Jun
27
Arcs and Endings (2)
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Should you write a happy ending?
Commercial common sense will tell you: yes, you should.
Robert McKee says: “Tell the truth.” (see the previous post)
McKee means: your story needs to reflect your worldview. If you contradict whatever you believe in for the sake of commerce, you will fail. During his Arthouse seminar, he gives the example of Bergman’s THROUGH A GLASS DARKLY, where Bergman forced an ending upon the story in which he didn’t really believe. The story didn’t work, McKee says. Even the great Bergman couldn’t go against his instinct.
The discussion about happy endings is not exactly the same as the discussion about arcs. Protagonists without arcs have starred in films with tremendous success (see the reference to Mystery Man on Film in the previous post).
Although writers with a positive world may have more success in connecting with a large audience, I believe that talented and skilled screenwriters can create stories that work, irrespective of their worldview.
First-timers will have a harder time.
Here is the dilemma: to break in, you need to write something the market wants to see. Yet you’ll have a better chance if this first spec screenplay is written from the heart. You need to tell the truth.
My advice to beginning screenwriters: see how different genres allow to make different statements about the human condition without compromising the chances of success. Horror, crime and satire are darker genres than romance, adventure or kids movies.
Finally, to illustrate McKee’s point, below is a transcript of his introduction to THROUGH A GLASS DARKLY for British television.
______________________________________
Robert McKee: I saw my first Bergman film in Detroit, Michigan when I was 15. It was The Virgin Spring, a tale of revenge for rape and murder. Next came a comedy, Smiles of a Summer Night. After that Brink of Life, a social drama set in a maternity ward, Monika: A Teenage Love Story, Hour of the Wolf, a psycho-horror film. Bergman was like a one-man film studio bringing a fresh eye to many genres and by word of mouth filling cinemas everywhere. But then in the sixties he became a creature of the critics. They treated his films as intellectual crossword puzzles and drove the audience back behind a barricade of critic-speak � symbology, metaphysics, alienation � until it was impossible to watch a Bergman film without the feeling that you were taking an exam. And that�s where he stands today, on a pedestal, intimidating, distant, watched only by a tiny circle of cineastes. I think that over the years we forgot what the early audiences instinctively knew � above all else, Ingmar Bergman was a master storyteller.
Bergman�s difficult. Not to understand, but emotionally tough. He shines light into the darkest corners of life. He asks us to empathise with complex characters who, although very human, are not particularly loveable. Then he spins his stories over an emotional rollercoaster, taking us on a quest for the truth, truth that explodes the little lies that make life comfortable. To watch a Bergman film you have to be willing to invest all your humanity, to open yourself up, to care about life so much you want to know the truth though heaven may fall. It is not intellect Bergman demands so much as courage.
Bergman�s also difficult because he explains nothing. He doesn�t force his ideas into the mouths of his characters. Like Hollywood he tells stories visually, writes naturalistic dialogue and layers his meaning in the subtext. Unlike Hollywood his films are not tales of wish fulfilment, telling seductive lies about how everything works out for the best.
1a: The Film
�for now we see through a glass, darkly:
but then face to face; now I know in part;
but then I shall know even as also I am known
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Jun
5
Arcs and Endings (1)
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The finest writing not only reveals true character,
but arcs or changes to that inner nature, for better or worse.
In 1998 McKee signed my first edition hardback of STORY. He wrote:
“To Karel: Tell the TRUTH!”
Ironically with the quote at the top of this article, McKee is not telling his own truth.(*)
He contradicts something he teaches in his art film seminar. On Ingmar Bergman’s THROUGH A GLASS DARKLY(**), McKee makes the point that Bergman
“set out to prove what he desperately wanted to believe and carefully designed this film as a rhetorical argument in dramatic form to make his point. But then his instincts, his integrity, his sense of truth overwhelmed his intellectual ambitions and somehow all the scenes that say the opposite of what he believed overwhelmed the other and as a result the film says that rather than love showing the way to happiness, the more likely fate is that you will end up alone, desperate, blinded with self deception.”
In other words:
If you don’t believe the happy ending, don’t write it.
If you don’t believe characters change in the real world, don’t make them in your screenplays. Tell the Truth.
You don’t have the option to choose between a-protag-with or a-protag-without arc. You must write what you believe in.
Bergman, one of the great storytellers of all time, tried to end THROUGH A GLASS DARKLY on an uplifting note.
He didn’t believe it. It didn’t work.
(*) Earlier this year, Mystery Man refered to the same quote before building his brilliant Case AGAINST Character Arcs. MM substantiates his point with numerous classic films.
(**) Full transcript of McKee’s television introduction to that movie in my next post.
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Feb
7
Inciting Incident: Definitions
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Inciting Incident, Catalyst, Call to Adventure, Disturbance. All terms referring to the first crucial moment: the point where your story kicks off.
Michael Hauge closes the first of his six story stages with it, at the 10% point of the story (10mins in a 100mins movie).
Paul Gulino sees it as the end of the first of a typical eight sequence movie. Christopher Vogler says:
The hero is presented with a problem, challenge, or adventure to undertake. Once presented with a Call to Adventure, she can no longer remain indefinitely in the comfort of the Ordinary World.
This moment better be BIG. If it ain’t, it may go unnoticed and the audience will still be waiting for the story to start.
Michael Tierno, in Aristotle’s Poetics for Screenwriters says:
It’s a self-initated action, a virtual “big bang” that sets the entire plot in motion, that can be committed by either the protagonist or antagonist, and that is an act of pure will.
According to Robert McKee:
The INCITING INCIDENT radically upsets the balance of forces in the protagonist’s life.
And later he says:
The protagonist must react to the Inciting Incident.
I wish authors would develop a common terminology but, alas, they don’t. Here is Linda Aronson’s approach:
Early on in the film there will be an event which changes the normal scheme of things and forces the protagonist in a new direction, effectively starting the story. This is called a catalyst or disturbance.
Linda Seger writes in her book Making a Good Script Great:
The catalyst is the first main “push” that gets the plot moving. Something happens, or someone makes a decision. The main character is set in motion. The story has begun.
Next: Inciting Incident: Key Aspects and Examples >>
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Oct
27
POV: McKee’s View
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“The more time spent with a character, the more opportunity to witness his choices. The result is more empathy and emotional involvement between audience and character.”
-Robert McKee
In his introduction about point of view (POV) in the scene, Robert McKee focuses on screen time and the physical location of the camera. POV is more. It is about one character’s emotional experience of that scene.
The director will now take the literal camera POV of the character, then show the character’s emotional response.
As a writer you don’t need to go in this level of detail about camera POV. Writing from a specific POV means: to write from the character’s ‘centre of consciousness’, to share with the audience what the character sees, knows and feels.� This doesn’t need to include direction on shots and angles. The drama will determine this indirectly anyhow.
The heart of McKee’s statement is essential to good screenwriting. Few screenwriters, even experienced ones, exercise full control over the POV. Yet it is hugely important in establishing empathy with the protagonist and making an audience forget they are in a theatre watching a movie.
If you feel you don’t exercise complete mastery over your screenplay’s POV (yet),� go through the script systematically from the point of view of POV (no pun) to see whose POV each scene is written from. If you do this early in the development, you will be amazed how a few simple changes here and there will improve the impact of the story tremendously.
A good understanding of POV will empower you to create scenes that will capture an audience inside the head of your character, whether they like it or not.
See also:
Introduction to POV
Omniscient POV
Shifting POV
When to Shift?
POV in Ratatouille’s Deleted Scene
POV as Controller of Tone
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