ORDINARY PEOPLE: Can Imperfection Lead to Something More Perfect?

ORDINARY PEOPLE (1980)

Story length excluding credits: 120 min.

Directed by Robert Redford

Writers: Judith Guest (novel), Alvin Sargent (screenplay), Nancy Dowd (uncredited)

Donald Sutherland (Calvin)

Mary Tyler Moore (Beth)

Judd Hirsch (Berger)

Timothy Hutton (Conrad)

Elizabeth McGovern (Jeannie)

Scott Doebler (Buck)

Dinah Manoff (Karen)

Helpful Link to an analysis of the book: http://www.bookrags.com/notes/op/

MORAL-PHYSICAL PREMISE STATEMENT (MPPS)

For those that don't need to wade thought the long analysis here's my take on the MPPS for ORDINARY PEOPLE.

A shorthand version:

Demanding perfection leads the loss of love and friendship;
but
Allowing imperfection leads to the gain of love and friendship.

A longer version, more instructive:

In the presence of stressful situations that are beyond our control:

Embracing idealism and demanding perfection 

leads to the repression of feelings, 

and the loss of love, friendship, and happiness;
but
Embracing reality and allowing imperfection 

leads to the expression of feelings, 

and secures love, friendship, and happiness.

ANALYSIS

The Moral-Physical Premise Statement (MPPS) tells us what a successful movie is REALLY about. Analyzing such a film requires

AS IT IS IN HEAVEN: Can We Pursue a Passion Too Hard?

Pam and I have discovered Apple TV. Through our Netflix account we can watch as many movies as we want without paying anymore for the two DVDs at a time we get by mail. We hooked the little black box from Apple up to our 40-inch Samsung LCD wide screen with the sound coming through some large stereo speakers. And we sat down for the first time to select from thousands, a  single movie to watch. Could we decide? 

I reluctantly let Pam pick the movie. she scanned the genres and looked at a few log lines, and then, almost by accident she later confessed, played AS IT IS IN HEAVEN (AIIIH).

Reviewer James Li says this of the movie: 

There are no complicated twists and turns in the story. It tells the tale of Daniel (Michael Nyqvist), a successful and talented conductor, who returns the rural village he grew up in, to recover from a heart attack. No one recognizes him because he had changed his name many years ago. Soon, he is approached to lead the local church choir. As he confronts his own past demons, love comes in the form of one of the choir members, Lena (Frida Hallgren), who helps him to find who he really is. Along the way, Daniel also unknowingly upsets the insular town’s social balance.

I told Pam that it would be nice just to watch a movie for enjoyment and not feel as if I had to write an analysis. When I have the DVD it is tempting to rewatch scenes to understand the story better. Writing a good analysis takes days. I am day 6 into working on an analysis of ORDINARY PEOPLE (1980).

But I woke up this morning still mesmerized by AIIIH. So, here's a "short" post on it. 

AS IT IS IN HEAVEN (2004)
(with English subtitles)

Directed by: Kay Pollak 

Written by: Kay Pollak with 4  co-writers

CAST

Michael Nyqvist as DANIEL DAREUS (protagonist, conductor)

Frida Hallgrenas LENA (Daniel's love interest)

Helen Sjöholm as GABRIELLA (beaten wife with incredible voice)

Lennart Jähkel as ARNE (choir's business manager)

Ingela Olsson as INGER (Stig's wife)

Niklas Falk as STIG (village's Episcopal priest)

Per Morberg as CONNY (husband who beats Gabriella)

Ylva Lööf as SIV (spinster who was the choir director before Daniel)

MORAL-PHYSICAL PREMISE STATEMENT

Pursuit of one's passion with obsession leads to demise; but

Pursuit of one's passion with balance leads to love.

DISCUSSION

Daniel's physical goal, from childhood, is to bring meaning and happiness to people through music. He becomes so obsessed with this goal that while conducting an orchestra he has a heart attack. He is forced into retirement, and chooses to return (incognito) to his boyhood village to "listen." He's asked to listen to the church choir during one of its rehearsals, and his passion takes over, applying to be the cantor of the church. But he has never directed voices before. After some advice from a distant friend he throws himself back into music. He is frequently tempted to become obsessed again with the music, and must learn how to find balance, e.g. taking time for coffee breaks during rehearsal is one of the ways this is shown.

The finding balance motif is also illustrated when he, as an adult, tries to learn to ride a bicycle for the first time. Lena comes to teach him. The motif continues through the story, and  ironically contributes to his final (but peaceful and goal achieved) demise ...again, in part due to his obsessive nature.

Before the story begins Lena's passion to love a man in a committed way and bring happiness into his life has caused her to fall in with a married man (unknowingly) and live with him for two years. When she discovers his duplicity she is deeply hurt and she leaves him. Now, with Daniel she tries to balance the passion of her calling with the rest of her life. But it is hard, and she struggles to love again. Indeed the first time that Daniel kisses Lena we see a moment of extreme passion that takes him (and her) by surprise and they back off in fear of the consequences of their obsessive natures. 

Gabriella has a voice to die for, and she almost does at the hand of her abusive husband, Conny. She can't stay away from the choir, as Conny demands. Conny's passion for his wife is out of balance and it causes his demise.

Sitg, the village pastor, is so obsessive with being a religious leader that he's taken it to extreme as well, and  has come to teach that even sex in marriage is wrong. Do you see the irony? Passion for one thing, rejects the passion for another, that together should co-exist. His demise is perhaps the most dramatic and telling. His wife, Inger, finds a compassionate balance for her understanding of their relationship in one respect, but goes overboard in another, proclaiming that there is no sin, it's all a construct of the church to control people. She's right about one thing, the people of this village have been controlled. The passion for one thing or another is obsessive, even a passion for repression. Irony abounds.

An example of such out-of-balance passion (of the repressive kind) occurs after the successful village choir concert. An elderly man stands up at the choir's luncheon and professes his love, since elementary school, for an elderly woman sitting near him. The honest expression of this love is painful. The woman is so taken by the expression that in grief she leaves the room without saying a word. We are left with the impression that she has loved him as well, just as long, but now, in their last years the chance for a fruitful life together is lost. 

In similar ways each of the characters, even Arnie and Siv,  have wonderfully believable arcs that move from extreme passion and an inability to express love to a balanced passion that can honestly show love to another in an appropriate way. Arnie's arc is profound.

ACTING

The acting and directing in this film are some of the best I have ever seen. We are drawn into each character (there is great consistency in direction) and we believe in the emotional and intellectual journeys each character takes. It was such a joy to see the subtle way that facial expressions reveal deep inner feelings at moments of revelation. There are a hundred such moments that should be cherished by audiences. I will be watching this movie again. 

MUSIC

As we might expect the music has an arc all its own. Particularly astonishing is Gabriella's solo, during the village concert. It's a solo that is hard to image happening in the sequence leading up to it. She is the least likely, and yet  she must. But can she with Conny threatening day and night? My great thanks to the  filmmakers for nearly locking down the camera on Gabriella as she sings her song, rich with meaning, and cutting away only minimally to the stunned audience.

BIBLICAL ANTECEDENTS

It is hard to go wrong paying homage to Biblical scenes and plots. In AIIIH there are the following visual retellings of Bible stories.

1. Daniel's return to a village that rejected him as a boy, and now struggles with the same, although he can do "miracles" with music, is very much like Jesus' rejection in those villages where he grew up. A prophet is never accepted in his home town.

2. Stig recreates the religiosity of the Pharisees as he tries to control the village and Daniel's life with fallacious moral threats. Inger tells Stig that he has crucified Daniel just like the Jews crucified Jesus.

3. After Conny beats Daniel to a bloody pulp, leaving him for dead in the river, the three women closest to Daniel drag him into his house on a sheet and begin to tend to his wounds. Daniel's limp body and the attention of the women rekindles images of the Peita and the women who come to Christ's tomb to embalm his body.

4. The most telling of the Biblical antecedents recalls both the innocence and sin of Eve before Adam. Daniel and Lena ride their bikes (he's learned some balance at this point) to the river. She decides they need to go for a swim. He's reluctant, it's cold. But this is Sweden where jumping into icy water is a national past time. She strips naked before him, not seductively, but playfully like an innocent child. But she's no child, her body looking more like Eve probably did to Adam the first time—the curves are all there and the innocence of her smile is without guile. What's telling here is Daniel's reaction. He is pleased with her openness to him, but he too appears without guile. There's no lustful glance at her body, but rather a boyish curiosity. He makes no move to remove his clothes or even close the gap between them. Although middle aged, you get the sense that romance is a new experience for him. He has loved music so passionately that there was no room or time for the passion of a woman.

Then, suddenly, Lena takes us to Act 2 of the Adam and Eve story. One moment she stands before Daniel, completely naked, unashamed, innocent, beautiful. Then she remembers her lack of innocence. And she takes the shirt she had been wearing and embarrassingly covers her nakedness. The smile leaves her face and sadly she takes a step toward Daniel and explains that in her desire to live in a committed relationship with a man for life, she had made a mistake and lived with a man for two years before discovering that he was married. She was hurt deeply. Now, to Daniel she reveals the sadness and embarrassment that she feels, because she is not the pure gift that she would like to be for Daniel. Still covering her nakedness, like Eve probably did in the garden after her sin, she looks sadly into Daniel's silent face for understanding. But Daniel is speechless. His countenance changes, and he no longer looks at her with respect, but in fact runs from her, getting on his bike and leaving as fast as he can. It's an amazing scene that reminds us of what it must have been like when Adam and Eve discover their nakedness.

POST SCRIPT - WRITING/EDITING

(Two weeks later). It has occurred to me that the attraction this film has for me is in something "odd" about the scene transitions — they occurred later and sooner than I'm used to with Hollywood films. For years Hollywood tells new filmmakers: "Start a scene later than it begins and get out sooner than it ends." But with AIIIH the scenes start much later than I'd expect, and get out before it was seemingly fully resolved. Yet at no time was a story thread left hanging. My mind worked harder to fill in the story gaps, which were essentially answered 30-seconds into the next scene. It was brilliant, and I'm determined in the script I'm writing now, to do the same thing. Make the audience work for their understanding of the gaps. That pulls the audience INTO the filmmaker process deeper. The consequence, I suspect, is greater satisfaction. I must watch this again.

EON Productions and The Moral Premise

In an email conversation with a London based screenwriter yesterday, I discovered that EON Productions Ltd (producers of the James Bond film franchise) and Columbia Pictures, sponsor the EON Screenwriters Workshop that brings together serious screenwriters in a workshop environment to develop screenplays for EON and Columbia.

I was told that one of the workshop leaders, Alby James, had referenced The Moral Premise. So, I went looking for more evidence. I found THIS great essay by Bronwyn Griffiths posted April 8th, 2008. 


What Bronwyn does that surprises me, is to argue that the moral premise arc is somehow included in the log line. In the past I've said otherwise. I've considered the log line to be the physical premise. Yet, Bronwyn makes good points of how the moral, or psychological premise can be included. For instance, he uses this as an example:

A boxer (the hero) with a loser mentality (vice of the internal conflict) is offered a chance by the world champ (the antagonist) to fight for the title (the call to adventure) but, with the help of his lover (the ally) must learn to see himself as a winner (virtue of the inner conflict) before he can step into the ring (battle).  (Rocky).

Bronwyn's essay does a great job of merging the physical story (his objective story) with the psychological story (his subjective story).  Here's the link: More On Theme .

THE DARK KNIGHT: From Nihilism Can Hope Be Bled?

Director: CHRISTOPHER NOLAN

Writers: JONATHAN NOLAN, CHRISTOPHER NOLAN

Bruce Wayne / Batman - CHRISTIAN BALE

The Joker - HEATH LEDGER

Harvey Dent - AARON ECKHART

Alfred Pennyworth - MICHAEL CAINE

Rachel Dawes - MAGGIE GYLLENHAAL

James Gordon - GARY OLDMAN

Lucius Fox - MORGAN FREEMAN

After much encouragement from students I finally sat down and watched Christopher and Jonathan Nolan's THE DARK KNIGHT. But even then, I was interrupted three times. I started to watch it at 8 PM, and finished at 2 AM. That explains what my days are like and why it is often hard to find time to read or watch, even worthwhile projects. 

The latest prompting was a discussion I had yesterday with a student at Biola University where I am preparing to give a day long Moral Premise Workshop. I was at a disadvantage because I had not seen the film. The articulate student perceived the film as having a nihilistic worldview and not morally true. 

My only defense was that I have never seen a film that was popular with audiences and did not have a strong, true, and consistently applied moral premise. And THE DARK KNIGHT was one of the more popular films of all time. At $533MM U.S. domestic it ranks as No. 28 when adjusted for inflation, and over $1,001MM (unadjusted rank #7). So, we can say that a lot of people found satisfaction in watching this film. And I do not see evident that the major of the public are embracing nihilism, unless they're all editing newspaper tabloids.

THE MORAL PREMISE

Here's the moral-physical premise statement for THE DARK KNIGHT.

Revengeful, self-service leads to nihilistic desperation; but

Sacrificial public service leads to purposeful hope.

 

I do not have time now to write about the film, except to say this: The gleam of THE DARK KNIGHT is that the antagonist, JOKER, rather than forcing the protagonist to change for the good, actually forces the cross-protagonists (Batman and Dent) to choose different ends of the value continuum. Batman is willing to sacrifice for the good of the people of Gotham, even if it means that Gotham thinks of him as the villain. He wants the best to come to the people of the city, and so he's will to be chased into exiled, if that means good leadership and hope will return. The story points out that such is the character of a real hero. But Dent, who is ugly under the skin of his self-serving ways, falls prey to Joker's temptations and reveals the self-serving character beneath his heroic, handsome exterior.

THE DARK KNIGHT indeed has a consistently applied, true moral premise to all the main character arcs. You'll notice that each time JOKER tries to make a person or a ferry full of persons choose between who will live or die, it's ALWAYS a choice between being self-serving and public-serving. Or, in more common terms, between selfishness and selflessness.

As the movie progresses along the moral premise arc, the city begins to learn the importance of doing what is right, and refusing the temptation that Joker has put before them. Indeed, the temptation is thickest as the occupants of the two ferries debate over who will blow the other up. In the end, neither allows the temptation to be fulfilled. They all choose sacrifice and public service rather than revenge and self-service. And that gives him hope in the face of desperation.

I guess I also have to comment on the brilliance of the story's structure with respect to Batman and Dent's storylines. In the first half of the movie Batman / Bruce Wayne is encouraged that there might be a good man in Harvey Dent, and that Batman may be able to retire. Thus, Batman's "savior" status appears to pass to Dent. So, Batman and Dent become co-protagonists. But in the end they are cross-protagonists because they do not share the same arc to the end of the movie but rather cross each other, one ending tragically and the other redemptively. So, here we have a movie with two protagonists that choose opposite paths. Dent (the dent in his armor) reveals that he is truly a dark knight, underneath his skin. He is literally two-faced—truly dark.

But Batman's mask and true identity is never revealed, although Bruce Wayne is tempted to reveal himself. Why? Because Batman is not two faced. Even if you were to take off the mask, you'd find the SAME character underneath. With Harvey Dent the opposite is true.

Thus at the end, in uber-heroic character, Batman chooses to be thought of as the villain, because he HOPES that such an action will bring the people of Gotham together, and fight crime day-in-day out with his intrusion, and thus create their own HOPE,

DVD

2-Disc SpEd

Blu-Ray 2 Disc SpEd

INCEPTION: Can Dreams Become Reality? Should They?

How INCEPTION WORKS, and why it reveals that filmmaking is an act of inception. Indeed, Christopher Nolan tells us a tale of Dom Cobb that is clearly autobiographical.

This is a MORAL PREMISE ANALYSIS of the mega-hit INCEPTION.  ($160MM Budget / $289MM domestic box office.)

Writer-Producer-Director - Christopher Nolan
Length:140 min excluding credits (length used for analysis)

The analysis is based on two viewings of the film by two pairs of eyes, a lot of note taking with a stopwatch, and finally the published INSIGHT EDITION from Warner Bros of the Shooting Script (available through Amazon). The DVD was not yet available. Where my notes were incomplete I referred to the published script.

LOG LINE:  "In a world where technology exists to enter the human mind through dream invasion, a highly skilled thief is given a final chance at redemption, which involves executing his toughest and most risky job to date."

Is the Moral Premise a Misnomer?

The more time I spend time explaining things, on topics which I am supposedly an expert, the more I discover I'm not the expert -- or at least I don't know today, what I thought I clearly understood yesterday. Which reminds me again, that some of what experts believed 100 or 1,000 years ago about their discipline,  are utterly false today.

So, here is what occurred to me a few minutes ago.

The "Moral Premise" of a story, which I have been describing as enshrined in a "Moral Premise Statement" is a misnomer.

Sorry about that.

It might be better referred to as the "Moral-Physical Premise Statement (MPPS)". But that is awkward.

Here's an explanation...of what I understand today. All bets are off regarding tomorrow.

There is the "physical" arc of the story, which is also identified as the physical "hook," or the outward journey of the protagonist, or the physical spine, or  THE PHYSICAL PREMISE.

That physical story arc is paralleled by (or is a metaphor for) the psychological story arc, which is also identified as the inner journey, the moral dilemma, or spiritual journey, or moral spine, or (precisely) THE MORAL PREMISE.

What captures the audience's (or reader's) attention is the physical spine (what the story is ABOUT). But what motivates the protagonist and gives meaning to the story for the audience, is the moral spine (what the story is REALLY ABOUT).

What I have been calling the MORAL PREMISE STATEMENT (MPS) is actually a statement that marries the PHYSICAL PREMISE with the MORAL PREMISE.  E.g.:

[psychological vice] leads to [physical detriment]; but

[psychological virtue] leads to [physical betterment].

It is more accurate to describe this formula: "THE MORAL-PHYSICAL PREMISE STATEMENT (MPPS)." But I'm rebelling at the awkwardness of that, and prefer the simpler focus of the story's psychological and motivational arc - the MPS.

Why? Aside from the brevity of it, the "moral premise" is what the story is REALLY about. It is also the one aspect of the story that MUST BE true, if it's to resonate with audiences. Everything about the physical premise can be fiction; audiences don't really care about it's truth. (Just recognize the popularity of myths, or watch a Michael Moore documentary.)  It is the moral story that motivates every action of the character in the physical world. The physical world is simply symbolic, a metaphor, for what is going on beneath the surface, psychologically-morally-spiritually-emotionally. (And that's why, in part, Moore's documentaries can work with some people. The moral motivation behind his rants fundamentally seem valid and true.)

So, in that sense, putting the emphasis on the term "moral premise" is accurate. Stories really are about moral issues. It is the physical premise that brings us outward joy and entertainment -- explicitly, but it is the psychological premise that brings us inward meaning and entertainment -- implicitly. And it's the latter than sticks with us, and informs and guides our personal lives -- which are real.

So, for the time being, I will use MPS and MPPS interchangeably. They mean exactly the same thing. I proclaim them to be equivocal and the former a misnomer. "Forgive me father for I have grammatically faulted."

==== Some further thoughts ====

In an 10-20-10 email dialgoue with my student Ethan, I wrote this, which adds to this post:

The problem with what "words" to use to describe all this is that in Hollywood some of these terms are used day-in and day-out, and many are synonymous with others. You'll read or hear executives, directors, writers, gurus, et al... use the following words, and they're all referring to the same thing: hook, premise, outward story, spine, arc, hero's journey.   And a few others.

The original reason I came to the term "moral premise" is because Lajos Egri (my book is a sequel to his) wrote all about the "premise." But his use of the word in the 1940s when he wrote THE ART OF DRAMATIC WRITING was and still is confusing without a qualifier. To most the term "physical premise" refers to the physical journey, or hook. But Egri was speaking of the moral or psychological journey, not the physical one. Thus I chose the word "moral premise" to differentiate between what I (and Egri) were writing about and what most of Hollywood means when it uses the term "premise." 

But then I erred. I came up with the MPS statement, which is NOT JUST the moral premise, but is also the physical premise in general terms. The physical side of the MPS (the last terms in the two lines) is NOT the hook, or the TV guide log line, but only a very general, universal description of the arc.

Reading vertically along the left side, we have the psychological journey (or the moral premise), and reading vertically along the right side we have the physical journey (or physical premise)....in general terms. Reading left to right on the top line we have the moral to physical journey before the MOG (e.g. the protag's motivation and consequence), and reading left to right on the bottom line we have the moral to physical journey AFTER the MOG.  Altogether it's ... it's.... it's....???????  I think I need a naming contest.

Finally, the HOOK, or the LOG LINE, are very specific descriptions of the story. Whereas the Physical Premise (in the MPS) is very general.

Ideas anyone?

Virtual Workshop In Progress at Seekerville

Blogger at Seekerville today where a long post explaining the Moral Premise and its application in novels is up, and I'm busy answering writer's questions. All are welcome. It will take me a week to answer the questions.

http://seekerville.blogspot.com/2010/10/seekerville-welcomes-dr-stanley.html

CLOVERFIELD: Is There Danger in Helping Those We Care Most About?

Last night we screened CLOVERFIELD (2008) ($50MM Budget. $80MM Domestic Gross, which is surprisingly low after a noteworthy $46MM Opening Weekend. The reason is because of the ironic ending discussed in this post.)

Director: Matt Reeves
Writer: Drew Goddard

Protagonist: ROB HAWKINS (Michael Stahl-David)
Romance: BETH MCINTYRE (Odette Yustman)
Co-Protags: LILY FORD (Jessica Lucas)
MARLENA DIAMOND (Lizzy Caplan)
JASON HAWDINS (Mike Vogel)
HUDSON 'HUD' PLATT (T.J. Miller)
ANTAGONIST: The Monster (a metaphor for Rob's disbelief in the love between Beth and him.)

OVERVIEW

CLOVERFIELD is a frenetic, sci-fi thriller of a group of young adults who's going-away party for their friend, Rob, before he leaves for a job in Japan, is interrupted by a Godzilla type monster. The monster, of course, is a metaphor for the psychological trauma that ROB experiences by his decision to leave NY and the one he loves, BETH, to go to the home of Godzilla, Japan. It's a decision of monstrous proportions that is destined to destroy his life, and Beth's and also the lives of his close friends who love both of them. He's running from the one he loves, and she's losing the one she loves.

Although the movie is short (74 minutes -- the supposed length of a camcorder tape), it closely, but not perfectly, follows the 13 step pattern discussed in The Moral Premise, and other texts. The timings, however, of the page counts are compacted because of the shortened story time.  I will outline the turning points below.

THE DESCENT: Should We Follow the Over Confident?

Writer/Director: Neil Marshall (2005)

In talking with a consulting client and friend on the West Coast about horror films, we asked ourselves why the innocent die in some popular horror films.  I decided to take a look at DESCENT—Neil Marshall's 2005 story about "Six Chicks with Picks" (axes, that is). It was made in the UK for about $5.5MM and did $26MM in the US and $57MM worldwide.

The movie is about 94 minutes if you exclude the opening and closing credits. This would mean a Moment of Grace (the mid point) is at 47.7 minutes, and the two act breaks at about 24 min and 71 minutes, if ideally structured.


TURNING POINTS / BREAKS 

As I discuss below the Act 1/2 breaks occurs about 36 minutes, the group Moment of Grace (MOG) does occur exactly at 47  minutes, and the Act 2/3 break plus the MOG for the protagonist, occurs at about 75 minutes. (Below, when mentioning the structure of the turning points, that is the timing of events in the story, I refer both to minutes or pages as if they were equivalent. In reality they are not, but page counts is all a writer has to work with -- if he formats the pages correctly, and few writers do -- and minutes are all an editor has to work with.)

The story goes like this: After a white-water rafting trip for three women, a car accident kills the husband and daughter of one of the women, Sarah. A year later, to help Sarah get control of her life again and get over her nightmares and fears, her friends, two from the white water rafting trip, take her on a caving expedition in Kentucky. But the journey goes terribly wrong when they're pursued by a strange breed of predator. The question for the horror critic becomes: Why do these women all die in the cave, since they seem to be innocent of any sin?

I watched the original unrated uncut version (DVD) of THE DESCENT this afternoon and evening, and then a couple of the featurettes. [It takes me a long time to watch these things because I'm stopping every two minutes to take notes and timings. You do not want to go to the movies with me, I'm always yelling at the projectionist to stop the film for a few. Audiences hate me. I once got kicked out of a theater for using the light of my iPhone to take notes.]

SIN AND METAPHORS

In the opening scene three women (Sarah, Beth and Juno) are white water rafting.

Inspiration and a Story's Moment of Grace

Photo by Blakophoto

I am often aware that good stories come from sudden inspiration — like noticing that a morning dew drop, which scatters light into a brilliant rainbow of sparkling colors, is hanging from a weed. 

Such observations are buoyed by transcendence. They are "moments of grace" that inspire our sometimes pitiful lives to embrace hope of a better tomorrow.

Just as writers rely on inspiration or a vision of transcendent purpose, so the characters we write about also must come across their "moments of grace."

This morning, while preparing for my Story Symposium class (a monthly meeting of teens), I was reading Pope Benedict XVI's "Address to Artists" (21 November 2009) and John Paul II's "Letter to Artists" (April 4, 1999, Easter Sunday).  Yes, the Story Symposium is a group of Catholic home schoolers. How'd you guess?)

Benedict's address is filled with inspirational language, like:

Your art consists in grasping treasures from the heavenly realm of the spirit and clothing them in words, colours, forms — making them accessible. (3)(Benedict VXI Address to Artists)

But here is the passage that got me off my chair. It speaks of us as human beings looking for the solution to our lives, and to the problems that befall the characters in our stories, and how there are "moments of grace" for both. This paragraph does not just apply to the artist, but to any person (or fictional character) as they face a problem, a moral dilemma, and look for an idea or inspiration to carry them onward and upward. It may be something or a moment that is beyond current comprehension. But, just as the artist sees that dew drop hanging from a weed, so we can look for those moments of grace when we are introduced to the transcendence that makes being human, almost divine. (emphasis mine)

Dear artists, you well know that there are many impulses which, either from within or from without, can inspire your talent. Every genuine inspiration, however, contains some tremor of that “breath” with which the Creator Spirit suffused the work of creation from the very beginning. Overseeing the mysterious laws governing the universe, the divine breath of the Creator Spirit reaches out to human genius and stirs its creative power. He touches it with a kind of inner illumination which brings together the sense of the good and the beautiful, and he awakens energies of mind and heart which enable it to conceive an idea and give it form in a work of art. It is right then to speak, even if only analogically, of “moments of grace”, because the human being is able to experience in some way the Absolute who is utterly beyond. (#15)  (JPII Letter to Artists at Vatican.va)

I wish I had the quote in my book. Well, now it's on my blog.

Vanquish Fear, Bestow Hope.

Stan

Living Dead Girl: Is there a Resurrection?

We are proud to host this exclusive online debut of the newly restored HD version of Jon Springer's 35mm classic silent zombie short "Living Dead Girl."  Click HERE to play the movie.

This film is discussed on pages 114-115 of "The Moral Premise." It illustrates several things that writers need to learn. First, "Living Dead Girl" takes a well-worn genre and bends it in one new direction that connects with "zombie" audiences. Second, it illustrates how a story can be true at its core while also being violent and bloody. Third, it humorously metaphors how some in modern society can turned into zombies when it comes to spending time and money.

MORAL PREMISE

In the book I share this MPPS, since the film comes from a Catholic:

Not eating the body of Christ leads to death; but

Eating the body of Christ leads to life.

But there's another way to express the same thing from a human perspective:

Consuming what is only human leads to the walking dead; but

Consuming what is divine leads to waking up the dead. 

Like the film, this latter MPPS touches on the problems associated with conspicuous consumption (the opening scene was filmed outside the famous MALL OF AMERICA) and that change in human behavior is possible, not inevitable (e.g. a resurrection from the dead).

REVIEWER'S COMMENTS

Mitch Davis (Fantasia Film Festival)

It's been called everything from 'Christian trash art' to 'hilarious silent movie spoof', and Jon Springer's strange little zombie film is a bit of both. It's also a ride through the history of film language, incorporating 20's iris-in's, 60's docu style, 70's splatter and beyond, from Carl dreyer to George Romero, complete with a Zappa tune and an appearance by Mark Borchardt, all shot in 35mm at 18 f/p/s. Lots of grisly fun and a VERY impressive achievement.

Minneapolis City Pages

Christian trash art that has been vacuum-cleaned of messianic pomposity.

Ain't it Cool News

A hilarious silent-movie spoof...Romero-style gorefest.

Click HERE to play the movie.

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THE PLEDGE: Does Virtue Lead to Insanity?

All Star Cast... False Moral Premise... Sink Hole

Now and then I'll get feedback from readers and my shorter workshops that I should give more examples of false moral premises of otherwise good movies that do poorly at the box office to prove my point - that regardless of the cast, production quality, or director, or marketing - if you don't have a true moral premise you're doom to box offiice failure.

(But it's hard to write about things that don't exist... I mean a moral premise that either isn't there, or is so poorly formed it's hard to get a handle on it.) 

Well, I watched one tonight on DVD with Pam. It had all the promise of a great film.  THE PLEDGE stars one of my favorite actors, Jack Nicholson, and costars (in mostly cameo roles) Helen Mirren, Tom Noonan, Benicio Del Toro, Michael O'Keefe, Vanessa Redgrave, Mickey Rourke, Sam Shepard, and Patricia Clarkson. HOW COULD YOU GO WRONG, Sean Penn (director)?

Well, all you have to do is believe something that isn't true, like a false moral premise, and make a movie about it. Here's a good take what the film's really about at the psychological level. Is it true?

Child abuse and murder leads to a quick end in the fires of hell; but

Keeping your word to find justice leads to drunken insanity. 

 No, the virtues and vices are not parallel, and neither is the consequence. That's because this story was made on an idea that is without a good foundation in reality.  The movie is filled with soft falsehoods.

If we attempt to construct a moral premise that COULD have been used for this story it may be:

Child abuse and murder leads to a quick end in the fires of hell; but

Protecting children from an abuser and murdered leads to justice. 

Had Jerry and the killer been pitted against each other in a cat and mouse game, and had Jerry some how, even inadvertently, been responsible for the killer's just death or imprisoned, this latter moral premise could have saved the movie.

I don't expect you'll go see it, I surely don't recommend it, so I'll give you the short synopsis here. The longer IMBD synopsis is here: http://www.imdb.com/title/tt0237572/synopsis

Jerry Black (Nicholson) takes on one last investigation as a retiring detective. He's probably the best detective the metro department has ever had. He's still got what it takes and he's motivated. A young girl is brutally murdered and he promises the mother, against his eternal salvation, to find the guy.  Like the victim, he discovers there have been several young blond girls with red dresses and very pretty that have been gruesomely raped and murdered, and all the crimes have taken place within a few miles of this one intersection in fishing country. He buys the gas station and C-store at that intersection to stake out the place and over time find the guy. Through a drawing Chrissey drew just before she was killed, he figures he knows the guy is tall, wears a black cap, gives out porcupine gifts and candy, and drives a black station wagon. By happenstance such a little girl (Chrissey) and her single mother come to live with Jerry in the attached home. He doesn't plan it but he takes advantage of the situation and uses the little girl as a lure to get the bad guy. When it looks like he's going to have the guy cornered, the perp, on his way to get Chrissey at a picnic table in the woods that Jerry has staked out with a SWAT team, the perp is killed in a firey blaze caused by a lumber truck that looses it's load on top of the perps car. Jerry never knows this happens (although it was on the only road to and from the spot he was staking out with Chrissey as lure). So, Jerry is left holding to his pledge, into old age, nearly dead drunk, cussing at God it seems, in front of his deserted, broken down gas station. We NEVER see the perp. We never know anything about him or his motivations. But because of Jerry's selfless integrity his life is ruined and now meaningless.

The filmmakers also demonstrate disrespected their audience's intelligence by telling a story that is morally not true (see MPS above), but he also disrespects us by introducing a mind bodging number of red herrings and coincidences.  The story:

• Paints a number of Christian characters as simpleminded with IQ's in the low double digits. 
• About the time Jerry thinks of using a little girl as a lure... behold the single lady that runs the restaurant has such a little girl, Chrissey. 
• When Chrissey's father beats up her mother, mom and Chrissey comes to live with Jerry. We're reminded that she's the right age, right hair color, and when they go shopping Jerry picks out a red dress at the store. 
• Jerry is watching the little girl carefully, but yet she gets lost at a flea market, and someone mysterious gives her a porcupine tick-tac gift.  But it's not the perp.
• After promising Jerry not to talk to men without telling him, she does.
• Jerry is a fisherman and is always "catching fish" with "lures."
• The FIRST place he goes in his investigation is a Christmas store to ask directions which just happens to be where the perp lives. But we never see the perp there.
• The antagonists (the perp) never tries to stop Jerry.
• We never see the perp or learn anything about his motivation or background. 
• The co-antagonists (his old police buddies) try to dissuade Jerry from the case, but in the end they help him, but then they leave him in the woods alone. There is no real antagonist. 

I'll stop here. But here's a great example of a big budget human drama ($45MM) with an all star cast (above), and in the domestic box office is does only $19MM... which is great if you have only spent $5MM, but I suspect $40MM of that budget was in hiring the principals. The production quality is excellent. Music... oh, yeah, the music was my Hans Zimmer.... another A lister.

Nothing helps a story with a false moral premise.

Now, Mr. Penn may think he respects his audience. I mean he spent a lot of time, and perhaps some money, on this picture. But he has never impressed me as someone who has a good grip on reality. This movie only serves to reinforce that.

Can a "moral premise" be "art"?

A reader (John Conley) writes:

How true does the following Moral Premises seem to you?

1) "A Society that denounces Art and practices Falsehood collapses; but a society that celebrates Art and Truth flourishes."

Or simply put:

"Denouncing art and practicing falsehood leads to a collapsed society; but the celebrating art and practicing truth leads to a flourishing society."  

These have potential but (at face value) are problematic because of how people can casually interpret "art."  

Too many people interpret "art" as "whatever I like."  I had a friend that is an artist that had a show once that exhibited a number of paintings of a dark and grotesque society. They were depressing and I couldn't wait to leave the exhibit. On the other hand I have seen paintings and photography of the poor and homeless, and the artist has discovered the dignity of the person in the painting and  elevated the viewer's interpretation to one of hope.  (Bestow Hope!)

The Catechism of the Catholic Church helps us here understand why some art is popular and others are not. Where the art lifts up human dignity and truth people will flock to it:

Indeed, art is a distinctively human form of expression; beyond the search for the necessities of life which is common to all living creates ... art is a form of practical wisdom, uniting knowledge and skill, to give form to the TRUTH of REALITY in a language accessible to sight or hearing. ( CCC 2501. c.f. CCC 2500-2513)

As artists (screenwriters are artists) we seek what is good, true, AND BEAUTIFUL... not just because such works have an opportunity at box office success, but also because working on such things gives us a healthy satisfaction that our life counts for something meaningful to others. 

So, John,  in that respect, if "art" is presented in that uplifting and dignified manner, your statements ring true. I'd also be careful that the virtue and vice are true psychological values and not physical acts, and that the moral premise statement can be easily applied to an individual as well as society. So, I might  revise the statements in this way:

The demeaning of true art, leads to falsehoods, which leads to collapse;
but elevating true art, leads to truth, which leads to vitality.

J.C. also asked if this moral premise statement sounded true:

"Leaving your health in the hands of others leads to death; but taking your health into your own hands leads to life."

Yes it does. It is very similar to the moral premise statement I came up with for A BEAUTIFUL MIND:

Depending only on others for our well-being leads to impotency; but
Taking personal responsibility for our well-being leads to productivity

Thanks for the good questions, J.C.... they get me to blog.

Stan

The Code of Chivalry

In posting the interchange between J.C. and myself, I came across this. I think audiences would like more of the list below... slightly edited.

FAIR PLAY

• Never attack an unarmed foe.
• Never use a weapon on an opponent not equal to the attack.
• Never attack from behind.
• Avoid lying to your fellow man.
• Avoid cheating.
• Avoid torture.

NOBILITY

• Exhibit self control.
• Show respect to authority.
• Respect women.
• Obey the law.
• Administer justice.
• Protect the innocent.

VALOR

• Exhibit Courage in word and deed.
• Defend the weak and innocent.
• Avenge the wronged.
• Crush the monsters that steal our land and rob our people.
• Fight with honor.
• Never abandon a friend, ally, or noble cause.

HONOR

• Always keep one's word of honor.
• Always maintain one's principles.
• Never betray a confidence or comrade.
• Avoid deception.
• Respect life.
• Defend freedom.

COURTESY

• Exhibit manners.
• Be polite and attentive.
• Be respectful of host, authority, and women

LOYALTY

• To God, country, and the code of chivalry.
• To friends and those who lay their trust in thee.

Chivalry vs. Rashness

Discovering what your story is really about, at the moral premise level, is always a challenge. Here's a short (edited) email exchange that can shed some light on the matter.  A reader writes:

Stan,

Good morning!  I have read most of your book over the weekend and now am trying to apply the steps. But I'm stuck.

I'm working on a romantic comedy and the theme is Chivalry. Now this is where it gets confusing: I have CHIVALRY as my Virtue and IMPOLITENESS as my Vice.

My moral premise is this:
IMPOLITENESS leads to LONELINESS, but
CHIVALRY leads to SOMEONE TO SHARE LIFE with.

My hero has RASHNESS as his assigned vice and the villain has LOVE as his assigned virtue.

Am I headed in the right direction???

John Conley

Before I share my response to J.C. let me help the reader see what J.C. has done.

Notice he wants to relate to each other the virtues of CHIVALRY and LOVE.

And he wants to relate IMPOLITENESS and RASHNESS.

Now, let's go to my reply.


Dear John:

You are close.

But, you'll have to be settled in your mind that IMPOLITENESS and RASHNESS are the same thing, just different examples of it; and that CHIVALRY and LOVE are likewise the same thing and just different examples of the same virtue. But to me (and I think to your audience) they're not the same. Let me give you some examples of how I'd go about this.

"Love" is too general in my opinion to be a good core virtue. "Sacrificial love" makes more sense, because it can't be confused with "lust"... a vice. So the terms you choose need to be specific enough that they can't be confused in your mind or your audience's mind. And while you may never state the moral premise in dialogue, the ideas will come across clearly in the subtext. So you have to be careful.

Second, "chivalry" is not necessarily the same thing as "love".

In my Rodale Synonym Finder, "chivalry" is associated with these terms: brave, valor, fearlessness, daring, tenacity, justness, magnanimity, grit. (all of which surprise me because I thought "chivalry" meant "being a gentlemen and opening doors for ladies".  (My Rodale is dog eared for reasons such as this.)

Likewise, Rodale associates "rashness" with: unduly quick, hasty, reckless, careless, thoughtless, over bold, impulsive, harebrained, etc. (there's also the physical aspect of "rash" which means a skin eruption. Hmmm? Might be something to use as a metaphor.)

So, it is possible for a character to be both rash and chivalry, or rash and a good lover (either in the sacrificial or the lustful sense) -- as in "He recklessly pursued the crook with tenacity;" or "He was rashly chivalrous;" or "He was rash in his demonstration of his love for her."

Also, "impoliteness" implies a lack of concern for others, or courtesy for others, as well as being imprudently bold, or not understanding protocol or good manners. Well, maybe your character understands what good manners are but he ignores them out of selfishness or laziness.

So, open up a synonym finder and find truly opposing virtues and vices.

Good Luck,
Stan

Dear Stan,

I just finished rereading your book.  This time through I made sure to look up in the dictionary all the words that I did not know.  BIG IMPROVEMENT.  I can now apply the knowledge in your book.  Here is the moral premise for a TV show idea I'm working on.  The overall theme is "service".

"Serving others leads to prosperity; but serving one's self leads to suffering."

OR

Serving leads to prosperity; not serving leads to suffering.

What do think?!  Do I have it?

Also I picked up a copy of Rodale's Synonym Finder.  Thanks for listing it as a resource.

One last question.  What's the best way to go about finding the Tone for any particular story you are creating?  Is it just a matter of looking around for something similar or is their a method that I can use?

--Thanks, John

Dear John,

Yes your moral premise statement sounds spot on. Both versions are excellent. The psychological virtue and vice are naturally opposite as well as the physical consequences. It's worth noting that the whole point of serving others is to alleviate their suffering. But when we try to alleviate ONLY our own suffering we cut ourselves off from the services and love of others... leaving us worse off. I think the natural law in all this is that we are made to be dependent on others. You know the old adage, "no man is an island."

TONE

Part of tone comes from the genre. Another part is the thread produced by the moral premise, assuming you consistently apply it. Tone also involves, obviously, emotion. You can have scenes that have elements that are mean spirited, but the overall tone of the movie will be dependent on how the filmmaker portrays the consequence of the mean spiritedness. (Example: AS GOOD AS IT GETS: Protagonist Melvin Udall (Jack Nicholson) is as mean spirited as a character can get without committing a crime. But we have compassion for him because his OCD is so humorously displayed; we understand where he's coming from and we root for him to change. And by God's grace, by the end of the movie, thanks to his antagonist, Carol Connelly (Helen Hunt) he does.)

If a character is mean spirited, are the others in the scene also mean spirited out of revenge or do they illustrate compassion toward the person who is mean spirited? When my wife gets angry with me, am I angry back at her? The answer to that is, unfortunately, too often, yes. That results in an angry tone. But if I could be compassionate and connect better with her feelings, the overall tone might be one of consideration and compassion, accentuated by the contrast. The audience will naturally gravitate toward the virtue, which they know they'd prefer in real life.

What you suggest is an excellent way for any of the elements of a film. Copy the masters. All new stories have antecedents, that is, other films that have similar elements. Study them. Watch them over and over. Get the sense, the rhythm, the sequence of plot points. You might do well to replicate it (beat for beat in your own story) and see if you learn anything. No doubt you will.

Stan

What's Lindsay Lohan's Psychological Story Spine?

"Inspiration you will not find. It will find you." (George's professor,  "George Lucas in Love." )

That wonderful line is repeated in a more common form by George's "girlfriend" when she kisses him on the cheek and tells him, "Just write what you know." But how are you going to know what you need to write?

But if you do KNOW, what a liberating feeling for writers of any genre. Instead of knocking writer's block out of your head, become an expert on something. Who will dare argue with you then.

So, what has any of that to do with our latest new "love child," Lindsay Lohan?  Plenty.

But first, a comment about the picture at right, obviously taken during her more "natural" period, when she was feeling healthy and confident. She's a pretty girl, with a disarming, comfortable smile. I think this picture reveals her "true essence" and not the spoiled brat image she's more recently be able to convey as she  headed off to jail to have her hair extensions and false eyelashes removed by the guards (after she refused to do it on their own).

Do you see the character arc here? It's abundant. And I hope that Lindsay will be able to learn much about her true, natural beauty while sitting in her cell.  But, let's get back to the point.

"What point is that, Stan?"

Well, ah .... that characters you write about in your stories must reflect the true essence and real (but false) masks that regular people are and pretend to be. The artists that we revere, like Norman Rockwell, and even the great masters of the last centuries, frequently used real people to sit as models for their paintings.

Write what you know.

As fictional writers we sometimes get credit for "making up and creating" great characters. But, let's be honest. You're better off using real people as models. You'll stay more true to their true essence and false masks.

Usually, however, although we "watch" and contemplate those around us and in the news, we still may not know what makes them tick. We see the nuisances of their life, but what's driving them? Is there a childhood wound? Was the individual's parents as mentally deranged as our loving neighbor seems to be? What's the motivation for their erratic (and entertaining) behavior?  The problem is WE REALLY DON'T KNOW... but we need to know (even a tiny bit more) if we're going to write competently.


THE $4.95 WRITER'S AID

One day, while trying to figure out the personality disorders of some students, I was walking through a college bookstore. As I turned a corner I was almost run down by a seven-foot rack containing dozens of colorful, laminated Academic QuickStudy.com aids. Printed on three-hold punched, plasticized, tightly packed text cards, were the answers to all the college exams ever given. There was one for Physics, American History, Biology, Calculus, French and dozens more. And then I saw it, the answer to ever writer's dream. It was titled "PSYCHOLOGY: ABNORMAL" (emphasis in the original).

Like God guiding my hand I lifted it quickly from the rack. I started to drool. The colorful boxes were labeled with titles that lite up like flashing neon signs on a dark night: "MENTAL ILLNESS...Criteria & Definitions, Causal Factors, Cause of Disorders, Classification & Diagnosis, Treatments, General Causes of Abnormality."  Opening up the card (it's one 11 x 17 inch laminated sheet folded to 8.5 x 11) there are short, understandable descriptions of disorders usually first diagnosed in infancy, childhood, or adolescence (e.g. childhood wounds), Anxiety Disorders, Substance Related Disorders, Mood Disordeers, and it goes on and on -- with fairly specific descriptions like this one:

Dissociative Fugue: Characterized by episodes of sudden, unexpected travel away from home or one's ordinary place of work, accompanied by an inability to recall one's past and confusion about personality or the assumption of a new identity.

That could be the diagnosis of Colton Harris-Moore (aka "the Barefoot Bandit"), accompanied by:

Antisocial Personality Disorder: A pervasive pattern of disregard for, and violation of, the rights of others that begins in childhood..."

Has anyone talked to his mom lately, who considered Colton her hero.

As for Lindsay Lohan, well, as I read the story about her refusal to take out her hair extensions, remove her false eye lashes, and how she had collagen lip implants just before entering jail,  there's this:

Body Dysmorphic Disorder: The preoccupation with an exaggerated or imagined effect in physical appearance.

Or

Histrionic Personality Disorder: Characterized by pervasive and excessive emotionality and attention-seeking behavior, originating in early adulthood and manifesting in a variety of contexts.  Individual feels uncomfortable and unappreciated if he/she is not the center of attention. Individuals with this disorder will often behave in a melodramatic, histrionic, and flirtatious manner.

Then, again, she could be suffering simply from:

Immaturity: Maturity level is below the degree of what is expected at specified age or social milieu.

What's nice about the Quick Study aid is the focused summation of personality and psychological descriptions that would all a writer to focus the behavior of a character to a specific set of actions. 

Shirley Sherrod the NAACP: What Can We Learn About Storytelling?

The developing story about Shirley Sherrod, who is black, and who was (is/will again be) the Agriculture Department's director of rural development in Georgia, provides us with important lessons in dramatic story writing.

In Ms. Sherrod's case the video of her speaking to an NAACP chapter that was released by conservative bloggers, was snipped from a larger story that revealed the context, or truth, of her remarks. In other words, what the clipped video tells us is not the whole story, nor is it true of her perspective on race.  

What made her edited remarks news-dramatic, entertaining, provocative, and "got people to the theater," were four dramatic elements that WILL help every fictional story we create. 

1) JUXTAPOSITION OF SCENE. The story about her (a black lady)

IRELAND: A Story of Love Betrayed.

In Ireland...

"The Greatest Wound ... in This Present Crisis Is the Betrayal of Love"

Below I provide a clip and then a link to a document I copied from the ZENIT NEWS SERVICE, 7-10-10. It is instructive but not because it's from a Catholic Cardinal who addresses the recent priestly-sex-crisis in an emotionally torn Ireland. It is instructive because it explicitly explains the importance of stories in a culture torn by troubles — troubles that are abrupt turning points, where protagonists make moral decisions, and change history forever. That is what happens in real life stories, and that is what must happen in our fictional stories.

As the title of the Cardinal's talk can be put into moral premise terms:

"The Betrayal of Love leads to the Greatest Wound; but the faithfulness of Love leads to the Greatest Healing."

Stan Williams

* * *
Cardinal Murphy-O'Connor Addresses Ireland's Priests

MAYNOOTH, Ireland, JULY 10, 2010 (Zenit.org).- Here is the address Cardinal Cormac Murphy-O'Connor, the retired archbishop of Westminster, delivered June 15 at the Maynooth Union Celebrations to mark the end of the Year for Priests. The address was written and the invitation extended prior to his appointment by Benedict XVI as the apostolic visitor for the Archdiocese of Armagh.

* * *

I am delighted to be with you this afternoon and I am very pleased so many of you are here. Perhaps before I begin I should say that this address was just about completed before my appointment by Pope Benedict as one of those involved in the Visitation here in Ireland.

When we come together on these anniversary occasions we have plenty of stories to tell. Being Irish it would be strange if we didn’t. Stories are important. They carry our history, our experience, our humour and our pain. When we tell them, we again put shape on a life and a history. Sometimes, they carry a memory of which we can’t let go. Often, they carry a moment, a person, an experience that still nourishes us. In sharing our stories we share ourselves and express not only our past but also our future hopes.

As well as our personal stories, there are also the grand ones; those that have shaped the identity of the nation and of the Church. How many times has the story of Ireland been told - its sorrow and its triumphs? To how many foreign lands has that story been carried by generations?

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