Week 13: Classical Narrative

So I've emailed out the slides from today's class. What follows are a few other links to pursue around this issue of narrative conventions.

For Monday's class, we looked at a film by this director. His interviews with Francois Truffaut are available online, and great listening if you're interested in this man's work.

Resources

There are some who say that no one's thought better about the why's of drama than Aristotle. Fear not, his thoughts aren't exclusively carved in Ancient Greek on the columns of the Parthenon, they are very freely available. (If you do find the unity of time and the unity of place in there, let me know -- I can only find the unity of action.)

More recent books. For a regular, highly-opinionated take on the ways of being a screenwriter, the Script Notes podcast is essential listening. (When I think of what some gurus charge for screenwriting advice, the wealth of material these guys give away amazes me.)

For a take on Hollywood storytelling with a strong sense of narrative design and filmmaking technique, David Bordwell (see his blog also) is the critic to go to. The Way Hollywood Tells It is the key book, and if I'm not mistaken, there should be a free chapter of it available online here.

The thing Bordwell gets right is that it's very hard to separate 'pure narrative' from the way you frame it, the way you express it through music, through performance. In the end, the story is told through sounds and images. The form has to express the content.

Which is why another book is well worth going through at some point in your filmmaking life. (The earlier the better.) Cherry Potter's Image, Sound and Story jumped out at me one day in a second hand book store, and is valuable for the same reason as Bordwell's.

The Gurus

You should be aware of some of the other writers in this area, and I've learned a lot from them all. Look at one or two of these books - you don't need them all. If they come to town and give a seminar for $400 a person, keep in mind that much of what they say will probably be in their book, often available for $20-$30. The book might require a bit more initiative on the reader's part, but you'll have saved a lot.

Firstly, there's John Truby, who wrote The Anatomy of Story. This is his website. He puts a lot of emphasis on developing the web of oppositions, the designing principle and the scene weave that will express your theme. In the end, he comes back in the end to '7 basic structure steps' that appear in all narratives. Some of his audio lectures on genres alerted me to quite a few things I didn't know I knew.

(Maybe there's something in that -- this stuff shouldn't fight your intuition. You're figuring out how to tell stories after a lifetime of being on the receiving end. Pennies should drop if these authors have cottoned onto genuine truths.)

John Yorke's book Into the Wood: A Five Act Journey into Story felt like one of the strongest of these when I surveyed the field back in 2013. Accessibly written by a working writer, and a tendency to go beyond the 'whats' and entertain the 'whys' of storytelling.

The original 'three act' man was Syd Field. His 1979 book Screenwriting first presented that three act convention that is discussed so casually by script editors and screenwriters alike to this day.

There are others: Christopher Vogler (particularly if the name Joseph Campbell means something to you), Robert McKee, Linda Seger, Michael Hauge, Linda Aronson. Many working writers are profoundly skeptical about what these gurus have to offer. My own attitude is if it's the way you discover aspects of the craft, and it doesn't cost more than it should (the cost of a book or two), there's nothing really wrong with it. (Just don't dogmatic about it - use what works.)

I can't speak for Blake Snyder (Save the Cat), or any of the others. There are too many books in this area given the common ground between them.

Addendum

Look, it's got nothing to do with classical narrative -- really, nothing at all -- but I was struck again by the array of beautiful images this director and his teams have given us.