Thread Structure: Rewriting the Hollywood Formula.
2000; University of Illinois Press; Volume: 51; Linguagem: Inglês
ISSN
1934-6018
Autores Tópico(s)Artificial Intelligence in Games
Resumofirst glance, everything looked the same. It wasn't -Kevin McCarthy, Invasion of the Body Snatchers For more than 2,000 years, western dramatists have written, studied, and preached linear story structure.z You know-send your hero up a tree, throw rocks at him, get him down from the tree. The model is simple, logical, chronological; Aristotle described it, Egri refined it, and Campbell mythologized In film, evolved into the Hollywood formula that we love to hate, the beginningmiddle-end that we both crave and disparage. According to critics, according to lines at the box office, linear structure has become the trusty template that defines American cinema. But something has happened. In recent years, something, a distinctly nonlinear something, has crept unnoticed into Hollywood's cinematic repertoire. While we were dozing, lulled by 2,000 years of the same structure rhythms, a new breed of story has surfaced. Films like Pulp Fiction, Lone Star, The English Patient-small films, different films-have entered the marketplace. Competing head-to-head with mainstream Hollywood fare, they draw big audiences, get great reviews, and even pull down Oscars-yet, they do not use linear structure. (Who's the protagonist? Take your pick. Inciting incident? Yes, no, and yes. Resolution? Eh . . . sometimes?) Suddenly, instead of our comforting beginning-middle-end, we get: Send several characters up short trees, maybe bushes; Throw rocks at each, or maybe just look at the rocks, or just wave threateningly; Get some of the characters down, leave some up, and the others . . . they just disappear. The New Model Dissect these films and you will discover certain similarities, shared patterns. Instead of a single driving story line, the hallmark of linear structure, we find multiple story threads.3 It is not Michael Corleone being sucked into godfatherhood, or Thelma and Louise taking one last road trip; is the mix of interlaced stories in Robert Altman's Short Cuts or John Herzfeld's 2 Days in the Valley. Each thread is a separate main story and all threads have roughly the same dramatic weight. The 2 Days that we spend with thug Dosmo (Danny Aiello) are just as important as the time spent with psychopath Lee (James Spader), or cop Wes (Eric Stoltz), or has-been Teddy (Paul Mazursky). At the same time, each story thread is shorter, less developed, than a conventional plot line. (This is necessary because the writer is cramming two, three, four, or more main stories into a space normally accorded one.) While most threads boast a recognizable beginning-middle-end (three-act development), others, brazenly, do not. Key plot points, even entire acts, are compressed, combined, or omitted altogether. Meet Character A, after he has already launched into his second act and is already pursuing some quest to its final resolution. What was the original catalyst in his story? Who knows? And, the point is made, who really needs to know? Meet Character B, sample her life, witness the event that sends her running, and then . . . her story suddenly ends, just stops, without resolution. In a development that mirrors reality (i.e., the many situations in our lives that lack closure), the character abruptly disappears and her thread is cut short. Don't say it, play it becomes Don't say it, skip it. For an example, think back to Colonel Payne's (Joe Morton's) entrance in John Sayles's Lone Star. The man's every action is shaped by some haunting emotional issuethough what this issue is, we have no idea. Nor have we been seduced with any backstory to make us care. Eventually, this mystery is explained: the colonel's return to town has forced him to face the father who has long neglected him. However, by the time we learn this information, we have already become engrossed in the colonel's story. Another example involves Mia Wallace (Uma Thurman), the femme fatale in Quentin Tarantino's Pulp Fiction. …
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