The humorous story may be spun out to great length, and may wander around as much as it pleases, and arrive nowhere in particular; but the comic and witty stories must be brief and end with a point. The humorous story bubbles gently along, the others burst.
The humorous story is strictly a work of art--high and delicate art -- and only an artist can tell it; but no art is necessary in telling the comic and the witty story; anybody can do it."
I find Twain's opening assertion that their are two different ways of telling a story, fascinating. It interests me, purely because in an effort to explain the difference between a European comic story (or joke) and an American "shaggy dog story," Twain has accidentally stumbled upon the primary difference between the two main styles of screenwriting in contemporary cinema.
Of course, to understand what the difference between the two styles, you first have to be aware that there could be more than one way to write a screenplay. Judging by the vast majority of the articles about writing for cinema and TV, it would be easy to conclude there is only one. That approach I call "structural." Although "story-driven" maybe as good a description. For the vast majority of screenwriters, producers and commissioning editors, structural screenwriting is it, the whole deal, the totality of that which is possible.. It certainly defines Hollywood's output. In terms of a screenwriter's career development, an understanding of how structural screenwriting works is the first skill-set a writer has to acquire. This, of course, is the reason so much discussion and angst is poured into gaining, understanding or selling the basic tools of structural screenwriting. And, funnily enough, even though structural screenwriting appears to be the only game in town, it's amazing how many fledgling screenwriters don't ever really get a grasp of it. In terms of Mark Twain's description, structural screenwriting is like the "comic story." In that it has a predictable form and is only about substituting the content, and as Mark Twain pointed out, anyone can write one (providing they make the effort to do a little study).
The fact that for many people in the industry 'structural' is the only approach, means that for many people, the possibility of there being another approach is absurd. For a lot of people there are only two kinds of scripts: structural... and, wrong. This idea is embedded mainly in the industry's gatekeepers. After all, a script reader is usually an intern with a list of boxes to tick. Pretty much all of those boxes are related to the structural approach to screenwriting. Does the script have a recognisable act structure? Does the protagonist go on a journey? Is the protagonist likable? Does the protagonist develop as a human being over the course of the story? Is the protagonist thrown into a new world within the first ten pages? -- There are probably about a hundred or so of that kind of question, which are all based on a tacit assumption that structural screenwriting is the way to go.
Then, of course, there is the other style of screenwriting. The style I call "thematic." Thematic screenwriting is based on the assumption that movies need to be about something. That thing could be betrayal, or it could be love. The theme could be as broad as "the exploitation of the working classes by corporate greed," or as complex as "faith." Regardless of what it is, the writer and the director have something to say about a particular aspect of human existence. This is the first and perhaps most important difference between thematic and structural screenplays. Thematic screenplays HAVE to have something interesting to say about the human condition; structural screenplays don't. If you want to understand why the output of Hollywood cinema is so very, very tedious and only fit for naive 14-23 year olds, it is because it's all structure and zero theme.
Thematic screenwriting is more analogous to Twain's description of the "Humorous story," in that it is largely about the execution; it's all in the telling of the story rather than the form. A thematic story can afford to ramble and take diversions from the perceived requirements of structure.
Thematic screenplays live and die at the level of each individual scene. Every single moment of a thematic movie has to be an exploration of the core message of the film. One way to do this is to make the scenes audience centred, rather than story centred. So, in a real sense, thematic screenwriting is more self-conscious of the relationships between the script and the actor; the actor and the lens; the lens and the audience... and, the microphone and the audience. To achieve this thematic screenwriters have to be more technically adept in their understanding of the language of film than structural screenwriters; more aware of both the art and craft of cinema.
Of course, hardly anyone teaches this... that is because the only people attempting thematic story-telling are practitioners. The reason that so many people teach structural screenwriting, is that structural screenwriting can be learnt and taught by people who have either no or limited experience of producing content. Thematic screenwriting on the other hand is very, very difficult... and it requires a skill-set and an understanding of cinema that can only be gained by studying, reading, thinking, observing, writing and most importantly making. That is the reason I believed for many years the indie-film making community would eventually create a Renaissance of thematic story-telling. I believed that their hands on experience would eventually shape their understanding of story-telling and they develop new and rich thematic approaches. I now hold this belief to be optimistic, at best, simply because for it to happen, the indie film community would have passionately care about writing. Which in my experience, they don't.
Personally, I believe the difference between a tedious film and a great film, is largely to do with the writer and director's ability to create thematically... and, what the industry really needs to grasp in order to escape its current rut, is that it is possible to be both structural and thematic, providing that overall thematic is dominant. For me, the current output of the film industry is often dire and the reason for that is because it lacks thematic vision.. at the heart of it, there is nothing worth listening to being said in these movies; they are the filmic equivalent of diet cola... they look like a drink, but they leave a nasty taste in your mouth and have zero calorific value.
The funny thing is, is if you ask screenwriters about their favourite films, those films are largely thematic. The calling card of the auteur directors has always been consistent thematic approaches... ask Francis Ford Coppola, ask Werner Herzog, and, if he wasn't dead, you could ask Stanley Kubrick. Although you can pick out the structural elements in these director's work, in my opinion they are largely thematic. In their movies they have something they want to say, and they say it... and they say it through the obsessive attention to detail in the creation of iconic, thematic scenes.
With all of this said, there was one more point I did want to make, and that is that structural and thematic writing are not mutually exclusive. Every screenwriter needs to understand structure. It is the first step in story-telling. Calling yourself a thematic screenwriter does not excuse anyone from the laborious task of learning conventional storytelling techniques. Thematic story-telling is what happens after you've cracked structural story-telling and are ready to think for yourself. It's a bit like training wheels on a child's bike: structural writing is with the training wheels on, thematic is when you take them off and build your first homemade ramp. And, just like taking the training wheels off the bike, when you step into thematic writing it is more likely that you'll fall flat on your face and put scabs all over the knees of your career. It is however, more fun and so worth it.
So, that is what is on my mind this week. Basically, it's my desire to see the film industry take the training wheels off... and for writers to understand that there is more to writing a screenplay than just structure. But, when you think about it, that's what's on my mind most weeks.
keep writing and viva la revolution
Posted via email from Filmutopia's Sunday Morning Movie Blog
