Sunday Blog: Themes and Misdemeanours - Where Structural Screenwriting Fails to Deliver

Photo by MelEdwardsPhots

Last week I scratched the surface of cinematic screenwriting... or at least I talked about the importance of the sequence as a concept for writers. This week I promised I'd write about thematic screenwriting. However, one of the things I've become aware of is the impossibility of talking about the way I approach screenwriting, without it sounding like an alternative to structural screenwriting. That just isn't the case. What I've been trying to do, is to redress the balance. Mainly because the vast majority of the people I see writing about screenwriting, talk as if the process was solely a structural one. Basically, if you understand the key points of three act structure, if you have a grasp of McKee's theories about story, if you have a working knowledge of Campbell's "hero's journey," then the rest of the screenwriting process is merely about colouring in that framework with an interesting idea and some appealing characters. In many respects that's a very Aristotelian approach to the craft of screenwriting, in that it reduces the activity to core elements, which then just need reassembling in a pleasing order. I know that isn't the case. I know this, because if it were the case, then anyone could write a screenplay, anyone could be a script editor, anyone could be a producer. In a strictly logical world, that ought to be the case. Read the right books, practice using the building blocks until you're proficient, then write your blockbuster. It should be that simple. Of course, it isn't. We know that because the all the information out there tells me that the vast majority of the script written by unknown screenwriters will be unacceptably and uniformly bad. Talk to enough script editors, script readers, agents and producers and they will uniformly tell you that about 98% of the spec script they are presented with are diabolical. What this tells me, is that structural understanding isn't enough. Writing scripts is more than just dragging a protagonist through a perfectly crafted tale of redemption, told in three acts.

The question that has interested me for the past five years is: if it more that just structural, what are the missing elements?

The conclusions I've come to is that generally, the four missing elements are:

A lack of understanding of the language of cinema... or, in other words, the way story is told via movement, editing and control of the view point of the audience

Poor quality observation... or, in other words, a lack of real world observation of human behaviour and the human condition

No natural feel for language... that the writer just doesn't listen to the way language works (this tends to show up in poor dialogue)

and, finally,

A lack of content... or, in other words, the story is merely a homage to the writer's favourite film, as opposed to an exploration of the human condition

None of the above issues are structural. They are about observation, understanding of the human condition, a feel for the heritage and language of cinema... and, finally about having a natural feel for language itself. To me, those are the areas where the vast majority of screenwriters tend to fail... not really in terms of the structure.

For me, the primary fix for all of those problems is to approach the screenplay thematically. This isn't to dismiss structure, but merely to relegate it to its rightful place. The structural part of screenwriting is done in the preparatory phase, when a beat sheet is created... and, as I've said before, for me, a beat sheet is merely a set of unresolved situation that a protagonist must find solutions to, rather than a set of destination that the protagonist must be dragged to.

Thematic screenwriting starts in the preparatory stages, as well. When creating a beat sheet, the key question for me is, what situations can I put my protagonist in, which will best demonstrate the theme? One of the things that I've found useful, when it comes to finding an interesting theme for a script, is to use the phrase "the price of..." and then add in the verb I'm interested in. So, for instance, if I was writing a Rom Com I might make the theme "the price of loving the wrong person." If I was writing a thriller, I might use a theme like "the price of revealing the truth." Themes based on "the price of..." work really well as an adjunct to structural screenwriting, simply because they mirror the need of the structural approach to throw the protagonist against a series of escalating dilemma, ultimately leading to a sacrifice.

A good example of this is the movie "Close Encounters of the Third Kind." If you imagine that the theme of that movie is "the price of chasing the truth" then you can see how Richard Dreyfus' character is constantly challenged to look at the price of following his vision. Firstly, he loses his job, then you watch him chose between his obsession and his family, then as he moves forwards he's asked to chose between his personal safety and his vision... at each point he's presented with the bill for those choices. By structuring the movie that way, the audience are taken on a coherent journey. It's also a journey can relate to, not because of the circumstance of the journey (UFOs) but because pretty much every family has watched a family member or friend chose between an obsession and their loved ones. Drefus's irrational behaviour isn't that diferent from the choice an alcholic might make, in chosing their addiction over their family.

That brings me to the other point about thematic screenwriting, which is that there is a clear connection between it and good quality observation of the human condition.

Basically, by picking a theme, a writer is saying that they want to explore a particular aspect of the human condition. By doing that, when plotting they chose sequences that relate to that theme, rather than just hammering the characters into a drab and meandering plot. The quality of the writing, both at the structural and the scene level, will ultimately depend the quality of the writer's observations and thoughts about how human beings behave. This is where the real work takes place, the place that moves a script up to the next level. It is also the reason that, for me, the movies of the 1970's were streets ahead of current studio fodder. Jaws, Close Encounters, Bladerunner, French Connection, The Godfather, Scarface, Taxi Driver... each and every one of these classic, timeless movies, were both entertaining, good box office and cinema gold, simply because they were written by writers who understood the human condition and had something interesting to say about it.

For me, that is the core of good screenwriting... understand the human condition and have something to say about that. And, regardless of a writer's structural skills, all the hard lifting takes place at a thematic level. It is all about observation and telling truths about the theme... leading the audience on a coherent journey, with which they can identify. And, if you ask me, these are the elements that are missing from modern screenwriting. These are the elements that could transform independent cinema, once it grows out of its fetishistic attachment to cameras, fake blood and marketing ploys.

keep writing and viva la revolution

Posted via email from Filmutopia's Sunday Morning Movie Blog