Hopefully, these two short videos speak for themselves. A HIDDEN LIFE is a cinematic masterpiece of storytelling. A significant factor in it's storytelling genius is the pervasive and deliberate use of visual and aural irony. These two videos only scratch the surface of this 3 hour motion picture.
An earlier post on Malick is HERE.
Click Image to Access Audio Podcast on YouTube
B. EMOTIONAL IDENTIFICATION
SOF tells a true story (documented with actual footage at the end), but it isn't TAKEN (2008 - Pierre Morel, Director, starring Liam Neeson). Both films are rated PG-13. TAKEN went on to earn $226M worldwide over 20 weeks plus several sequels which together earned $928M plus two TV series. Let's see if SOF does that well. The big difference aside from the verisimilitude of the TAKEN story is that SOF is missing the key emotional connection of fatherhood. Bryan Mills (Neeson) is trying to rescue his daughter (whom he had been trying to reconnect with due to a divorce) from the sex traffickers. The SOF filmmakers try to make that connection but fail because Tim Ballard is trying to save children unrelated to him. Yes, it's "based" on a true story. But there is a serious lack in emotional connection with the audience; the audience will NOT emotionally identify with Ballard as they did with Mills.
C. ALEJANDRO GÓMEZ MONTEVERDE
Part of the reason for an imperfect understanding of story structure is that SOF comes from Writer-Director Alejandro Gómez Monteverde whose earlier two films, BELLA and LITTLE BOY (links are to my Moral Premise analysis) tried to appeal to Christian audiences, but bombed at the box office with poor story structure. Otherwise Alejandro is an excellent filmmaker.
For starters: SOF opened domestically (2,634 screens) on Wednesday, July 4, 2023 with $14M in pre-sales to their core Christian audience. IJ: TDOD opened internationally (with 4,600 domestic screens) five days earlier on Friday, June 30, 2023 with $124M worldwide. (the number of international screens is not tracked.)
Domestic Comparisons:
IJ: TDOD first seven days = $94.7M. SOF first seven days (domestic only) = $45.7.
IJ:TDOD per screen/per day average = $2,941. SOF per screen/per day average = $2,479.
International Comparisons: (2X domestic extrapolation)
IJ: TDOD first seven days = $189M. SOF first seven days (domestic only) = $45.7.
IJ:TDOD per screen/per day average = $5,880. SOF per screen/per day average = $2,479.
July 4 (Opening Day Comparisons
Opening day for SOF, was Day 5 for IJ:TDOD
IJ:TDOD did $11M domestically with $22M projected Worldwide.
SOF: $14.2M domestically with no International.
As of Sunday, July 9 (totals)
IJ:TDOD WW: $249M
SOF WW (actually only domestic) $41M.
Based on these reported numbers the SOM promoters have misrepresented the truth. In a very narrow way one can say that SOF beat IJ:TDOD. But by passing on and repeating this narrow window of comparison, the general impression is that SOF is the better movie by far.
But that is far from the truth. The SOF filmmakers should stop comparing the the two. When compared at face value the comparison puts SOF at a disadvantage. It's really not possible to compare them fairly because they are so different in many ways. As Jordan Peterson would say, "Tell the Truth, at least don't lie."
(All numbers from https://boxofficemojo.com the industry reporting standard, which are also reported on pro.IMDB.com)
E. DISNEY'S INVOLVEMENT
My take (without inside information) is that the SOF filmmakers also misrepresented Disney's involvement in the film's distribution, and some minor matters of fact which lessen the SOF promoters credibility. According to IMDB Pro, SOF was completed on Nov. 28, 2019, not 2013 as some have claimed. It's also been claimed that Disney shelved SOF because they are supporters of sex trafficking. I think this is a hubris conspiracy theory started by conservatives, if not Christians. In 2018, 20th Century Fox picked up SOF for distribution, but when Disney purchased 20th Century Fox in 2019, SOF was put aside. Per Fox Business a Disney spokesperson told Newsweek that Disney had no knowledge of the film given the nature of the international acquisition pre-merger agreement. The SOF filmmakers reclaimed the film from Disney's shelf, and shopped the film around for three years before making a crowd finding deal with Angel Studios for distribution. It is hard to know what or how the actual decisions were made at Disney about SOF. Disney has proved to be morally corrupt in a number of its decisions, both filmmaking and entertainment parks. I can say that IJ:TDOD is far from woke, and an excellent family film with clear emphasis on family and the fight between good and evil.
F. SOCIAL DIALOGUE
Finally, a comment if Instagram thread participants on this topic come here to read this. I participate in an occasional social media thread, but it is very unsatisfying. I'm convinced that most commenters do not read the entire thread of a conversation but react subjectively and ideologically, making wild, irrational and irresponsible remarks to score a point or a like, like those I mentioned at the start of this post. Social media threads have contributed largely to the dissolution of culture and rational dialogue. It would be different if the social media engines would somehow thread together a conversation so it could be logically followed—a difficult task when multiple people are making comments simultaneously. I got wrapped up in an Instagram thread because of the issues I raise above. The real corruption is society is the lack of intelligence.
Some years ago in L.A. at CBS Studios where the the BIOLA Media Conference was held for which I was a segment producer and speaker, I was privilege enough to share in the introduction of my one and only Hollywood idol, STAN FREBERG. Stan passed away not long after I met him, but I have several cherished images to remember the day. I also had the presence of mind to bring the LP album jacket, pictured below, and have him sign it...and I brought the cardboard tube...can't believe I have a picture of this. If you're not sure what this is all about, I can only suggest you get the recordings, including Freberg's "Pay Radio" albums ("You have to go into a record story and buy it." ...which I did.) I wore out three of the United States of America LP discs listening to his creativity during my college years. Today you can buy the CD version (Vol 1 and 2). Best humor and sound productions ever created. I should have these images framed and on my wall, which I guess this blog is sort of the same thing.
Although there is something called "objective" truth, to every social subgroup "truth" is relative and "subjective" to a particular worldview. This is what makes telling the truth difficult.
Have you told the truth? To the subgroup you may not have told the truth...about the reader's IDEAL. But you have told the truth about the character's fallible, human character. The criticism comes because you have not sanitized the subgroup's hero and portrayed he or she as perfect—the central problem of most Christian, so-called "faith films." My conclusion is that if you were to sanitize the hero and make him or her perfect, you would be lying—a lie historically and a lie about the human condition.
Thus, writing true stories is a hard and dicey affair. The best stories that resonate with truth of the human condition do not land solidly in the ideal worldview of good and evil, like the red or black realms of the above Yin-Yang illustration. Rather, the best stories that tell the truth reside on the curved line between the two realms. This thin and chaotic border is where all of humanity exists. The Yin-Yang also illustrates the necessity of mystery and the human soul's quest for perfection—the red and block dots.
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Going a bit further. In an early blog post, "Can Historical Fiction Be True?", I described six aspects of telling the truth in fiction. The second aspect describes how multiple stories of the same event can conflict, simply by the storyteller's different perspective. This touches on the logical fallacy known as AND/OR. where one person may claim that a fact is either A or B, when the truth may actually be A and B.
Thus, all good writing begins with an ironic premise, because the human condition is inherently ironic. At every moment of every day we all want something...but can't have it—the 2 dots in the Yin-Yang. Hope turns to despair, our exhausting effort is always in need of a rewrite, love is lost, and "snakes on a plane." All good stories are about the human condition, which by definition is ironic. The good guy is sometimes fallible, and the villain sometimes noble.
Back to those social subgroups that cling to beliefs or ideologies—where "belief" is a logically defensible, and "ideology" is a logically indefensible. Depending on the topic, the subgroup, and the perspective, what is a belief to one is an ideology to another. Yes, irony is ubiquitous.
Truth hurts. It's the human condition to avoid being hurt, to attack those that do the hurting, or at least ghost such miscreants. But while we are driven toward the ideal, it's the paradox that gives life intrigue.
Pam and I thoroughly enjoyed Magic... Allen's witty dialogue never ceases to impress, well, at least since Annie Hall. I once saw Annie Hall in one of those re-run $1 theaters in Dearborn, Michigan, before the Projectionists Union torched the building, The projectionist mixed up the reels something horrible...and the movie still made sense, and it was funnier. Such were the times.
The topic of Woody Allen prompted my offering up a paper I wrote for graduate school on Woody Allen as Theologian in American Culture. This was some 20 years after Ben Patterson—the editor of the satirical Christian Youth Specialities magazine The Wittenburg Door (and that IS spelled correctly for you Lutheran aficionados out here)—put Woody on the cover of his magazine and awarded him "Theologian of the Year." It seems that more than any other "regular" theologian in 1974 American culture, Allen got people thinking about God, Sex, and Death.
Turns out Ben Patterson, today, is a good friend of my friend. Hi Charlie! Hi Ben! Enjoy California's sun, it's still snowing here in Michigan (April 26).
To the rest of my readers, if you're interested, here's a link to the short paper. On page 7 you'll find an interesting bar chart depicting the sum of positive and negative depictions of religion in Wood Allen Films 1969–1993.
While preparing to print advance review copies of a historical novel I recently completed, I asked my followers for help fine tuning the title and cover design. On the cover was the tag line: "The True Tale of an Early American Haunting."
A follower raised the bane of fiction writers who base their work on historical events. She wrote to me: "If it's a true story it is not a novel."
My response was less concise.
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Dear Follower:
You have served up a delicious morsel for discussion: What is “true” in Historical Fiction, or, can historical fiction ever be true? I think so, for the same reasons I don’t think so called true accounts of history are true. Here are six things to ponder.
1. Everything, Everywhere, All at Once? In historical fiction the reader is always wondering which parts are true, even as the reader assumes most of the telling is fiction. Why is that? Because it’s impossible to tell a completely true story if by “true” we mean all of the facts in the true chronological order...especially, if many of the micro facts occurred simultaneously and were somehow co-dependent on each other. Even to record all of the physical events and their related minutia would require too large of a book or too long of a movie...to think nothing of the internal and invisible thoughts, values, and motivations that caused the physical events. It seems to me that to tell a absolutely true story would require an accurate narrative about all such things, in every conceivable crevice, all at once. Of course, this is ludicrous in a practical sense. So, what really is true?
2. Perspective. Since No. 1 is impractical, if not impossible, we, as writers, favor our perspective or bias which can result in a story that some would find totally fiction. The “facts” collected by different people, from different perspectives, even though they are all eye witnesses, always interpret or remember the “true facts” differently. We see this everyday in reports of current events and in scientific interpretations of so called “objective” and “natural” observations, and if we include recent understandings of quantum theory, reality gets a bad name real fast.
In researching the particular historical novel I recently completed I collected over 30 (more like 100) different narratives of the same historical event—some whole, most anecdotal. Some accounts were written by witnesses, others collected from second and third hand or generational sources. In every case they were all different. So what was “true?” It’s hard to say, although the core of the story (the main plot points) are similar.
In my “fictional” writing, I included as faithful as I could all the documented scraps of the history and wove them together with my imagination so they fit. In such a manner I told a true story...at least my imaginative mind thinks so.
3. The Victors Write the History. We must remember that most of the time, with notable exceptions, it is the "victors" that write the history. Do the victors always tell the truth? No. There is bias is everything that is written. This is well known in so called "documentary" films. There is ALWAYS A POINT OF VIEW.
4. Fiction Pretends to Tell the Truth. In all fiction the storyteller pretends to tell the truth by writing in the imperative mood. That goes for everything from the dialogue to the title, to the tag line. In other words the storyteller, with regard to the physical events described, is lying. But the reader recognizes that or should. If the reader understands Historical Fiction as true history, then the mistake is on the reader’s part, not the author whose intention is to be entertaining.
5. “Non-Fiction" History is the Biased Retelling of Others. All historians writing about events to which they were NOT an eye-witness, are simply retelling what other historians have told. For instance, Shirer’s The Rise and Fall of the Third Reich while a comprehensive account of Nazi Germany, is the retelling form a hundred accounts of voluminous works written by others. Although the current historian is wanting to tell the truth, his truth is only as good as the previous historians have handled the facts. Consequently, a great deal of history is “presumption” or imagined by the historian.
6. What is True is Deeper than the Physical Story. The more important aspect of truth in storytelling is the internal moral truth that the story conveys. In a classical sense the conveyance, or story form, is called a myth. While the outward physical story is fiction (about a donkey, a goose, and a frog talking to each other like human beings), the meaning of the story (the moral premise) is true. This is the subject of my earlier book, The Moral Premise: Harnessing Virtue and Vice for Box Office Success. The movie, Armageddon, about Bruce Willis traveling to an asteroid to blow it up before it can destroy Earth, is fiction...unless you know someone who has done that. But the moral premise of that story, about the sacrifices a good father makes for the future sake of his children, is true.
So, in these ways historical fiction can be as true as any documented history:
A. The story threads the available historical documentation together and relates them in a fundamentally cogent and reasonable way consistent with the time period. I’m sure many historical fiction writers believe that their telling is as true as any so called history text book written from a biased point of view...which they all are.
B. The story is about a true moral premise, e.g. that natural law exists and if it’s not followed, hell is to pay.
WHERE DO WE GO NOW was nominated for a Best Foreign Film Oscar in 2012, and a two-time winer at Cannes and People's Choice Award at Toronto.
Nadine is a self-taught, Lebanese filmmaker of incredible talent. She's also a beautiful and talented actor. She says: "I'm bored with my own personality. I want to do so many different things, be so many different people, and live so different lives....(filmmaking) is the only place where you can experiment with so many different natures...(without) people thinking you're crazy." Those are her words, but to me she's very comfortable being who she is, and she's very good at it.
Do buy a DVD or Bluray of WHERE DO WE GO NOW. Here is her DP/30 interview recorded in Hollywood as she waited to attend the 2012 Oscars.
Blake Snyder in his book SAVE THE CAT made "Pope in the Pool" famous. For the few of you who are not familiar with Blake's nomenclature, Pope in the Pool is the name given to foreground exposition (in dialogue) with a background story (in visual). Here is a wonderful example that came across in my Instagram Feed yesterday.
1. THE AUDIENCE IS FICKLE.
This does not mean, as Will Goldman famously wrote, "NOBODY KNOWS ANYTHING" on page 39 of his "Adventures in the Screen Trade." (BTW: the all caps is Goldman's, not mine.) I don't agree with Goldman on this, but it's instructive. A drive through parts of Los Angeles or an invite to a home or two will tell you that quite a number of individuals KNOW ALOT. But back to the "instructive" part. Reminding us that the audience is fickle means that you have to stay one step ahead of your audience. Like a good horror script, there should be a surprise (a LOGICAL surprise) at least every five pages, if not three. "Fickle" could mean the audience doesn't know what it likes, but it's more reasonable to understand that the audience comes to be entertained, and that they bore easily. Don't bore. Surprise.
2. GRAB 'EM BY THE THROAT AND NEVER LET 'EM GO.
This goes along with No. 1. Another way of saying this is to put your protagonist in jeopardy at the beginning and keep him there until the last frame of the movie. But of course, knowing that the audience is fickle means the jeopardy can rarely be the same from scene to scene. Mary Alice Moore Connealy is the author of over 70 Christian fiction novels. She specializes in romantic comedy set in the cowboy era of the American west. Mary and I were engaged in an email exchange in 2010 that I was careful to save. In it she revealed how she kills off villains. I wrote a blog HERE about it. Her Rule No. 2 is this: "You can judge how bad a bad guy is by the number of times he dies." We see this is popular movies—the bad guy keeps resurrecting only to be killed in a more horrific way. Aside from the catharsis rush this gives the audience/reader, it is a perfect example of how not to bore your audience (Wilder No. 1) and how to constantly keep your protagonist is danger (Wilder No. 2).
3. DEVELOP A CLEAN LINE OF ACTION FOR YOUR LEADING CHARACTER.
This is often the difference between a story that involves the audience intellectually vs. emotionally. When intelligent writers send me a script to critique I can easily get caught up in the obscure philosophical quest of the protagonist. But when emotional writers send me a script I don't have time to analyze the scenes, I'm too busy turning pages. Guess which movies get made? General audiences aren't looking for intellectual, philosophical, or spiritual quests (at least not explicitly). General audiences want a story that will carry them away emotionally, which means visceral, physical danger to a likable protagonist. This is why Mission Impossible and James Bond stories are always hits. [The special effects and practical stunts are not just eye candy, but rather reinforce the visceral danger as our hero tries, against all odds, to recover the hard-drive (or similar MacGuffin) with the list of MI6 secret agents (Sky Fall)]. Bond is always in danger, and his goal is one thing only...to get the hard-drive back or stop the release of its secret list of agents. When we send a protagonist on a philosophical, introspective journey, it's much harder to keep the story emotionally involving. Action is clean. Philosophy is obscure.
4. IF YOU HAVE A PROBLEM WITH THE THIRD ACT, THE REAL PROBLEM IS IN THE FIRST ACT.
This is the ultimate issue involving foreshadowing. Everything that happens in Act 3 needs to be set up in Act 1. Everything in Act 3 is the effect of the Act 1 cause. My friend Drew Yanno wrote a good book on this titled, as you might expect, "The 3rd Act." It is evidently now out of print since I can't find it or him on the Internet anymore. It's a bright red cover, 175 pages recommended by Will Smith. If your hero is afraid of heights which hinders his capture of the bad guy in Act 3, then his vertigo is revealed in Act 1. If your heroine has a problem with commitment in Act 3, then the wound that caused her fear of commitment needs to be shown in Act 1. If the protagonist risks his life to save a child in Act 3, then in Act 1 he saves a cat. (e.g. Blake Snyder's book, SAVE THE CAT). Yes, it's often the case that when you're writing Act 3 and inventing all kinds of cliff hangers, you are simultaneously revising Act 1. If you don't do this you risk the disastrous anti-plot point called "Deus ex machina" (link Wikipedia). Deus ex machina is the opposite of the MacGuffin. Use the latter not the former.
5. THE MORE SUBTLE AND ELEGANT YOU ARE IN HIDING YOUR PLOT POINTS, THE BETTER YOU ARE AS A WRITER.
This does not translate well, but here's what it means. Narrative is better than didactic. Narrative shows what happens when a protagonist makes a moral decisions and acts on it. A protagonist can make any decision and take any action he wants. But the consequences of that decision and action are always the result of natural law, and totally out of the hands and control of the protagonist. I have written much on this topic...some blog posts are here. This process in storytelling is much like real life. We lean lessons by such a decision-action-consequence paradigm. We learn by experience, or by the stories told of the experience of others. WE DO NOT LEARN HOW TO LIVE A BETTER LIFE BY ARBITRARY RULES, which is what didactic storytelling suffers from. You may think the Bible is full of didactic rules (e.g. The Ten Commandments). But in reality the Bible is 75% Narrative, which reveals the consequence of not following the rules. Rules shortcut your learning, but you really only learn from experience or stories. This is why Stories are the Crux of Civilization.
A bit more of a didactic (😟) explanation is needed here. Narrative shows what happens and requires the audience in figure out the rule involved (or the moral premise at work). A didactic story reveals the rule but does not necessarily demonstrate the natural law consequence of following the rule or not. NOT HIDING YOUR PLOT POINTS is didactic. HIDING YOUR PLOT POINTS is narrative. The rule here is "Make your audience work. Do not tell them. Show them. Let them figure it out." Audiences love intrigue even if it means trying to figure out what the movie is really about. (Hopefully it's about something like a true, and consistently applied moral premise.)
6. A TIP FROM LUBITSCH: LET THE AUDIENCE ADD UP TWO PLUS TWO. THEY'LL LOVE YOU FOREVER.
This is actually a repeat of No. 5. 'Nuff said.
By the way, Ernst Lubitsch was a German-born American film director et al. He co-wrote the Greta Garbo film Ninotchka with Billy Wilder. I'm sorry I don't know anything about this movie, but I will shortly when I screen it. What I do know about Lubitsch is that he made the audience work to figure out what was going on in the character's heart and head. This no doubt came about because Lubitsch's career began in the silent film era when directors were required to SHOW and dialogue was limited to a few dialogue cards.
7. IN DOING VOICE-OVERS, BE CAREFUL NOT TO DESCRIBE WHAT THE AUDIENCE ALREADY SEES. ADD TO WHAT THEY'RE SEEING.
At the risk of repeating perhaps the best known Hollywood adage, SHOW DON'T TELL. Movies are not novels, but even novel writers know how to show and not didactically tell what's happening. The study of non-verbal communication suggests that 80% of the message is communicated non-verbally, not with the actual words. Thus ,"I could kill you," has many different meanings.
But back to No. 7.
I would add that you don't just want to add to what is being seen, but describe something ironic and quite different from what is being seen. This is also the role of subtext in dialogue. Subtext, of course, is ironic in that it communicates what is not being literally heard, or it is the opposite of the literal words being used. (See this blog post on "Borders and Quarantines, the Essence of Successful Stories", and Lesson 12 of my on-line Storycraft Training Series on "Writing Convincing Movie Dialogue." for examples.) But back to the V.O. point: While we see a protagonist courageously and fearlessly rescue a child from a raging river, the voice over might add an ironic and intriguing twist if we hear the hero's retrospective thoughts of fear and cowardice. This adds dimension and depth to the character and makes him more believable and real like us.
A similar occurrence takes place when you write a "Pope in the Pool" scene (see Blake Snyder's SAVE THE CAT.) A critical aspect of a Pope in the Pool scene is that the background action (the Pope trying to swim in a pool dressed in his vestments), metaphors what is being didactically discussed in the foreground dialogue. The background action ADDS TO WHAT WE'RE HEARING, or the foreground dialogue can be considered V.O. that explains didactically what is happening in the background.
Every element adds to the narrative or its meaning.
8. THE EVENT THAT OCCURS AT THE SECOND ACT CURTAIN TRIGGERS THE END OF THE MOVIE.
The end of Act 2 plot point is also known as "NEAR DEATH," "FAUX ENDING," "NO GOING BACK," "ACT 2 CLIMAX," and "ALL IS LOST." (Here is a link to ten (10) blog posts that describe the classical major beats of a story as diagramed on The Story Diamond.) The Story Diamond simply overlays multiple story structures, paralleling the labels to reveal that all successful story structures are simply different ways to describe the same thing. Thus, the second act curtain (or Act 2 Climax) is a critical and very important turning point beat that converts our warrior protagonist/hero into a martyr, who is willing to die for the noble cause, thus endearing the audience to him. The "end of the movie" is all of Act 3, which is 25% of the story. Structure is important here. Audiences love never ending stories...that is a story that seems to have multiple endings, and the Act 2 curtain is the FIRST of multiple endings that come at the audience rapid fire and give catharsis its due. Also related to the importance of the ending is Michael Arndt's Insanely Great Endings in a guest post by The Other Chris Pratt, followed by my analysis of Arndt's "Little Miss Sunshine."
9. THE THIRD ACT MUST BUILD, BUILD, BUILD IN TEMPO AND ACTION UNTIL THE LAST EVENT, AND THEN—THAT'S IT. DON'T HANG AROUND.
I've written enough about Act 3 so 'nuff said about that.
But "don't hang around," is the Denouement (or "Life After") and it should be very short. Use Act 3 to tie up loose narrative ends in dramatic fashion before you get to the Denouement. See again Michael Arndt's Insanely Great Endings, and my notes on the structure of Act 3. Lesson 9 of my Storycraft Training also covers the important and fast occurring beats of Act 3.
Pam and I screened the Blu-ray of it tonight and I will proffer an answer, by first commenting about the movie in general, it's structure, and its moral premise.
“..for the growing good of the world is partly dependent on unhistoric acts; and that things are not so ill with you and me as they might have been, is half owing to the number who lived faithfully a hidden life, and rest in unvisited tombs.”For any movie goer used to a fast-paced plot and surprises, reverses, and reveals on every page, AHL will put you to sleep and it will be hard to focus. AHL is a very spiritual and contemplative movie. While the photography is captivating and at times stunning, the story is very much internal, and requires a lot more thinking than the typically Hollywood fare. The characters spend a great deal of time in prayer and self-examination. Such on-screen actions, however, fall far from the cheap, cringe-worthy, virtue signaling we would see in a cheesy Christian faith film. Why? Because in AHL their prayers and self-reflection is not answered in a blaze of glory or narrative reversal. In fact, although AHL is very explicitly Christian and Catholic in many ways, it breaks the mold of a "faith film" in numerous, refreshing ways. One in particular is that in a Christian faith film when the main character consults with his pastor the pastor is always the good guy who pontificates a cheesy, sanctified, Bible perfect truism. In AHL the pastor sides with the Nazis.
I have a theory, but it's an infant one since I am not a Terrence Malick aficionado. Perhaps I should be. I suspect it's because a Terrence Malick directed movie will be cinematically beautiful if not stunning, and A-listers want to be associated with anything that is beautiful if not stunning....the story and its structure being less important.
[If you don't know, the only real requirement to attaching money to a project is attaching known names. So if Malick can attract a few names, the money will come.]
I also wonder if Malick the director is motivated more by poetic beauty and intrigued by philosophical contradictions and moral dilemmas evident in AHL (Malick taught philosophy for a while before launching his film career) and thus neglects the essentials of narrative that create a successful story structure and a catharsis necessary to produce word of mouth praise and provoke ticket sales. Some of his movies with huge stars attached have not even broken $1M at the domestic B.O. (according to IMDB.)
Does anyone have a good answer to this question? Please comment.
Below is a video blog post for my Moral Premise followers based on a recent trip to Europe scouting for a documentary titled The Sword of St. Michael. The content is about the important concepts of Ordeals and Redemption in successful stories. But the visuals are all from the doc project. Enjoy. (stan williams)
This short segment of a Jordan Peterson talk is an excellent description of The Heart of The Moral Premise concept. "You Can't Twist the Fabric of Reality and Get Away with it."
Peterson's point is summarized by an adage I first heard from my good friend Dan Glovak (R.I.P). Dan reminded his daughter and my son of this before they married:
You can make any choice you want,
but you have no control over the consequences.
In my Moral Premise workshops I use this diagram, which I explain below.
Here is a YouTube episode from the popular musical theorist Adam Neely about Céline Dion's performance of All by Myself, a live performance on February 23, 2016. Neely breaks down the music, the physicality, and the storytelling elements in an astounding analysis of why songs and music work. It's meaty, sit up straight and listen carefully. Secrets are about to be revealed.
1. SCREENPLAYS (SP) ARE NECESSARILY SUCCINCT. They're charged with creating emotionally ladened stories and engaging characters in as few words as possible. There are mechanical and well as creative reasons for this:
Mechanically, the SP should represent the length of the film such that one page equals one minute of screen time. This does not leave room for elaborate descriptions.
Creatively the succinctness leaves plenty of room for the creative input for actors, directors, art directors, costumers, and the composer.
2. SCENE HEADINGS. Every new location or new time begins with a SCENE HEADING, also called a SLUG LINE. The slug line always begins with INT. for interior scene, or EXT. for exterior scene. Sometimes the actions begins inside and ends outside, INT./EXT. is used. Following this is the location of the scene, and at the end of the line is the time of day in simple terms: DAY or NIGHT, or sometimes SUNSET, or DUSK, etc. Slug lines are always ALL CAPS, sometimes they are also underlined and bolded.
At the end of some slug lines is the word ESTABLISHING. This means the shot is a WIDE view of the location, usually a building with no principal actors visible. It's a short scene that establishes where the next action takes place, usually an interior room of the building.
3. ACTION DESCRIPTION immediately follows the slug line. These short sentences describe what is seen and heard, but never what is spoken. SUPER: "TEXT ON SCREEN" indicates text on screen. Sounds created in post-production are always CAPITALIZED, but not sounds that can be recorded on the set. ACTION is always written in present-active voice, never past-tense. SPECIAL EFFECTS are often ALL CAPS as well.
4. DIALOGUE is preceded by the name of the CHARACTER. Both are indented from the margin.
Following the CHARACTER'S NAME, that precedes the words spoken are often abbreviations. If the abbreviations do not follow then the voice is spoken on camera and we see the actor's lips move, although often in the editing room that changes. Lips that move in sync with the picture are in SYNC, a term rarely used in screenplays, but sometimes necessary for clarity.
5. SPECIAL DENOTATIONS usually justified left:
INSERT and END INSERT (or BACK TO SCENE) sets off a close up shot of something in the set that needs to be seen up close. An insert does not require a slug line.
POV and BACK TO SCENE indicates beginning and end of a character's POINT OF VIEW or what the character sees. The camera becomes the character's eyes for a few moments. JAKE'S POV - THE BRACELET. A POV does not require a slug line.
FLASHBACK followed lines later by END FLASHBACK indicates a scene that jumps back in time. FLASHFORWARD does the opposite. Flashbacks require a new slug line.
DREAMS and VISIONS are formatted just like FLASHBACKS.
6. TRANSITIONS are justified RIGHT and include CUT TO, DISSOLVE, FADE IN, FADE OUT, etc.
If no transition is noted, the assumption is a CUT.
Now he's not a story writer, so when he says "check your premise" he's not consciously referring to my book The Moral Premise, this blog, nor is he referring to writers crafting a story.
Well, that's not exactly true. He IS referring to the person he's dialoguing with and the story they are writing about themselves with their life...in the same way a writer makes "life" decisions for a fictional character.
In this idea of making moral decisions and checking your premise is the mechanical process that allows audiences to emotionally connect with fictional characters. The moral premises of our characters must accurately reflect how real people interact with the unchangeable laws of the universe. The laws of the universe include both physical and psychological laws—or metaphysical laws often referred to as spiritual and moral. Don't let anyone tell you naturally sourced spiritual and moral laws are relative. Governments can make laws and try to enforce them, but such "laws" are subject to the immutable laws of the universe and human nature.
Back to my friend.
His advice to...
CHECK YOUR PREMISE...
lives alongside the concept that
REALITY DOES NOT AND CANNOT CONTRADICT ITSELF.
Neither can your characters live in contradiction to reality. But of course they try. That's the foundation of drama. A character can willfully walk off the edge of a 100-foot rocky cliff, as he attempts to force reality to contradict itself. But since reality does not and cannot contradict itself, your character falls to his death.
In the same way, if a character lives by a moral premise that lying is a virtue (as some of our legislators believe) reality will catch up with them. Oh, for a time, a law that contracts reality may be passed and enforced, but eventually there will be a reckoning. Reality will have the last say.
When plotting out the physical beats of a story you must include in the plotting the moral premise (or the value system invisible in the character's head) for the character's physical actions. Mental decisions are part of the plot. Without the mental process you cannot have physical action. Of course, I'm assuming you're writing a story about a moral agent, a person who has the psychological will to act...either in cooperation with reality (natural law) or contrary to it. In every case, the internal, invisible decision, based on a motivating moral premise or value, will determine whether or not the physical consequences will bring pleasure or pain to your character. In order to connect with audiences that consequence must agree with reality. It cannot be in contradiction to reality.
SUBTLE CONTRADICTIONS
What happens is subtle. The character knows (consciously or subconsciously) that thoughts of envy, greed, etc. can lead to physical actions that others will quickly regard as wrong. This is where the age-old adage "what you think is what you are" comes into play. Such thoughts lead to guilt, and guilt leads to distraction, or perhaps evil thoughts lead to distraction first, and then guilt. Eventually, the character becomes obsessed with the thoughts and the potential ramifications that even without acting on the thoughts, other activities, even seemingly insignificant ones, like house keeping (making bed), hygiene (brushing teeth), and financial (no tips at a restaurant), lead to a lack of self-esteem, which leads to depression, which leads to some physical act that is seemingly totally unrelated to the original thoughts of envy, greed, etc. Perhaps it's an argument with the lawn service because the grass was cut too short. Perhaps your character drops a jug of milk and it spills all over the kitchen floor. He's late for an appointment (due to multiple distractions that build up) and gets a ticket for speeding, and then argues with the cop and ends up in jail overnight.
In this way even mental lapses with reality, and just thinking about living in contradiction with reality, can lead to a character's detriment. In this way a complex character can enter into a plot that may at first seem disjointed, until the real problem, a psychological, mental, moral, or spiritual mind set is revealed.
CHECK YOUR CHARACTER'S PREMISE...
...his moral values. Is he attempting to live in contradiction with reality, even if only inside his mind? Remember:
REALITY CANNOT CONTRADICT ITSELF.
Only the government can contradict reality...although not for long.
