanced – isn’t that a nice way to put it? Answer this: how many interesting people have you met who are not – a little? Of course we work with the psychology of the audience. We know it differs from that of its individual members. In cutting films great comedy directors like Hawks and Preston Sturges allow for the group reactions they expect from the audience, they play on these. Hitchcock has made this his art. The film director must be learned in the erotic arts. The best way here is through personal experience. But there is a history here, an artistic technique. Pornography is not looked down upon. The film director will admit to a natural interest in how other people do it. Boredom, cruelty, banality are the only sins. Our man, for instance, might study the Chinese erotic prints and those scenes on Greek vases of the Golden Age that museum curators hide. Of course, the film director must be an authority, even an expert on the various attitudes of lovemaking, the postures and intertwining of the parts of the body, the expressive parts and those generally considered less expressive. He may well have, like Buñuel with feet, special fetishes. He is not concerned to hide these, rather he will probably express his inclinations with relish. The director, here, may come to believe that suggestion is more erotic than show. Then study how to go about it. Then there is war. Its weapons, its techniques, its machinery, its tactics, its history – on my – where is the time to learn all this? Do not think, as you were brought up to think, that education starts at six and stops at twenty-one, that we learn only from teachers, books and classes. For us that is the least of it. The life of a film director is a totality and he learns as he lives. Everything is pertinent, there is nothing irrelevant or trivial. O Lucky Man, to have such a profession! Every experience leaves its residue of knowledge behind. Every book we read applies to us. Everything we see and hear: if we like it, we steal it. Nothing is irrelevant. It all belongs to us. So history becomes a living subject, full of dramatic characters, not a bore about treaties and battles. Religion is fascinating as a kind of poetry expressing fear and loneliness and hope. The film director reads The Golden Bough because sympathetic magic and superstition interest him – these beliefs of the ancients and the savages parallel those of his own time's people. He studies ritual because ritual as a source of stage and screen mise-en-scène is an increasingly important source. Economics a bore? Not to us. Consider the demoralization of people in a labor pool, the panic in currency, the reliance of a nation on imports and the leverage this gives the country supplying the needed imports. All these affect or can affect the characters and milieus with which our film is concerned. Consider the facts behind the drama of On the Waterfront. Wonder how we could have shown more of them.


The film director doesn't just eat. He studies food. He knows the meals of all nations and how they're served, how consumed, what the variations of taste are, the effect of the food, food as a soporific, food as an aphrodisiac, as a means of expression of character. Remember the scene in Tom Jones? La Grande Bouffe? And, of course, the film director tries to keep up with the flow of life around him, the contemporary issues, who's pressuring whom, who's winning, who's losing, how pressure shows in the politician's body and face and gestures. Inevitably, the director will be a visitor at night court. And he will not duck jury duty. He studies advertising and goes to “product meetings” and spies on those who make the ads that influence people. He watches talk shows and marvels how Jackie Susann peddles it. He keeps up on the moves, as near as he can read them, of the secret underground societies. And skyjacking, what’s the solution? He talks to pilots. It’s the perfect drama – that situation – no exit. Travel. Yes. As much as he can. Let’s not get into that. Sports? The best-directed shows on TV today are the professional football games. Why? Study them. You are shown not only the game from far and middle distance and close-up; you are shown the bench, the way the two coaches sweat it out, the rejected sub, Craig Morton, waiting for Staubach to be hurt and Woodall – does he really like Namath? Johnson, Snead? Watch the spectators, too. Think how you might direct certain scenes playing with a ball, or swimming or sailing – even though that is nowhere indicated in the script. Or watch a ball game like Hepburn and Tracy in George Steven's film, Woman of the Year! I’ve undoubtedly left out a great number of things and what I’ve left out is significant, no doubt, and describes some of my own shortcomings. Oh! Of course, I've left out the most important thing. The subject the film director must know most about, know best of all, see in the greatest detail and in the most pitiless light with the greatest appreciation of the ambivalences at play is – what? Right. Himself. There is something of himself, after all, in every character he properly creates. He understands people truly through understanding himself truly. The silent confession he makes to himself are the greatest source of wisdom he has. And of tolerance for others. And for love, even that. There is the admission of hatred to awareness and its relief through understanding and a kind of resolution in brotherhood. What kind of person must a film director train himself to be? What qualities does he need? Here are a few: A white hunter leading a safari into dangerous and unknown country. A construction gang foreman, who knows his physical problems and their solutions and is ready, therefore, to insist on these solutions. A psychoanalyst who keeps a patient functioning despite intolerable tensions and stresses, both professional and personal. A hypnotist, who works with the unconscious to achieve his ends.


A poet, a poet of the camera, able both to capture the decisive moment of Cartier-Bresson or to wait all day like Paul Strand for a single shot which he makes with a bulky camera fixed on a tripod. An outfielder for his legs. The director stands much of the day, dares not get tired, so he has strong legs. Think back and remember how the old time directors dramatized themselves. By puttees, right. The cunning of a trader in a Baghdad bazaar. The firmness of an animal trainer. Obvious. Tigers! A great host. At a sign from him fine food and heartwarming drink appear. The kindness of an old-fashioned mother who forgives all. The authority and sternness of her husband, the father, who forgives nothing, expects obedience without question, brooks no nonsense. And these alternatively: The illusiveness of a jewel thief – no explanation, take my word for this one. The blarney of a PR man, especially useful when the director is out in a strange and hostile location as I have many times been. A very thick skin. A very sensitive soul. Simultaneously. The patience, the persistence, the fortitude of a saint, the appreciation of pain, a taste for self-sacrifice, everything for the cause. Cheeriness, jokes, playfulness, alternating with sternness, unwavering firmness. Pure doggedness. An unwavering refusal to take less than he thinks right out of a scene, a performer, a co-worker, a member of his staff, himself. Direction, finally, is the exertion of your will over other people – disguise it, gentle it, but that is the hard fact. Above all – COURAGE. Courage, said Winston Churchill, is the greatest virtue; it makes all the others possible. One final thing: the ability to say “I am wrong” or “I was wrong.” Not as easy as it sounds. But in many situations, these three words, honestly spoken will save the day. They are the words, very often, that the actors struggling to give the director what he wants, most need to hear from him. Those words, “I was wrong, let's try it another way,” the ability to say them, can be a lifesaver. The director must accept the blame for everything. If the script stinks, he should have worked harder with the writers or himself before shooting. If the actor fails, the director failed him! Or made a mistake in choosing him. If the camera work is uninspired, whose idea was it to engage that cameraman? Or choose those set-ups? Even a costume after all – the director passed on it. The settings. The music, even the goddamn ads, why didn't he yell louder if he didn't like them? The director was there, wasn't he? Yes, he was there! He's always there! That's why he gets all that money, to stand there, on that mound, unprotected, letting everybody shoot at him and deflecting the mortal fire from all the others who work with him.


The other people who work on a film can hide. They have the director to hide behind. And people deny the auteur theory! After listening to me so patiently you have a perfect right now to ask, “Oh, come on, aren’t you exaggerating to make some kind of point?” But only a little exaggerating. The fact is that a director from the moment a phone call gets him out of bed in the morning (“Rain today. What scene do you want to shoot?”) until he escapes into the dark at the end of shooting to face, alone, the next days problems, is called upon to answer an unrelenting string of questions, to make decision after decision in one after another of the fields I’ve listed. That's what a director is, the man with the answers. Watch Truffaut playing Truffaut in Day for Night, watch him as he patiently, carefully, sometimes thoughtfully, other times very quickly, answers questions. You will see better than I can tell you how these answers keep his film going. Truffaut has caught our life on the set perfectly. Do things get easier and simpler as you get older and have accumulated some or all of this savvy? Not at all. The opposite. The more a director knows, the more he’s aware how many different ways there are to do every film, every scene. And the more he has to face that final awful limitation, not of knowledge but of character. Which is what? The final limitation and the most terrible one is the limitations of his own talent. You find, for instance, that you truly do have the faults of your virtues. And that limitation, you can't do much about. Even if you have the time. One last postscript. The director, that miserable son of a bitch, as often as not these days has to get out and promote the dollars and the pounds, scrounge for the liras, francs and marks, hock his family's home, his wife's jewels, and his own future so he can make his film. This process of raising the wherewithal inevitably takes ten to a hundred times longer than making the film itself. But the director does it because he has to – who else will? Who else loves the film that much? So, my friends, you've seen how much you have to know and what kind of a bastard you have to be. How hard you have to train yourself and in how many different ways. All of which I did. I’ve never stopped trying to educate myself and to improve myself. So now pin me to the wall-this is your last chance. Ask me how with all that knowledge and all that wisdom, and all that training and all those capabilities, including the strong legs of a major league outfielder, how did I manage to mess up some of the films I’ve directed so badly? Ah, but that's the charm of it! (1973) © Original copyright holders


How to Write a TV Drama Thirteen (spoiler-filled!) rules for scripting the perfect hour of dramatic television. by Logan Hill New York May 12, 2013

Rule 1: Start with an anti-hero. A. Make him middle-aged. Anti-heroes between the ages of 35 and 55 can often be found leading lives of quiet desperation, tied down by two kids and a suburban home. These protagonists will encounter midlife crises, affairs, and pressure from characters both older and younger. Right now, as the economy continues to skid, a middleaged person losing his edge isn’t a bad metaphor for a generation grappling with the fallout of the long-gone American Century. Try a guy who’s lost a bit of his mojo and who’s struggling to get it back: an avatar for boomers holding on to their golden age but aware of their mortality. (See Mad Men’s Don Draper, House of Cards’ Frank Underwood, Breaking Bad’s Walter White, Homeland’s Nicholas Brody, Justified’s Raylan Givens, The Walking Dead’s Rick Grimes, and Boardwalk Empire’s Nucky Thompson.)


B. Give him a health problem and a traumatic memory. There’s a difference between anti-heroes and monsters: Viewers can understand and sympathize with anti-heroes, despite their awful behavior. So give yours an illness that could happen to anyone (see Tony Soprano’s panic attacks, Don Draper’s heart trouble, Nicholas Brody’s battle scars and PTSD, and Walter White’s cancer). Then flash back to his traumatic past to explain how he became such a mess (see Tony’s mom, Don’s whorehouse childhood, Brody’s eight years in captivity, and Walt’s business failures). C. Make him great at his job. Audiences don’t need to like an anti-hero, but they have to be impressed by him. They’ll excuse any affair or murder if a character is exceptional at something. So make him among the best in his field, be it advertising (Don Draper), meth cooking (Walter White), glad-handing (Nucky Thompson), serial killing (Dexter Morgan), or crisis management (Scandal’s Olivia Pope), and make his expertise part of the thrill of the show. He needs to be dizzyingly talented—but also not so good that he’s invincible. He needs to feel a competitive fear of legitimate rivals that drives him to more extreme actions and raises the dramatic stakes. D. Make his business a microcosm of the American Dream. Prestige TV needs to resonate deeper than your standard procedural about doctors, cops, or lawyers. The anti-hero’s occupation should put him in contact with a wide range of greedy and power-mad characters in a competitive, capitalistic field where there’s room to grow: drug dealer (The Wire’s Stringer Bell), mob boss (Tony Soprano), lawman (Raylan Givens), congressman (Frank Underwood). An intense, classic American workplace offers ways to ratchet up the tension and say something about bigger issues, like power, greed, and capitalism. E. Give him a secret. If he’s keeping something from his family—whether it’s his meth business (Walter White), affairs and stolen identity (Don Draper), an Al Qaeda plot to kill the vicepresident (Nicholas Brody), or a desire to quit the KGB (The Americans’ Philip Jennings)—that gives you an easy, obvious handle on “the human heart in conflict with itself,” which Faulkner dubbed the root of all good writing. A secret also pushes the narrative: Eventually his spouse will find out and eject him from their home, upending what little stability he has left. Whatever he’s hiding, it’ll provide a launching pad into discussions about real marital problems, interior lives, public selves, and trust.


F. Make him a woman. For nearly two decades, the dramatic anti-hero has usually been a man—but thankfully that’s changing fast. The Americans, Homeland, Scandal, Game of Thrones, and even dramas in comedy drag, like Enlightened and Girls, have given us compellingly screwed-up female protagonists who check all the necessary boxes. For example, on The Americans, suburban mom (A) Elizabeth Jennings was raped and abused earlier in life (B) and is a brilliant KGB spy in Cold War–era D.C. (C and D) who hides her secret identity from everyone except her husband (E).

Rule 2: Give him a family. What links most dark, Emmy-hungry dramas—from Mad Men, The Americans, The Walking Dead, and Breaking Bad to The Tudors, Downton Abbey, and Game of Thrones—is that, at their core, they’re really just shows about families. There’s often a spouse who serves as the show’s conscience (Carmela Soprano, Skyler White, Betty and Megan Draper, Jessica Brody); a rebellious, troublemaking daughter (Meadow Soprano, Sally Draper, Dana Brody); and a negligible, clueless son (A.  J. Soprano, Walt Jr., Bobby Draper, Chris Brody, Carl Grimes). To raise the stakes and magnify the sense that the anti-hero will do anything for his family, give one of his kids a disability: On Sons of Anarchy, Jax’s child is born with a heart defect, and Breaking Bad’s Walt Jr. has cerebral palsy.


Rule 3: Set your show at the end of an era. Let your protagonist embody some historical shift by thrusting him right into it: Prohibition-era Atlantic City (Boardwalk Empire), sixties Madison Avenue (Mad Men), post-Edwardian England (Downton Abbey), the Reconstruction-era West (Hell on Wheels). This gives the series a finite shelf life (typically six seasons) and a sense that the world is changing, not like some timeless, Simpsons-like Springfield, where there are no consequences because everything always stays the same.


Rule 4: Give the hero a mentor or a protégé. Almost every great prestige drama uses TV’s long-form potential to dramatize generational shifts. Whether on Madison Avenue (where Don Draper squares off against Peggy Olson) or at the CIA (where Carrie Mathison clashes with Saul Berenson), this conflict is key. There should either be an older, authority-figure mentor whom the protégé can buck up against (or who can be killed and later avenged), or a younger character who threatens the anti-hero’s sense of power and makes him feel obsolete. Rule 5: Add a nemesis with problems of his own.

So you’ve got a brilliant anti-hero—now write a villain who’s just as complex, potentially even more monstrous, and with motivations that are equally plausible. Think nasty opponents like Mad Men’s Pete Campbell, Sons of Anarchy’s Clay Morrow, and Boardwalk Empire’s Nelson van Alden. Or half-decent guys like Breaking Bad’s Hank Schraeder or The Americans’ Stan Beeman. The best villains, like Stringer Bell and Justified’s Boyd Crowder, often become fan favorites.


Rule 6: Then write a bottle episode. Narrative sprawl is great, but some of the best episodes in recent dramatic television have been minimalist two-handers: Mad Men’s “The Suitcase,” which pitted protégée Peggy Olson against mentor Don Draper. Or the Jesse Pinkman– versus–Walter White face-offs in Breaking Bad’s meth-lab episode “Fly.” These episodes distill the long story arcs of larger series into simpler generational clashes. Rule 7: Put a drug at the center.

The illicit-substance trade is one of TV’s most durable metaphors for American capitalism, and many prestige dramas revolve around a drug, whether it’s alcohol (Boardwalk Empire), crystal meth (Breaking Bad), or crack (The Wire). This allows for sketchy supporting characters, outlandish violence, and heartbreaking, “butterfly effect” consequences for everybody along the distribution chain. Rule 8: Sex. Cable dramas need to distinguish themselves from broadcast fare, and sex is an easy way to do it. On basic cable, push the boundaries of what’s allowed (Roger Sterling’s blow job, witnessed by Sally Draper, on Mad Men). On premium cable, the sky’s the limit: At minimum, include plenty of gratuitous nudity (Game of Thrones’ wenches; The Sopranos’ Bada Bing Club, Boardwalk Empire’s Paz de la Huerta), then let your imagination run free. Everything from polygamy (Big Love) to sexual torture (Joffrey on Game of Thrones) to regenerating vampire hymens (True Blood) is fair game.


Rule 9: Parcel out the violence. As Hitchcock knew, suspense is in the anticipation of violence rather than the gore. Stage a murder in every episode, and you’ll end up with just another CSIstyle cop show. In long-form TV, suspense should build over many consecutive episodes. On Breaking Bad, for instance, Gus Fring is an unrepentant sadist—but he rarely acts. When he does, slashing Victor’s throat with a box cutter, it’s utterly shocking. To show violence’s lasting consequences, try chopping off a body part (Ned’s head and Jaime Lannister’s hand on Game of Thrones, Robert Quarles’s arm on Justified, and Mad Men’s mowed foot). Rule 10: Every serious drama pilot must have at least two of these things:


A. A health scare. The easiest way to make viewers forget they’re rooting for mobsters or serial killers is to stage a medical emergency early on: In the Sopranos pilot, Tony collapses following what he thinks is a heart attack. On Sons of Anarchy, Jax’s baby has emergency surgery. On Justified, paramedics rush to save Boyd after he’s shot in the chest. On Breaking Bad, Walt is diagnosed with inoperable lung cancer. On Dexter, Rita’s son, Cody, gets sick. On Boardwalk Empire, Margaret Schroeder miscarries. B. A corpse disposal. So many series premieres feature such scenes that it’s down-right eerie: On The Americans, the Jenningses soak a body in acid. Dexter disposes of a child molester’s corpse in the woods. On Boardwalk Empire, Eli dumps Hans’s corpse at sea. On The Sopranos, Christopher buries Emil. Hiding or disposing of a body (and not just killing somebody and running away) establishes the rules of your show’s universe: Actions have consequences, and loose ends must be tied—only to become unraveled later, when characters’ sins come back to haunt them. C. A party scene. A long-arc prestige drama usually requires a sprawling world of characters that’s large enough to sustain years of intertwining story lines. But how to introduce them all? Almost every great drama pilot has a party in the premiere—whether a birthday party (The Sopranos, Breaking Bad), funeral wake (Six Feet Under), countdown-to-Prohibition blowout (Boardwalk Empire), or royal feast (Game of Thrones). It puts characters in the same room and establishes the existing relationships, demonstrating the complex verisimilitude of the show’s world. D. A huge explosion. Nobody’s going to know that you have an impressive budget if you don’t flaunt it early. So blow up something big in the pilot. Like a warehouse (Sons of Anarchy), restaurant (The Sopranos), airplane (Lost), or church (Justified). E. A demonstration of our hero’s superpower. Remember Don’s genius Lucky Strike pitch (“It’s Toasted”)? Or how Carrie spotted Brody’s finger-tapping terrorist code? Or when Jack performed surgery on a fellow Flight 815 passenger? Each pilot moment established that the character was the smartest person onscreen. Audiences can’t help but aspire to that expertise, even if the script is rigged.


Rule 11: Hit the books. Scatter literary references like birdseed. If the show is great, fans and recappers will spend endless hours searching for hidden meanings, regardless of whether such meanings exist or your references cohere. And if an episode is iffy, overt symbolism will distract and give your show the patina of smarts. Why not name your prison “Emerald City” and call the show Oz? Why not cite Dante’s Inferno on Mad Men, along with The Decline and Fall of the Roman Empire and Frank O’Hara’s poetry? What does Leaves of Grass have to do with Breaking Bad? Probably not much more than Tom Sawyer or Animal Farm had to do with Lost. Rule 12: Let nobody be safe. Killing main characters will keep your audience on its toes and telegraph your intention to take dramatic risks. And when you’re planning that big shocking death scene, try to schedule it for a season’s penultimate episode, to take some pressure off the finale. Rest in peace, Lane Pryce (Mad Men), Ned Stark (Game of Thrones), Mike Ehrmantraut (Breaking Bad), Donna Lerner (Sons of Anarchy), and Stringer Bell and Wallace (The Wire), all of whom met their ends in penultimate episodes. Rule 13: Don’t forget the comedy. Follow the previous dozen rules and things will get bleak pretty fast. Be sure to give some occasional comic relief. Saul Goodman, Badger, and Skinny Pete help to lighten the mood on the otherwise pitch-black Breaking Bad. Mad Men needs Roger’s quips and Harry’s buffoonery. And even The Wire had its own comic catchphrase: Senator Clay Davis’s “Sheee-it.”



William Archer Revisited William Archer was a British drama critic and playwright whose book Play-Making was published in 1912. Archer was a friend of playwright George Bernard Shaw. He had met GBS in the reading room of the British Museum and, explaining to Shaw that he felt he was quite good at inventing plots, admitted that he lacked talent in writing dialogue. Shaw, already with an established reputation for debate, was supremely confident in his skill for lively dialogue, and suggested they collaborate. Thus it was that William Archer supplied the skeleton of the dramatic structure of Shaw’s first play. Though Shaw went on to write many plays, while Archer produced on his own a series of deservedly forgotten melodramas, the two remained closed friends all their lives. To speak personally, Archer’s book on dramatic structure is the best text I know on the subject of dramatic construction. Having said that, I do understand why some people find Play-Making hard going. The examples Archer uses to illustrate his ideas are from playwrights of the late nineteenth century. While he does also cite Wilde, Shaw and Ibsen, Archer generally deals with writers who seem very dated today. In addition to this, students argue that because the book is so old, Archer’s theories must be out of date. Dramatic style has changed a great deal since 1912, not only in content, but also in form. One relevant question, then, is whether Archer’s commentary applies, for instance, to more modern forms of theatrical writing (the plays of Beckett and Ionesco, for example), and, of course, to cinema, a medium that was in its absolute infancy when Archer wrote his book. It is perhaps understandable that a film student of today finds it hard to translate the concepts to cinematic equivalents when Archer is giving examples from playwrights seldom read or performed today, for example Pinero, Galsworthy and Somerset Maugham. (Worth noting is that John Howard Lawson, writing in the 1940s, picked up a great deal from Archer and expanded his ideas as they apply to cinema.) Linked to this is the fact that there is, among contemporary students, something of a reaction against the notion of ‘rules’ when it comes to dramatic writing in both cinema and theater. But style (fashion) in any medium of expression is constantly developing. New forms are invariably organically rooted in earlier forms, even when there is an obvious rejection of past formulas that have become too rigid, too stereotypical, and too stale to have fresh meaning. A real understanding of the ‘progress’ of the evolving nature of cultural forms has to be an exploration of the present and possible future as they relate to past forms from which they have developed, and continue to develop. As such, many of Archer’s comments seem to me common sense and easily translatable to contemporary writing, and it should not be too difficult for any reasonably intelligent film student to find a modern film that can be used to illustrate almost every point that Archer is making. All it takes is a little effort. (After all, the challenge of any textbook is to provoke


the student into this kind of study that has relevance to his or her own experience and work.) With these notes, therefore, I have tried to supplement the examples that Archer uses with some instances of contemporary films. On the question of ‘rules’ of dramatic construction, Archer himself warns: There are no rules for writing a play. It is easy, indeed, to lay down negative recommendations – to instruct the beginner how not to do it. But most of these “don’ts” are rather obvious; and those which are not obvious are apt to be questionable… There are no absolute rules, in fact, except such as are dictated by the plainest common sense. Aristotle himself did not so much dogmatize as analyse, classify and generalize from, the practise of Attic dramatists. He said, “you had better” rather than “you must.” The furthest Archer will go is claiming that One thing is certain, and must be emphasized from the outset: namely, that if any part of the dramatist’s art can be taught, it is only a comparatively mechanical and formal part – the art of structure. One may learn how to tell a story in good dramatic form: how to develop and marshal it in such a way as best to seize and retain the interest of a theatrical audience. But no teaching or study can enable a man to choose or invent a good story, and much less to do that which alone lends dignity to dramatic story-telling – to observe and portray human character. To be honest, I’m not sure even this isn’t overstating the case. I would rather say that it is possible to examine how certain dramatists have constructed material in a way that at times has seized the interest of the audience. If they have also succeeded in seizing and retaining your interest, you should take a closer look at just how they did this. Though drama cannot be taught as such, it can most definitely be learned the way most skills are learned: by examination of others whose work you admire. On Choosing a Theme The theme of a story is usually established only in the final climax during the obligatory scene where the confrontations dramatize the point of the narrative. This is the part of the story the audience has been waiting for and that the author is obliged to deliver. It is also where character, plot and theme are most clearly integrated. This confrontation is likely to be a high point in the mechanics of the action, where principal characters are placed in situations designed to reveal their most significant qualities, their moral weaknesses or strengths, their sympathetic or unsympathetic traits, their true feelings about others. Such showdowns also to demonstrate the author’s underlying pre-occupations, those themes that give unity and meaning to the story. Without characters, a theme is an abstract and


generalized statement of conflict or tension – it describes rather than dramatizes. What the student needs to learn, therefore, is how to convey the theme of his story through the creation of characters who interact within the scenes he creates, and not just imbue a single character (the protagonist) with that theme. Archer writes: “Theme” may mean either of two things: either the subject of a play, or its story. The former is, perhaps, its proper and most convenient sense. Archer suggests that a conscious and deliberate decision about theme is seldom fruitful as a starting point. If you set out to devise a story in order to illustrate some moral or political issue, the chances are you will find the resulting situations and characters two-dimensional, and the plotting contrived and predictable. You will end up creating puppets who have no real vitality and that you will be forced to manipulate yourself, rather than leaving them to the forces that arise from interactions with other characters. As Archer writes: [O]ught a theme, in its abstract form, be the first germ of a play? Ought the dramatist to say “Go to, I will write a play on temperance or woman’s suffrage, or on capital and labour,” and then cast about for a story to illustrate his theme? This is a possible, but not a promising method of procedure. A story made to the order of a moral concept is always apt to advertise its origin, to the detriment of its illusive quality. I think Archer is right in suggesting that theme is an abstraction of the story, its moral, social, political message in a generalized form. For many writers, one of the basic functions of dramatic writing is to present to the world those ideas, attitudes and emotions that express his or her concerns, even if they are heavily masked, dressed up in new costumes and with names changed to protect the innocent. As you start to devise a story, there is often a strong urge to create both plot and characters that represent a theme that interests you. The best way of doing this is to personify elements of that theme by splitting your soul and creating different characters from these little pieces. Students are often urged to write about things drawn from their own experience (it has been said that invention is often memory in disguise). This means a story’s protagonist is inevitably an element of the author’s personality, a result of the splitting of the writer’s psyche so he can – in his mind and on the page – play more than one role. In fact, it should be understood that every character in a story, being creations of their inventor, are to some extent the author speaking in disguise. It is not only the hero but the entire complex of active interrelated figures who are projections of his or her mind. The writer plays God, taking up a position not of one single point of view but rather a rapidly shifting point of view that looks at different characters at different moments, until finally he and his audience see


everything from all points of view with a God-like objectivity. Dramatic invention is apt to be a game of psychodrama of this kind, the challenge of which can be severe: it requires the writer to step outside of his more comfortable identity and see himself as others do, requiring a certain psychological maturity that may not come easily to the young and inexperienced. The theme of everything you write (even, in many cases, of something you are doing only for the money) is tied to your own point of view, your attitude to life and sex and religion, your personal social, ethical and political outlook. A theme is so integrally part of a writer’s temperament that it will automatically color his approach to the whole world. In effect, the work of a conscious and competent writer will inevitably be constructed upon certain meaningful ideas and beliefs. If the writer feels strongly about something, it will be yelling at him from his dreams. A good story is not one that a writer contrives – it takes on a kind of energy of its own that has the writer in its grip and forces him to come to certain previously unforeseen conclusions. For this reason, I advise students not to worry about looking for a theme. In a sense, theme is something that chooses you, and (it is pointed out by many critics) is seldom consciously recognized by an author who finds expression for it (something many critics are unable to do with their own beliefs, thoughts, ‘themes,’ however strong and meaningful). Indeed, if the author does know in advance ‘what he really means to say,’ he might not say it so well. Connected to this is the idea that the ‘message’ (whether it be political, social or otherwise) of a story does not necessarily have to be explicit at any point. Sometimes it is (for example in On the Waterfront, when Terry is talking to his brother in the taxi cab), but much more frequently a theme is something left to the audience to feel at an intuitive and emotional level. A good writer will let his audience pick and choose their own themes and ‘messages’ from the story he is telling. Graham Greene is a writer who cannot help but bring into everything he produces the themes that haunt him: the struggle between belief and disbelief, guilt and betrayal. Alexander Korda and Carol Reed, producer and director of The Third Man, came to Greene with nothing except the proposition that a film be made against the background of Vienna just after World War II, a city occupied by the four Allied Powers, divided into zones and plagued by black market racketeering. But the theme of The Third Man is not necessarily found in this historical and geographical point of departure. For that we should look to the fragment of a story situation Greene had jotted down in a notebook long before: the idea of passing in a busy London street an old friend whose funeral had been attended months ago, a scene that is not in the finished film but that, combined with the Vienna setting, furnished the basic plot mechanism. Let me give you another example, this time from my own experience. Prior to working on The Man in the White Suit, I spent considerable time trying to find a story on a theme that quite disturbed me: the political and social responsibility of the scientists who developed nuclear fission without regard for the purposes to which their invention might be put. Perhaps because all my efforts were too


specifically directed in one place, and because, quite understandably, my producers thought the topic was too disturbing to be acceptable popular box-office entertainment, I got nowhere with it. Then I read an unproduced play by a cousin of mine. It had a different theme as its central story: it was about the gradually dawning consciousness of the daughter of a manufacturer of textiles under the tutelage of a sardonic and skeptical young man who is in love with her. A quite secondary character was another young man, an inventor, who had devised a liquid for treating fabric that enormously increased its durability. Transferring my theme of ‘the responsibility of the scientist’ to the situation that was not much more than a subplot of the original play, I devised a story in which the original hero was subordinated (and later entirely eliminated) in favor of a new protagonist and a good many new characters. In effect, I borrowed from the play not much more than the situation of a fabric that was on the one hand a boon to the public and consumers, on the other a threat to certain sections of the textile industry. Centering on this situation I found that by analogy I could explore the theme that would have been rather too controversial and tendentious if I had tried to deal with it directly. Myth, according to anthropologists, is a magical working out of the conflicts felt by a society. Claude Lévi-Strauss has argued that the social purpose of the earliest forms of religion, mythic rituals and magic ceremonials were to provide communities with a means of ‘resolving contradictions’ within their society. And in a recent article on the decline of the Western, sociologist Will Wright has written that ‘All stories are one means by which societies explain themselves to themselves.’ According to psychoanalysts and psychotherapists, a ‘personal’ myth may have a similar function. Like some dreams, it may be an effort by the creative subconscious to send to the author a message (theme) in the form of a parable. What evidence is there to support this? The best that I can offer is another highly personal example related to a film I directed some years ago, one I was intimately involved with from its conception. The Ladykillers, written by William Rose, was in fact a dream. Bill woke up one night with the idea complete in his head. He had dreamed of a gang of criminals who commit a successful robbery while living in a little house belonging to a sweetly innocent little old lady. Belatedly, she discovers their crime. A highly moral and simple-minded soul, she insists they all go to the police and give themselves up. Gradually the five men realize that they will have to kill her. But villainous as they are, they cannot bring themselves to murder such a benign and helpless figure. So, quarreling over which of them should do the deed, they one by one kill each other, leaving the little old lady with the money. The story amused all of us who worked with Bill at the studio where we were under contract. But it was only several weeks later that I began to realize it could serve as the basis for a film script. I went to Bill and we agreed on the project. Work on the screenplay involved much argument between the two of us, but curiously enough there was never any departure from the simple basic


structure of the idea that had come from Bill Rose’s unconscious imagination. The fable remained, though a great deal more invention was necessary to develop the deliberately grotesque figures of the criminals, a quintet of rascally types who were dedicated to villainy but not quite wicked enough to take the inevitable step necessary to avoid their own ruin. Bill once declared that the moral of the story was: ‘In the Worst of All Men there is a Little Bit of Good that can Destroy Them.’ As director I worked daily with Bill and the associate producer, though the screenplay was essentially the work of Bill Rose alone. As a fine writer often does, he used his collaborators only as a kind of sounding board. We were his audience during the long sessions of improvisation during which the story was worked out in considerable detail. But one of my most satisfying discoveries was one I did not make until the film had been completed and exhibited. Bill and I are both expatriates in Britain. Though we are both American-born, because my family was Scots I was sent to Scotland to be educated, while Bill volunteered to join the Canadian forces during World War II and then, having married an English girl, decided to remain in Britain after the war. With such backgrounds both of us see Britain in a slightly different way than do the British. The fable of The Ladykillers is a comic and ironic joke about the condition of post-war England. After the war, the country was going through a kind of quiet, typically British but nevertheless historically fundamental revolution. Though few people were prepared to face up to it, the great days of the Empire were gone forever. British society was shattered with the same kind of conflicts appearing in many other countries: an impoverished and disillusioned upper class, a brutalized working class, juvenile delinquency among the Mods and Rockers, an influx of foreign and potentially criminal elements, and a collapse of ‘intellectual’ leadership. All of these threatened the stability of the national character. Though at no time did Bill Rose or I ever spell this out, look at the characters in the film. The Major (played by Cecil Parker), a conman, is a caricature of the decadent military ruling class. One Round (Danny Green) is the oafish representative of the British masses. Harry (Peter Sellers) is the spiv, the worthless younger generation. Louis (Herbert Lom) is the dangerously unassimilated foreigner. They are a composite cartoon of Britain’s corruption. The tiny figure of Mrs Wilberforce (Wilberforce was the name of the nineteenth century idealist who called for the abolition of slavery) is plainly a much diminished Britannia. Her house is in a cul-de-sac. Shabby and cluttered with memories of the days when Britain’s navy ruled the world and captains gallantly stayed on the bridge as their ship went down, her house is structurally unsound. Dwarfed by the grim landscape of railway yards and screaming express trains, it is Edwardian England, an anachronism in the contemporary world. Bill Rose’s sentimental hope for the country that he and I saw through fond but skeptical eyes was that it might still, against all logic, survive its enemies. A theme, a message of sorts, one that I felt very attached to. But one that it took quite some time for me to consciously recognize and appreciate.


It is worth nothing that a theme is often stated as a couple of abstract nouns set in opposition. The Theme of Romeo and Juliet is youthful love crossed by ancestral hate; the theme of Othello is jealousy; the theme of Le Tartuffe is hypocrisy. Translate this to some films we know. The theme of On the Waterfront is one man’s battle for personal ethics, his struggle to stand up for his rights against the corruption of racketeering unions and the moral apathy of fellow dockers. The theme of The Hustler is Being a Winner or a Loser. The theme of Citizen Kane is What Shall it Profit a Man if He Gain the Whole World But Loses the Innocence of Childhood (Rosebud and the security of parental love). The theme of Bicycle Thieves is the Search for Social Justice and the values that a father can teach his child. The theme of The Third Man is Disillusion of Hero-Worship, sentimental boyhood loyalty versus social responsibility. To Archer’s warning against starting with a ‘moral concept,’ I would add something else. Though it is the aspect of a story that students generally need to think about least when starting a project, it should be remembered that it is the absence of a powerful and reverberating theme that distinguishes forgettable commercial entertainment from something more interesting. A story with a theme that is trivial, unexplored or not clearly identified in the action may be enjoyable while it lasts. But it is not going to linger in your memory very long. The story is not about anything that deeply concerns the author, and if the author doesn’t care it is unlikely that the audience will either. Dramatic and Non-dramatic William Archer is a lot less dogmatic on the subject of the definition of drama than many earlier critics and theorists, though he does spend time debating the propositions of other ‘authorities’ on the subject. One of these is Ferdinand Brunetière. “The Theatre in general,” said that critic, “is nothing but the place for the development of human will, attacking the obstacles opposed to it by destiny, fortune or circumstances.” And again: “Drama is the representation of the will of men in conflict with the mysterious powers or natural forces which limit and belittle us; it is one of us thrown living upon the stage, there to struggle against fatality, against social law, against one of his fellowmortals, against himself, if need be, against the ambitions, the interests, the prejudices, the folly, the malevolence of those who surround him.” Brunetière’s definition seems to work well enough for most stories, but at its simplest is advice to look for conflict in a story, for the kind of struggle that takes place between a hero and the circumstances that sooner or later he has to


confront. Archer, however, tries to take a more practical approach for playwrights, and suggests that [T]he essence of drama is crisis. A play is a more or less rapidlydeveloping crisis in destiny or circumstance, and a dramatic scene is a crisis within a crisis, clearly furthering the ultimate event. The drama may be called the art of crises, as fiction is the art of gradual developments. But, manifestly, it is not every crisis that is dramatic. A serious illness, a law-suit, a bankruptcy, even an ordinary prosaic marriage, may be a crisis in a man’s life, without being necessarily, or even probably, material for drama. How, then, do we distinguish a dramatic from a non-dramatic crisis? Generally, I think, by the fact that it develops, or can be made naturally to develop, through a series of minor crises, involving more or less emotional excitement, and, if possible, the vivid manifestation of character. Brunetière, when he is talking about the ‘will of man’ in conflict, is obviously thinking in terms of Aristotle. Most early drama deals with heroic protagonists, someone who sets the struggle in motion. Implied is that the protagonist is active (after all, the word ‘drama’ is derived from the Greek work for ‘doing’). We live, however, in times that are less ‘heroic.’ In many contemporary dramas, whether in theater or cinema, the central figure does not have (or does not seem to have) much positive will. This does not contradict the principles Archer is discussing, it only inverts the protagonist’s relationship with the situation that surrounds him. As the protagonist becomes less active and more passive, less certain of his positive purposes, so it is ‘the ambitions, the interests, the prejudices, the folly, the malevolence of those who surround him’ that take on a more active character. A common compromise is achieved when the protagonist appears passive, inactive, uncertain and undecided for the first three quarters of the piece. Then, in the final confrontation, he or she is forced into a definitive commitment, a positive action. We can turn to our usual examples. In On the Waterfront, the punch-drunk ex-fighter that Brando plays is torn between his commitment to his brother and the corrupt union racketeers on the one side, and the pressure from the priest and the girl on the other. It takes the murder of his brother to force him into a positive act, testifying against the racketeers and then confronting the dockers and Johnny Friendly. In The Hustler, Paul Newman is torn between George C. Scott’s view of life and that which he shares with the girl, until her suicide provokes him into the final confrontation with the gambler, and with himself. In The Third Man, Holly Martins tries to maintain his loyalty to Harry Lime until the evidence supplied by the British Military Major and the predicament of the girl force him to betray, and finally shoot, his oldest friend.


More complex is the kind of story where the completely passive, undecided, and purposeless central figure does not have any final change of heart. There is always a danger that a story with a conclusion that does not seem to resolve anything, and that lacks a peripety towards the final crises, will feel unsatisfactory. ‘Unsophisticated’ audiences often resent this lack of resolution, while avant-garde types admire it as innovation because it manages to avoid the obvious. My personal view is that when the inversion of the classic principles do work for me (as they do, for instance, in a film like Antonioni’s L’Avventura and Beckett’s play Waiting for Godot), it is only because the same old principles that Aristotle and Archer, among others, have debated are rediscovered a fresh and unexpected patterns. Where is the tension in Beckett’s work? If it is expectation of the arrival of the mysterious Godot then it is never resolved, as Godot never arrives. But an intuitive audience member sense very quickly that Godot isn’t going to appear (actually you only have to consult the cast list). The tension is something quite different. Who is this Godot meant to be, and what does he represent? As one would expect, this ‘crisis’ is resolved near the very end when the characters come at long last to the moment when they realise that Godot will not be coming. At this moment, the audience is given a strange but somewhat satisfying answer to the main tension of the work: the identity of Godot. Though L’Avventura has an extremely elliptical structure, there is certainly a plot, even if it is left to implication. The story is not really about the search for the girl who has vanished from the island. Rather, the tension centers around the heroine’s uncertainty about the character of the man who may, or may not, have been the cause of the strange disappearance. When, in the final scenes, Monica Vitti’s character finally has to face the disillusioning truth about the kind of man she has fallen in love with, then – if only indirectly and still ambiguously – the history of his previous mistress comes to a conclusion. As William Archer suggests, there can be highly dramatic plays (and films, of course) where conflict is not so immediately visible. Archer gives Oedipus Rex and Shakespeare’s Othello as examples. Even Oedipus of Sophocles, though it may at first sight seem a typical instance of a struggle against Destiny, does not really come under the definition. Oedipus, in fact, does not struggle at all. His struggles, in so far as the word can be applied to his misguided efforts to escape the toils of fate, are all things of the past; in the actual course of the tragedy he simply writhes under one revelation after another of bygone error and unwitting crime. There is no struggle, no conflict between [Othello] and Iago. It is Iago alone who exerts any will; neither Othello nor Desdemona makes the smallest fight. From the moment Iago sets his machinations to work, they are like people sliding down an ice-slope to an inevitable abyss.


In an attempt to define what drama is, Archer arrives at a view so sensible that one wonders why his predecessors missed the point. A great part of the secret of dramatic architecture lies in the one word “tension.” To engender, maintain, suspect, heighten and resolve a tension – that is the main object of the dramatist’s craft. The Obligatory Scene Archer has a chapter in his book on a term that was invented by Francisque Sarcey: the scène a faire or obligatory scene. An obligatory scene is one which the audience (more or less clearly and consciously) foresees and desires, and the absence of which it may with reason resent. As a definition, this is not of much value. But in the course of studying Archer, it does seem to help us arrive at the key to the meaning of drama. In a single phrase (one that Archer cites from Sarcey): ‘expectation mingled with uncertainty.’ This implies that the dramatic conflict inherent in a work may or may not be up there on the stage or screen, just so long as it sets up a tension in us, an event between our ears, a stretching forward of the audience’s mind in some as yet unresolved expectation. Obligatory scenes are hard to analyze, if only because the definition is so general it is hardly a definition at all. As a writer, however, one gets a very strong sense of the feel of such a scene. There is a kind of charge of dramatic energy that is released at such a moment in the story, a sense of having come at last to the point of the whole thing. (In this respect, I should confess to my own quite brutally impatient method of studying screenplays. First, I thumb through the first ten pages. From these, I expect to get an idea of the genre, the environment of the story, as well as an introduction to principal characters, a hint of theme and the hook – the industry’s word for the initial fuse of the plot. Next, I turn to the end and then five or ten pages back. Here, I expect to find the obligatory scene, the resolution of the conflicts that were hinted at in the first ten pages. If both of these have intrigued me, then I know the whole script may be worth my time to read.) Again, to our modern examples. In On the Waterfront, look at the scene in the bar following the death of Terry’s brother, where the priest persuades him that the only effective way to revenge himself against the racketeers in the crooked union is to testify to the Crime Commission. Another possible obligatory scene is when Terry has done just this, and decides to confront Johnny Friendly in front of the dockers who still regard Terry as a stool pigeon. In The Hustler, the final match between Fast Eddie and Minnesota Fats (Jackie Gleason) is really a confrontation between Fast Eddie and Bert Gordon (George C Scott) over Sarah, not pool at all, and is a good example of a scène a faire. And finally, in Bicycle


Thieves, look at the episode when the father sends his son away while he attempts, with pitiful lack of success, to turn thief himself. It is the final act of a desperate man, something we, the audience, have throughout the film suspected he might attempt. © Original copyright holders


The Man Who Shot Liberty Valance Dorothy M. Johnson Bert Barricune died in 1910. Not more than a dozen persons showed up for his funeral. Among them was an earnest young reporter who hoped for a human-interest story; there were legends that the old man had been something of a gunfighter in the early days. A few aging men tiptoed in, singly or in pairs, scowling and edgy, clutching their battered hats-men who had been Bert’s companions at drinking or penny ante while the world passed them by. One woman came, wearing a heavy veil that concealed her face. White and yellow streaks showed in her black-dyed hair. The reporter made a mental note: Old friend from the old District. But no story there – can’t mention that. One by one they filed past the casket, looking into the still face of old Bert Barricune, who had been nobody. His stubbly hair was white, and his lined face was as empty in death as his life had been. But death had added dignity. One great spray of flowers spread behind the casket. The card read, “Senator and Mrs. Ransome Foster.” There were no other flowers except, almost unnoticed, a few pale, leafless, pink and yellow blossoms scattered on the carpeted step. The reporter, squinting, finally identified them: son of a gun! Blossoms of the prickly pear. Cactus flowers. Seems suitable for the old man – flowers that grow on prairie wasteland. Well, they’re free if you want to pick ’em, and Barricune’s friends don’t look prosperous. But how come the Senator sends a bouquet? There was a delay, and the funeral director fidgeted a little, waiting. The reporter sat up straighter when he saw the last two mourners enter. Senator Foster – sure, there’s the crippled arm – and that must be his wife. Congress is still in session; he came all the way from Washington. Why would he bother, for an old wreck like Bert Barricune? After the funeral was decently over, the reporter asked him. The Senator almost told the truth, but he caught himself in time. He said, “Bert Barricune was my friend for more than thirty years.” He could not give the true answer: He was my enemy; he was my conscience; he made me whatever I am. Ransome Foster had been in the Territory for seven months when he ran into Liberty Valance. He had been afoot on the prairie for two days when he met Bert Barricune. Up to that time, Ranse Foster had been nobody in particular – a dude from the East, quietly inquisitive, moving from one shack town to another; just another tenderfoot with his own reasons for being there and no aim in life at all. When Barricune found him on the prairie, Foster was indeed a tenderfoot. In his boots there was a warm, damp squidging where his feet had blistered,


and the blisters had broken to bleed. He was bruised, sunbumed, and filthy. He had been crawling, but when he saw Barricune riding toward him, he sat up. He had no horse, no saddle and, by that time, no pride. Barricune looked down at him, not saying anything. Finally Ranse Foster asked, “Water?” Barricune shook his head. “I don’t carry none, but we can go where it is.” He stepped down from the saddle, a casual Samaritan, and with one heave pulled Foster upright. “Git you in the saddle, can you stay there?” he inquired. “If I can’t,” Foster answered through swollen lips, “shoot me.” Bert said amiably, “All right,” and pulled the horse around. By twisting its ear, he held the animal quiet long enough to help the anguished stranger to the saddle. Then, on foot – and like any cowboy Bert Barricune hated walking – he led the horse five miles to the river. He let Foster lie where he fell in the cottonwood grove and brought him a hat full of water. After that, Foster made three attempts to stand up. After the third failure, Barricune asked, grinning, “Want me to shoot you after all‘?” “No,” Foster answered. “There’s something I want to do first.” Barricune looked at the bruises and commented, “Well, I should think so.” He got on his horse and rode away. After an hour he returned with bedding and grub and asked, “Ain’t you dead yet?” The bruised and battered man opened his uninjured eye and said, “Not yet, but soon.” Bert was amused. He brought a bucket of water and set up camp – a bedroll on a tarp, an armload of wood for a fire. He crouched on his heels while the tenderfoot, with cautious movements that told of pain, got his clothes off and splashed water on his body. No gunshot wounds, Barricune observed, but marks of kicks, and a couple that must have been made with a quirt. After a while he asked, not inquisitively, but as one who has a right to know how matters stood, “Anybody looking for you?” Foster rubbed dust from his clothes, being too full of pain to shake them. “No,” he said. “But I’m looking for somebody.” “I ain’t going to help you look,” Bert informed him. “Town’s over that way, two miles, when you get ready to come. Cache the stuff when you leave. I’ll pick it up.” Three days later they met in the town marshal’s office. They glanced at each other but did not speak. This time it was Bert Barricune who was bruised, though not much. The marshal was just letting him out of the one-cell jail when Foster limped into the office. Nobody said anything until Barricune, blinking and walking not quite steadily, had left. Foster saw him stop in front of the next building to speak to a girl. They walked away together, and it looked as if the young man were being scolded. The marshal cleared his throat. “You wanted something, Mister?”


Foster answered, “Three men set me afoot on the prairie. ls that an offense against the law around here?” The marshal eased himself and his stomach into a chair and frowned judiciously. “It ain’t customary,” he admitted. “Who was they?” “The boss was a big man with black hair, dark eyes, and two gold teeth in front. The other two – “ “I know. Liberty Valance and a couple of his boys. Just what’s your complaint, now‘?” Foster began to understand that no help was going to come from the marshal. “They rob you‘?” the marshal asked. “They didn’t search me.” “Take your gun?” “I didn’t have one.” “Steal your horse‘?” “Gave him a crack with a quirt, and he left.” “Saddle on him‘?” “No. l left it out there.” The marshal shook his head. “Can’t see you got any legal complaint,” he said with relief. “Where was this?” “On a road in the woods, by a creek. Two days’ walk from here.” The marshal got to his feet. “You don’t even know what jurisdiction it was in. They knocked you around; well, that could happen. Man gets in a fight – could happen to anybody.” Foster said dryly, “Thanks a lot.” The marshal stopped him as he reached the door. “There’s a reward for Liberty Valance.” “I still haven’t got a gun,” Foster said. “Does he come here often?” “Nope. Nothing he’d want in Twotrees. Hard man to find.” The marshal looked Foster up and down. “He won’t come after you here.” It was as if he had added, Sonny! “Beat you up once, he won’t come again for that.” And I, Foster realized, am not man enough to go after him. “Fact is,” the marshal added, “I can’t think of any bait that would bring him in. Pretty quiet here. Yes sir.” He put his thumbs in his galluses and looked out the window, taking credit for the quietness. Bait, Foster thought. He went out thinking about it. For the first time in a couple of years he had an ambition – not a laudable one, but something to aim at. He was going to be the bait for Liberty Valance and, as far as he could be, the trap as well. At the Elite Cafe he stood meekly in the doorway, hat in hand, like a man who expects and deserves to be refused anything he might ask for. Clearing his throat, he asked, “Could I work for a meal‘?” The girl who was filling sugar bowls looked up and pitied him. “Why, I should think so. Mr. Andersonl” She was the girl who had walked away with Barricune, scolding him.


The proprietor came from the kitchen, and Ranse Foster repeated his question, cringing, but with a suggestion of a sneer. “Go around back and split some wood,” Anderson answered, turning back to the kitchen. “He could just as well eat first,” the waitress suggested. “I’ll dish up some stew to begin with.” Ranse ate fast, as if he expected the plate to be snatched away. He knew the girl glanced at him several times, and he hated her for it. He had not counted on anyone’s pitying him in his new role of sneering humility, but he knew he might as well get used to it. When she brought his pie, she said, “If you was looking for a job…” He forced himself to look at her suspiciously. “Yes?” “You could try the Prairie Belle. I heard they needed a swamper.” Bert Barricune, riding out to the river camp for his bedroll, hardly knew the man he met there. Ranse Foster was haughty, condescending, and cringing all at once. He spoke with a faint sneer, and stood as if he expected to be kicked. “I assumed you’d be back for your belongings,” he said. “I realized that you would change your mind.” Barricune, strapping up his bedroll, looked blank. “Never changed it,” he disagreed. “Doing just what I planned. I never give you my bedroll.” “Of course not, of course not,” the new Ranse Foster agreed with sneering humility. “lt’s yours. You have every right to reclaim it.” Barricune looked at him narrowly and hoisted the bedroll to sling it up behind his saddle. “I should have left you for the buzzards,” he remarked. Foster agreed, with a smile that should have got him a fist in the teeth. “Thank you, my friend,” he said with no gratitude. “Thank you for all your kindness, which I have done nothing to deserve and shall do nothing to repay.” Barricune rode off, scowling, with the memory of his good deed irritating him like lice. The new Foster followed, far behind, on foot. Sometimes in later life Ranse Foster thought of the several men he had been through the years. He did not admire any of them very much. He was by no means ashamed of the man he finally became, except that he owed too much to other people. One man he had been when he was young, a serious student, gullible and quick-tempered. Another man had been reckless and without an aim; he went West, with two thousand dollars of his own, after a quarrel with the executor of his father’s estate. That man did not last long. Liberty Valance had whipped him with a quilt and kicked him into unconsciousness, for no reason except that Liberty, meeting him and knowing him for a tenderfoot, was able to do so. That man died on the prairie. After that, there was the man who set out to be the bait that would bring Liberty Valance into Twotrees. Ranse Foster had never hated anyone before he met Liberty Valance, but Liberty was not the last man he learned to hate. He hated the man he himself had been while he waited to meet Liberty again.


The swamper’s job at the Prairie Belle was not disgraceful until Ranse Foster made it so. When he swept floors, he was so obviously contemptuous of the work and of himself for doing it that other men saw him as contemptible. He watched the customers with a curled lip as if they were beneath him. But when a poker player threw a white chip on the floor, the swamper looked at him with halfveiled hatred – and picked up the chip. They talked about him at the Prairie Belle, because he could not be ignored. At the end of the first month, he bought a Colt .45 from a drunken cowboy who needed money worse than he needed two guns. After that, Ranse went without part of his sleep in order to walk out, seven mornings a week, to where his first camp had been and practice target shooting. And the second time he overslept from exhaustion, Joe Mosten of the Prairie Belle fired him. “Here’s your pay,” Joe growled, and dropped the money on the floor. A week passed before he got another job. He ate his meals frugally in the Elite Cafe and let himself be seen stealing scraps off plates that other diners had left. Lillian, the older of the two waitresses, yelled her disgust, but Hallie, who was young, pitied him. “Come to the back door when it’s dark,” she murmured, “and I’ll give you a bite. There’s plenty to spare.” The second evening he went to the back door, Bert Barricune was there ahead of him. He said gently, “Hallie is my girl.” “No offense intended,” Foster answered. “The young lady offered me food, and I have come to get it.” “A dog eats where it can,” young Barricune drawled. Ranse’s muscles tensed and rage mounted in his throat, but he caught himself in time and shrugged. Bert said something then that scared him: “If you wanted to get talked about, it’s working fine. They’re talking clean over in Dunbar.” “What they do or say in Dunbar,” Foster answered, “is nothing to me.” “It’s where Liberty Valance hangs out,” the other man said casually. “In case you care.” Ranse almost confided then, but instead said stiffly, “I do not quite appreciate your strange interest in my affairs.” Barricune pushed back his hat and scratched his head. “I don’t understand it myself. But leave my girl alone.” “As charming as Miss Hallie may be,” Ranse told him, “I am interested only in keeping my stomach filled.” “Then why don’t you work for a living? The clerk at Dowitt’s quit this afternoon. Jake Dowitt hired him as a clerk because nobody else wanted the job. “Read and write, do you?” Dowitt asked. “Work with figures?” Foster drew himself up. “Sir, whatever may be said against me, I believe I may lay claim to being a scholar. That much I claim, if nothing more. I have read law.” “Maybe the job ain’t good enough for you,” Dowitt suggested.


Foster became humble again. “Any job is good enough for me. I will also sweep the floor.” “You will also keep up the fire in the stove,” Dowitt told him. “Seven in the morning till nine at night. Got a place to live?” “I sleep in the livery stable in return for keeping it shoveled out.” Dowitt had intended to house his clerk in a small room over the store, but he changed his mind. “Got a shed out back you can bunk in,” he offered. “You’ll have to clean it out first. Used to keep chickens there.” “There is one thing,” Foster said. “I want two half-days off a week.” Dowitt looked over the top of his spectacles. “Now what would you do with time off? Never mind. You can have it – for less pay. I give you a discount on what you buy in the store.” The only purchase Foster made consisted of four boxes of cartridges a week. In the store, he weighed salt pork as if it were low stuff but himself still lower, humbly measured lengths of dress goods for the women customers. He added vanity to his other unpleasantnesses and let customers discover him combing his hair admiringly before a small mirror. He let himself be seen reading a small black book, which aroused curiosity. It was while he worked at the store that he started Twotrees’ first school. Hallie was responsible for that. Handing him a plate heaped higher than other customers got at the cafe, she said gently, “You’re a learned man, they say, Mr. Foster.” With Hallie he could no longer sneer or pretend humility, for Hallie was herself humble, as well as gentle and kind. He protected himself from her by not speaking unless he had to. He answered, “I have had advantages, Miss Hallie, before fate brought me here.” “That book you read,” she asked wistfully, “what’s it about?” “It was written by a man named Plato,” Ranse told her stiffly. “It was written in Greek.” She brought him a cup of coffee, hesitated for a moment, and then asked, “You can read and write American, too, can’t you?” “English, Miss Hallie,” he corrected. “English is our mother tongue. I am quite familiar with English.” She put her red hands on the cafe counter. “Mr Foster,” she whispered, “will you teach me to read‘?” He was too startled to think of an answer she could not defeat. “Bert wouldn’t like it,” he said. “You’re a grown woman besides. It wouldn’t look right for you to be learning to read now.” She shook her head. “I can’t learn any younger.” She sighed. “I always wanted to know how to read and write.” She walked away toward the kitchen, and Ranse Foster was stuck with an emotion he knew he could not afford. He was swept with pity. He called her back.


“Miss Hallie. Not you alone – people would talk about you. But if you brought Bert – “ “Bert can already read some. He don’t care about it. But there’s some kids in town.” Her face was so lighted that Ranse looked away. He still tried to escape. “Won’t you be ashamed, learning with children?” “Why, I’ll be proud to learn any way at all,” she said. He had three little girls, two restless little boys, and Hallie in Twotrees’ first school sessions – one hour each aftemoon, in Dowitt’s storeroom. Dowitt did not dock his pay for the time spent, but he puzzled a great deal. So did the children’s parents. The children themselves were puzzled at some of the things he read aloud, but they were patient. After all, lessons lasted only an hour. “When you are older, you will understand this,” he promised, not looking at Hallie, and then he read Shakespeare’s sonnet that begins: No longer mourn for me when I am dead Than you shall hear the surly sullen bell and ends: Do not so much as my poor name rehearse, But let your love even with my life decay Lest the wise world should look into your moan And mock you with me after I am gone. Hallie understood the warning, he knew. He read another sonnet, too: When in disgrace with Fortune and men’s eyes, I all alone beweep my outcast state, and carefully did not look up at her as he finished it: For thy sweet love rememb‘red such wealth brings That then I scorn to change my state with kings. Her earnestness in learning was distasteful to him the anxious way she grasped a pencil and formed letters, the little gasp with which she always began to read aloud. Twice he made her cry, but she never missed a lesson. He wished he had a teacher for his own learning, but he could not trust anyone, and so he did his lessons alone. Bert Barricune caught him at it on one of those free afternoons when Foster, on a horse from the livery stable, had ridden miles out of town to a secluded spot. Ranse Foster had an empty gun in his hand when Barricune stepped out from behind a sandstone column and remarked, “I’ve seen better.”


Foster whirled, and Barricune added, “I could have been somebody else – and your gun’s empty.” “When I see somebody else, it won’t be,” Foster promised. “If you’d asked me,” Barricune mused, “I could’ve helped you. But you didn’t want no helping. A man shouldn’t be ashamed to ask somebody that knows better than him.” His gun was suddenly in his hand, and five shots cracked their echoes around the skull-white sandstone pillars. Half an inch above each of five cards that Ranse had tacked to a dead tree, at the level of a man’s waist, a splintered hole appeared in the wood. “Didn’t want to spoil your targets,” Barricune explained. “I’m not ashamed to ask you,” Foster told him angrily, “since you know so much. I shoot straight but slow. I’m asking you now.” Barricune, reloading his gun, shook his head. “It’s kind of late for that. I come out to tell you that Liberty Valance is in town. He’s interested in the dude that anybody can kick around – this here tenderfoot that boasts how he can read Greek.” “Well,” said Foster softly. “Well, so the time has come.” “Don’t figure you’re riding into town with me,” Bert warned. “You’re coming all by yourself.” Ranse rode into town with his gun belt buckled on. Always before, he had carried it wrapped in a slicker. In town, he allowed himself the luxury of one last vanity. He went to the barbershop, neither sneering nor cringing, and said sharply, “Cut my hair. Short.” The barber was nervous, but he worked understandably fast. “Thought you was partial to that long wavy hair of yourn,” he remarked. “I don’t know why you thought so,” Foster said coldly. Out in the street again, he realized that he did not know how to go about the job. He did not know where Liberty Valance was, and he was determined not to be caught like a rat. He intended to look for Liberty. Joe Mosten’s right-hand man was lounging at the door of the Prairie Belle. He moved over to bar the way. “Not in there, Foster,” he said gently. It was the first time in months that Ranse Foster had heard another man address him respectfully. His presence was recognize – as a menace to the fixtures of the Prairie Belle. When I die, sometime today, he thought, they won’t say I was a coward. They may say I was a damn fool, but I won’t care by that time. “Where is he?” Ranse asked. “I couldn’t tell you that,” the man said apologetically. “l’m young and healthy, and where he is is none of my business. Joe’d be obliged if you stay out of the bar, that’s all.” Ranse looked across toward Dowitt’s store. The padlock was on the door. He glanced north, toward the marshal’s office. “That’s closed, too,” the saloon man told him courteously. “Marshal was called out of town an hour ago.”


Ranse threw back his head and laughed. The sound echoed back from the false-fronted buildings across the street. There was nobody walking in the street; there were not even any horses tied to the hitching racks. “Send Liberty word,” he ordered in the tone of one who has a right to command. “Tell him the tenderfoot wants to see him again.” The saloon man cleared his throat. “Guess it won’t be necessary. That’s him coming down at the end of the street, wouldn’t you say?” Ranse looked, knowing the saloon man was watching him curiously. “l’d say it is,” he agreed. “Yes, I’d say that was Liberty Valance.” “I’ll be going inside now,” the other man remarked apologetically. “Well, take care of yourself.” He was gone without a sound. This is the classic situation, Ranse realized. Two enemies walking to meet each other along the dusty, waiting street of a western town. What reasons other men have had, I will never know. There are so many things I have never learned! And now there is no time left. He was an actor who knew the end of the scene but had forgotten the lines and never knew the cue for them. One of us ought to say something, he realized. I should have planned this all out in advance. But all I ever saw was the end of it. Liberty Valance, burly and broad-shouldered, walked stiff-legged, with his elbows bent. When he is close enough for me to see whether he is smiling, Ranse Foster thought, somebody’s got to speak. He looked into his own mind and realized, This man is afraid, this Ransome Foster. But nobody else knows it. He walks and is afraid, but he is no coward. Let them remember that. Let Hallie remember that. Liberty Valance gave the cue. “Looking for me?” he called between his teeth. He was grinning. Ranse was almost grateful to him; it was as if Liberty had said, The time is now! “I owe you something,” Ranse answered. “I want to pay my debt.” Liberty’s hand flashed with his own. The gun in Foster’s hand exploded, and so did the whole world. He looked up at a strange, unsteady ceiling and a face that wavered like a reflection in water. The bed beneath him swung even after he closed his eyes. Far away someone said, “Shove some more cloth in the wound. It slows the bleeding.” He knew with certain agony where the wound was – in his right shoulder. When they touched it, he heard himself cry out. The face that wavered above him was a new one, Bert Barricune’s. “He’s dead,” Barricune said. Foster answered from far away, “I am not.” Barricune said, “I didn’t mean you.”


Ranse turned his head away from the pain, and the face that had shivered above him before was Hallie’s, white and big-eyed. She put a hesitant hand on his, and he was annoyed to see that hers was trembling. “Are you shaking,” he asked, “because there’s blood on my hands?” “No,” she answered. “It’s because they might have been getting cold.” He was aware then that other people were in the room; they stirred and moved aside as the doctor entered. “Maybe you’re gonna keep that arm,” the doctor told him at last. “But it’s never gonna be much use to you.” The trial was held three weeks after the shooting, in the hotel room where Ranse lay in bed. The charge was disturbing the peace; he pleaded guilty and was fined ten dollars. When the others had gone, he told Bert Barricune. “There was a reward, I heard. That would pay the doctor and the hotel.” “You ain’t going to collect it,” Bert informed him. “It’d make you too big for your britches.” Barricune sat looking at him for a moment and then remarked, “You didn’t kill Liberty.” Foster frowned. “They buried him.” “Liberty fired once. You fired once and missed. I fired once, and I don’t generally miss. I ain’t going to collect the reward, neither. Hallie don’t hold with violence.” Foster said thoughtfully, “That was all I had to be proud of.” “You faced him,” Barricune said. “You went to meet him. If you got to be proud of something, you can remember that. It’s a fact you ain’t got much else.” Ranse looked at him with narrowed eyes. “Bert, are you a friend of mine?” Bert smiled without humor. “You know I ain’t. I picked you up off the prairie, but I’d do that for the lowest scum that crawls. I wisht I hadn’t.” “Then why – ” Bert looked at the toe of his boot. “Hallie likes you. I’m a friend of Hallie’s. That’s all I ever will be, long as you’re around.” Ranse said, “Then I shot Liberty Valance.” That was the nearest he ever dared come to saying “Thank you.” And that was when Bert Barricune started being his conscience, his Nemesis, his lifelong enemy and the man who made him great. “Would she be happy living back East?” Foster asked. “There’s money waiting for me there if I go back.” Bert answered. “What do you think‘?” He stood up and stretched. “You got quite a problem, ain’t you? You could solve it easy by just going back alone. There ain’t much a man can do here with a crippled arm.” He went out and shut the door behind him. There is always a way out, Foster thought, if a man wants to take it. Bert had been his way out when he met Liberty on the street of Twotrees. To go home was the way out of this.


I learned to live without pride, he told himself. I could learn to forget about Hallie. When she came, between the dinner dishes and setting the tables for supper at the cafe, he told her. She did not cry. Sitting in the chair beside his bed, she winced and jerked one hand in protest when he said, “As soon as I can travel, I’ll be going back where I came from.” She did not argue. She said only, “I wish you good luck, Ransome. Bert and me, we’ll look after you long as you stay. And remember you after you’re gone.” “How will you remember me?” he demanded harshly. As his student she had been humble, but as a woman she had her pride. “Don’t ask that,” she said, and got up from the chair. “Hallie, Hallie,” he pleaded, “how can I stay? How can I eam a living?” She said indignantly, as if someone else had insulted him, “Ranse Foster, I just guess you could do anything you Wanted to.” “Hallie,” he said gently, “sit down.” He never really wanted to be outstanding. He had two aims in life: to make Hallie happy and to keep Bert Barricune out of trouble. He defended Bert on charges ranging from drunkenness to stealing cattle, and Bert served time twice. Ranse Foster did not want to run for judge, but Bert remarked, “I think Hallie would kind of like it if you was His Honor.” Hallie was pleased but not surprised when he was elected. Ranse was surprised but not pleased. He was not eager to run for the legislature – that was after the territory became a state – but there was Bert Barricune in the background, never urging, never advising, but watching With half-closed, bloodshot eyes. Bert Barricune, who never amounted to anything, but never intruded, was a living, silent reminder of three debts: a hat full of water under the cotton-woods, gunfire in a dusty street, and Hallie, quietly sewing beside a lamp in the parlor. And the Fosters had four sons. All the things the opposition said about Ranse Foster when he ran for the state legislature were true, except one. He had been a lowly swamper in a frontier saloon; he had been a dead beat, accepting handouts at the alley entrance of a cafe; he had been despicable and despised. But the accusation that lost him the election was false. He had not killed Liberty Valance. He never served in the state legislature. When there was talk of his running for governor, he refused. Handy Strong, who knew politics, tried to persuade him. “That shooting, we’ll get around that. ‘The Honorable Ransome Foster walked down a street in broad daylight to meet an enemy of society. He shot him down in a fair fight, of necessity, the way you’d shoot a mad dog – but Liberty Valance could shoot back, and he did. Ranse Foster carries the mark of that encounter today in a crippled right arm. He is still paying the price for protecting law-abiding citizens. And he was the first teacher west of Rosy Buttes. He served without pay.’ You’ve come a long way, Ranse, and you’re going further.”


“A long way,” Foster agreed, “for a man who never wanted to go anywhere. I don’t want to be governor.” When Handy had gone, Bert Barricune sagged in, unwashed, unshaven. He sat down stiffly. At the age of fifty, he was an old man, an unwanted relic of the frontier that was gone, a legacy to more civilized times that had no place for him. He filled his pipe deliberately. After a while he remarked, “The other side is gonna say you ain’t fitten to be governor. Because your wife ain’t fancy enough. They’re gonna say Hallie didn’t even learn to read till she was growed up.” Ranse was on his feet, White with fury. “Then I’m going to win this election if it kills me.” “I don’t reckon it’ll kill you,” Bert drawled. “Liberty Valance couldn’t.” “I could have got rid of the weight of that affair long ago,” Ranse reminded him, “by telling the truth.” “You could yet,” Bert answered. “Why don’t you‘?” Ranse said bitterly, “Because I owe you too much. I don’t think Hallie Wants to be the governor’s lady. She’s shy.” “Hallie don’t never want nothing for herself. She wants things for you. The way I feel, I wouldn’t mourn at your funeral. But what Hallie Wants, I’m gonna try to see she gets.” “So am I,” Ranse promised grimly. “Then I don’t mind telling you,” Bert admitted, “that it was me reminded the opposition to dig up that matter of how she couldn’t read.” As the Senator and his Wife rode out to the airport after old Bert Barricune’s barren funeral, Hallie sighed. “Bert never had much of anything. I guess he never wanted much.” He wanted you to be happy, Ranse Foster thought, and he did the best he knew how. “I wonder where those prickly-pear blossoms came from,” he mused. Hallie glanced up at him, smiling. “From me,” she said.” © Original copyright holders


John Howard Lawson’s

Theory and Technique of Playwriting and Screenwriting (1949) John Howard Lawson’s Theory and Technique of Playwriting was published in 1936. Thirteen years later he added several chapters about the history and craft of filmmaking, and presented to the world Theory and Technique of Playwriting and Screenwriting, what many consider to be one of the finest books ever written about dramatic construction. These extracts focus on Lawson’s ideas on dramatic construction. All page numbers below refer to the online version of Lawson’s book, available at www.johnhowardlawson.com. *

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The Law of Conflict Since the drama deals with social relationships, a dramatic conflict must be a social conflict. We can imagine a dramatic struggle between man and other men, or between man and his environment, including social forces or forces of nature. But it is difficult to imagine a play in which forces of nature are pitted against other forces of nature… Dramatic conflict is also predicated on the exercise of conscious will… The essential character of drama is social conflict in which the conscious will is exerted: persons are pitted against other persons, or individuals against groups, or groups against other groups, or individuals or groups against social or natural forces. (p.157) [T]he intensity and meaning of the conflict lies in the disparity between the aim and the result, between the purpose and the achievement. (p.158) When human beings are involved in events which lead to a crisis, they do not stand idly by and watch the climax approach. Human beings seek to shape events for their own advantage, to extricate themselves from difficulties which are partially foreseen. The activity of the conscious will, seeking a way out, creates the very conditions which precipitate the crisis. (p.159) The meaning of the situations lies in the degree and kind of conscious will exerted, and in how it works; the crisis, the dramatic explosion, is created by the gap between the aim and the result – that is, by a shift of equilibrium between the force of will and the force of social necessity. A crisis is the point at which the balance of forces is so strained that something cracks, thus causing a realignment of forces, a new pattern of relationships. (p.160)


The will which creates drama is directed toward a specific goal. But the goal which it selects must be sufficiently realistic to enable the will to have some effect on reality. We in the audience must be able to understand the goal and the possibility of its fulfillment. The kind of will exerted must spring from a consciousness of reality which corresponds to our own. (p.160) [W]e are concerned not only with the consciousness of will, but with the strength of will. The exercise of will must be sufficiently vigorous to sustain and develop the conflict to a point of issue. A conflict which fails to reach a crisis is a conflict of weak wills. (p.160) Drama cannot deal with people whose wills are atrophied, who are unable to make decisions which have even temporary meaning, who adopt no conscious attitude toward events, who make no effort to control their environment. The precise degree of strength of will required is the strength needed to bring the action to an issue, to create a change of equilibrium between the individual and the environment. (pp.160 – 1) Dramatic Action The major crisis which brings the unified dramatic conflict to a head is not the only crisis in the play: dramatic movement proceeds by a series of changes of equilibrium. Any change of equilibrium constitutes an action. The play is a system of actions, a system of minor and major changes of equilibrium. The climax of the play is the maximum disturbance of equilibrium which can take place under the given conditions. (p.162) We are told that a bit of dialogue or a scene or an entire play has the quality of action, or lacks the quality of action. Since it is generally agreed that this quality is essential to drama, it must be very closely related to the principle of action which unifies the whole structure. (p.162) The present chapter deals only with action as a quality which gives impact, life and color to certain scenes. St. John Ervine says: “A dramatist, when he talks of action, does not mean bustle or mere physical movement: he means development and growth.” Ervine regrets that people are slow to understand this: “When you speak of action to them, they immediately imagine that you mean doing things.” There can be no question that action involves “development and growth”; but one can sympathize with those who cling to the idea that action means doing things. If the conscious will does not cause people to do things, how does it make itself manifest? Development and growth cannot result from inactivity. (p.162)


George Pierce Baker says that action may be either physical or mental provided it creates emotional response. This is of very little value unless we know what constitutes an emotional response. Since what moves us in any action is the spectacle of a change of equilibrium between the individual and the environment, we cannot speak of any action as being exclusively mental or exclusively physical; the change must affect both the individual’s mind and the objective reality with which he is in contact. Such a change need not involve bustle or violence, but it must involve doing something, because if nothing is done the equilibrium would remain static. (p.162) The conscious will is a necessary reference point in studying action, but it cannot be confused with the action itself. We examine the conscious will in order to discover the origin and validity of the action. But we do not see or hear the conscious will. What we see and hear is a physical event, which must be defined in terms of seeing and hearing. (p.163) Let us begin by distinguishing action (dramatic movement) from activity (by which we mean movement in general). Action is a kind of activity, a form of movement in general. The effectiveness of action does not depend on what people do, but on the meaning of what they do... Action may be confined to a minimum of physical activity. But it must be noted that this minimum, however slight, determines the meaning of the action. (p.163) Action (as distinguished from activity) must be in process of becoming; therefore it must rise out of other action, and must lead to other, and different, action. Each change of equilibrium involves prior and forthcoming changes or equilibrium. (p.164) The scene must actually achieve a change of equilibrium, both in relation to previous and following scenes and in relation to the movement within the scene itself. If the scene does not produce such a change, the tension is false and the element of action is lacking. (p.165) Unity in Terms of Climax Aristotle spoke simply of “a beginning, a middle and an end.” It is obvious that a play which begins by chance and ends because two and one-half hours have passed, is not a play. Its beginning and its end, and the arrangement of the parts in a related design, are dictated by the need of realizing the social conception which constitutes the theme. (p.167)


In practice, real unity must be a synthesis of theme and action. (p.167) Frank Craven (as quoted by Arthur Edwin Krows) suggests: “Get ’em in hot water and get ’em out again.” (p.167) In outlining his theory that “the drama may be called the art of crises,” Archer tells us that “a dramatic scene is a crisis (or climax) building to an ultimate climax which is the core of the action.” The dramatic scenes are held together by sustained and increasing tension. “A great part of the secret of dramatic architecture lies in the one word, tension; to engender, maintain, suspend, heighten and resolve a state of tension.” (p.168) Tension, the “straining forward of interest,” “movement and counter-movement,” are qualities of action; but they do not necessarily imply an action which is organic and complete within itself. If Aristotle is correct in saying that unity of the parts must be “such that, if any one of them is displaced or removed, the whole will be disjointed and disturbed,” there ought to be some definite test of unity, by which we can judge and discard “a thing whose presence or absence makes no visible difference.” (p.167) The unifying force is the idea; but an idea, however integral it may be, is in itself undramatic. (p.169) St. John Ervine says that “a play should be a living organism, so alive that when any part of it is cut off the body bleeds!” (p.169) [E]very detail of the action is determined by the end toward which the action is moving… The climax of the play, being the point of highest tension, gives the fullest expression to the laws of reality as the playwright conceives them. The climax resolves the conflict by a change of equilibrium which creates a new balance of forces: the necessity which makes this event inevitable is the playwright’s necessity: it expresses the social meaning which led him to invent the action… The climax is the concrete realization of the theme in terms of an event. In practical playwriting, this means that the climax is the point of reference by which the validity of every element of the structure can be determined… Does every scene build toward this final statement? Could any event be omitted without disjointing and disturbing the ending? (p.170) The climax is the concrete realization of the theme in terms of an event. In practical playwriting, this means that the climax is the point of reference by which the validity of every element of the structure can be determined. (p.170)


If the climax is the test of the play’s meaning, the climax must be clear enough and strong enough to hold the play together: it must be an action, fully developed and involving a definite change of equilibrium between the characters and their environment. (p.171) The centering of the action upon a definite goal creates the integrated movement which is the essence of drama. (p.172) Many playwrights have pointed to the necessity of testing the action in terms of the ending. “You should not begin your work,” said Dumas the Younger, “until you have your concluding scene, movement and speech clear in your mind.” Ernest Legouve gives the same advice: “You ask me how a play is made. By beginning at the end.” Percival Wilde is of the same opinion: “Begin at the End and go Back till you come to the Beginning. Then start.” The advice to “begin at the end” is sound as far as it goes. But the author who attempts to apply this advice as a cutand-dried rule will get very meager results; the mechanical act of writing the climax first cannot be of any value unless one understands the function of the climax and the system of cause and effect which binds it to the play as a whole. (p.172) The laws of thought which underlie the creative process require that the playwright begin with a root-idea. He may be unconscious of this; he may think that the creative urge springs from random and purposeless thoughts; but disorganized thought cannot lead to organized activity; however vague his social attitude may be, it is sufficiently conscious and purposive to lead him to the volitional representation of action. (pp.172 – 3) There is no doubt that a playwright may start with any of these odds and ends of fact or fancy. He may complete an entire play by spontaneously piecing together bits of experience and information, without ever attaining the slightest understanding of the principles which underlie his activity. But whether he knows it or not, the process is not as spontaneous as it appears. The “bit of dialogue,” or “figure glimpsed in a crowd,” or detailed story, do not appeal to him by chance; the reason lies in a point of view which he has developed as a result of his own experience; his point of view is sufficiently definite to make him feel the need of crystallizing it; he wants to find events which have a bearing on the picture of events which he has formed in his mind. When he finds a “bit of dialogue” or a “figure glimpsed in a crowd” or a story, he is not satisfied that this proves or justifies his point of view – if he were satisfied, he would stop right there, and would not be moved to further activity. What he seeks is the most complete volitional representation of the root-idea. The root-idea is abstract, because it is the sum-total of many experiences. He cannot be satisfied until he has turned it


into a living event. The root-idea is the beginning of the process. The next step is the discovery of an action which expresses the root-idea. This action is the most fundamental action of the play. (p.173) There can be no doubt that many playwrights construct the preliminary action of a projected drama without knowing what the climax will be. To some extent, a dramatist may be justified in doing this, because it may be his best means of clarifying his own purpose. But he should be aware of the principles which guide his effort, and which are operative whether or not he is conscious of them. In developing preliminary incidents, he is seeking for the root-action; uncertainty in regard to the root-action indicates uncertainty in regard to the root-idea; the playwright who feels his way toward an unknown climax is confused as to the social meaning of the events with which he is dealing; in order to remedy this conceptual confusion he must be aware of it; he must seek to define his point of view, and to give it living form in the climax. (p.174) The Process of Selection A dramatist creates a play. However, one cannot think of the play as being created out of nothing, or out of the abstract oneness of life, or out of the great unknown. On the contrary, the play is created out of materials which are very well known – materials which must be familiar to the audience; otherwise the audience would have no way of establishing contact with the events on the stage. It is not strictly accurate to speak of a dramatist as a person who invents incidents. It is more satisfactory to consider his task as a process of selection. One may conceive of the playwright as some one who enters a huge warehouse, crammed with a supply of possible incidents; theoretically, the contents of the warehouse is unlimited; for each playwright, his field of choice is limited by the extent of his knowledge and experience. In order to select creatively, he must possess a high order of imagination; imagination is the faculty of combining mental-images derived from knowledge and experience so as to give these images fresh meanings and fresh potentialities. These meanings and potentialities appear to be new, but the newness lies in the selection and arrangement. (p.177) [T]he root-action9 is the end of a system of events, the most complete statement of necessity: the previous events seem to be a mass of probabilities and possibilities, but when these are selected and arranged, we observe the rational movement of needs and purposes which make the final situation inevitable. (p.180)

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For Lawson, the “root-action” is the climax of a dramatic narrative, inevitably containing within it elements of that narrative’s theme.


[The playwright] is not looking for a chain of cause and effect, but for causes, however diverse, leading to one effect. This system of causes is designed to show that the end and scope of the action is inevitable, that it is the rational outcome of a conflict between individuals and their environment. (p.180) [The author] does not choose a subject and superimpose a meaning on it. Any meaning that is superimposed is worthless dramatically. He does not draw a lesson from the event; one may more correctly say that he draws the event from the lesson. (The lesson which he wishes to draw is itself based on the sum-total of his experience.) (p.182) The structure of the root-action does not so much depend on the previous histories and activities of the characters as upon the relationship of individuals to their environment at a given moment of supreme tension: if this moment is visualized, it tells us so much about their characters that we are far better able to reconstruct their previous activities. (p.182) The use of the root-action in the process of selection depends on the degree to which it dramatizes the social meaning of an event; it must show a change of equilibrium involving the relationship between individuals and the totality of their environment. If it does not show such a change, it cannot aid the dramatist in an investigation of earlier stages of the conflict between these characters and their environment. (p.184) [A]n action represents our concentrated immediate will to get something done; but it also embodies our previous experience and our conception of future probability. If we consider an action as a disturbance of equilibrium, we observe that the laws of its movement resemble those of a combustion engine: compression produces the explosion, which in turn produces an extension of energy; the degree of extension corresponds to the degree of energy. (p.185) The root-action is an explosion which causes a maximum change of equilibrium between individuals and their environment. The complexity and force of this effect depends on the complexity and force of the causes which led to the explosion. The extension of the inner action is limited to the causes which lie in the conscious wills of the characters. The extension of the outer action is limited to the social causes which constitute the framework of fact within which the action moves. For purposes of analysis, we view this double system of events as a system of causes: as it actually appears on the stage it appears as a system of effects. We do not see or hear the exercise of the conscious will; we do not see or hear the forces which constitute the environment. But the dramatic meaning of what we see and hear lies in its causes: the total effect (as projected in the root action) depends on the totality of causes. (p.186)


The Social Framework In planning the wider framework of the play, the dramatist is organizing material which is obviously less dramatic than the play itself. Events which are assumed to have happened before the opening of the drama, or which are reported during the action, or which take place off-stage or between the acts, cannot be as vital as the visible action behind the footlights. But it must not be supposed that the outer framework is a shadowy fiction, covered by a few vague references to the past lives of the characters and the social forces of the period. Since the larger pattern of events represents the scope of the playwright’s conception, it must be dramatized as fully as possible. The playwright who thinks of the ultimate causes underlying his drama in narrative terms, will carry over some of this narrative form into the stage-action. By visualizing these ultimate causes in meaningful and cumulative crises, the playwright establishes the basis for the later and more detailed selection of the stage-action. The reserve of events, behind and around the play, gives sweep and sureness to the action, and gives more meaning to every line of dialogue, every gesture, every situation. (p.188) Dramatic Continuity [T]ension derives from the force of the conflict, not from uncertainty as to its outcome. There is no artificial suspense as far as the story is concerned; the tension is sustained solely by the selection and arrangement of events. (p.204) Let us examine the anatomy of these events: what happens is really a cycle of activity which may be expressed as follows: a decision to follow a certain course of action, tension developed in fulfilling the decision, an unexpected triumph, and a new complication which requires another decision on a higher plane. Each triumph is the culmination of an act of will, which produces a change of equilibrium between individuals and their environment. This change requires new adjustments, and makes the new complications inevitable. The play is laid out in three such cycles. (p.206) One thing is very clear about these three cycles: each one is shorter than the previous one, the points of tension are more pronounced and the explanatory action between the points of tension is cut down. In the third cycle, the events are grouped closely together and each event in the last cycle is itself a first-rate point of crisis, involving a decisive act of will on the part of the characters. (p.207) The development of tension must be unified in reference to the point of climax toward which the tension is building. (p.207)


If we examine each of the cycles we find that each one is a small replica of the construction of a play, involving exposition, rising action, clash, and climax. Having selected the high points of the action, the playwright exercises great care in preparing and building the tension, so that these scenes will dominate. (p.207) Thus the developing tension reaches a moment of maximum tension, in which the balance of forces is changed, and a new situation is created which leads to a new series of tensions. This is not a matter of presenting the natural flow of events; the activity must be compressed and heightened; the speed of the development and the point of explosion must be determined in reference to the climax of the cycle and the climax of the whole play. (p.208) [T]he validity of the scene or character in the dramatic scheme does not depend on its relation to events in general, but on its use-value in relation to the rootaction. The purpose of the play is to prove that the root-action is probable and necessary. Therefore nothing in the play which is essential to the development of the climax can be improbable – unless the climax itself is improbable. (p.209) The notion that a play is an unbroken line of cause and effect is a dangerous one, because it prevents the piling up of diverse forces driving toward the climax. (p.211) The complex action in Shakespeare’s plays never fails to drive forward toward a point of maximum tension. When these plays appear diffuse to modern audiences, it is due to inadequate productions and failure to understand the conceptions on which the plays are based. Shakespeare does not hesitate to introduce new elements and separate lines of causation. The conflict is not a matter of “one thing leading to another,” but a great battle in which many forces are martialed to a final test of strength. (p.211) “Retardation,” says Krows, “should always add something to the action proper.” The playwright, he continues, can achieve “power in delay.” This is true, but the real power lies, not in the delay, but in the introduction of new forces which create a new balance of power and thus make the delay necessary and progressive. This increases the tension, because it increases the possibilities of exposition which are inherent in the situation and which will explode at the moment of climax. (p.211) The principles of continuity may be summed up as follows: (1) the exposition must be fully dramatized in terms of action; (2) the exposition must present possibilities of extension which are equal to the extension of the stage action; (3) two or more lines of causation may be followed if they find their solution in the root-action; (4) the rising action is divided into an indeterminate number of cycles; (5) each cycle is an action and has the characteristic progression of an action – exposition, rise,


clash and climax; (6) the heightening of the tension as each cycle approaches its climax is accomplished by increasing the emotional load; this can be done by emphasizing the importance of what is happening, by underlining fear, courage, anger, hysteria, hope; (7) tempo and rhythm are important in maintaining and increasing tension; (8) the linking of scenes is accomplished by abrupt contrast or by overlapping of interest; (9) as the cycles approach the root-action, the tempo is increased, the subsidiary climaxes are more intense and grouped more closely together, and the action between the points is cut down; (10) probability and coincidence do not depend on physical probability, but on the value of the incident in relation to the root-action; (11) the play is not a simple continuity of cause and effect, but the inter-play of complex forces; new forces may be introduced without preparation provided their effect on the action is manifest; (12) tension depends on the emotional load which the action will bear before the moment of explosion is reached. (pp.211 – 2) Exposition Theatre textbooks recognize the dangers of static or unimaginative exposition; but it is suggested that the dramatist must overcome these dangers by his skill in handling undramatic material. Baker says that the playwright “is writing supposedly for people who, except on a few historical subjects, know nothing of his material. If so, as soon as possible, he must make them understand: (1) who his people are; (2) where his people are; (3) the time of the play; and (4) what in the present and past relations of his characters causes the story.” It is true that this information must be conveyed; since the exposition is part of the play and is subject to the rules of dramatic conflict, the information must be dramatized. Baker’s points – the questions, who, where and when – are included in the present and past relationships which cause the story. If the dramatist is interested only in the story as he intends to tell it in stage-action, and if he has failed to analyze the social framework, he is sure to present the expository material in its most static form. If one regards the beginning of the drama as an absolute beginning, one cannot give dramatic vitality to the presentation of preliminary facts, however useful the facts may be. Explanations are explanations, no matter how shrewdly they may be concealed. As long as the opening scenes are regarded as explanatory, they are sure to be dull or undeveloped; the playwright is looking ahead; he is anxious to clear the ground and get down to the serious business of the play. (p.213) [T]he beginning of a play is not absolute; it is a point in a larger story; it is a point which can be clearly defined, and which is necessarily a very exciting point in the development of the story – because it is the point at which a dangerous decision is made. (p.213)


The curtain cannot rise on a man making up his mind concerning something we know nothing about. The term exposition, as applied to the first cycle of the action is not altogether a misnomer; all action contains expository elements; the climax of the play is expository, because it exposes additional facets of the situation, additional information and possibilities. The opening of a play presents an individual or group of individuals who are undertaking a momentous conflict which is forced on them by circumstances. It is apparent that these circumstances must be dramatic; since the decision is so important that it covers all the possibilities of the play, it must be the result of considerable changes of equilibrium between the individuals and their environment. These disturbances cannot be described, but must be seen and felt at the moment when their impact on the conscious will causes a change or intensification of the individual’s needs and purposes. Since the exposition covers the possibilities of the drama, it must be more closely connected with the root-action than any other part of the play. It is this connection which holds the play together; as the scope of the action is defined in the climax, so its scope is visioned in the exposition. The unity of cause and effect which operates throughout the play is essentially the unity between the exposition and the climax. This leads us to a more exact understanding of the way in which the selection of the play’s point of departure is determined. Having selected the climax as the embodiment of his conception of necessity, the playwright will select for his opening, the event which seems to him to embody the most direct and most real cause of this necessity. (p.213-4) The opening scenes show the setting up of a goal under conditions which make the setting up of such a goal seem necessary. New information is presented and new difficulties are added in the course of the play; there are progressive changes both in the characters and the environment. But at the moment of climax, we must be able to refer directly back to the first scene; the social causes which are manifest in the climax must have been present in the original conditions. (p.214) The setting up of a goal at the beginning of the play must have been caused by the same real forces which dominate the climax. (p.214) The opening of the play is the point at which these forces have their maximum effect on the will giving it the direction which is sustained throughout the play. Causes introduced later are subordinate, because the introduction of a stronger cause would change the conditions of the action and would destroy the play’s unity. (p.214) [A] play does not always begin with the forming of a brand-new line of conduct. The purpose may have existed previously; but it is forced into the open in the expository conflict; the climax of the exposition exposes the meaning and scope of


the decision, and thus creates a change of equilibrium between the individuals and their environment. The first cycle of the rising action develops out of this changed balance of forces. (p.217) Progression [T]he changes in character and environment which constitute the play’s progression lie in the rising action. This means that there are more cycles of movement in the rising action; the cycles are not only consecutive; they overlap and have varying degrees of extension. The progression depends on the movement of these subsidiary actions. If we observe an action as we actually perform it in our daily experience, we find that any action (regardless of its scope) consists in (a) the decision (which includes the consciousness of the aim and of the possibilities of its accomplishment); (b) the grappling with difficulties (which are more or less expected, because the decision has included a consideration of possibilities); (c) the test of strength (the moment toward which we have been heading, when, having done our best to evade or overcome the difficulties, we face the success or failure of the action); (d) the climax (the moment of maximum effort and realization). (p.222) It may appear, at first glance, that the obligatory scene is the same as the climax; but there is a very important difference between the expected clash and the final clash. The former is the point upon which we concentrate our efforts, and which we believe will be the point of maximum tension. This belief is based on our judgment of our environment; but our judgment is not one hundred percent correct. We find that our expectation has been tricked, and that the clash toward which we have been working reveals a balance of forces which does not correspond to our former picture of the situation. This leads to redoubled effort, to a new and final test of possibilities. The obligatory scene may, in certain instances, be almost identical with the climax in time and place; but there is a great difference in its function; the difference is essential to our understanding of an action, because it is this contradiction between the thing we do and the result of the thing we do which energizes the dramatic movement. This contradiction exists in all the subordinate cycles of action, and creates the progression. This is not a matter of cause and effect – it is rather a sharp break between cause as it seemed and effect as it turns out. This happens, in a minor degree, throughout the course of the drama: the characters are continually realizing differences between what they intended and what is actually going on; they are thus forced to revise their consciousness of reality and increase their effort; this is what, literally, keeps them moving; the more important moments at which such a recognition occurs are the obligatory scenes of the various cycles of action. The break between cause and effect leads to the actual effect, the culmination of the action. For this reason, the climax invariably contains the element of surprise; it is beyond


our expectation, and is the result of a break in the expected development of the action. This is the dramatic element in any situation, and constitutes the most essential difference between dramatic action and human activity in general. In the more prosaic activities of our daily lives, there are no obligatory scenes; we do not pause to recognize any sharp break between cause and effect; we simply adjust ourselves and proceed to get the thing done, as best we can. We are interested in the results, rather than in the significance, of events. It is only when we undertake actions of unusual scope that the sequence is broken by the recognition of the difference between the probabilities as we had estimated them and the necessities as they loom ahead of us. When this happens, events become dramatic. (p.222-3) A play may contain any number of lesser cycles of action, but these can invariably be grouped in four divisions; since the rising action is the longest of the divisions and includes a larger number of sub-divisions, the movement of the play is somewhat as follows: AbcdefGH A is the exposition; b c d e f are the cycles of the rising action; G is the obligatory scene; H is the climax. A may contain two or more cycles of action. G and H are more concentrated, but may also include several cycles. Since an action is our unit of movement, we are able to divide any of the subordinate actions in the same way. For example, c reaches a climax which is the culmination of a system of action of which the exposition, rising action, and obligatory scene may be traced. The whole group, b c d e f also constitutes a system, of which b may be the exposition, c and d the rising action, e the obligatory scene and f the climax. This would be comparatively simple if it were a matter of direct sequence, if each division and cycle were complete in itself, beginning where the other left off and proceeding to a climax. But the action is woven of a multiplicity of threads which are unified in terms of the play’s root-action. The threads leading to any subordinate climax are also unified in terms of this climax, but these threads are woven through the other parts of the play. (p.223) Since tension depends on the balance of forces in conflict, it seems reasonable to conclude that if conflict is avoided, tension will be fatally relaxed. But the interest of the spectators must be sustained. It follows that the drama of today has developed extraordinary facility in maintaining fictitious tension. The most common method of sustaining audience-interest without progression is the use of surprise. This device is employed unsparingly; it has, in fact, become the basic technique of the modern drama. (p.229) Lessing points out that surprises which are easily achieved “will never give rise to anything great.” He describes the sort of play which is “a collection of little artistic


tricks by means of which we effect nothing more than a short surprise.” Archer makes a similar comment: “We feel that the author has been trifling with us in inflicting on us this purely mechanical and momentary scare.” (p.229) One must bear in mind the distinction between surprise which legitimately carries the action forward, and surprise which negates the action. The distinction is not difficult to make: we recall that one of the forms of reversal of fortune to which Aristotle referred was the “anagnorisis” or recognition scene, the finding of friends or enemies unexpectedly. Aristotle used this as a rather mechanical formula, but when we examine Greek tragedy we find that the reversal of fortune is invariably accompanied by recognition of the persons or forces which bring about the change. The messenger reveals himself, the effect is the opposite of what was expected, forcing Oedipus to recognize a change and to face a new problem. We have already pointed out that it is this recognition of the difference between what was expected and what takes place which drives the action forward. In this sense, surprise is the essence of drama, and is present in every movement of the action. But recognition of the break between cause and effect is very different from ignoring or evading the logic of events. “Nothing,” says Lessing, “is more offensive than that of which we do not know the cause.” (p.230) The Obligatory Scene Archer defines the obligatory scene as “one which the audience (more or less clearly and consciously) foresees and desires, and the absence of which it may with reason resent.” Sarcey says, “It is precisely this expectation mingled with uncertainty which is one of the charms of the theatre.” These comments are important, because they both stress the principle of expectation as it affects the audience. The sustained interest with which the spectators follow the action may undoubtedly be described as “expectation mingled with uncertainty.” The degree of expectation and uncertainty are variable. But the decisive point toward which the action seems to be driving must be the point concerning which there is the greatest expectation and the smallest uncertainty. The characters of the play have made a decision; the audience must understand this decision and must be aware of its possibilities. (p.236) Since the spectators do not know what the climax will be, they cannot test the action in terms of climax. They do test it in terms of their expectation, which is concentrated on what they believe to be the necessary outcome of the action – the obligatory scene. Archer feels that the obligatory scene is not really obligatory: he warns us against the assumption “that there can be no good play without a scène à faire.” To be sure, he is using the term in a narrow and somewhat mechanical sense. But no play can fail to provide a point of concentration toward


which the maximum expectation is aroused. The audience requires such a point of concentration in order to define its attitude toward the events. (p.236) Just as the climax furnishes us with a test by which we can analyze the action backward, the obligatory scene offers us an additional check on the forward movement of the action. The climax is the basic event, which causes the rising action to grow and flower. The obligatory scene is the immediate goal toward which the play is driving. The climax has its roots in the social conception. The obligatory scene is rooted in activity; it is the physical outgrowth of the conflict. (p.236) The obligatory scene represents the point of foreseen and expected crisis, toward which the progression is moving. It is the physical culmination of the conflict. The climax goes beyond the physical drive, and exposes the social root and meaning of the action. (p.362) Climax Freytag’s famous pyramid has had a great (and unfortunate) influence on dramatic theory. According to Freytag, the action of a play is divided into five parts: “(a) introduction; (b) rise; (c) climax; (d) return or fall; (e) catastrophe.” The falling action includes “the beginning of counter-action” and “the moment of last suspense.” The rising action and the falling action are of equal importance. “These two chief parts of the drama are firmly united by a point of the action which lies directly in the middle. The middle, the climax of the play, is the most important place of the structure; the action rises to this; the action falls away from this.” (p.240) Every conflict contains in itself the germs of solution, the creation of a new balance of forces which will in turn lead to further conflict. The point of highest tension is necessarily the point at which the new balance of forces is created. (p.243) Characterization The law that progression must spring from the decisions of the characters applies not only to the leading figures, but to all the subordinate persons in the drama. The neglect of this law often leads the playwright to make a curious distinction between the leading characters and the subordinate persons in the story: two or three central figures are seen purely in terms of character, the attempt being made to subordinate the action to the presentation of what are supposed to be


their qualities and emotions. But all the minor characters are treated in exactly the opposite way, being used as automatons who are shuffled about to suit the needs of the leading persons. (p.252) Conflict-in-Motion The motion picture portrays a conflict in which the conscious will, exerted for the accomplishment of specific and understandable aims, is sufficiently strong to bring the conflict to a point of crisis. (p.319) © Original copyright holders

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The complete texts of John Howard Lawson’s Film: The Creative Process (second edition 1967, Hill and Wang) and Theory and Technique of Playwriting and Screenwriting (1949, G.P. Putnam’s) are available at www.johnhowardlawson.com. For details of Lawson’s life and work, readers are directed to Gerald Horne’s The Final Victim of the Blacklist: John Howard Lawson, Dean of the Hollywood Ten (University of California Press, 2006). For analysis of his many plays and screenplays see Jonathan L. Chambers’ Messiah of the New Technique: John Howard Lawson, Communism, and American Theatre, 1923-1937 (Southern Illinois University Press, 2006) and Gary Carr’s The Left Side of Paradise: The Screenwriting of John Howard Lawson (UMI Research Press, 1984).


A Catechism for Students of Dramatic Construction In any project, film or video, that you have already made, or that you have scripted and might be planning to make, can you answer these questions? It helps if you can be as specific as possible. Avoid generalisations. 1. How many characters in your story? Select three to five that might be considered as principals. Describe them. When a student explains that there is really only one character, I tend to feel uneasy. Dramatic storytelling normally involves a conflict between characters, therefore at least two are required. If your story involves some element of dramatic irony (and it should), it is more effective to have at least three characters, which means there is the possibility of a triangular relationship, a bind, meaning a central figure who is pulled in opposite directions by two others. 2. Can you identify one character who is central to the story? Who is the point-ofview character? Though occasionally there are stories in which the audience is not invited to feel identification with any one of the characters more than others, it is far more common to have one figure who represents the viewpoint of the story. Define his or her objective. What is the character’s intention, his or her goals? What does the character want to make happen? Remember that action, in the dramatic sense, implies not just activity, but some event. What is needed is a dramatic action, meaning the intention to produce a visible result. Explaining and expressing feelings is seldom enough. There can also be a negative objective, an attempt to prevent something from happening, although this, too, should be conceived as a photographable incident, a result of action. 3. Can you define what obstacles there are to this objective? Can you also identify some other character that is a personification of these obstacles? The dramatic function of the antagonist is to create conflict with the central figure. Note, however, that this does not imply that we have less sympathy with the antagonist than with a protagonist. When characters have richness and depth, the author and the audience tends to have empathy with all parties in the conflict. You might also note that the value of some other character who functions as antagonist does not mean that conflict doesn’t also exist within the central figure. Most characters with some depth and richness have introverted conflicts alongside those that are extroverted. One of the dramatic functions of an antagonist is to act as a foil and bring inner conflict out into the open. Character is expressed through interaction with others (“who does what with which and to whom”).


4. How does the conflict lead to crisis? What is at stake? Is there a confrontation? Drama has been defined as “anticipation mingled with uncertainty.” The audience is held in expectation of some obligatory scene. At its most effective, the climax of a story frequently includes the elements of discovery followed by a peripety (some drastic reversal of fortune in the characters, an upset in the relationships or a role reversal). Something hidden is revealed or something searched for is found, or, something pursued is captured. Or, conversely, a Secret Thing, revealed to us the audience remains secret, or something searched for is made known to the audience but not to the searcher, or something pursued escapes. 5. What happens in the end? How are the conflicts resolved? What is the closure in which the problems presented at the beginning now come full circle? The denouement of a story generally expresses the theme of that story. Theme is an expression of the central moral, the point expressed as a generalization. © The Estate of Alexander Mackendrick


Dramatic Jargon A glossary compiled from the writings of Alexander Mackendrick Anagnorisis A character’s discovery or recognition, sudden awareness of a situation, a change from ignorance to knowledge, a realization of the truth. Anima figures Love interest, the heroine. A female figure designed to reflect feminine aspects within the male figure to whom she is attached. Occasionally the “reward” of the protagonist, e.g. Edie Doyle in On the Waterfront is both the “reward” of Terry Malloy and a personification of the gentler, uncorrupted side of him. Antagonist Character who personify the problems facing the protagonist. In melodrama, the villain or heavy. Frequently the activator of the plot. Note that a passive or weak protagonist is apt to call for a strong antagonist if there is to be dramatic tension. Anticlimax A sudden relaxation of tension arising out of the avoidance of some anticipated crisis. Occasionally used to relieve the monotony of a particular tension and disguise preparation for the next. Backstory Events previous to the start of the plot which are essential to an appreciation of present circumstances and understanding of character behaviour. Note that a character who is believable will quite probably have rehearsed the present dramatic dilemma in a prior context. Character exposition through backstory is a common method of giving depth to an individual: the past as explanation of the present and foreshadowing of behaviour in the future. Characters Figures necessary to demonstrate the story in action, who act out the story, usually personifications of the theme. Character is seldom dramatic as a quality of personality until it reveals itself in action or reaction between two or more personages. A character will often evolve and change throughout the story, or changes in the audience’s perception of a character will take place, e.g. in On the Waterfront, Terry Malloy’s progression from the defeated cynicism of his early talk with Edie to his final denunciation of Johnny Friendly as he goes from being a “bum” to “somebody.” In The Third Man, Holly Martins’ progression involves the gradual shedding of his simple-minded loyalty to Harry Lime, from naive heroworship to disillusionment.

Character colour Mannerisms of speech and/or behaviour designed to provide contrast. They give vitality and are frequently the clue to character development. Often useful in the case of subsidiary figures for whom there is little time to explore more significant distinctions, and frequently the clue to progression of character, e.g. in On the Waterfront, Terry Malloy’s punchy stammer and incoherence, symbols of his moral indecisions. Note, too, the use of props and costume which illustrate personality traits, e.g. Charley Malloy’s camel-hair coat, gloves and hat. Climax A crisis which is fully played out, a cap on preceding crises. Confrontation scene A showdown or shootout in which two characters, with or without subsidiaries, meet to resolve conflict that has been anticipated, e.g. taxi-cab scene in On the Waterfront, Ferris wheel scene in The Third Man. Crisis Any heightening of tension, whether between characters or in the circumstances of a character with whom we have sympathy. Sometimes an abrupt increase in the tension within ourselves as observers. Denouement The unknotting of the dramatic tensions. Disclosures and revelations Story progression through exploration of past events, usually prompting reactions that motivate the present action. Drama From the Greek verb “to do.” Drama is inseparable from action, things performed. Dramatic narrative, therefore, is the sequence of performed events, things done before our eyes and ears that tell a story. Dramatic irony Any situation in which we, the audience, are aware of some significant circumstances, and of which one or more characters in the scene in question are ignorant (“Unbeknownst to…”). A key component of most (perhaps all) effective dramatic structures that automatically sets up “expectation mingled with uncertainty”: the characters in a story may or may not discover what the audience knows.


Exposition The background information necessary for an appreciation of the present dramatic action. Flashbacks, visions and dreams Scenes or sequences outside the linear time/space of the narrative, and subjective in quality. Note that voice-over narration is often associated with flashbacks and is often used as a substitute for exposition, tending to weaken dramatic tension. Unless there is some present impact, flashback and voice-over are apt to be dramatically feeble. They are reflective and liable to weaken the tension of the here-and-now, though they may contribute lyric value to a story. Foil A subsidiary character or supporting role invented for exposition or to illuminate some aspect of another person. A supporting role who asks the questions to which the audience seeks an answer. Foils can also be figures who are a reflection of some aspect within the more important character to whom they are attached. Sometimes a confidant, frequently ‘the Girl’ or friend (e.g. Horatio in Hamlet), a figure who personifies an aspect of the protagonist and helps externalise what would otherwise be an inner and hence less dramatic conflict, e.g. Charley Malloy in On the Waterfront is a corrupted version of his brother Terry, a foil for Terry’s disillusioned side. Sergeant Paine in The Third Man reflects the more tolerant aspects of Colonel Calloway towards Holly Martins. Genre The opening “Once Upon a Time…” Not simply the time and the place where the story is set but often a whole set of story formulas and values. Hamartia A character’s tragic flaw or error in judgment, including accidents, sins and wrongdoing, an unwitting mistake due to ignorance of circumstance or an error of judgment. Memesis Plato and Aristotle defined it as the representation and imitation of nature and human behaviour. Narrative From the Latin for “knowing,” its dictionary meaning is “something that is related,” a “recital of events.”


Narrative nomentum The drive of the plot. Stories that are tightly structured are apt to have a strong sense of causality: what happens in this scene hopefully provokes in the audience the question “What Happens Next?” Note that this tension is not limited to suspense of plot developments but also where tension lies in emotional development and character progression. Objective An aim or goal, something toward which efforts are directed. That which a character strives to obtain or achieve. Note that it may be a negative objective, such as the desire to escape from a situation or avoid painful circumstances. Obligatory scene A scene which the audience feels that it has, for one reason or another, been promised and the absence of which may be disappointing. William Archer: the scene “which the audience (more or less clearly and consciously) foresees and desires, and the absence of which it may with reason resent.” Often the scene central to the dramatisation of the theme (the seed of the story), e.g. Terry Malloy going to the docks to confront Johnny Friendly in On the Waterfront, Holly tracking down Harry in the sewers under Vienna in The Third Man. Obstacle Something which stands in the way and prevents a character from achieving his or her objective. Note that when the obstacle is some inner characteristic it is often desirable to create a secondary figure (a foil) who is the personification of one of the conflicting aspects of the personage in question. Peripety A Greek term meaning “turn of the wheel.” In contemporary jargon: a story-twist, a shift in circumstances, a surprise. Often a reversal of a situation, a turning of the tables, an abrupt shift in audience perception, something that upsets the present circumstances and reverses relationships. While it may come as an unexpected switch, it is nevertheless, in hindsight, dramatically inevitable and rewarding. A character peripety might unmask some previously hidden aspect of an individual. Plot The sequence of incidents and changing situations, the narrative progression, usually developing as cause-and-effect. Tension is created through anticipation of crisis, usually resulting from actions and reactions of the characters.


Plants and foreshadowing Signals to the audience about future events of which the characters in the story are unaware. Hints that prepare our expectations and make a promise for the future. Laying “the fuse” that ultimately pays off. Note that plausibility is a curious thing in drama. An audience that has been carefully prepared to want some incident or event will readily forgive coincidences and dramatic contrivances, providing they are skillfully prepared for and foreshadowed. As Aristotle first put it, “A likely impossibility is always preferable to an unconvincing possibility.” Point of attack The inciting incident, the hook. The point chosen for the start of the narrative (“So one day…”). Frequently the beginning of the plot and an incident which provides for both the exposition of backstory and expectation of future consequences. In modern stories the point of attack might precede exposition, since exposition is more dramatic when there is something at stake. In On the Waterfront, the murder of Joey Doyle in the incident which seizes the attention of the audience, and sets in motion the story involving Terry Malloy. Protagonist Central character and often the point of view dictated by the theme. Not necessarily the “hero.” Traditionally the activator of the story, even the victim of the actions of others. The character who travels the longest distance in the course of the story, the figure whose objective (action) sets in motion the drama. In storyteller’s jargon, this is the “There was a…” line. Often the figure with whom we are invited to identify. Note that some stories have two or more protagonists who have a single objective and who function as foils to one another. They are often differentiated by contrasts of temperament or physical characteristics, e.g. Butch and Sundance in Butch Cassidy and the Sundance Kid, Joe and Jerry in Some Like it Hot, and the characters in stories such as The Seven Samurai and The Wild Bunch. Note also that the protagonist is not necessarily the point of attack of a story (that might be the antagonist, who pulls the world “out of balance,” thus forcing the protagonist to respond). Resolution The final establishing of the dramatic equilibrium, often with the effect of the completion of a jigsaw puzzle. Everything that is relevant to the theme is in place and nothing that might alter the equilibrium remains still to happen. In sum, uncertainty is ended and all that could have been anticipated has taken place. Subplot and plot Parallel threads of the narrative, sequential events that make up the narrative, usually a chain of cause-and-effect that drives the story from its initial premise through continuous tension of suspense or surprise until the final resolution of the tensions. Subsidiary action which may reflect the central theme in one way or another.


Surprise The reaction to a turn of events not foreseen. A peripety, if the unexpected development results in a complete overturning of the dramatic circumstances or relationships. Suspense Tension in the mind of the audience based on anticipation of a crisis. This is “expectation mingled with uncertainty” of the most elementary kind, the anxiety over an anticipated crisis, welcome or unwelcome. Suspended tension Relaxation of a narrative line, often simply for the purpose of preparing the “build” that will establish a new crisis of the dramatic action, often involving backstory. Theme The central idea of the story, its point or “meaning,” generally in abstract terms. The dramatic concept as a generalization. More general than plot, the oppositions of more abstract concepts which represent the idea and meaning of the story. Willing suspension of disbelief An attitude of mind in which the audience, through some devices of story structure, accepts as plausible some circumstances which would otherwise be incredible. A belief in the unbelievable. © The Estate of Alexander Mackendrick


Mackendrick - Handout

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