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ALL IN THE SCRIPT!

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Dramatic Structure in Narrative Film

John Alexander
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All In The Script!
Dramatic Structure in Narrative Film!
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"If it's all in the script, why make the picture?" Nicholas Ray!
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“Informative, intelligent and fun to read… makes a strong case for
the film writer, and rightly so, neglected as they have by film
history…” Carl-Johan de Geer, Chaplin 1/1993!
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Cover: The Seventh Seal — ‘That scene where they dance along the horizon? We’d
packed up for the evening ready to go home. Suddenly I saw a cloud and Fischer
swung his camera up. Some actors and gone, so grips had to stand in. The whole
scene was improvised in then minutes.’ Ingmar Bergman


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ALL IN THE SCRIPT!
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Dramatic Structure in Narrative Film!
Second Edition.!
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John Alexander!
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First published 1991!
Reprinted 1994, 1995 !
Revised Second Edition 1997!
Reprinted 2006!
ISBN 0 906756 04 9!
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© 1991, 1997 John Alexander!
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Inter•Media•Publications!
Tjällmora, 134 61 Ingarö, Sweden!
www.johnalexander.se!
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Acknowledgements!
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Thanks to William Boyd and Hamish Hamilton (Publishers) Ltd for permission to reprint
extracts from The New Confessions.!
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Foreign films are listed by their English title in the text and under both their original and
translated titles in the index. For the sake of clarity and convention, films are ascribed by
director. A filmography credits film screenplays to the screenwriter and original source
material.!
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 Contents!
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! Introduction! ! ! 7!
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PART ONE: FORM 13!
! Image ! !
! The Shot • Short Cuts • Long Takes !
! Sound !
! Dialogue • Music • Effects
! !
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PART TWO: STRUCTURE! ! 51!
! Conflict !
! Dramatic Form !
! Classical Hollywood Structure !
! Alternative Dramatic Structure !
! A Cinematic Form • Feminist Cinema
! ! !
PART THREE: NARRATIVE! 142 !
! Story ! !
! Theme • Opening • Ending ! ! !
! Stories Within Stories ! !
! Scene • Sequence • Sub-plot !
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PART FOUR: CHARACTER 180!
! The Wounded Hero ! !
! The Shadow ! ! !
! Archetypes of the Collective Unconscious !

Notes


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Filmography ! ! 224 !
Glossary ! ! 226 !
References ! ! 230 !
Film Titles! ! ! 232

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! !
Orson Welles on the RKO studio set with cinemaphotographer, Gregg Toland, during
the making of Citizen Kane, Hollywood 1941. More than fifty years on the film is
regarded as a masterpiece of the cinema. So who wrote the script? 

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Introduction!
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“Audiences don’t know anyone writes a picture,” says
screenwriter Joe Gillis to silent screen star, Norma Desmond.
(Sunset Boulevard, 1950) “They think the actors make up the
words as they go along.” But a film always begins as a script, as
words on paper. In the process of transforming the written story
into the sounds and images that make up the story projected onto
the screen, a variety of creative elements come into play. Let us
first distinguish what is ‘in the script’, and what isn’t. A screenplay
consists of a story described in scene settings and dialogue. The
way in which the story is interpreted is not ‘in the script’ and
therein lies the process of making a film. The writer writes the
story and the production team realise words into form. The
direction, interpretation of roles, sound and image and design,
make up the elements over which a writer has no influence. When
director, Nicholas Ray, suggests there’s little point in making the
picture ‘if it’s all in the script’, he refers to the elements of film
making beyond the limitations of the screenplay.

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Sometimes the interpretation of the story is better than the original
material. Alfred Hitchcock was one director with a knack for
transforming mediocre stories into films of brilliance. Francois
Truffaut another. The uneasy balance between content and style,
film narrative and film form, is a dynamic that has created the
most universal and accessible of all narrative forms.

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A century ago, the cinema began as a means of recording the
events of everyday life. For the Frenchman, Louis Lumiere, his
first successful projections of moving pictures were an extension
of his craft as photographer. A year later George Melies applied
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Lumiere’s technology to the first of over 500 ‘trick films’ which he
produced over a period of 16 years. Cinema moved quickly from
description to narrative. Melies soon began adapting literary
works, and some of his early films are drawn from chapters of
novel’s of his day, including Rider Haggard’s She (The Pillar of
Fire - La Danse de Feu, 1899), Bram Stoker’s Dracula (The
Devil’s Castle - Le Manoir du Diable, 1896) and the science
fiction stories of Jules Verne and H G Wells, (Trip to the Moon -
Le Voyage Dans La Lune, 1902).

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The technology of the cinematographe developed quickly,
and with it, a narrative form. Within 20 years, influenced by
D W Griffith and others, the fiction film had become a
conventionalised narrative form. The conventions were
drawn principally from the novel and the theatre, and the
'poetic arts' outlined by Aristotle some three hundred years
BC. The vocabulary of the cinema is still the vocabulary of
drama and literature.!
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In The Poetics, the oldest surviving record of dramatic
analysis, Aristotle defined three narrative forms; Dramatic,
Epic and Lyric. These definitions can still be applied to
contemporary cinema. Most Hollywood films are structured
to a dramatic form outlined by Aristotle over two thousand
years ago.!
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"Every tragedy has six constituents, which will determine its
quality. They are plot, character, diction, thought, spectacle,
and song." (The Poetics, Chapter Six). "Of these elements",
he writes, "the most important is the plot, the ordering of
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the incidents; for tragedy is a representation, not of men, but
of action and life..." These narrative components have their
correspondences in contemporary film. Aristotle describes
"plot and character" as "the media in which the action is
represented", 'diction', refers to dialogue; 'thought', the
theme or premise, 'spectacle', the combined elements of
mise-en-scene and editing; and 'song' - the soundtrack's film
score.!
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Aristotle's somewhat contentious claim that; "Plot is the first
essential of tragedy", and that, "character takes second
place..." at least serves to distinguish the principle
components of the dramatic narrative. There are films which
emphasise character, and there are films which accentuate
plot. Truffaut refers to 'situation films' and 'character films'.
To suggest that one type of film is superior to another would
be inappropriate. Plot and character are integral to drama
and classifying them as competing elements is a process
itself subject to debate.!
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What is the distinction between plot and story? The plot
describes the chronological sequence of events as viewed by
the spectator. The story is the sum total of that chain of
events as interpreted by the spectator. The plot is the
narrative's driving force describing its movement from
beginning to end. The beginning represents a state of
balance, and the end represents a return to that state. A
crisis upsets the balance in order to set the narrative in
motion. A story presents us with a crisis, or dilemma, or
problem and with its resolution, a return to order. Its
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function, argues Aristotle, is catharsis, the cleansing of the
spirit.!
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A narrative has a narrator, a story has a teller. Who 'tells' the
stories of the cinema? The director? The writer? The issue
has been unduly complicated by the film critic's explorative
eye seeking 'authorship' and inevitably attributing it to the
film's director. But film making is a collaborative enterprise,
and as to ascertaining the creative impulse, each film must
surely be evaluated on its own merits. Most films directed
by Ingmar Bergman, are 'Ingmar Bergman films'. Margeurite
Duras's India Song, is certainly a film by Margeurite Duras.
Hiroshima Mon Amour is a collaboration between Duras,
the writer, and Alan Resnais, the director. In a film such as
The Third Man, the collaborative nature of film is readily
apparent. Carol Reed, the director, and Grahame Greene, the
author, collaborated on a story suggested by producer and
entrepreneur, Alexander Korda. Robert Krasker received an
academy award for the photography, and his visual style is
evident in films such as Brief Encounter and Odd Man Out.
And what are the recollections of the film that remain now?
The zither playing of Anton Karas, and the face of Orson
Welles?!
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In the days of the silent cinema, film entrepreneur, Mack
Sennett, hired ‘wild men' to inspire the film team with
cinema stories and bizarre ideas. Ever since, the film writer
has been the eccentric on the periphery of the actual
business of making films, which is left to producers,
directors, actors and the collective which makes up the film
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production team. The story is simply the element to set the
process of filmmaking in motion.!
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The film industry's nonchalance toward the author can in
part be attributed to the cinema's dubious parentage. As the
bastard child of the carnival side-show on the one hand, and
the theatre on the other, the writer is erroneously suspected
as part of the conspiracy to devise spectacle rather than
substance. The French term 'auteur' referred to 'authors' of
cinematic style, rather than authors of narrative.!
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Yet, as the novel liberated the imagination of the 18th
century, so has the cinema in the 20th century, with all its
rewards and dangers.!
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Finally, a note on how this book is arranged. It consists of
four parts: Form, Structure, Narrative and Character. As a
viewer this sequence represents the way in which a film is
perceived. The 'form' is the film's 'mode of existence', a
mould in which the substances of celluloid and magnetic
tape convey the sounds and images to our physical senses.
Structure involves a system of organising and arranging the
sum total of the dramatic components into a unified entity.
This entity is the narrative - an account of events which
make up the story. Where structure provides an analytical
systemizing of these events, the narrative arouses 'feelings'.
Central to narrative is 'character'. Originally this Greek
word meant 'an engraving instrument', suggesting that
'character' consists of aspects which mark the personality

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distinguishing one individual from another. In a narrative
the character intiates the story-telling process.!
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This sequence - Form, Structure, Narrative and Character -
represents the reverse order of the creative procedure
involved in writing a screenplay. The writer begins with a
character and places the character within the framework of
a series of events which make up a story. The story is
arranged into the conventions of a dramatic structure,
which becomes the sounds and images of the film projected
onto the screen before us.!

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Odd Man Out, The Third Man,
Brief Encounter: Robert Krasker,
cinematographer.

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PART ONE: FORM!
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"All film technique, I am convinced, originates in dreaming. We could dream slow
motion before the moving camera was invented. In our dreams we could cut between
parallel actions, we assembled montage shots before some self-important Russian
claimed to show us how. This is where film derives its particular power. It recreates
on screen what has been going on in our unconscious." William Boyd: The New
Confessions.!
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The mechanics of film making have not changed much since
its beginnings. The last significant innovation was the
advent of sound in the late 1920's. Since then the film
making process has consisted of a camera to record the
image, and a microphone to record the sound. The
developed film is cut and spliced together with the sound
tape on an editing table, and when the two collude to the
satisfaction of those involved, the end result is enlarged
through a projector onto a screen. The one advantage that
this antiquated means of displaying moving images has
over the electronic image, is that whereas the quality of the
electronic image deteriorates the larger it becomes, the film
image simply gets larger.!
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The projected film consists of a series of images measuring
16, 35 or 70mm in width, 24 of which make one second. The
soundtrack consists of a thin band of magnetic tape which
runs down the side of the film and is amplified by a pick-up
built into the projector. The editing table, on which the final
cut is decided, facilitates the process of cutting up the
desired pieces of film and sound tape, and sticking them

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together. Early silent films were literally 'scissors and paste'
jobs.!
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For the writer, film form provides parameters within which the
fiction narrative can be recorded as image or sound. Whereas the
novel describes internal processes in which the reader is invited to
partake of the thoughts and considerations of the literary character,
the fiction film is told in tangibles - through what can be seen and
what can be heard. There are no adjectives in the film story - only
nouns and verbs.

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Image!
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The frame is the smallest narrative unit, a twenty fourth of a
second representing one single image. A scene in Charlie
Chaplin's Easy Street (1917) begins with Chaplin walking
into a street, terrorised by a particularly tough hoodlum.
The single image shows Chaplin in the top left of the frame,
a small figure in the distance, dressed in a policeman's
uniform. Occupying the right side of the frame, is the
hoodlum himself, dressed in black trousers, a striped jersey,
and a policeman's hat which barely fits his large head. By
his feet and scattered on the road side are the remains of
more policemen's uniforms. The frame is divided by a lamp
post, on which a street sign can be read. It says 'Easy Street',
and the image suggests conflict.!
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The film image is a narrative unit devised to say the
most by showing the least. "The size of the image is used for
dramatic purposes, and not merely to establish the
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background," says Alfred Hitchcock. A man wearing three
stripes on his arm behind a counter is enough to establish a
police station. A shot of the actual police station should be
used for dramatic effect rather than exposition.!
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An early sequence in Fritz Lang's film, M (1931), shows a
little girl, Elsie Beckmann, as "she stops by a circular pillar
and starts throwing her ball against it. The camera follows
the ball and tracks in to one of the posters; '10,000 Marks
Reward. Who is the Murderer?' As the ball continues to
bounce against the poster, the shadow of a man in a hat falls
across the pillar; it is the shadow of the murderer.”!
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Kurosawa's Yojimbo (1961) begins with a roaming
samurai entering a dusty and foresaken town. Across a
deserted street a dog carries a human arm in his mouth.
This striking image establishes a mood of violence and the
unexpected. Sergio Leone's remake, A Fistfull of Dollars
(1964), which transfers the story from feudal to Japan to a
mythical Italian/Spanish 'west', did not neglect to include
Kurosawa's opening. In Kurosawa's Rashomon (1951), a
scene calls for the humiliation of a noble woman who is
raped by a bandit. Her husband is tied to a tree. The rape
occurs off-screen - Kurosawa shows a close-up of her
elegant and manicured hand, extended from the sleeve of
her fine silk kimono, digging frantically into the soil.!
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A paradoxical image creates intrigue; in Henry
Hathaway's film, Foreign Diplomat (1952), a woman sitting
on the arm of a lounge chair, passionately kisses a seated
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man. She reaches to a table (centre screen foreground) on
which a revolver and an attaché case is placed. Her fingers
stretch toward the revolver.!
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M (Fritz Lang, 1931). Saying the most by showing the least. A ball bounces off a
column, against a poster which reads: "10,000 Marks Reward. Who is the
Murderer?" The off-screen sound of a little girl laughing. The looming shadow of a
stranger; his voice: 'What a pretty ball. What's your name?' !
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 Such images border on fetishism and the cinema-tic
image frequently exploits the implied eroticism of non-
sexual objects, intrinsic to the nature of the passive gaze. In
film noir for example, the portrayal of a woman's legs may
suggest female duplicity (exhibitionism) and male gullibility
(voyeurism).!
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A double image, usually a dissolve, consists of one
picture superimposed on another. In most cases the dissolve
is simply a transition from one shot to another, usually to
mark a passage of time. However, the ellipsis of the
dissolve, may be exploited for a dramatic or narrative point.
In Double Indemnity (Wilder, 1944), after insurance
salesman, Walter Neff's first highly charged encounter with
the alluring Phyllis Dietrichsen (ankle bracelet first), he
drives off in his motor car savouring an anticipated sexual
conquest. The slow dissolve shows Neff in MCU, face-on, at
the steering wheel and smiling benignly; meanwhile the
image of Phyllis Dietrichsen, in a whole profile standing by
the door to see him out, fades out slowly. But she also wears
a benign smile, anticipating Neff's usefulness, rather than
his sexual prowess.!
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The Shot !
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A shot is an uninterrupted series of frames. At its briefest
a shot may consist of a single frame; an ellipsis of one 24th
of a second - at its longest, up to ten minutes; a complete
magazine of film. The average length of a shot in a
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commercial film is about ten seconds. Editing entails joining
the shots together to form a narrative sequence. The editing
process provides the filmmaker the possibility of
restructuring time. A climactic sequence which may last a
second or less in 'real time', can be protracted by editing
together a series of shots. The single shot photographed at
correct speed (i.e.; 24 fps) records 'real time'. In Truffaut's
Soft Skin (La Peau Douce; 1965), a woman enters a
restaurant, takes out a shot-gun, and shoots down her
unfaithful husband at his dining table. The shot, literally
and cinematically, is repeated from different angles in order
to prolong the moment of 'dramatic impact'. !
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Editing is also used to bridge passages of time, for
example, by match-action cutting. In 2001: A Space Odyssey,
(1968) Stanley Kubrick bridged pre-history to the space age,
matching a prehistoric bone thrown into the heavens, to a
similarly shaped space vehicle orbiting the earth in the late
twentieth century. In a single cut Kubrick describes the
evolutionary cycle of mankind's forebears to the near future.!
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Similarly, Hitchcock uses a match-action cut at the end
of North by Northwest (1959), when Cary Grant and Eva
Marie Saint face 'certain death' on the rocks of Mt
Rushmore. From between Cary Grant's outstretched arm
pulling his new bride up to a train couchette from the
preceding shot matched to his arm pulling her from 'certain
death' on Mt Rushmore, the couple have been saved from
the villains by a US intelligence agency, gotten married, and
embarked on their honeymoon.!
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 The Hollywood film style emphasises unobtrusive
editing - the invisible cut, devised to intrude into the
narrative flow as little as possible. Each shot relates to the
preceding shot so that sequences are constructed with
minimum eye scan. The common order of a narrative
sequence begins with an 'establishing' long shot, leading to
a medium shot, and finally to the close-up. In the absence of
a 'smooth edit', the uninterrupted flow of movement is
resolved by other means; a fade, or dissolve, sound, music,
or a component of the narrative itself. Editing as a means of
strengthening and manipulating the narrative, as opposed
to merely joining together narrative sequences, was
exploited with overwhelming affect by D W Griffith in his
later films, Birth of a Nation (1915) and Intolerance (1916). !
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A copy of Intolerance was smuggled into the Soviet
Union via Germany in 1917 and had been seen by
Pudovkin, Eisenstein and other leading Soviet film directors
by 1919. The director, Leonid Trauberg, wrote a letter to
Griffith in 1936, saying the film had been a great influence
on Soviet film.!
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Pudovkin, however, had his own ideas concerning
editing; he wrote that a single image only had a meaning in
a combination with other images. He gave an example that
three images; a smiling man, a revolver, and a frightened
man, in one sequence portray a coward; however, when the
sequence is reversed, the images portray a hero. He
describes an experiment with his colleague, Kuleshov;
where the close-up of an actor, Mosjukhin, is shown with
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three different images; "In the first combination the close-up
of Mosjukhin was immediately followed by a plate of soup.
In the second combination the face of Mosjukhin was joined
to shots showing a coffin in which lay a dead woman. In the
third the close-up was followed by a little girl playing with
a funny toy bear. When we showed the three combinations
to an audience which had not been let into the secret and the
result was terrific. The public raved about the acting of the
artist. They pointed out his heavy pensiveness of his mood
over the forgotten soup, were touched and moved by the
deep sorrow with which he looked on the dead woman, and
admired the light, happy smile with which he surveyed the
girl at play. But we knew that in all three cases the face was
exactly the same.”!
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Hitchcock calls this, "the purest expression of cinema",
and the inspiration behind Rear Window (1954); "You have
an immobilized man looking out. That's one part of the film.
The second part shows what he sees and the third part
shows how he reacts. This is the purest expression of a
cinematic idea."!
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Short Cuts - Montage!
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In the 1920's Eisenstein experimented with different
editing techniques; tonal cutting - continuity achieved by
the gradual lightening and darkening of shots in a sequence;
directional cutting - a flow of movement in one shot to the
next establishing continuity; cutting on form or shape -
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where the curve of an arm is cut to a bend in a parasol, then
cut to a curve in an arch. He defined five different types of
montage; metric, rhythmic, tonal, overtonal, and intellectual
(i.e., presenting abstract ideas intellectually). Unlike the
Hollywood style of editing, Eisenstein considered montage
a creative process of joining two images to create a new
meaning.!
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Eisenstein claimed that inspiration behind what he
called his 'collision editing' was the Japanese kanji
characters - picture-words which combined two different
elements to create a third; water and eye combined to form
'crying'; knife and heart combined to form 'sorrow'; mouth
and bird joined to form the character for 'song'; man and
mountain formed 'immortal'.!
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Grigori Kozintsev, co-director of New Babylon (1926) and
versions of Hamlet and King Lear, wrote; "I find myself
thinking of Eisenstein's vision when I watch the films of
other and more recent directors. When I saw Ingmar
Bergman's Persona for example, I said to myself; 'But this is
surely what Eisenstein tried vainly to do in Hollywood forty
years ago.’"!
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The opening montage sequence of Persona (1966)
suggests a film giving birth to itself. We see:!
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1. Blank frames running through a projector.!
2. An image of an erect penis. (Cut from some prints).!
3. Blank frames.!
4. A film projector in CU.!
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 5. A 'Start' leader, and the countdown.!
6. An animated film; a primitive image of a seated little girl, upside down.!
7. Projector machinery in CU.!
8. A pair of child's hands.!
9. A sequence from a silent film farce; a skeleton jumps out of a box and startles
a man in a nightshirt. (The sequence is from Prison (1948), an early Bergman film).!
10. A crawling spider in CU. (cf. Through a Glass Darkly (1958) "I have seen
God in the form of a spider...")!
11. A man's hands with the body of a dead hare.!
12. CU of man's hand; a nail being driven through it.!
13. The countryside in winter.!
14. The exterior of a church. !
15. An old person's face in CU.!
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The sequence continues with images of an old woman,
apparently dead, and culminates with a young boy on a
bed, who gets up and stands before a blown up image of a
young woman's face. The opening credits appear, and the
story begins. However, the narrative is interrupted at
intervals, by a montage of images, or even no images at all -
just blank frames flickering through a projector. The effect is
to continually refer the narrative back to the film medium.!
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The montage sequence functions on the level of
associations. There are references to Bergman's own films,
but also to the development of film itself. The overall
impression is that of a story struggling to break through the
surface of the celluloid - the word 'film' means surface - and
occasionally the physical form re-asserts itself, subjugating
the narrative to its own demands for attention.!
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Montage enables the filmmaker to restructure time. Two
or more narrative lines can develop parallel to each other -
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within a film, as in Intolerance, which contains stories from
four different historical periods, or within a scene, as in a
sequence from Fritz Lang's Metropolis (1926). Fredersen, the
city's tyrant ruler, has a robot constructed in the form of
Maria, a beautiful young woman, who represents a figure of
redemption for the enslaved workers, and the woman with
whom Fredersen's son, Freder, has fallen in love. When the
young Freder sees the 'false' Maria together with his father,
he collapses, and in hallucinations brought about by
delerium, envisages the downfall of the city, brought about
by the 'evil' Maria. We see the robot Maria entertaining the
powerful men and business leaders of the city. She dances
wickedly and a montage of glaring male eyes conveys the
power she has over these men. (Lang has used this affect in
Rancho Notorious (1952), Fury (1936), and others) where a
montage of close-ups of eyes shows the fanatic rage of a
mob). Shots of Maria inciting the group of men are
interspersed with Freder in a feverous rage in his room, as
he simultaneously envisages statues of the Seven Deadly
Sins, and the figure of the Grim Reaper, come to life and
advance slowly toward him, swinging his scythe, as though
to emphasise a threat of castration, as Freder collapses onto
his bed.!
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In Don't Look Now (1973), Nicolas Roeg disrupts the
continuity of time in a love scene between the story's
husband and wife. Shots of before, after and during the love
making are re-arranged into fragments, that, as they walk
into a hotel lobby, function as segments of the memory of
the event, implying that the mind's recollections are not
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based on a chronology, but on the intensity of the
experience.!
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A jump cut, the splicing of two pieces of film that create a
noticeably abrupt movement of the subject, may contravene
Hollywood's unwritten regulations governing the 'invisible'
continuity of action, but it can also be used functionally.
Because a jump cut draws attention to the film's editing, for
some film makers it is a means of achieving a dramatic
affect. Jean-Luc Godard used jump-cuts in Breathless (1959)
to create a character, an aspiring small time criminal,
inspired by comics and Hollywood gangster films, who's
'out of rhythm' with the world around him. His experiences
become fragments of frantic action; the disharmony of his
life-style matched by the disharmony of the cutting. Martin
Scorsese achieved a similar affect with Taxi Driver (1975);
Travis Bickle (Robert de Niro), a lone insomniac and
alienated figure of vengeance perceives a hostile city
through the closed window of a prowling taxi - the discord
of the intercut images mirror the chaos and discord within
himself.!
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Long Takes - Mise-en-scene!
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The mise-en-scene (a theatrical term; 'put on stage') refers to
all that is staged in front of the camera. Montage is the
'building up' of a scene by editing. Montage and mise-en-
scene, are aspects of the film making process not 'in the
script'. Also 'not in the script' are those elements relating to
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the mise-en-scene: picture composition, picture size, camera
angle, camera movement, lighting, scenography and
performance. !
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A sequence shot is the final result of a long take involving
varying degrees of complication in action and camera
movements. The mise-en-scene of a long take best illustrates
the components of filming which take place before the
camera. Writers new to the screenplay form are keen to
share their expertise in camera mobility and voice
intonation by describing camera movements and the
interpretation of dialogue lines upon the written page. They
are invariably ignored, based on the principle that the script
is for 'telling the story' and the 'how it is to be told' is up to
the creative efforts of those involved with the material
moulding of the script.!
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Andrei Tarkovsky begins and ends The Sacrifice (1985) with
takes exceeding seven minutes, and in his six completed
feature films the long take dominates as a form of cinematic
expression. "I reject the principles of 'montage cinema'
because they do not allow the film to continue beyond the
edges of the screen: they do not allow the audience to bring
personal experience to bear on what is in front of them,"
writes Tarkovsky in his book, Sculpting in Time. "'Montage
cinema' presents the audience with puzzles and riddles,
makes them decipher symbols, take pleasure in allegories,
appealing all the time to their intellectual experience."!
"
25
In Polanski's Cul-de-Sac (1966) an eight minute sequence
shot shows Donald Pleasance, on a beach outside his castle
home, discuss-ing his marital problems with a gangster
called Stander. During their conversation, his wife,
(Francoise Dorleac) takes a dip in the sea. A plane flies
overhead which Stander mistakes for a rescue plane sent by
his colleague, Katelbach. He realises he is mistaken, pulls
out his gun and starts shooting at the plane. The noise of the
shots brings Francoise Dorleac out of the sea.!
"
"I wanted to stage this scene in a single shot at the magic
hour before dusk," writes Polanski, "bringing the plane into
frame without a cut. Long takes are always preferable when
filming emotional scenes because they enable the actors to
stay right inside their roles. However, in this case, even Gil
Taylor the cameraman, insisted it couldn't be done. Getting
aeroplanes to appear on cue was an impossibility.!
"
“Halfway through the third take, Pleasance and Stander
were doing their stuff beautifully, when Francoise came out
of the sea and fainted because of the cold... The next day we
shot seven minutes and 47 seconds of screen time in that
one shot, packed up and left Holy Island on the same day."!
"
In the opening sequence shot of Polanski's Tess (1979) the
camera follows villagers and musicians along a country lane
- an elaborate four minute shot marred by the shadow of the
film team during the course of 300 degree rotation.!
"
26
Alfred Hitchcock made Rope (1948) to appear as though the
film consists of one long take lasting 80 minutes. As a
camera magazine holds ten minutes of film, eight sequences
were joined together at unobtrusive points (one take ending
at a close-up on some-one's back, and the next take
beginning at the same point) to give the impression of a
continuous take. Rope, Hitchcock's first colour film, was
based on Patrick Hamilton's play about two college students
unmotivated murder of a colleague. "Murder is a crime for
most, but a privilege for a few", says their professor (James
Stewart), who unwittingly becomes drawn into their
macabre deed.!
"
"I undertook Rope as a stunt", Hitchcock told Truffaut; "I got
this crazy idea to do it in a single shot... It was quite
nonsensical because I was breaking my own theories on the
importance of cutting and montage. However, the mobility
of the camera and the movement of the players closely
followed my usual cutting practice." !
"
Since Rope no film director has attempted to create the
illusion of a commercial feature film to appear as one long
unbroken take. Is the unbroken take too demanding for the
eyes? The film 'cut' has its physical correspondence with the
eye blink, which occurs about every two to ten seconds,
lasting .04 seconds. The average length of a take in a
commercial feature film is about ten seconds. The blinking
reflex can be halted for a time with conscious effort, but few
people can resist blinking even for as long as a minute. A
viewer watching a film can readily assimilate a film edit,
27
whereas the 'long take' becomes apparent, even to the
untrained viewer, after about a minute. The long take, like a
'rapid cutting' sequence, draws attention to itself.
Consequently, mainstream commercial cinema avoids either
extreme, in the service of narrative flow.!
"
For the director, where style precedes narrative content, the
sequence shot is an invaluable asset in establishing mood,
ambiance and intrigue that demands of the viewer a
resolution, rather than oblige the viewer with a casual
clarification. Michelangelo Antonioni concludes The
Passenger (1975), the story of a journalist (David Locke)
who has taken over the identity of a dead man, with a
sequence shot lasting seven minutes: !
!
93. Bedroom. Interior. Sunset.!
We see the window. The sky begins to grow red. The sun is !
setting....!
We hear the sound of footsteps in the corridor. They go past !
and disappear. The girl glances at Locke. His face looks !
drained....!
Locke: You better leave me.!
"
The girl gets up and moves toward her own room. Locke lights!
a cigarette.!
The girl enters her room and closes the door quietly. Locke !
is still staring out of the window...!
!
(Beginning of a single take:)!
!
The camera now fixes itself on the window and begins to move !
very slowly toward it. Locke's face disappears, and then !
also his hand with the cigarette. We begin to concentrate!
increasingly on the expanding view of the road outside - the !

28
 odd passing pedestrians, a creaking bicycle, the occasional !
car... One of them is black and stops in front of the hotel.!
(A man) gets out and remains standing on the curb, while the !
car drives on out of view.!
After a moment he is joined by a second man. They stand !
there together for a while looking up at the hotel and !
strolling casually back and forth. A poor but attractive !
Spanish girl runs past them. They follow her with their eyes !
and say something to each other. Obviously a joke. From !
faraway we can hear someone shouting.!
The sky begins to grow dark. The road falls into shadow. !
The men separate, one of them moving toward the hotel until !
he disappears below the lower ledge of the window. The !
camera is still tracking toward it.!
For a while the road remains completely empty. Then, as !
the window begins to come into extreme close-up, we hear !
from behind us the sound of a knock at the door.!
The sound of something falling, a chair, scraping metal, !
probably a gun. But by now the camera is emerging through !
the window and the sounds from the room have grown blurred!
and then dominated by the sounds from the street - a passing !
truck, a radio, some shouts. We keep moving out over the !
road toward the harbour. A little later a police car!
appears. It slows down and stops. Doors opening. Voices.!
Running feet.!
"
Then Rachel (Locke's wife) appears from out of the !
police car. The camera now begins to turn slowly around, a!
full 180 degree pan, so that we are now looking back across !
the street and directly at the hotel. We start to move back !
toward it, aiming at the window of Locke's room. We move !
toward it as Rachel and the police make for the front door !
which is almost directly below it.!
But the entire group is almost lost from view as the !
camera continues to move relentlessly toward Locke's window. !
Outside the sound of voices, running feet, and shouted !
orders continues. But the camera moves in past the shutters!
and re-enters the now twilit room. The door at the back is !
29
 wide open onto the corridor. Locke lies on the bed in !
the middle of the room... One arm hangs down over the side of !
the bed. It is a similar position to the one in which we !
found Robertson at the beginning of the film. Locke is !
obviously dead... We start to hear the sounds of people's!
footsteps and the now subdued mutterings of their voices.!
A hand comes into frame and grasps Locke's wrist. No !
pulse. When we look up we find two policemen, an inspector,!
Rachel, and the girl all standing beside the body. The !
inspector lets go of the wrist. He turns to the girl. She!
looks grave, stunned, her eyes silent pools of brown.!
!
Inspector (turning to Rachel): Do you recognise him?!
Rachel: I never knew him.!
!
The sequence ends, and the film's final shot shows the
exterior of the hotel at dusk, and cars driving off.!
"
The long take has the affect of a 'soul wandering' an out-of-
the-body experience, where the deceased is able to look
down upon their own lifeless form, and the people and
events that gather around it.!
"
Early in the film, Locke had returned to his hotel after an
unsuccessful assignment, to find the man he barely knew in
the adjoining room, dead, apparently from heart attack, his
open eyes staring at the ceiling. A long sequence shows
Locke regarding Robertson in varying degrees of horror and
fascination. He touches strands of the dead man's hair,
stares deeply into the dead man's open eyes, as if to demand
of the corpse, where the man has gone who once dwelt
therein. Finally, he closes the dead man's eyes, recollects a
brief conversation he had with him before setting out on his
30
assignment, and decides to take the man's identity, to
become 'Robertson' and leave 'David Locke', dead in a hotel
room in a small African desert town.!
"
In the film's closing minutes, Locke has become the dead
Robertson, a lifeless body, with open eyes staring at a ceiling
in a room of a desert town hotel.!
!
Touch of Evil (Orson Welles, 1958) opens with a close-up of
a man's hands clutching a device and adjusting a timer. A
couple's laughter is heard off-screen and the camera pulls
back to show the man's reaction. We see the couple in the
distance, and the man follows after them, then runs to a
parked car, opens the boot, and places the bomb inside it. A
pounding Latin rhythm begins, as the couple, a young
woman and an older man, get into the car and drive off. The
car drives down a town's main street, and stops to allow
another couple cross the road. The camera follows this
couple as they saunter along the road, and pulls back to give
a bird's eye view of a US/Mexico border town. The car stops
at a check-point, and the couple on foot arrive at about the
same time. After a brief dialogue, the car drives through, the
young woman complaining about a ticking in her head. The
couple on foot, now established as Mr and Mrs Vargas, walk
over to the US side of the border, and embrace. As their lips
meet a loud explosion is heard. For the first time in more
than six minutes, the sequence is cut; as they turn we cut to
the car, which is now a burning wreck. The planting of the
time bomb at the beginning of the sequence prepares us for

31
the inevitable climax; the sustained glare of the camera's eye
ensures a discomfort of tension, lasting seven minutes.!
"
Sound!
"
"Sound. Sound... I had never worried about sound... it was a device that would take
film back to its theatrical and literary origins that it had managed to shake off."
William Boyd: The New Confessions.!
!
According to Akira Kurosawa, "a motion picture stands or
falls on the effective combination of image and sound.
Cinematic sound is neither accompanying sound nor the
natural sounds captured during record-ing. Cinematic
sound does not just add to, but multi-plies two or three
times, the effect of the image."!
"
There are three kinds of sound; dialogue, music and effects.
Sound effects are either spatial (natural sound) or ideational
(abstract or subjective sound). !
"
Many sound films of the 1930's became enslaved to the
microphone, with static shots of people talking, hardly
daring to move out of microphone range. However, some
innovative directors realised the creative potential sound
offered; Rene Clair, who in 1928 denounced sound as "a
monster - an unnatural creation" won acclaim Under the
Roofs of Paris (1930) where sound without image was used
to establish location; door slams, rain, sounds of trains, etc.
In one scene some drunken men brawl in a train yard, but
instead of the fight we hear the approach of a steam train,
gasping and wheezing in almost human tones.!
32
"
Orson Welles, moving to film from theatre and radio, broke
sound recording taboos with the use of overlapping
dialogue, with actors speaking into each others lines, and in
Citizen Kane, breaking up a single line of dialogue; ("Merry
Christmas... and a happy new year...") to bridge Kane's
childhood to adulthood. Hitchcock used sound for scene
transition in The Thirty Nine Steps (1935); a cleaning
woman discovers a dead body in an apartment and opens
her mouth to scream. The sound is of a train whistle, and
the following image shows a train at a station, and the
murder suspect boarding the train. In his first sound film,
Blackmail (1929), a young woman at the breakfast table, the
morning after having stabbed a man to death, hears the
word 'knife' echoing in her mind, in one of the earliest film
examples of subjective sound.!
"
"One of the cardinal sins for a script-writer", Hitchcock told
Truffaut, "When he runs into some difficulty, is to say, 'We
can cover that by a line of dialogue.' Dialogue should
simply be a sound among other sounds, just something that
comes out of the mouths of people whose eyes tell the story
in visual terms." !
"
Several innovative directors; Rouben Mamoulian, Josef von
Sternberg, Lewis Milestone, and others, demonstrated the
creative possibilities which sound provided. Speech, no
longer a placarded intrusion into the flow of images, could
be integrated with the imagery, requiring a new approach to
film dialogue. And music, no longer dependant on the
33
cinema pianist, organist or quartet, became an added
dimension with its own dramatic possibilities.!
"
"
Dialogue!
!
"We didn't need dialogue. We had faces." Gloria Swanson as Norma Desmond in
Sunset Boulevard cautions screenwriter Joe Gillis (William Holden) on the
superfluity of the spoken word.!
"
'Classical' structure relies on the minimum of dialogue and
maximum of 'action'. Film dialogue is sparse and
understated. Akira Kurosawa advises potential
screenwriters to study the dialogue of crime novels; few
words are spoken, and the words spoken are loaded with
ambiguity and sub-text.!
"
For the expediency of the film narrative, dialogue, as with
other dramatic elements, must serve a function. These
functions include providing information (exposition),
revealing character (by what the character says and how it is
said - speech patterns, for example), and advancing the plot.!
"
"I don't like violence. I'm a businessman. Blood is a big
expense. Make him an offer he can't refuse." Marlon Brando
as The Godfather (Coppola, 1972) utters one of Hollywood
film history's more celebrated examples of understated
dialogue. When Sister Ratched in One Flew Over The
Cuckoo's Nest (Forman, 1975), says to the hospital board;
"I'd like to keep him (MacMurphy) on the ward. I think we
can help him," the sub-text alludes to an ulterior motive.
34
What she intends, is to subjugate the rebellious MacMurphy,
and restore 'harmony' to the hospital ward on her terms.!
"
Dialogue is often considered an intrusion and many
filmmakers attempt to reduce spoken lines to the barest
minimum. Steven Spielberg, claims that in making Duel
(1972) he was initially setting out to make a film without
dialogue. !
"
Director, Russell Rouse, achieved exactly this with a film
called The Thief (1952). Ray Milland portrays a nuclear
scientist suspected of treason, pursued by the FBI. The
sound track consists of affects and music, and details of
exposition are provided by the written word; signs, letters
and newspaper articles. Like Hitchcock's noble Rope
experiment, the demands on the viewer prove too much a
strain to encourage similar experimentation by prominent
commercial film producers. The conventions of mainstream
cinema warrant a balance between maximum exposition
with the minimum of talk. In On The Waterfront (1954),
Terry Malloy confesses to Edie that he was responsible for
the death of her brother. A ship siren drowns out the
conservation. The situation speaks for itself; the drama is
embodied in the conversation itself, not in the words of the
conservation. Elia Kazan, the film's director, claims; "I am
trying in all my films either to eliminate as much dialogue
as I can or to make it an embroidery on the outskirts of
action. Part of the behaviour is what they say, but not the
essential part of it, and in that sense I think my work is
getting more cinematic."!
35
"
In Cries and Whispers (1972) Ingmar Bergman eliminated
an entire dialogue sequence between two sisters (Liv
Ullman and Ingrid Thulin) during the editing stage,
retaining the close-up images of the two sisters speaking
and murmuring to each other but removing their voices and
replacing the spoken word with the music of Bach.!
"
"When I wrote this scene I hadn't planned any music - it was
dialogue, all written out. It was at such a crucial point in the
story, where two people who hate each other, were
suddenly able to speak to each other. All the barriers fall
away, and they emerge as a unified entity. These actresses
(Liv Ullman and Ingrid Thulin) performed the scene
beautifully, bit it just didn't work out they way I'd
envisaged. Later it occurred to me exactly what I needed in
this scene - to have music take over from the words..." !
"
Views on how film dialogue should be written range from
Tennessee Williams 'kill your darlings' and Ingmar
Bergman's 'delete everything' to John Bright, a Hollywood
screenwriter of the 40's and 50's; 'the key to dialogue is
understatement... don't spell out your meaning."!
!
Ingmar Bergman's film (later a television series) Scenes
From a Marriage (1975), portrays scenes remarkable for
their dramatic intensity on the one hand, and their spartan
production on the other, consisting mainly of people talking
in close-up. (The film was originally a six-part television
production). The story chiefly concerns a couple played by
36
Erland Josephson and Liv Ullman; their faltering marriage
and subsequent divorce. Early on they entertain a couple,
Peter and Katarina (Jan Malmsjö and Bibi Andersson), who
have come to despise each other yet remain together. The
after-dinner conversation in the lounge room proceeds:!
"
Peter: August Strindberg - he once said; 'I wonder if there's !
anything more horrible than a man and wife who hate each !
other.' What do you think? Is child torture worse !
perhaps? Katarina and I are nothing more than two small!
children. Deep within Katarina is a little girl who sits and !
cries because she's fallen and hurt herself, and no-one has !
come to comfort her. I sit in the opposite corner - I !
haven't grown up either, and I cry because Katarina can't!
love me - despite my harshness and cruelty toward her.!
Katarina: One thing we can be thankful for - nothing could !
be more hellish. Which is why, I'd say, were about ripe for !
divorce.!
Peter: On condition that you come to your senses. On !
condition that we simultaneously, and before reliable!
witnesses, sign all the papers. So neither of us can !
prosecute the other. (He invites their dinner hosts to!
witness...) What about it Katarina?!
Katarina: Even if we should agree on the financial !
arrangements, I know you'll never let me go.!
Peter: Do you really think you're so bloody indispensible my !
dear Katarina? Where on earth did you get such an idea? !
Can't you tell me... tell us?!
Katarina: You force me to sleep with you. You can't manage !
it with any other woman.!
Peter: Your need of bad conscience is boundless. Are you in !
a panic because you've finished with Jan, darling? Now !
there's only good old Peter who can be bothered with you, !
and is patient enough...!
Katarina: So you think you're the only one? That's very !
touching. You don't think I've got anyone else? Let me tell!
you something, Peter my boy... (To the others...) Forgive me !
37
 if I'm rather blunt, but he's asking for the truth here... !
Let me tell you; you disgust me. Physically I mean. I could!
buy myself a lay with anyone, just to wash you out of my sex !
organ...!
Peter: (Quotes) "And so a day goes from our time and cometh !
not again / But yet once more, by God's good grace, night on !
the earth is lain..."!
Katarina: (Crying) You bastard. !
Peter: "But thou O Lord the same will be and full of endless !
grace / And all our nights and all our days are written on !
thy face..."!
!
Katarina weeps.!
!
Peter: (laughing) Whatever that could mean...!
!
Katarina throws her drink in Peter's face and walks out of !
the room.!
"
The two modes of speech contrast with each other;
Peter's pedantic mode of speech, in contrast to Katarina,
who speaks directly and bluntly. The two characters search
for a turn of phrase that will wound the other as possible.
Peter recites a psalm which has a specific meaning for them,
irregardless that the spectator should be unaware of any
specific meaning. The couple speak in a subdued, restrained
and superficially polite manner, which contrasts the bitter
tone of the words meaning.!
"
In Bergman's Wild Strawberries (1957), a similar
exchange of dialogue takes place when a couple whose car
has broken down are given a lift. This scene culminates with
the wife's physical assault of the husband and they're
evicted from the car. "Forgive us, if you can", says the wife,
38
as they leave. Once more Bergman portrays an attempt to
maintain a facade of control and politeness in face of the
expression of profound feelings of hate and contempt.!
!
Hollywood screenwriters emphasise the importance of
film dialogue's sub-text; that beneath the surface of the
spoken text, lies another meaning. In a scene from Woody
Allen's film, Annie Hall (1977), Woody Allen and Diane
Keaton converse on a balcony; a nervous conversation at the
beginning of a nervous relationship between Alvy and
Annie, where on-screen sub-titles reveal the sub-text:!
"
Alvy: So did you do those photographs in there or what?!
Annie: Yeah, I sort of dabble around, you know.!
(I dabble? Listen to me - what a jerk)!
Alvy: They're... they're wonderful, you know. They have... !
they have, uh... a... a quality.!
(You are a great looking girl)!
Annie: Well, I... I would - I would like to take a serious!
photography course soon.!
(He probably thinks I'm a yo-yo}!
Alvy: Photography's interesting, 'cause, you know, it's -!
it's a new art form, and a, ah, a set of aesthetic !
criteria have not emerged yet.!
(I wonder what she looks like naked?)!
Annie: Aesthetic criteria? You mean, whether it's, uh, good !
photo or not?!
(I'm not smart enough for him. Hang in there)!
Alvy: The - the medium enters in as a condition of the art!
form itself. That's...!
(I don't know what I'm saying - she senses I'm shallow)!
Annie: Well, well, I... to me - I... I mean, it's - it's all!
instinctive, you know? I mean, I just try to uh, feel!
it, you know? I try to get a sense of it and not!
think about it so much.!
39
 (God, I hope he doesn't turn out to be a schmuck like !
the others)!
Alvy: Still, still we... You need a set of aesthetic guide !
lines to put it in social perspective, I think.!
(Christ, I sound like FM radio. Relax.)!
!
Julius Epstein, who co-wrote the screenplay to
Casablanca (1941), says the most frequently asked question
he gets from students at film schools is 'how do you write
dialogue?' "Sadly", he says, "no-one can be taught to write
dialogue. Either you have it or you don't."!
"
Film dialogue, like the filmic image, emphasises
economy; expressing the most using a minimum of words.
In They Shoot Horses Don't They? (Sidney Pollack, 1969;
based on Horace McCoy's novel), about the marathon
dances of the 1930's, a contestant dies of a heart attack.
During the rest break, the compare, Rocky, (Gig Young)
attempts to seduce the cynical Gloria (Jane Fonda):!
"
Rocky: I hope that episode didn't upset you?!
Gloria: No.!
Rocky: Cigarette?!
Gloria: No.!
Rocky: (Smiles)!
Gloria: No.!
She walks away.!
!
In Network (1976), TV network news director (William
Holden) and his attractive young programme executive
(Faye Dunaway) embark on a clandestine love affair at a
seaside resort. Faye Dunaway speaks constantly of
television programming, from the sea-side promenade,
40
through dinner, to the bedroom, before sex, during sex and
after sex, with a brief respite during climax.!
"
The dramatic form of the cinema contends that actions
speak louder than words, yet My Dinner With Andre (Louis
Malle, 1981; written by Wallace Shawn and Andre Gregory),
is a filmic record of a dinner conversation, using dialogue
only as a means to convey the narrative.!
"
The sparsity of dialogue as a convention of film
narrative is an issue also questioned by feminist theorists
and filmmakers; the television 'soap opera' is cited as an
example of enabling characters to express feeling with
words, rather than avoid personal communication through
cinematic action. (See: Feminist Cinema) A line from the film
Midnight Run (1989) where the protagonist is accused of
expressing himself only through either, "silence or rage",
describes the principle modes of expression available to
characters in the commercial cinema.!
"
Music!
!
The term 'silent cinema' is misleading - even the earliest
films of George Melies were accompanied with a piano or
organ. Special scores for full orchestra were performed at
screenings of D W Griffith feature films, and for Birth of a
Nation and Intolerance, a special effects man added sounds
of gunfire and pounding hooves, as the film was being
shown.!
"
41
 However, Griffith was vociferously opposed to the idea
of synchronised sound-film declaring as late as 1926 that;
"we do not want now and we never shall want the human
voice with our films." !
"
In 1924, three years before the release of The Jazz Singer,
he wrote; "I am quite positive that when a century has
passed, all thought of our so-called talking pictures will
have been abandoned. It will never be possible to
synchronise the voice with the pictures. This is true because
the very nature of the films foregoes not only the necessity
for but the propriety of the spoken voice. Music - fine music
- will always be the voice of the silent drama. !
"
One hundred years from now will find the greatest
composers of the day devoting their skill and genius to the
creation of motion-picture music. There will be three
principal figures in the production of a picture play - the
author first, the director and music composer occupying an
identical position in importance... Those images on the
screen must always be silent. There will never be speaking
pictures. The average person would much prefer to see his
pictures and let the voice which speaks to him be the voice
of music." !
"
The early sound films were largely inspired by music;
Don Juan (1926), The Jazz Singer (1927), Lights of New York
(1928); even Walt Disney's Steamboat Willie (1928). The film
score came into its own in the early 1930's and the composer
Max Steiner was acclaimed for his music to A Symphony for
42
Six Million (1932) and King Kong (1933). Dramatic
sequences of King Kong were synchronised to the score; in a
scene when Kong escapes from New York captivity, his
movements are emphasised by the orchestration. The city
environment is described by musical overture. The
commuter train Kong attacks, which he perceives as the
giant snake of the jungle, is characterised by the orchestra
instead of realistic sound.!
"
In Scarlet Street (1945), Fritz Lang integrated background
mood music with the inner state of the main character, Chris
Cross (Ed G. Robinson). Cross sits alone at a bar, brooding
over the deceit of a young girl he's fallen in love with. "I'm
in love with Johnny" he hears over and over again, at the
same time the unobtrusive background music repeats itself
like a stuck record.!
"
In the dramatic structure of the 'classical Hollywood'
film, music is used to amplify a particular situation.
Suspenseful music is added to a suspenseful scene, romantic
music to a romantic scene, sentimental music to a
sentimental scene.!
"
The director John Huston writes that; "As with good
cutting, the audience is not as a rule supposed to be
conscious of the music. Ideally, it speaks directly to our
emotions without our awareness of it, although, of course,
there are moments when music should take over and
dominate the action."!
"
43
 In Soundtrack: The Music of the Movies, Mark Evans
identifies seven functions of the film score:!
"
1. To intensify or relax the pace of a film!
2. To reflect emotion and provide atmospheric shading!
3. To provide a composer's comment and a new dimension!
4. To parallel or underscore action!
5. As an element of time and location!
6. As an element of comedy!
7. To provide unity!
"
Significantly, the examples provided are from Hollywood
cinema, where music, alongside other components of film
form is essentially for expressing the narrative by the most
efficient means available.!
"
Anton Karas' zither in The Third Man, weaves in and out of
the narrative like a story-teller, evoking atmosphere and
characterising the players. Harry Lime is introduced by
virtue of a cat at his feet and a theme of his own, which
became a top-selling record independent of the film. The
pan-pipes of George Zamfir created a similar affect in Picnic
at Hanging Rock (Peter Weir, 1976).!
"
Marguerite Duras' film, India Song (1975), is unique in that
the soundtrack was recorded first, and the images
photographed later to accompany the soundtrack. (Two
more films were made to the same soundtrack). Integral to
the film is the muscial theme; the 'India Song', which was

44
composed by Carlos d'Alessio, under Marguerite Duras'
guidance.!
"
Whether film music should have a source or not has been
the subject of debate since the advent of sound cinema.
During the production of Lifeboat, Alfred Hitchcock, stated
that he intended to omit music altogether. “After all", he
asked rhetorically, "where is the music coming from in the
middle of the ocean?" To which composer, David Raskin,
replied: "Ask him where the camera comes from and I'll tell
him where the music comes from."!
"
In Rear Window (1954), Hitchcock, referring to the sub-plots
concerning the composer and Miss Lonelyhearts, said he
"wanted to show how a popular song is composed by
gradually developing it throughout the film until, in the
final scene, it is played on a recording with a full orchestral
accompaniment."!
"
In Blazing Saddles (1974), Mel Brooks provided a 'source' to
the background score by having the entire Count Basie
orchestra playing in the middle of the desert, as the hero
rides by on his horse. In High Anxiety (1977), the apparent
sinister background music accompanying a driving scene, is
provided by an orchestra playing on a bus.!
"
In Orson Welles' film, Lady from Shanghai (1948), there are
several scenes where music originates from a radio (a
jukebox in one scene), leading into background mood
music. In O Lucky Man (1973) Lindsay Anderson was
45
audacious enough to include the source music into the
story; a scene with background music suddenly cuts to the
studio where the Alan Price Combo are playing it. In the
Swedish film, Sven Klang's Quintet (Olsson, 1969),
characters are defined by their instruments and the kind of
music they play.!
"
Present-day collaborations between director and composer
give new relevance to D W Griffith's prophecies from 1924.
Peter Greenaway and Michael Nyman; Phillip Glass's music
to Paul Schrader's Mishima (1985) and Godfrey Reggio's
Koyaanisqatsi (1983); Popul Vuh and the films of Werner
Herzog; the revitalisation of classical composers; Mozart
with Elvira Madigan and Amadeus, Gustav Mahler with
Death in Venice, and others.!
"
The commercial success of the title song for High Noon
(Zinnemann, 1952) by Diomitri Tiomkin, led to a demand
for theme songs for films - an event which composer Elmer
Bernstein claimed "signalled the beginning of the end of the
golden age of film music." Bernstein himself was reponsible
for the scores to Cecil B de Mille's The Ten Commandments
(1956), and The Magnificent Seven (Sturges, 1960), the main
theme to which lives on in Marlborough cigarette
advertisements around the globe.!
"
Prior to this, the song had frequently been used as a motif in
film narrative; from the celebrated "Falling in love again" in
von Sternberg's The Blue Angel (1930), and in many of the
film noirs of the 1940's and 50's; Rita Hayworth singing "Put
46
the blame on Mame boys" in Gilda (Charles Vidor, 1946)
remains a memorable example. In a nightclub scene in
Kurosawa's Ikiru (1951), the terminally-ill council clerk,
takes consolation in a bottle of sake. The sentimental lyrics
of a songstress extolling the beauty and sadness of the
passing moment, strike a chord and he is inspired to begin a
new life. In contemporary cinema the song as motif suggests
nostalgia - Jeanne Moreau's rendition of; "A man always
kills the thing he loves," (an epithet of Oscar Wilde) in
Fassbinder's Querelle (1982); "Memories are made of this",
in Veronika Voss (1982), and in the films of David Lynch, Jim
Jarmusch, Aki Kaurismaki and others, refer to both times
gone by, and the period films they parody. !
"
Lina Wertmuller establishes the mood for the black comedy,
Seven Beauties (1975) with a sharply satirical song edited to
newsreel footage of the 1930's, of Mussolini, Hitler and their
military efforts. !
"
"
Effects!
!
Blow Out (Brian de Palma, 1981) is about a film sound
technician who records a murder by accident, reminiscent of
Antonioni's film Blow Up (1966), where a photographer
accidentally photographs a murder. Da Palma uses split
screen and split sound (stereo) recording, to introduce the
technician (John Travolta) filing sound effects on tape, while
the television broadcasts a news bulletin with an interview
of a congressman whose murder he will soon record. As the
47
soundman files the sound of a gun shot, the television
announcer refers to the "voice of freedom". Echoes of the
Kennedy assassinations and the Chappaquiddick affair
plant the associations of political murder. !
"
Fritz Lang's first sound film, M (1931), was one of the first
sound films to use off-screen sound to dramatic affect -
news and police bulletins broadcast on the radio, the voices
of gossiping neighbours, and the haunting theme to Peer
Gynt, whistled by an unseen murderer.!
"
Off-screen voices can be used to provide the unspoken
thoughts or intentions of otherwise mute characters. In
Jacques Tati's film Jour de Fete (1948), the soundtrack to a
Hollywood western allows a man and a woman at a fun-
fair, gesticulate the ritual of attraction and seduction
without them having to say a word to each other. Similarly,
in Robert Altman's Thieves Like Us (1974), a shy and
inarticulate young couple, having embarked upon a career
of crime, hide out in a mountain cabin listening to the radio.
The radio broadcasts Romeo and Juliet, the lines to which
become the couple's lines they are unable to express
themselves.!
"
Orfeo Negro (Marcel Camus, 1959) is the story of Orpheus
and Eurydice transferred to the Rio carnival. The rhythmic
beat of the carnival drums accompanies the film; when
Eurydice arrives in Rio a street vendor takes her hand and
says; "I feel from your hand how your heart is beating."!
"
48
Forbidden Planet (Wilcox, 1956) was the first film to use a
completely electronic soundtrack, where both the score and
effects were created synthetically. Alfred Hitchcock's use of
electronic effects in The Birds (1963) enabled subtle tonal
changes in the bird cries as the story developed. Toward the
end of the film, birds were sounding more like people, and
the people were sounding more like birds. The sound of
mechanical croaks and bird cries off-screen served as a
constant reminder of the danger waiting beyond the closed
doors. Similarly, in Spellbound (1945) an electronic score
dramatised the psychosis of the amnesia victim (Gregory
Peck).!
"
The contrast of sound has its own dramatic affect. The Seven
Samurai opens to the thunder of horses hooves as bandits
approach the village they intend to plunder. When they ride
off into the distance the quiet of the village is denoted by the
sound of a cuckoo echoing in the mountains. Silence is best
conveyed by a sound which becomes conspicuous in
silence, not by silence itself.!
"
In Ingmar Bergman's The Silence (1963) a young boy arrives
at a large hotel in a foreign city with his mother and aunt.
Outside we have heard the turmoil of the street noise; now
when the boy opens the hotel room window we anticipate
the noise of the street, but there is only silence. Like the boy
we enter the non-communicative and silent world of the
two sisters.!
"
49
The constant hum of industrial age machinery in David
Lynch's The Elephant Man (1980) evokes the period of
Victorian London, against which the story is set; the rush of
wind through reeds conveys the wild sensuality of a
Japanese girl fleeing her mother to clandestine meetings
with her lover in Onibaba (Kaneto Shindo, 1964); and the
sound of a bell tied to a bird bridges one episode to another
in the film, Kaos (Paolo and Vittorio Taviani, 1984), episodes
based on five stories by Pirandello.!

Padre Padrone (Paolo & Vittorio Taviani, 1977). A young boy, forced into the isolated
life of tending goats in the Sardinian mountains, learns the art of listening. The
film’s use of subjective sound leads the viewer into the boy’s secluded world.!
"
"

50
PART TWO: STRUCTURE!
"
Conflict!
!
In Easy Street Charlie Chaplin plays a police recruit assigned
to a tough street in a tough neighbourhood. His formidable
opponent is the local street bully, Eric Campbell, who has
already hospitalised several police officers. Charlie tries
calling for help on the police telephone but Campbell stops
him. He indicates to the newcomer that he won't tolerate
any interference from the law and to demonstrate his
invulnerability he invites Charlie to slug him over the head
with a police baton. No effect. Do it again, he smirks. He
puts him on the ground and grabs hold of a lamp pole, and
to demonstrate his strength, bends it over effortlessly. He
bends it again just to show Charlie what's in store for him.
As he bends it almost to the level of his head, Charlie leaps
onto his back, pushes the gas lamp over the bully's face, and
turns on the gas tap. Eric Campbell swoons away
unconscious, and harmony has returned to Easy Street.!
"
Main Character Opposition Character!
"
The scene illustrates an elementary form of dramatic
conflict, the contest. Two opponents or two opposing sides
engage in conflict in order to determine one winner and one
loser. What does the street thug want? To maintain
authority, to prove his strength, to prove he is invincible.
What does Charlie Chaplin want? To keep his job, uphold
moral order, survive. !
51
The scene begins with Chaplin; small, unaggressive,
intimidated, pitted against the street bully; big, mean and
ruthless. The odds decidedly favour the bully, and at the
outset of the conflict, Chaplin as the Main Character finds
himself in a clearly inferior situation, in contrast to
Campbell, the Opposition Character, in the superior
position. !
"
At the end of the scene the situation is reversed; Chaplin
triumphs, the bully is defeated, unconscious beneath the gas
lamp.!
!

Easy Street: Crisis and Resolution!

!
Sporting events provide a conflict sufficient to keep entire
populations transfixed to television screens or sports field
arenas on a given Saturday afternoon. News bulletins divide
the world into individuals or teams of 'good' and 'bad' and
everyday issues are presented as contests between two
opposing sides. Analysts maintain that dividing everything
into neat sections of 'good' and 'bad' helps us feel that we
are part of the 'good' group. Also we are freed of the normal
52
demands of acting decently and avoiding difficult decisions
to moral questions which are not always clearly black or
white.!
!
Narrative is invariably a tale between two sides - a conflict -
good vs evil, right vs wrong, rich vs poor, love vs hate,
revenge vs compassion. The drama of the contest can be
intensified – the higher the reward for the winner, the
greater the shame for the loser - most dramatic of all is the
'matter‹ of life or death' contest. The more identifiable the
contestants the greater the spectator's engagement.!
"
Most films are made to fulfill the expectations of the
audience. We want the 'good side' to win and the 'bad side'
to lose. It provides us with a sense of moral order that may
be lacking in reality. Film narrative follows the development
of a main character, the emphasis on development. During
the course of the narrative the main character undergoes a
transformation, or role reversal. In a 'static conflict' see: Part
Four: Character) the character doesn't change, otherwise the
narrative portrays the protagonist's transformation from say,
bad to good, unloved to loved, weak to strong, poor to rich,
losing to winning. !
"
But the journey to that end is a perilous one, and the
protagonist's route is more often than not a series of crises or
anxieties that must be resolved before going further. !
"
The final duel sequence of Steven Spielberg's debut (1971)
shows a series of crises confronting the main character, a
53
timid white-collar worker pursued by a murderous lorry
driver.!
"
The conflict was one that French critics saw as an allegory of
the conflict between white-collar and blue-collar America.
For Steven Spielberg it was a confrontation between “Bambi
and Godzilla”.!
"
The sequence, beginning with the 'point of no return', where
the car driver and the lorry driver are locked in mortal
combat on a state highway, portrays a series of situations
along the lines of what's the worst thing that can happen
now? When one crisis is resolved, another crisis arises, each
time worse than the previous one. !
"
Crisis: the lorry is going to push the car off the road.!
Resolved: if the car can get to the hill he can escape.!
Crisis: the lorry picks up speed. "How can he drive so fast?" utters a bewildered
Dennis Weaver. !
Resolved: the steep hill is close now. Once he starts up there the lorry will never catch
up with him. !
Anxiety: the lorry is virtually on top of him. He must go faster. !
Resolved: he reaches the hill. The lorry pulls back. !
Crisis: the radiator hose breaks. !
Resolved: if he can just get to the top of the hill! !
Crisis: the car is overheating, smoke is billowing from the engine, and the lorry is
catching up!!
Resolved: the end of the hill is in sight! !
Crisis: Smoke is pouring from the car. The lorry is only yards away.!
Resolved: the car gets to the top of the hill and turns up a narrow road. !
Crisis: the lorry follows. !
Resolved: the car stops at the edge of the cliff and waits. Has the lorry gone? !
Crisis: the lorry appears, ready to attack.!
Resolved: Stalemate. Nobody moves. !
54
Crisis: the lorry attacks, forcing the car over the edge of the cliff.!
Resolved: Dennis Weaver leaps from the car and saves himself. !
CLIMAX: the lorry goes over the cliff and bursts into flames.!
"
! Main Character!
"
! CRISIS SOLUTION !
Anxiety Relief!
"
"
"
"
"
Worst thing Best thing!
"
CLIMAX!
"
The sequence (16 minutes, 272 shots from Dennis Weaver
placing glasses on the dashboard and fastening seat-belt),
builds up to a Griffith 'last minute rescue' climax - the finale
in Birth of a Nation (1915) the most famous example. As the
action nears its climax the shots become shorter and shorter,
roughly halving in length with each shot, creating a rhythm
moving toward a climactic conclusion.!
"
Dramatic action oscillating between 'life and death' is not
necessarily a prerequisite for a well-structured crisis -
solution sequence. In Milos Forman's A Blonde's Love Story
(1968), a sequence shows three soldiers at a dance hall
attempting to make the acquaintance of three young girls at
a nearby table. They arrange for the waiter to take the girls a
bottle of wine. The worst thing that could happen? The
waiter takes the bottle to the wrong table. Three different
55
girls. Not so pretty. Solution: The soldiers have the waiter
take the bottle to the right table and the right three girls.
Crisis: Hostile looks from the other three girls. Severe
embarrassment. Solution: The soldiers ignore them and
decide to invite the more attractive girls to their table. One
soldier stays behind. Crisis: The soldier still seated considers
the problem of his wedding ring. The girls might discover
he's married. Solution: He takes off the ring. Crisis: He
drops the ring. Solution: He goes to fetch it. Crisis: The ring
rolls all over the floor, in between dancers, in and around
lots of different feet. Solution: The ring comes to a stop and
he is able to retrieve it. Crisis: It stops under the table of the
three girls subjected to some humiliation only a short time
before, and for which he was partly responsible. Solution:
He retrieves the ring. Crisis: A jug of water falls from the
table and over his uniform. Solution: To extricate oneself
from this rather unfortunate situation with as much dignity
as possible under the circumstances.!
"
The first example shows a conflict of direct confrontation -
an outer conflict, whereas the latter represents a subjective
conflict experienced from the point of view of the main
character - an inner conflict, externalised through the film
medium. The former emphasises a situation, the latter
emphasises character.!
"
Similarly the samurai action films of Kurosawa portray
direct confrontation and external processes, compared to the
internal processes in the introspective films of Ingmar
Bergman. Aristophanes play, The Frogs (405BC) dramatises
56
the dilemma of Dionysus, the divine patron of drama, who
must judge between Aeschylus, "the Bard of the Noble
Savage", on the one side, and Euripedes, "the Bard of the
Blind Beggar", on the other.!
"
Compare the films of, say, David Lean, John Ford, and Akira
Kurosawa, where conflict is 'action-based' (one army against
another, cavalry against Indians, Samurai against bandits) to
the cinema of Andrei Tarkovsky, Luis Bunuel, Michelangelo
Antonioni, and others, where conflict is suggested rather
than stated; where character, ambiance and mood precede
'situation'; and conflicts relate to the inner crisis of the
individual, rather than external confrontations.!

Andrei Tarkovsky, The Mirror: cinema as poetry!

"
57
Dramatic Form!
"
"But surely M. Godard you must agree that every film must have a beginning, a
middle and an end?" Henri-Georges Clouzot.!
!
The Dramatic form refers to the three act drama which
Aristotle describes as; "an action that is complete and
whole... has a beginning, a middle and an end," and, he
adds that, "a well constructed plot must conform to this
pattern."!
"
The beginning - the presentation (Act 1) - introduces the
characters; the main character and opposition character
(protagonist and antagonist), the conflict, problem or crisis,
and the time and place. In other words; a presentation of the
story's main character, and the crisis he or she must resolve.!
"
The middle - the conflict (Act 2) - the main part of the
story, where the conflict develops and intensifies, sub-plots
and minor characters introduced, and where the plot leads
to a climax compelling the main!
character to action in order to resolve the crisis.!
"
The end - the resolution (Act 3) - the return to order. The
main character's action resolves the conflict, overcomes the
crisis and solves the problem.!
"
Each movement ends with a turning point or a climax, an
event which changes the course of the story, and changes
the main character's course of action. Is this an 'imposed'
58
structure or a 'natural' structure? The antecedents of story-
telling structure abound. It can be compared to a chess game
with its opening, middle game and end game, or to a 'crisis'
as perceived by corporation management and the medical
profession which refer to pre-crisis, crisis and post-crisis.!
"
Hollywood screenwriting texts, in addition to 'beginning,
middle and end' describe "exposition - development and
conflict - resolution” "problem - conflict/crisis - climax”,
"the set-up - confrontation - resolution", the "crisis - climax
- resolution", "problem - conflict - action". !
"
Twenty years before the era of the Hollywood film, the
German dramatist, Gustav Freytag, writing in the late
nineteenth century, outlined a 'dramatic triangle' of
exposition, complication and resolution.!
"
The sequence from Easy Street provides an elementary
example of dramatic structure:!
!
1. MLS Eric Campbell stands in the foreground wearing the hat of a hospitalised
policeman. His figure dominates the right half of the frame from top to bottom. The
Easy Street lamp post divides the frame. Charlie Chaplin as the police recruit,
patrolling the beat, appears in the distance, a tiny figure approaching the point where
Campbell is standing. Campbell scrutinises the intruder with a threatening eye, and
as Chaplin pounds his beat, Campbell follows him. The camera dollies to MS -
Chaplin and Campbell fill the frame - then pans right to the middle of the street where
Chaplin examines the tattered uniform of his hospitalised predecessor.!
"
Campbell hovers about menacingly and Chaplin nervously makes his way to the
police telephone. He stands and swirls his baton beneath the gas lamp on which the
street sign reads 'Easy Street'. The police phone box is placed directly beneath the
sign. Campbell towers over Chaplin. Chaplin is intimidated.!
59
 !
MS Chaplin, intimidated, attempts to call for reinforcements. He makes various
efforts to telephone inconspicuously, but Campbell grabs the phone and places
Chaplin out of reach. Chaplin takes out his baton and hits Campbell on the head. No
effect. He hits him again. Campbell invites him to strike him once more. No effect.
Chaplin tries to run off, Campbell grabs him, removes his jacket, and rolls up his
sleeves. Chaplin prays, Campbell shows his fist.!
!
MLS Chaplin runs, Campbell grabs him by the throat and shakes him. He roars and
demonstrates his strength by grabbing hold of the lamp post and bending it. Chaplin
looks on in terror. Campbell does it again. Chaplin again tries to flee, Campbell grabs
him, lifts him off his feet and throws him to the ground. He bends the lamp post right
over this time, and Chaplin leaps on his back, forcing Campbell's head into the glass
lamp.!
"
MCU Chaplin turns on the gas tap while Campbell struggles inside the lamp. He
swoons with the effect of the gas.!
"
MLS Campbell slumps to the ground. Chaplin checks his pulse, replaces the lamp on
Campbell's head, and turns on some more gas.!
"
Campbell can barely sit upright, and Chaplin pushes him over with a light touch of
his foot. He picks up the telephone, and calls the police station, triumphant.!
"
The scene has a presentation, a conflict and its resolution.
The presentation: Chaplin as the diminutive policeman in a
hostile environment, Easy Street, with the lurking menace of
the street ruffian, Eric Campbell. (In an earlier scene he
terrorises the street's residents). The presentation climaxes
with Chaplin's attempt to call for help. A climax or turning
point denotes a change in the protagonist's course of action.
The crisis; Campbell threatens Chaplin, Chaplin retaliates
by striking him on the head with a baton. Do it again,
invites the villain. Chaplin attempts to flee but Campbell
restrains him, and the middle part climaxes with Campbell
60
clarifying his intentions. Chaplin faces a sound thrashing.
The conflict's resolution: the villain's final demonstration of
power - he bends over the gas lamp, Chaplin tries to break
free, fails; Campbell bends down the lamp even further, and
'act three' climaxes with Chaplin leaping on the ruffian's
back, turning on the gas tap and rendering him
unconscious. The story's finale shows Chaplin calling to the
police station unhindered.!
"
The proportionate lengths of a feature film's three
movements are usually consistent. Broadly speaking, the
presentation and resolution are equivalent to the duration of
the 'conflict'. In a film lasting 100 minutes, 25 minutes into
the story something happens to change the course of action
for the main character. 25 minutes before the end marks
another turning point, leading to the story's final climax.!
"
The paradigm outlined in Sid Field's Screenplay Wells Root,
Writing the Script, refers to "crisis - complications -
resolution" and states that "the primitive in an art becomes
the perennial" in explaining the simplicity of this approach
to film structure. Eugene Vale in The Technique of Screen
and Television Writing formulates four stages of the film
narrative: 1. The undisturbed stage. 2. The disturbance. 3.
The struggle. 4. The adjustment.!
!
"
The structure of the fiction film's dramatic form can be
summarised as:!
"
61
 0__________*.25______________*.75_________*_ 100!
Presentation Conflict Resolution!
"
So well-established is the three act drama, so well trained
are the cinema audiences to this dramatic form, that Alfred
Hitchcock could ruthlessly manipulate the spectator of
Psycho (1960) into accepting Marion Crane as the film's
main character, only to have her killed off 45 minutes into
the story. "The public always likes to be one jump ahead of
the story... so you deliberately play upon this fact to control
their thoughts... The first part of the story was a red herring
to detract the viewer's attention in order to heighten the
murder."!
"
Act One presents Marion, a young woman who works in an
office, involved in a lunch time love affair with boyfriend,
Sam Loomis. Instead of depositing 40,000 dollars of
company money in the bank, she sees a possibility of a new
start with Sam Loomis, free of financial problems, so drives
out of town and toward Fairvale and Sam Loomis's
hardware store. In a rain storm late at night she stops at a
motel off the main highway. She meets Norman Bates, "just
15 miles from Fairvale", the first turning point of the story.!
Marion was a subterfuge leading us into the dubious world
of Norman Bates. "Psycho has a very interesting
construction", says Hitchcock. "The game with the audience
was fascinating. You might say I was playing‹!
them, like an organ."!
"
Marion hears Norman argue with his mother. "I won't have
62
you bringing strange young girls in for supper," says
Mother. "...in the cheap, erotic fashion of young men with
cheap, erotic minds." Later Norman apologises on her
behalf. "Mother... what is the phrase? isn't quite herself
today." In her motel room, Marion decides to return the next
day and give back the stolen money. 45 minutes into the
story Marion is stabbed to death in the shower. "It's unusual
to kill the star in the first third of the film," says Hitchcock.
"I purposely killed the star so as to make the killing even
more unexpected."!
"
Marion's story comes to a poignant end as Norman watches
her car, containing her body and 40,000 dollars, sink into the
swamp behind the motel, which occurs exactly half-way
through the film. The story turns to Marion's sister, Lila,
Sam Loomis, and Arbogast, an insurance company
detective.!
"
Arbogast's investigations lead him to the Bates Motel and
Norman Bates. The detective becomes increasingly
determined to meet Bates' mother, and at the top of the
staircase in the Bates' home, he finally does. Arbogast is also
stabbed to death. Lila and Sam do some investigating of
their own, and the local sheriff provides some background
to the Bates' case. Act Two ends with; "Norman Bates'
mother has been dead and buried for ten years!”!
"
In the third act Sam and Lila take up the search for Marion
themselves, as well as the missing detective. Their visit to
the Bates Motel and finally the Bates' house culminates with
63
Bates, dressed in a wig and his mother's clothing, and
having assumed his mother's personality, attempting to kill
Lila. Sam Loomis intervenes at the last minute. The split
personality of Norman Bates is revealed, and he's locked up
in a mental asylum.!
"
“Psycho, more than any of my other pictures, is a film that
belongs to filmmakers, to you and me...” Hitchcock told
Truffaut. He regarded the film as a kind of black joke played
at the audience's expense. Our identification is so explicitly
with Marion that she is murdered half way through the
story, we, the audience are also 'murdered'; we are robbed of
our identity. As a result, in order to regain an 'identity'
again, we must seek a new identity, any identity, and the
identity we assume is that of the murderer – we become
Bates' accomplice.!
"
The story peels away layers of subterfuge - at the outset
nothing of Norman Bates is known, not even his role as
main character, by the end all has been revealed, each act
representing a phase of discovery, uncovering the character
of Norman Bates. "The whole construction of the picture
suggests a sort of scale of the abnormal. First there is a scene
of adultery, then a theft, then one crime followed by another,
and, finally, psychopathy. Each passage puts us on a higher
note of the scale."!
"
The story's conflict concerns Norman, and Norman's
'mother', or as the psychiatrist at the end of the film says:
"When the mind houses two personalities there's always a
64
conflict, a battle. In Norman's case the battle is over, and the
dominant personality has won."!
"
Narratologist, Tzvetan Todorov, describes a narrative as a
development from one state of equilibrium to another state
of equilibrium. "The second equilibrium is similar to the
first, but the two are never identical." He describes the two
elements of a narrative as:!
!
1. a state (equilibrium) !
2. an event (the passage from one state to another, the
'disruptive event')!
"
A disruption upsets the state of balance, the equilibrium, in
order to set the narrative in motion. The dramatic form of a
narrative film begins with the crisis and the main character
who must deal with it, and ends with the resolution of that
crisis. In this way a narrative can be seen as a cycle; the
disruption of harmony at the beginning, and a return to
harmony at the end. The disruption may be an event, like
the killing of Swede Anderson in The Killers (Siodmak,
1946), or an action on the part of the main character - Joe
Buck leaves Texas for New York (Midnight Cowboy,
Schlesinger, 1969), or a contrivance in order to set the story
in motion - the discovery of a severed human ear in an open
field as in Blue Velvet (Lynch, 1986).!
"
Narrative plot development is often described in terms of
lineal advancement. Todorov's depiction suggests a cycle.
The cyclic model is appropriate as 'endings' invariably relate
65
to 'beginnings'; a return to a "state of equilibrium, similar to
the first."!
"
In addition to Aristotle's 'presentation - crisis - resolution',
the neo-classical model of dramatic structure considered
two components within the 'crisis' phase of the narrative:
'complications' and 'confusion'. Applied to the lineal model,
dramatic structure consists of:!
"
Beginning Presentation Exposition — protasis: Act One!
Middle Complications Conflict — epitasis: Act Two part one!
Middle Confusion Crisis — catastasis: Act Two part two!
End Resolution Retaliation — catastrophe: Act Three!
"
Catastrophe means literally to 'cast down'; the climax of a
drama entails a resolution, when dramatic tension subsides,
as well as when plot points and complications 'fall into
place.'!
"
Citizen Kane (Orson Welles, 1941; script by Herman
Mankiewicz) begins with the word 'Rosebud' and ends by
disclosing its significance. It begins with Kane dying, lonely
and embittered, and ends by disclosing why. Kane's final
word, 'Rosebud', and the search for its meaning, functions
as the disruption in order to start the narrative moving.!
"
Following the death-bed scene and the ‘Rosebud' plant, the
first ten minutes consist of newsreel footage describing the
life and death of Charles Kane, after which a team of
journalists set out on the "quest" to find the meaning of
'Rosebud'. Most of the narrative is from the perspective of
66
the reporter, Thompson, whose research at the Thatcher
library opens into the flashback of Kane's childhood. At the
age of 25 and 25 minutes into the story, Kane sends a
telegram to his guardian, Thatcher. "I think it would be fun
to run a newspaper", he writes, and the scene fades out of
Act One and into Act Two with the adult Kane's physical
presence for the first time.!
"
Kane begins as editor, builds up the newspaper, gets
married, and goes into politics. 57 minutes into the 114
minute long film, Kane meets Susan Alexander, an aspiring
young singer. "I was on my way to see some child's things in
warehouse storage..." he tells her, referring to the film's
beginning and end. This is the only point in the narrative
where the significance of Kane's 'Rosebud' is suggested.!
"
He runs for election but his affair is exposed by his corrupt
opponent, Boss Jim Getys, and he retires from public life a
wealthy but defeated man. Kane's one time friend, Jedediah
Leland, who relates this episode of Kane's life to Thompson,
summarises Kane's life with the line: "He was disappointed
in the world so he built one of his own."!
"
Act Three fades into Kane mature years and his relationship
with Susan Alexander. He presses her to become an opera
singer but her talent is mediocre. "You don't know what it
means", she says, "When a whole audience just doesn't want
you." Kane had never cared much for audiences. He
withdraws into his private Xanadu, and an old and
embittered Charles Kane collapses on his bed and utters his
67
final word, the significance of which is disclosed only to the
viewing audience. "It wouldn't have explained anything",
says Thompson. "One word can never explain a man’s life."!
"
An analysis of the narrative reveals four distinct episodes
which are virtually self contained stories. The first part
summarises Kane's accomplishments in counterpoint to his
isolated and loveless childhood.!
"
Part two is the story of an ambitious young man who takes
over a run down newspaper and turns it into a success. Part
three tells of Kane, a wealthy and powerful public figure, his
entry into politics in order to 'rid corruption and champion
the oppressed', only to have his career shattered by the very
agents of corruption he attempted to thwart. Part four is the
story of an embittered and wealthy old man, no longer
capable of achieving success himself, projecting his own
ambition for 'acclaim' onto his young mistress. !
"
Herman Manckiewicz had originally entitled the screenplay
'American', based loosely on the life of the‹ newspaper
tycoon, William Hearst and his affair with actress Marion
Davies, structuring the narrative around a series of
flashbacks. Although deemed innovative at the time, it was
not the first screenplay to employ a fragmentary approach
incorporating flashbacks to relate a narrative. D W Griffith’s
Intolerance (1916) bears comparison and Manckiewicz
himself had written the script to The Power and the Glory
(1933) directed by Lawrence Windom, about the rise of a
railroad tycoon from his humble origins. The magnate,
68
played by Spencer Tracy, sees his life as an act of self-
betrayal and commits suicide. His life is recounted by his
secretary and employees in a series of flashbacks in the style
of Citizen Kane:!
"
Citizen Kane outline:!
!
Sq RT!
1. 00 Act 1. Xanadu. Kane dies. "Rosebud".!
2. 02 "News on the March" newsreel.!
3. 12 Journalists: What was "Rosebud"?!
4. 14 Susan Alexander at nightclub.!
5. 17 Journalist Thompson visits Thatcher library!
6. 19 FLASHBACK. Kane's childhood.‹!
7. 23 Kane at 25, off-screen.‹!
8. 25 * Telegram: "I think it would be fun to run a newspaper."!
"
9. 26 Act 2. Kane's first appearance. Story begins.‹!
10. 29 FLASHBACK ENDS. Thompson leaves library.‹!
11. 31 Thompson interviews Bernstein.‹!
12. 32 BERNSTEIN'S FLASHBACK. Taking over "Inquirer".!
13. 37 Kane's Declaration of Principles.‹!
14. 42 Chronicle staff bought up by Inquirer.ø‹!
15. 44 Musical number.‹!
16. 46 Kane's marriage announced.‹!
17. 48 BERNSTEIN'S FLASHBACK ENDS.‹!
18. 49 Thompson visits Jedediah Leland.‹!
19. 51 LELAND'S FLASHBACK. Kane and wife at breakfast.‹!
20. 54 Kane meets Susan Alexander.‹!
21. 57 * Midpoint: Kane's 'mid-life crisis'. ‘You're not a professional magician
are you?"quips Susan Alexander. Kane: "I was on my way to see some child's things
in warehouse storage... I run a couple of newspapers. What do you do?!
22. 60 Governor election. Kane vs Boss Jim Getys.‹!
23. 64 Confrontation: Kane + wife + Susan + Getys.‹!
24. 71 Inquirer headline: "Fraud at Polls."‹!
25. 72 Kane and Leland after election.‹!
69
 26. 74 Kane marries Susan Alexander.‹!
27. 76 Susan's opera performance. Thumbs down.‹!
28. 78 Leland's review; resignation. Kane finishes review.‹!
29. 82 * LELAND'S FLASHBACK ENDS. Leland to‹!
Thompson:" He was disappointed in the world so he‹!
built one of his own."‹!
30. 84 Act 3. Susan Alexander at Atlanta nightclub.‹!
31. 85 SUSAN'S FLASHBACK. Singing lessons.‹!
32. 88 Opera performance.‹!
33. 90 Kane applauds.‹!
34. 94 Leland returns Declaration of Principles.‹!
35. 95 Susan's career. On tour.‹!
36. 96 Susan attempts suicide. "You don't know what‹!
it means when a whole audience just doesn't want you."‹!
37. 98 Kane and Susan alone at Xanadu. Jigsaw puzzles.‹!
38. 101 Picnic. Jungle scene.‹!
39. 103 Kane and servant Raymond. Susan leaves.‹!
40. 106 SUSAN'S FLASHBACK ENDS. Susan at nightclub.‹!
41. 107 Thompson with Raymond at Xanadu.‹!
42. 108 RAYMOND'S FLASHBACK. Kane's tantrum. ‹!
Breaks everything but a glass ball.!
43. 110 Kane on deathbed. "Rosebud."!
44. 112 RAYMOND'S FLASHBACK ENDS. Inventory at ‹!
Xanadu. "It wouldn't have explained anything. One word ‹!
can never explain a man's life."!
45. 114 Artifacts at Xanadu burn in fire. CU of sled 'Rosebud.'!
"
In Ettore Scola's film, We All Loved Each Other So Much
(1975), the 'disruptive event' at the beginning of the story is
a driving license that must be returned to its owner. Like
'Rosebud', it serves as a dramatic device in order to set the
narrative in motion as in Citizen Kane, a motive for
examining the life of a wealthy newspaper tycoon, in We
All Loved Each Other So, a motive for re-uniting four
friends after 20 years of separation.!
70
"
The film opens with a run down Fiat stopping outside a
luxury home, three people get out, two men and a woman,
they look at the house, the grounds, the swimming pool,
and question whether they've found the right address. They
check the address on the driving licence. It's the right place.
A familiar figure strolls across the grounds in a robe and
swimming trunks, climbs to the diving board, and as he
prepares to plunge into the water, the image freezes, and the
characters on the other side of the brick wall address the
camera and introduce the story.!
"
A film's mid point is distinguished by a dramatic event;
Norman Bates disposes of Marion Crane's body, Kane meets
Susan Alexander on the way to seeing some relics of his
childhood, and in We All Loved Each Other So Much, four
friends part company, not to meet again for twenty years.
However, in Scola's film, the division of the narrative into
two halves, is further indicated by the transition from black
and white to colour, at a point in which the four characters
go their own separate ways, creating their own lives in the
decades between the 1950's and the 1970's. (See Part Four:
Character) By contrast, Scola's film, The Family (1987), is a
chronological study of a man's life from beginning to end.
The first image of the main character, Carlo, is on a family
photograph following his birth. The first part describes his
childhood and growing up, and his first love, Adriane. As a
young man he rejects her and Adriane leaves.!
"
In the second part, Carlo marries another, Beatrice. In
71
middle age he meets Adriane once more. She is a successful
musician. Beatrice has died, and once more there is the
possibility of an affair between Carlo and Adriane. But his
time she leaves him. The final part portrays Carlo an old
man, reduced to a minor part in the family drama, a quiet
observer to his children's loves and losses, and to his own
memories. At the age of 80 he is once more the centre of a
family photograph, the returning us to the opening.!
"
Federico Fellini's Satyricon (1969), consists of a series of
episodes based on fragments by Petronius, yet complies to
the dramatic form's 'classical' structure. At the beginning of
the story, the main character, Encolpios, pleads with his
powerful adversary, Ascyltos, for the return of his lover, a
young boy named Giton. "I must have Giton. Otherwise I'm
not a man," he says. Encolpios is 'the wounded hero' (Part
Four), 'incomplete' in himself, projecting his inadequacy on
another. The narrative 'crisis' consists of Encolpios' 'identity
crisis’. His reunion with Giton is brief. Giton, tired of
Encolpios' dependence on him, rejects him. The
underground city collapses, and Encolpios barely escapes
with his life. The world around Encolpios falls in around
him, literally and metaphorically. The first act culminates
with his separation from Giton once more. His dilemma is
unresolved.!
!
Encolpios sets out on a quest in search of Giton. His
encounters en route provide anecdotes relating to the
narrative theme; sacrifices for the sake of physical desire -
how lust and greed lead to social corruption and moral
72
degradation. Encolpios is forced into the Labyrinth to fight
the Minatour. The second act 'climax' portrays Encolpios
about to be slain. But, says the Minotaur, the youth has
fought nobly and honourably — his life should be spared.!

"
Satyricon: Encolpios and a crisis of identity. !
"
Encolpios is rewarded with a woman, but without Giton he
is impotent. He is told the way to regain his potency is by
taking the fire from beneath the robe of Enotea, who has
"fire in her loins". Encolpios seduces her, regains his potency
and wins his independence. He no longer needs Giton in
order "to be a man”.!
"
Film narrative has evolved into a distinct narrative form
defined by its own conventions, just as the fairy tale and
73
folk saga have their own narrative conventions. The
presentation of a fairy tale begins: "Once upon a time..." and
the narrative 'crisis' is invariably resolved by "they lived
happily ever after.” Like the fairy tale, film narrative's
dramatic form incorporates an underlying moral premise,
character archetypes and an ending contrived to resolve all
unsettled conflicts, leaving no loose ends untied.!
"
Neil Jordan's film Mona Lisa (1986 - co-scripted with David
Leland) is a modern day 'fairy tale' with suggestions of
Beauty and the Beast, the dwarf and the princess, Rapunzel,
and George and the Dragon, in a style reminiscent of film
noir and gangster pictures.!
"
George is a small time crook just out of prison. His wife
won't let him in the house nor see his teenage daughter. He
goes to live with his friend Thomas, in a garage, and gets a
job from a London gangster boss, on whose behalf he's sat in
prison. He becomes driver for a luxury prostitute, the
elegant Simone. The dwarf meets the princess.!
"
In the second act an uneasy relationship develops between
the two. She clothes him, refines him, and attempts to
transform the dwarf into a prince. In return he undertakes a
'quest' on her behalf - to rescue the 'child princess' from the
'dragon's lair'. Simone’s friend, a young girl as old as his
own daughter, is missing, probably working as a prostitute.
George’s 'quest' leads him into into the underworld of
London, with its sleazy sex-clubs, drug dealers and ruthless
racketeers. George rescues the girl but in so doing incurs the
74
wrath of the underworld; George, Simone and the girl flee
to Brighton.!
"
The final confrontation is played out in a Brighton hotel
room. Simone is re-united with her lover, and only then
does George realise the nature of Simone’s sexuality, and the
contempt she has for all men. Simone shoots down the
underworld boss - the princess slays the dragon - and turns
the gun on George; she sees the 'dragon' in all men. The
bond between them is broken and George is reconciled with
his daughter.!
"
Neil Jordan describes the story as "a contemporary moral
tale with two characters so far apart, but so inherently
likeable that an audience might empathise, understand each
point of view, feel the depth of their misplaced passion, and
yet know from the start how impossible it was."!
"
Dramatic structure has no bearing on narrative content -
structure is the facility of arranging the narrative into a story
most effectively told. Hollywood summarises the three act
drama in one of its more celebrated cliches; 'boy meets girl,
boy loses girl, boy gets girl'. Structurally, this format
describes a plethora of film stories, from the superficial to
the profound.!
"
Alfred Hitchcock's film Notorious (1946) is a 'boy meets girl'
structure, wherein the narrative implications of 'boy gets
girl' underlie dark shadows of uncertainty, rather than a
'happy ending'. (See Part Four)!
75
Act 1, set in Miami, intelligence agent Devlin meets Alicia,
the wayward daughter of a man convicted of treason. At the
outset Alicia is the victim manipulated by government
officials playing on her guilt over her father's treachery.
Devlin is the persecutor exploiting her bad conscience, that
in order to atone for the sins of the father she must spy for
the government. By the end of Act 1, Alicia is in love with
Devlin, but he is unresponsive. "I don't trust women," he
says. Before their assignment takes them to South America,
Alicia pleads; "Why won't you believe in me?"!
"
Act 2, in Brazil, Devlin loses Alicia. On government orders
she marries Sebastian, head of a nazi ring. Sebastian, in spite
of his mother's misgivings, is obsessed with Alicia, and
doesn't realise until late in the game whose side she's on. "I
am married to an American agent", says Sebastian to his
mother. “Don't worry," she says. "I'll take care of it."!
"
Act 3, set mainly in Sebastian's home, is where Devlin
finally gets Alicia. She is being slowly poisoned to death,
and in the tradition of the last minute rescue, Devlin rescues
her. Now the situation is reversed - Devlin is driven by guilt
to rescue Alicia, atoning for having jeopardised her life and
manipulating her feelings. He confesses his love for her. At
the beginning he has saved her from recklessness and self-
destruction, now at the end he has saved her once more, this
time from their adversaries. Alicia, having found self-

76
respect, is now able to play on Devlin’s feelings.!
"
The three acts of a screenplay pose a question, an answer to
the question, and action to be taken as a result of that
answer. In Notorious the question is whether Devlin "will
believe in Alicia". Act 2 suggests he does, and in Act 3 he
acts to show that he does.!

Notorious: Boy meets girl, boy loses girl, boy gets girl !
"
The Bee-Keeper (Theo Angelopolous, 1986) begins with the
main character, Spyros, giving away his daughter in
marriage. It is a scene laden with poignancy; the
understated and unexpressed desire Spyros feels for his
daughter. Before leaving her to embark on his seasonal
77
journey to the bee-hives in northern Greece, he embraces
her with passion. The embrace is prolonged, and finally the
daughter pushes her father away. Rejecting the father is an
underlying theme for the narrative; the father who must let
go of his grown-up daughter. The turning point of a
narrative, as well as changing the course of action for the
protagonist are additionally often the externalisation of the
protagonist's inner conflict. For Spyros the desire he has for
his daughter is externalized in his encounter with a girl the
same age, hitch-hiking on the road.!
"
The story describes the precarious relationship between
Spyros and the wayward young girl, who, on the one hand
attracts him, and on the other, provokes and exasperates
him. She picks up a lover, and Spyros leaves her.!
"
At the narrative mid-point he drives his truck through the
window of a small town cafe and snatches the girl from her
young lover, and drives away with her. This is the first time
Spyros has taken an initiative.!
"
On a ferry boat he attempts to force himself on her. "Not like
this," says the girl. "Not like this!" Finally, in a disused
cinema in a small town, he seduces her in front of the
cinema screen. As they make love she struggles: "Let me
go!" she says, over and over, repeating the plea of his
daughter. As she lies naked and sleeping in front of the
white cinema screen, Spyros sits in the auditorium and
stares at her. A projection on a screen. Perhaps that's all she
is. After having been dressed in shabby jeans and black
78
leather, she now awakens and puts on a white dress. Spyros
sings a child's song as he would to his own daughter.!
"
They go to a restaurant and she leaves him, re-enacting his
daughter's departure. Spyros, having drawn himself into a
web of sexual subterfuge, withdraws once more into bee-
keeping, only to be stung to death by the bees he tends. Like
the drone bee, Spyros, having mated with the 'queen' (his
projection of supreme and forbidden sexual union), must
forfeit his life.!
"
Letter to Brezhnev (Chris Bernard, 1985) tells the story of
Elaine who falls in love with a Russian seaman visiting
Liverpool, where she lives. Notorious describes the conflict
between Devlin and Alicia, in The Bee-Keeper, between
Spyros and his 'daughter'. In Letter to Brezhnev, Elaine's
opposition (antagonism) is the city of Liverpool.!
"
Elaine is unemployed, without money, prospects or love,
miserable in Liverpool's squalor. When she decides to go to
Russia to join Peter everyone is against her. "Everyone's
telling me how awful it is in Russia. How could it be worse
than here?" she asks. !
"
Elaine’s 'dilemma' is attaining independence and self-
respect. She meets Peter, a seaman from Crimea. They spend
the night together and at the film's mid-point Peter returns
to the Soviet Union. Realising that Liverpool holds no
prospects Elaine writes a letter to Brezhnev. "Take a letter
Miss Jones", says Brezhnev to his secretary. The letter and
79
the journey to the Soviet Union represent the efforts of
Elaine's initiative, symbolically rather than actually. Elaine
receives a ‘yes' from the USSR, and despite opposition on
the home front, takes her step into the unknown.!
!
On one level Letter to Brezhnev is a simple love story, but
on another level it's a story of inner-realisation, about a
young woman who takes matters in hand to change or
improve her life. The role of the Russian seaman, Peter,
rather than antagonist, is that of catalyst, or 'hero'.!
"
"
"
"
"
"
"
"
"
"
"
"
"
"
"
"
"
"
"
"
80
!
Letter to Brezhnev. Elaine's conflict remains on her side of the fence - the city of
Liverpool. She bids farewell to Peter, the Russian sailor, halfway through the story.
Their brief encounter allows him to fulfill the dramatic function of the 'hero' - a
catalyst to Elaine's transformation.!
"
"
81
Classical Hollywood Structure!
!
In Greek mythology a 'hero' is half mortal and half divine,
and favoured by the gods. In drama the ‘hero', in contrast to
the main character, is constant. The 'hero' is the same at the
end of story as at the beginning, whereas the main character
undergoes a change. The 'hero' figure departs the arena with
the same heroic status with which he/she arrived. !
"
Protagonist Antagonist Hero!
"
- ! + ! +!
"
"
"
"
+ ! - ! +!
"
The hero's narrative function is that of catalyst, aiding the
main character in overcoming the crisis. !
"
Kurusawa's film The Seven Samurai (1955) begins with a
horde of bandits thundering over a heath silhouetted
against a stormy sky. They stop and survey a village. "We
shall plunder the village!" says one. "No!" says the bandit
chieftan. "We shall return when the corn is ripe." And they
ride off into the distance. A peasant overhears and returns to
tell the villagers. They lament their wretched predicament.
If the peasants resist the bandits they'll be killed, and if they
don't they'll lose their crops and starve to death.!
"
82
The contest is set; peasants against bandits. But the contest
is so hopelessly uneven that the peasants need help in order
to balance the match even slightly. The village elder advises
that they enlist the aid of samurai. Seven samurai enter the
arena of contest, and they shall attempt to aid the peasants
against the bandits. But there are many bandits and the
odds are still against them.!
"
The preparations for battle begin. Minor characters and sub-
plots develop. Age-old friction between peasants and
samurai, after some initial hostility, is finally resolved. After
all, they are united against a common enemy. The youngest
samurai falls in love with a peasant girl. The farmers are
trained to fight and the samurai consider their strategy. The
corn ripens.!
"
In an attempt to reduce the odds the samurai raid the bandit
camp. One of their number is killed, but bandit losses are
heavy. The odds are still severe but now they at least have a
chance of fighting off an attack.!
"
The bandits attack. A fierce battle ensues but the samurai
and the peasants hold them off. Finally the bandits pull back
and retreat.!
"
Both sides prepare for the final battle. This is the point of no
return, a case of do or die. The bandits must attack or they'll
starve. The peasants and samurai must win or they will
perish.!
"
83
Finally the bandits attack and the final battle is underway.
Losses are heavy on both sides. But the bandits are defeated.
Three samurai survive, four were killed in battle. The
youngest samurai stays to marry the peasant girl and
become a farmer. The last two samurai pay tribute to their
dead comrades and disappear into the distance.!
"
The story has an:!
Opening!
Presentation!
Development!
Conflict Escalation!
Conflict Resolution!
Rounding off !
"
The opening provides an immediate identification of the
two sides and the nature of the ‘contest'. Peasants on one
side, bandits on the other, together with an essential
ingredient of classical Hollywood style, namely the time
limit. "When shall we attack?” "When the corn is ripe!" The
issue, for both sides, is a matter of life or death. The opening
concludes with a possible solution to the crisis; samurai may
be able to save them. The 'hero figure' enters the arena.!
"
At the end of the story only two samurai remain. However,
their status as 'hero' is unchanged. The samurai as 'heroic
figures' leave the arena as they entered - strong, proud and
invincible. Their legend - the heroic 'myth' survives
untarnished.!
"
84
The opening introduces the characters and the plot. To gain
maximum effect an opening introduces four points:!
"
1. Conflict!
2. The aim of the main character!
3. The main character at a point of crisis!
4. The main character whose aim is hindered!
"
The presentation introduces characters, plot and whatever
information is necessary for following the story:!
"
1. Obstacles the main character must overcome!
2. Complications that must be resolved!
3. Urgency: a time limit or a count-down!
4. An important fact not yet stated!
5. A predicament!
"
The conflict development is the part of the story where all
the characters are made known, all relationships are
presented, all minor conflicts introduced, and all locations
revealed. Sub-plots and shadow characters are developed.
Certain hitherto unknown aspects of the main character and
opposition character are exposed.!
"
The conflict escalation builds up the conflict between the
two sides, leading to a point of no return: the direct
confrontation between the main character and the
opposition character. The conflict resolution; one side wins,
the other loses - denouement, the plot is unravelled to the
moment of revelation, the final outcome. Sub-plots
85
involving minor characters are also resolved. Rounding off
provides a release from the climax; the point at which the
moral of the story is realised.!
"

The Seven Samurai. The camera angle emphasises the heroic status of the samurai as
they enter the arena of conflict.!
"
Milos Forman's One Flew Over the Cuckoo's Nest (1975),
based on Ken Kesey's novel, is about the conflict between
the inmates of a lunatic asylum, and the 'establishment' in
charge of running it. The calm stagnation of the institution is
disrupted by the arrival of Randal McMurphy. The novel is
narrated from the viewpoint of one of the inmates, a 'deaf
and dumb’ Indian, Chief Bromden, so that the main
character is readily identifiable. In the film however, a main
character that remains mute for two thirds of the picture is
86
not so readily identifiable. Nonetheless, Bromden represents
the inmates, just as nurse Ratched represents the institution.
McMurphy is Bromden’s catalyst, the 'hero figure' that helps
him triumph over his adversary.!
"
"
Chief Ratched McMurphy!
(Inmates) (Institution) (Outsider)!
________________________________________!
"
The opening presents the 'arena' the institution; the main
character, Bromden, and his fellow inmates on the one side,
and nurse Ratched and other institution staff on the other.
Into this 'arena' enters the 'hero':!
"
1: Sunrise. A car driving along an isolated road through a forest. A shamanic drum
plays.!
2: Inmates sleeping.!
3: Nurse Ratched arrives, jangling keys and unlocking doors. Inmates chains
removed. Medication time. Nurse Ratched and assistant dispensing pills.!
4: Chief Bromden with broom. No response.!
8: McMurphy enters entrance hall, handcuffs are removed and he starts to laugh. !
6. McMurphy walks down corridor – Nurse Ratched checks clothes.!
re as big as a mountain,’ says McMurphy to Bromden.!
!
McMurphy's arrival dispels the institution's stagnant calm.
"You're as big as a damned mountain!" he says to the Chief
(Set-up #1). "No good speaking to him", says one of the
inmates. "He's deaf and dumb."At the outset the Chief is at
rock-bottom; incommunicative, apathetic, and imprisoned,
withdrawn from the outside world. !
"
87
McMurphy draws the chief from his isolated state and
prepares him for the world beyond the walls. The Chief's
first response is the simple act of throwing a basket ball,
then later by helping McMurphy out in a fight, until he
reaches a state of confidence where he utters his first words,
and confesses that his 'muteness' is a sham. Finally
McMurphy helps the Chief realise the possibility of
freedom. Half-way through the story McMurphy arranges
an escape. "I'm not ready yet," says the Chief. (Set-up #2).!
"
Thirty minutes into the story McMurphy proclaims his
intention to lift up a concrete drinking fountain and throw it
through the window. "I'm going to pick up that fountain
and throw it through the window. Then I'm getting out of
here," he says. (Set-up #3). It can't be done, say the others.
The Chief watches as McMurphy fails. "But I tried, didn't I,
godammit", he says. "At least I did that."!
"
By the end of the story the Chief has regained his self-
respect. "I’m ready,"(Pay-off #1) he tells McMurphy. "I feel
as big as a damned mountain". (Pay-off #2). But
McMurphy's lobotomy has turned him into a vegetable. The
Chief has to go alone. "You're coming with me", he says, and
smothers McMurphy to death with a pillow. Then he picks
up the drinking fountain and hurls it through the barred
window. (Pay-off #3). The final shot shows the Chief
running toward the hills at daybreak. He has found his self-
esteem and gained his freedom.!
"
The final six scenes are reversed versions of the first.
88
Bromden walks to McMurphy’s bed.!
"
1. ‘I feel as big as a damned mountain,’says Bromden to McMurphy.!
2: Bromden realises McMurphy is lobotomised. ‘I can’t leave you like this.’!
3: Chief Bromden; ‘I’m taking you with me.’!
4: Bromden walks down the corridor. He strains with the drinking fountain, lifts it
from the floor and hurls it through the barred window. !
5: Inmates awake and cheering.!
6: Sunrise. Bromden runs off into the forest. A shamanic drum plays.!
"
McMurphy's death? How can his role be described as
'unchanged?' Because as 'hero' he has created a myth, and
the myth lives on, unchanged. Only the Chief has seen
McMurphy after the lobotomy. According to the other
inmates he's either "knocked out a few guards and escaped",
or he's upstairs as "meek as a lamb”.!
"
Either way, McMurphy's exploits live on, and the seeds of
freedom planted in Chief Bromden, may have also taken
root in some of the other inmates. McMurphy’s is the role of
the "outsider", who arrives, achieves his task, and leaves;
like Mr Keating, the teacher in Dead Poets Society (Peter
Weir, 1989), or the Western hero, Shane (1953), or the heroes
of so many other Westerns that have adopted the same
dramatic model. The sacrifice of the hero is for the common
good, and the legend lives on.!
"
The structure of the classical Hollywood style aims to
maximise the potential of a story, emphasising ‘plot' and
'situation' over character. Character is established through
'action.'!
89
The Hollywood style has dominated the cinema since the
United States emerged as a major film producing nation at a
time when Europe was plunged into the darkness of the
Great War. Illustrating the style with so essentially Japanese
a film as The Seven Samurai substantiates its international
acceptance.!
"
Hollywood cinema is further typified by the use of the
cinema's technical components to emphasize narrative
continuity; mise-en-scene and editing serve to tell the story
as effectively as possible. Its development can be traced to
the early films of D W Griffith and the founding of the
Hollywood studio system, from about 1915.!
"
But a system that sees film-making as an industry, providing
a 'commodity' for public consumption to meet public
demands, also has its disadvantages. Such an industry
creates narratives to fulfill audience expectations,
disregarding the possibility of the 'new'. The commercial
cinema is continually revitalised by filmmakers employing
alternatives to the established modes of film narrative. !
"
"
"
"

90
Alternative Dramatic Structure!
!
"Yes, but not necessarily in that order." J-L Godard!
"
Traditional film structure is based on emphasising a
dramatic conflict between two opposing parties. The story
begins with a problem or crisis, and ends by resolving it.
Traditional narrative is based on fulfilling the expectations
of an audience, characters are readily identifiable, often
stereotypes, and either 'good' or 'bad', a winner or loser, and
stands on complex moral issues become identifiably 'right'
or 'wrong'. The limitations tend to be the over-simplification
of moral dilemma and the predictability of the narrative;
Luis Bunuel claimed he could consistently predict the end of
a Hollywood film after the first five minutes. [Luis Bunuel,
My Last Breath]!
"
A resistance to this form of film script, the 'strong script',
began with the Italian cinema of the 1950's sceneggiatura di
ferro - the script of iron - became a source of dispute for
filmmakers like Fellini and Antonioni who were keen to
exert more influence over their own films, and away from
the producers who insisted they make films with clear story
lines and the elements of a strong narrative. It was an
attempt to move the cinema away from a theatrical form to
a 'cinematic' form with the emphasis on the strong visual
image rather than the strong script.!
"
Similarly the 'New Wave' directors in France of the 1950's,
former writers for Cahiers du Cinema; Godard, Truffaut,
91
Rohmer, Rivette and others, were heralding "the new age of
the cinema, the age of the camera-stylo", as proclaimed as
early as 1948.[Alexander Astruc in, Ecran Francais, 1948.]!
"
The era of 'la politique des auteurs', the implications of
which still resound in hostile voices across the Atlantic,
began with Francois Truffaut's article in the Cahiers du
Cinema, January 1954, ostensibly differentiating film types,
but also distinguishing a film type as consistent with a
world view or individuality marked by the filmmaker. This
kind of characterising was aimed mainly at film directors,
but could include for example, producers or writers whose
style marked a work as their own. The films of Howard
Hawks or Val Lewton are distinguishable as their works,
rather than the directors involved, as much as the
screenplays of Neil Simon or Paddy Chayevsky are more
apparent in their films rather than a director.!
"
The most controversial aspect of Truffaut's ‘auteurism' was
the elevation of previously disregarded Hollywood B film
directors to the status of primary creative inspiration to their
work. Auteur may be a valid term to describe a small and
rapidly diminishing number of European directors or
filmmakers outside the Hollywood system who have artistic
control over their films, and in many cases, write or co-write
their own scripts. To make the same claims for Hollywood
filmmakers, battling against despotic studio heads and the
demands of commercial success, is debatable.!
"
However, in Europe it marked the beginning of a period
92
where new filmmakers approached cinema shaking
themselves free of the shackles of the 'iron-script'. !
"
"The script belongs to a highly narrativised dramatic
novelistic cinema which is by now old and tired. By contrast
there has been for some time a call for better scripts, better
scriptwriters, better dramatic writing, as if in headlong
flight from everything that is new and interesting toward all
that is conformist and mediocre."!
"
Films which are less dependent on the ‘strong script' tend to
be sparse with dramatic events, plot and dialogue. The
movement of events are often indirect and meanings are
subtle and unstated. The interest of the film is primarily
visual, an image may be included for its own sake rather
than for the sake of the narrative.!
"
The French director, Robert Bresson describes “two types of
film: those that employ the resources of the theatre (actors,
direction, etc) and use the camera to reproduce and those
that employ the resources of cinematography and use the
camera to create.”!
"
Bresson, rather than intensify dramatic situations by the
usual cinematic means, ignores the dramatic elements to
portray scenes without a contrived tension or suspense,
relying on the situation itself, as the source of dramatic
tension. In A Man Escaped (1956), based on the true life
prison escape of a French Resistance leader, Fontaine,
during the Nazi occupation of France, Bresson strips the
93
action of all but the bare essentials, devoting screen time to
Fontaine's meticulous preparations. The escape scene is shot
without any of the usual 'suspense devices' of, for example,
music, shot/counter-shot editing, the threat of pursuers, or
extraneous sound affects to provide added suspense. As
with most of Bresson’s films, non-professional actors were
used, adding an extra dimension of authenticity. !
"
In Blood Money (L'Argent, 1983), the climactic mass murder
scene, shows no murders; but the entrance of the murderer
into the house, his entrance into the various family member
rooms (together with the family dog, who follows him
everywhere) followed by the aftermath; the slain family,
then his exit from the house.!
"
Bresson rarely uses music, "music isolates life in film - it is a
disturbance like alcohol or drugs…" nor does he rely on
established actors for role portrayal or type casting. He
refers to actors as 'models', who have no film or theatrical
background, and never uses the same 'model' twice to
prevent the spectator's identification of a particular role
type.!
"
Traditional narrative film emptied him, he claimed, and
filled him with another world. "I want the public to see and
become involved." He describes himself as a
cinematographer constructing films in a language of
movement and sound. "There's no marriage between film
and theatre without loss to both sides," he writes; film must
free itself of theatrical traditions.!
94
Krzysztof Kieslowski's 'decalogue series' (made ostensibly
for television with several episodes re-edited or cinema
release), feature narratives whose structure differ
considerably from the traditional ‘classical' model, and
embody a film aesthetic defined by Bresson.!
"
A Short Film About Killing (1989) begins with a young man
in the streets of a city suburb. There is no indication as to a
problem or a conflict or crisis that requires a resolution, only
the presentation of a character and his environment. The
narrative is interwoven with parallel 'plot' lines; a taxi-
driver and a defence lawyer. 40 minutes into a film lasting
80 minutes, the youth enters the taxi, requests that the
driver take him to an address in the outer suburbs, and
when the car stops, he murders him. The murder sequence,
uncompromisingly brutal in its deliberation, lasts eight
minutes. The second half of the film concerns the defence
lawyer's case on behalf of the youth. The youth is found
guilty and hanged; the execution sequence is similarly
prolonged and explicit. A boy murders a man, the state
murders a boy. (Poland introduced a five year moratorium
on capital punishment following the release of this film in
1989).!
!
Similarly, A Short Film About Love (1989) consists of two
'acts'; a presentation and a resolution. Tanek, a timid youth
who works at the post office by day, watches an attractive
woman living in a facing apartment by night. He is the
voyeur, and she, the object of his gaze. Narrative
identification either remains with the main character; or
95
different perspectives related back to the main character, but
in this case, half way through the story, after Tanek has
confessed his love to the woman, Kieslowski reverses the
perspective, and the identification is transferred to the
woman. She takes him into her apartment, disrobes and
arouses him to ejaculation. "This is your love", she says. "A
mess on your clothes. You can go and wash in the
bathroom." Tanek, distraught, returns to his own flat,
attempts suicide, and recovers in hospital. The woman visits
Tanek's mother and in the boy's room looks through the
binoculars pointing at her bedroom window. For an instant
she sees herself as Tanek saw her. Finally she visits Tanek
but whether or not a relationship ensues is left open-ended.
One incident becomes two stories; his story and her story.
By avoiding identification with one character Kieslowski
allows us to see ourselves through other eyes.!
"
The Dead was John Huston's last film before his death in
1986, based on a novella by James Joyce. Huston's strength
has been his fidelity to the literary sources on which his
films are scripted, and with he adheres to Joyce's story and
the structure Joyce developed, attempting to break from the
literary conventions of the day.!
"
The Dead is set in Dublin, Epiphany 1904. The film is 80
minutes long, and the first half introduces a variety of
characters at an annual dinner party held by two aging
sisters. Not until 40 minutes into the narrative is there a
'turning point' where we are introduced to the 'main
characters'.!
96
As the guests disperse the story follows one couple
journeying home - a middle-aged husband and wife -and
the wife begins to reminisce. She describes a past
unrequited love; a young man who courted her and died
young. As the film ends and the wife sleeps, the husband
reflects on his own mortality; his voice accompanies images
of wind and snow swept moors.!
"
Structure is a system by which dramatic components are
organised and interrelated. The structure of drama
embodies the structuring of time - dramatic moments are
extended or contracted to the demands of the story. The
narrative flow creates a rhythm, a measured movement
comprising a regular pattern of events.!
"
In contrast to the dramatic narrative, this type of structure
accentuates that rhythm - establishing mood and inviting a
level of creative participation - rather than 'leading' the
viewer from one action to the next. !
"
"
"
"
"

97
Epic Form!
!
The epic form of Greek drama described heroic exploits of a
central character and was episodic in style. According to
Aristotle "it is not the exposition of a single action that is
required, but of a single period, and of everything that
happened to one or more persons during this period,
however unrelated the various events may have been."!
He refers to Homer and The Odyssey in particular, as an
example of epic form where a series of episodes cover a
given span of time. !
"
Conventions of the epic form of classical drama include the
heroic figure and the performance of great deeds, the
portrayal of a particular period, the intervention of the gods,
and themes concerned with eternal human conflicts. The
term comes from the Greek, meaning word; the epics
celebrated heroic adventures, mythical or historical.!
"
Rudolf Arnheim, in his essay 'Epic and Dramatic’, cites
Goethe as his inspiration in defining an epic style of film.
"The epic poem preferably describes a man as he acts
outwardly; battles, travels, any kind of enterprise that
requires some sensuous breadth; tragedy shows a man led
from the inside, therefore the plot of a genuine tragedy
requires little space.”!
"
Whereas the dramatic film is concerned with the resolution
of a problem or conflict, the epic narrative form describes a
series of episodes. Dramatic film is characterised by
98
'suspense'; what will happen next? Whereas epic film
neither deals with a problem nor offers a solution. Dramatic
film moves rapidly to a conclusion, epic film is static.!
"
Arnheim regards the films of Chaplin and Buster Keaton as
prototypes of the epic form, and suggest that together their
films form a kind of continuing narrative which can be
presented in installments because each episode is self-
contained.!
"
Whereas the dramatic form begins with a crisis which the
protagonist must resolve by the story's end, "the epic style...
is not concerned with change and solution but with the
presentation of invariable existence. "Arnheim concludes
that the epic style "insists on the unchangeable nature of
man."!
"
'Spectacle' films, particularly popular in Hollywood in the
1950's with the advent of wide-screen projection, are not
necessarily epic in form, regardless of the advertising jargon
of the time. The epic is well suited to biographical cinema,
but implies that both character and conflict are static. !
"
Citizen Kane is ‘dramatic' because the narrative is a
fictionalised account of an archetypal character and
dilemma, with the emphasis on a narrative theme, and
structured within the dramatic framework of an intrigue.
What is the meaning of 'Rosebud?' Fellini's La Dolce Vita
(1959) is 'epic'; the main character, Marcello, observes,
sometimes participates, in a series of episodes, their!
99
interrelation having little bearing on ‘plot development'.
The narrative emphasises characters, rather than situations
or 'story'.!
"
The term 'epic' and its application to the cinema has been
influenced by the so-called 'epic theatre' of Bertold Brecht
(1898 - 1956) who, in the late 1920's, used different effects to
deliberately create a distance between the spectator and the
'artificial narrative' enacted on stage. Lighting, film inserts
projected onto a screen, and placards bearing slogans, were
used to continually remind the spectator of the drama's
synthesis. Together with the German theatre director and
producer, Erwin Piscator (1893 - 1966), this new form of
theatre, developed in Berlin and later moving to New York,
used montage, episodic scenes removed from the main
narrative, and devices that made an audience reflect as
much on the theatrical form as the narrative content.!
!
Fellini's 8 1/2 begins with film director, Guido, in crisis. Will
he or won't he complete his film. “The script is worthless",
says a critic at the beginning; “There is no problem, no
premise..." implicating Fellini in a role of self-parody as he
sets out to break the conventions of formal narrative
structure.!
"
The problem is a fixed point from which Fellini pursues
themes and motifs present in many of his films; the dream,
memories of childhood, religion, and carnivalesque. Guido's
producer tells him; “Forget all that stuff with the childhood
memories and the symbols..." Later he describes these
100
scenes as "sentimental nonsense... purely negative..." The
episodes merge one to another; from Guido’s childhood to
daydream fantasies to the film's ‘present'; so that at times
the viewer has difficulty orientating oneself within the
landscape of the film. "Viewers may be confused as to where
they are at the beginning of a scene; the point, of course, is
not to pose a puzzle to unravel but to confound the levels of
experience and to involve the viewer in the process."!
"
Whether the film describes a transformation of character is
contentious. The answer to the crisis presented at the
beginning will the film be made or not is clearly 'no'. The
production is abandoned, although in the film's finale,
Guido continues to 'direct'. However, in contrast to a
dramatic from of structure, the resolution of the crisis is not
of primary importance. The 'problem' serves as a vehicle by
which Fellini is free to pursue the themes and motifs which
recur in his films.¨!
"
Amarcord (1973 - the title is dialect for 'I remember’) is
structured around a specific time rather than any one central
character. The film describes events and characters of his
childhood in Rimini in the cycle from one spring to another.!
"
The film consists of roughly 20 episodes, each one forming
it's own 'story within the story'; each episode containing its
own central character. The film begins and ends with the air
filled with white dandelion seeds, marking the end of
winter and the beginning of spring, the start of a new cycle,
and the beginning of the pagan new year. (The conflict
101
between the pagan and the established church is a recurring
theme - religion incorporates both). The towns people
gather in the town square to burn the 'witch'; a pagan rite to
purge the soil of it's infertility. "It's the winter that dies and
the spring that comes", says a voice in the crowd. The story
ends with a marriage - a ceremony representing fertility and
hope.!
"
The family central to the narrative is the mother, Miranda,
the father, Aurelio, and Tita, the son -Fellini's alter-ego, and
a range of characters associated with the sea-side town
during Italy's fascist period in the 1930’s.!
"
Amarcord:!
"
1. The town square by day and night. The first dandelion !
seeds of spring float through the air. Townsfolk gather for !
the witch burning ceremony - a group of teenage boys make !
mischief, Volpina glares hungrily at the men folk, but the !
young men regard two well-dressed sisters on their evening !
promenade. As the fire is reduced to cinders an old woman !
gathers ashes in a bucket.!
!
2. The next day... the boys at school having their photo-!
graph taken, we are presented with some of the characters in !
the classroom. Ciccio ('Fatty') confesses his love for the !
beautiful Aldina. The song 'Stormy Weather' plays in the !
background. "I wonder who's on the beach today?" speaks the !
voice of Fellini.!
!
3. Volpina, bare-foot saunters through the sand, distracting !
the attention of workmen building a house, provoking them !
remorselessly.!
!
102
 4. The family at the dinner table, lodger included. A fierce !
row between father and son, Tita. "No more school, no more !
money..." he rages, and chases Tita out of the house. "He !
pissed on Biodini's hat from the cinema balcony," explains !
Aurelio. Miranda (mother), at the kitchen stove cannot !
control her anger over the disruption of dinner; "I'll kill !
you all... I'll poison you all..." she screams. The song !
'Stormy Weather' plays in the background.!
!
5. The evening promenade in the town square at night. Three ‹!
elegant ladies, including a woman we shall come to know as ‹!
Gradisca, attract looks of admiration. An instrumental of ‹!
'Stormy Weather' is playing. In the early hours, when the ‹!
streets are quiet and empty, a motorcyclist rides through ‹!
the square.!
"
6. Tita in church making confession. "Do you abuse !
yourself?" asks the priest. Tita fantasises about the well-!
endowed woman from the tobacconists, about women's bottoms !
on bicycles, about Volpina, and about seducing Gradisca in !
the cinema.!
!
7. Summer. A military parade on a hot summer's day. 'Il !
Duce' visits the town. Father stays at home, while the ‹!
portrait of 'Il Duce' is ceremoniously raised in the town's ‹!
square. Ciccio fantasises about becoming a hero of the ‹!
republic and winning the love of Aldina.‹!
‹!
8. The towns square at night and the brown shirts drink and ‹!
carouse. There is a blackout and a phonograph placed in the ‹!
church tower plays 'The Internationale'. The fascisti draw ‹!
the guns and shoot at the bell tower until the phonograph is ‹!
shot down and the music silenced. They shout; "Death to ‹!
communists, victory to fascists", and drink their own ‹!
health.‹!
‹!
9. At the police station. Suspects are interrogated, ‹!
including Aurelio. He is forced to drink castor oil, and ‹!
103
 drink a toast to the fascisti. At home his wife bathes him. ‹!
"If Mussolini keeps on like this, well, I just don't ‹!
know..."‹!
‹!
10. The Grand Hotel. Three episodes relate to the town's ‹!
pride and glory.‹!
i. 'Gradisca' ("Help yourself") gets her name by offer-‹!
ing herself to a millionaire.‹!
ii. Biscein, a humble ice-ceam seller, tells how he ‹!
seduced 30 wives of an Arabian prince, in the hotel's luxury ‹!
suite. He played his flute, and they danced all night.‹!
iii. The Grand Hotel terrace dance. The boys witness an ‹!
elegant seduction, and dance by themselves to the sound of ‹!
the hotel's orchestra. (Slow Fade…)!
"
11. "Every summer we went to visit Papa's crazy brother," ‹!
says the voice of the director.‹!
The family go for a picnic in the countryside, together ‹!
with Teo, Tita's uncle from the mental home. After lunch Teo ø‹!
climbs a tree and refuses to come down. "Get me a woman!" he ‹!
shouts over and over. Five hours later, as the sun sets, a ‹!
dwarf nun from the mental home, orders Teo to climb down ‹!
from the tree. He obeys.‹!
‹!
12. By the seaside, all the boats prepare for the evening's ‹!
excursion, to see the ocean liner 'Il Rex', sail by in the ‹!
darkness of night. When the great moment arrives, the towns ‹!
folk, in an armada of small boats, are overcome with the ‹!
spectacle. A blind man removes his glasses.‹!
‹!
13. Autumn. A fog descends over the sea-side resort. ‹!
Grandfather gets lost in front of his own house. Grandson ‹!
sees trees as monsters. The boys, dressed in black capes and ‹!
dark coats, gather outside the Grand Hotel. Closed for the ‹!
season, shrouded in silence and bereft of human life. They ‹!
play imaginary instruments and dance to imaginary music.‹!
Fade...‹!
!
104
 14. The Mille Miglia car race speeds through town until day ‹!
break.‹!
!
15. Tita fulfills his fantasy. He flirts with the ‹!
tobacconist woman, who smothers his head between her ‹!
enormous breasts, before throwing him out of the shop.‹!
!
16. Tita is bedridden with the flu. Mother nurses him and !
tells him the story of how she was seduced by Tita's father, !
and how, finally, they were forced to elope together.‹!
!
17. Winter. The boys gather outside a cinema - a Hollywood ‹!
romance is screening - Gradisca, her friends, and their ‹!
gentlemen company go to the pictures. "Let's go look at the ‹!
sea in the snow", says Ciccio. In the evening the birds ‹!
gather in the town square.‹!
‹!
18. Four days later. It's the year of the great snow. Folk ‹!
dig out pathways through the snow which is several feet ‹!
deep. Father and son visit Miranda in the hospital. In town ø‹!
Tita gets involved in a snow ball fight - and attempts to ‹!
seduce Gradisca in his own clumsy way. Suddenly there is a ‹!
loud screech, and the towns folk are stunned to silence. The ‹!
peacock, belonging to the Count, has flown into the town ‹!
square, and bristles his magnificent tail.‹!
‹!
19. Tita's mother dies. After the funeral Tita wanders by ‹!
the sea-side. The first seeds of spring float in the air.‹!
20. Spring. Gradisca's wedding takes place outdoors and the ‹!
whole town is in attendance. "She's found her Gary Cooper." ‹!
Dandelion seeds fill the air, and the blind man plays an‹!
accordion. Biscein, the ice-cream vendor, looks into the‹!
camera and says goodbye. As the picture fades, a voice shouts; ‹!
"Where is Tita?"!
"
The word pagan originally meant 'belonging to the village',
and in this context Amarcord is more pagan than catholic.
105
The narrative is structured around the 'village' and the
'villagers', and the cycle of seasons. Rather than a 'three act
drama' the story is told in episodes in four parts represented
by the four seasons. The first six episodes, associated with
spring, describe new beginnings, possibilities and hopes.
For Tita and his friends their aspirations are distinctly erotic.!
"
The summer episodes concern Aurelio's opposition to
fascism, the stories relating to the Grand Hotel, and Tita's
uncle Teo; stories about unfulfilled desires.!
"
A breakdown of Amarcord reveals how consequent the
episodes are; Tita's encounter with the tobacconist woman's
bosom, is followed by Tita nursed by his mother; his
mother's tale of seduction and elopement is followed by
Gradisca's visit to the cinema - another tale of seduction and
elopement; Tita's clumsy attempted seduction of Gradisca,
is followed by the peacock's appearance and the shaking of
his tale. The death of Tita's mother at the end of winter
marks an end of a phase in his own life, as the coming of
spring denotes a new beginning.!
"
The pagan earth goddess, represented by Saraghina, and her
sensuous rhumba dance for young Guido and his friends on
the beach, is characterized both by Volpina in Amarcord,
sexually unsatiable and always available, and the
tobacconist woman, whose ample bosom nearly suffocates
the teenage Tita. !
"
Sometimes the episodes are linked by Fellini's own voice as
106
he reminisces. "I wonder who's on the beach today?" he
muses, and we are transported to the sea-side and
introduced to Volpina. Images of sea and the sensual
woman are often combined. Saraghina lives in a beach hut;
the fire goddess, Enotea, in Satyricon (perhaps the most
potent of Fellini's earth goddess figures who has "fire in her
loins"), lives by the sea. The woman-by-the-sea motif recurs
in La Strada, White Sheik, La Dolce Vita, Roma, Juliet of the
Spirits, City of Women, Nights of Cabiria.!

"
Amacord: burning the winter witch and the pagan rites of spring!
"
Many of Fellini's themes are double sided; the woman is
either an embodiment of the fertility goddess, independent
of men, or the long-suffering wife/mother figure whose
despairs are associated with the husband or the son.!
"
Fellini's portrayal of religion favours the pagan over the
established church; the celebrations are hedonistic,
celebrating Dionysus. La Dolce Vita culminates in a long
dance led by a satyr.!
107
"
Dreams are either the voice of the sub-conscious, as with the
opening of 8 1/2, when Guido flies out of a traffic jam in a
tunnel, up into the open sky, only to crash down to the
beach below. This dream alone contains virtually all of the
major visual themes of Fellini's cinematic repertoire. Or they
represent day-dream flights of fantasy; as in the hanging of
the film critic or the harem sequence in the same film. !
"
The marriage of cinema and dreams is abundantly apparent
in the films of Luis Bunuel, yet his films, unlike dreams,
have an inherent logic, structure, theme and endings that
relate to beginnings. Most films of Bunuel, and in particular
those co-scripted by Jean Claude Carriere, begin and end
with a situation that can't be resolved.!
!
The Discreet Charm of the Bourgoisie (1971) is about a
group of people from the upper echelons of society; an
ambassador, a bishop, and others, who aspire to sit down
and eat dinner together. However, their attempts to achieve
this modest goal, are continually thwarted.!
"
The film begins with the party, dressed for the occasion,
arriving at an elegant home, in response to a dinner
invitation. There has been a mistake with the dates, and the
dinner party was for the following evening. "I'm sorry but
there's no food in the house,"says the hostess, and the party
withdraw. They stop at a nearby restaurant. As they seat
themselves they become aware of a singularly despondent
atmosphere. "The owner died this afternoon", the staff
108
inform them, and the body lies in state on one of the tables.
The party leaves, moving from one situation to another, the
succeeding situation always slightly more absurd than the
one before. "If they don't eat together simply because the
steak gets burned the film would become quite dull", says
co-writer Jean Claude Carriere.!
"
"On the other hand if they were hindered by a stampeding
flock of camels rushing into the dining-room, one very soon
loses control. We tried to play between these two poles. The
scene in which the party, to their surprise, discover that they
are on a stage when the curtain suddenly goes up just as
they seat themselves at the dining table, was one we played
around with quite a lot. Only when we realised that it could
happen within one of the character's dreams, we decided to
include it.”!
"
In The Exterminating Angel (1962) a group of people who
meet for dinner are unable to leave the room. That Obscure
Object of Desire (1977) is a series of episodes about a man
obsessed with possessing a particular woman, but always
thwarted. That the woman was played by two different
actresses began as simple expedience - Bunuel dismissed the
first actress because he couldn't work with her, and
employed a new - yet in the finished film it seems to be a
deliberate ploy to portray two sides of a feminine character;
the compassionate and the devilish; the madonna and the
whore. In The Phantom of Liberty (1974) an episode
involving one character, leads to an episode involving
another character, which leads to an episode involving
109
another character, and so on. "Bunuel had an imagination
which often slipped into pure surrealism," says Carriere.!
"
"Many scenes which may appear well thought through and
constructed, came out in their entirety from his
impenetrable subconscious. On the other hand he was never
interested in analysing his own fantasies or himself. Many
critics who tried to extract 'what he actually meant' were
hacking away at stone. He didn’t intend anything.”!
"
Carriere, who has written scripts for Milos Forman, Volker
Schlondorff, Peter Brooks, Louis Malle, and others, says the
only rule for a good filmscript, is to engage the public's
attention and keep it. "A film script is to a film what a
cocoon is to a butterfly."!
"
"
"
"

110
Lyric Form!
"
"Imagery means one thing with orators and another with poets." Longinus.!
!
The structure of commercial cinema is the structure of
commerce; crises to be confronted, problems to be solved;
stories to which there is purpose. Commerce is about
transactions - it is goal orientated, purposeful and aims to be
profitable. There is no material profit in poetry; no purpose,
no goal. Poetry is either appreciated for what it is, or it isn't
appreciated at all. Andrei Tarkovsky wrote that "art... is to
explain to the artist himself and to those around him what
man lives for, what is the meaning of his existence... or if not
to explain, at least to pose the question."!
"
According to the Oxford Guide to Classical Literature the
lyric form describes "the personal sentiments of the poet as
distinguished from epic and dramatic poetry.” The word
derives from 'lyre', the musical instrument used to
accompany the poet. Films may have lyrical sequences or
lyrical qualities. However, there are several kinds of film
that can constructively be defined as 'lyric':!
"
• films interpreting written poetry!
• films where imagery 'works on the feelings' which do not
contain a distinctive narrative line!
• 'poetic' sequences in films!
!
In the first category might be placed Under Milk Wood,
(1973) based on the poem of Dylan Thomas. The film's
111
director, Andrew Sinclair, described the problem of piecing
together seventy little stories to tell in ninety minutes the
life of a small Welsh fishing port. "How to make this
counterpoint of words into one visual whole, while being
faithful to the text..."!
"
"Imagery means one thing with orators and another with
poets," wrote Longinus. "That in poetry its aim is to work on
the feelings, in oratory to produce vividness of description."!
"
The second category, imagery which 'works on the feelings',
should include the cinema of the surrealists - a cinema
which uses image for its own sake, rather than the narrative
elements of an image, as well as individual film makers, the
'poets of the cinema'. Jean Cocteau is one such individual,
Sergo Paradjanov, another.!
"
The last category could include many kinds of cinema, and
many films, which contain 'poetic' or lyrical sequences.
Often such sequences relate to dreams which attempt to
purvey mood rather than illuminate a narrative or explain a
character’s motivations. !
"
"
1. Poetry as film: Under Milk Wood!
!
The film begins with shots of a dark wood in the pale light
of dusk. Some seals swim in the night sea. We see the
harbour of a small fishing town, the lights from the houses
and boats reflected on the water. Two men in large overcoats
112
walk along a road, and pause under a street lamp. The men
don't speak, but we here the voice of the first man: "To begin
at the beginning... it is spring, moonless night in the small
town, starless and bible-black, the cobble streets silent and
hunched, courters' and rabbits’ wood limping invisible
down to the sloe-black, slow, black, crow black, fishing boat-
bobbing sea..."!
"
It is the voice of Richard Burton narrating the memorable
opening lines to Dylan Thomas's verse that describes the
small Welsh fishing village of Llaregyb and its inhabitants;
the blind Captain Cat (Peter O'Toole), Rosie Probert
(Elizabeth Taylor), and the other characters that make up the
'seventy little stories' of Under Milk Wood. Andrew Sinclair
says the main problem was how to "give a unity to the film,
a visual reason for all the marvelous speeches of the
Voices..." He achieved this by giving shape to the two
narrative Voices in the form of two men going back to
Llaregyb to visit the same girl. She was Norma Jane Jenkins,
a girl whom both men had met in the war. It was a narrative
element inspired by Dylan Thomas's radio play, ‘Return
Journey'.!
"
"Then Norma Jane walks away into a graveyard and the
men leave town in their khaki coats, and it is revealed that
Norma Jane had been dead a long time, and that these two
visible spirits from the sea and the dark wood have come
back to relive their life in the timeless town and resurrect
their lost love."!
!
113
 1. Film as poetry: The Colour of Pomegranates!
!
Sergo Paradjanov's, The Colour of Pomegranates (1969),
contains a series of episodes, both real and imagined, based
on the life of Sayat Nova, an Armenian poet of the 1700's,
who began as an apprentice carpet weaver and rose to the
position of archbishop. The film begins with a caption: "This
is not the true biography of the great eighteenth century
Armenian poet, Sayat Nova. We simply wished through the
medium of film to convey the imagery of his poetry…"!
"
The film's prologue shows an old book, opened to reveal
pages of handwritten Armenian script. An off-screen voice
says: "I am he whose soul is tormented..." a line which is
repeated three times during the prologue. The prologue
consists of twelve shots:!
"
1. An open book.!
2. Three pomegranates, bright red on a glaring white sheet - the red
! juice seeps into the white.!
3. As 1.!
4. A dagger on a white sheet. The same red colour seeps into the !
! whiteness.!
5. As 1.!
6. A bare foot hovers over a bunch of dark grapes, which rests on a
! stone tablet engraved with Armenian script. The foot crushes the
! grapes, and the juice flows freely over the stone tablet.!
7. As 1.!
8. A fish flaxes between two wood carvings. Now it's three fish !
! struggling for air.!
9. As 1.!
10. A black lyre type of instrument on the left, a dark pot on the !

114
! right, in which grows a white rose.!
11. As 1.!
12. White thorny briars against a black background. !
"
Once again we hear the same line.!
"
"Chapter One", says a caption; white letters on red. "The
Poet's Childhood." A young boy stares at a religious altar.
During a violent thunderstorm the altar is illuminated by
bolts of lightning. A cupboard is filled with old books. The
young boy, still staring straight ahead, is now seen to be
lying half-prone on a bed. A man and woman cover him
with blankets. The colour red dominates. A caption reads:
"Three sacred goals exist: to cherish the pen, the written
word and the book." Sayat Nova. "A book must be cherished
and read, for a book is both life and the soul," says an old
man, outside a church, who takes the boy by the hand. "If
there were no written word the ignorant would rule the
world…" Priests take water-logged books from the
monastery and place them in the sun to dry. The boy stands
on the monastery roof top, where more books are laid out -
he leafs through a series of religious illustrations, then lays
down beside the drying books - the pages fluttering in the
wind.!
"
The chapters that follow consist of:!
"
Chapter Two: The Poet's Youth.!
Chapter Three: The Poet at the Princes Court.!
Chapter Four: The Poet Enters The Monastery.!
115
Chapter Five: The Poet's Dream. He returns to the land of his
childhood and mourns the death of his parents.!
Chapter Six: The Poet's Old Age. He leaves the monastery.!
Chapter Seven: Meeting the Angel of Death. The Poet Buries His
Love.!
Chapter Eight: The Poet's Death.!
!
The captions provide a few biographical details; the
episodes themselves comprise of a series of images that are
vivid and stylised, accompanied by Armenian folk music,
children's voices, or the chanting of a single woman's voice.
There is very little on-screen dialogue, and the imagery is
often presented as tableaux of figures swaying rhythmically
- their eyes constantly facing the eyes of the viewer. In 'The
Poet's Dream' a woman's voice speaks: "You are fire, you are
clothed in black." Her mournful chant is interspersed with
children singing a rhyming song. The final image of the
dream shows the spiral roof of the monastery ascending
into the heavens.!
"
When he meets the Angel of Death, a woman’s voice chants:!
"
"The world is a window!
I am weary of its vanity!
I am weary of this world!
It is no longer dear to me"!
"
In the final chapter he sits in front of the monastery, a large
book by his side, and a human skull in his hand. We are
taken back to the first images of the film; the three
116
pomegranates are crushed on the white sheet; the dagger
lies across the sheet, soaked in the juice; bright red on
glaring white. An image of hundreds of white crosses on a
black background. Priests remove their black garb for white.
They stand on the roof of the monastery. Inside the
monastery, a woman dressed in green, and wearing a floral
crown, drenches him in red juice. "The poet dies but his
muse is immortal." Sayat Nova kneels on the monastery
floor. "Sing", says a man working on the white bleached
wall. "Die"' he says, covering his face.!
"
The final caption reads: "Whether I live or die, the crowd
will be aroused by my song. I may pass on, yet from that
day a part of me will remain in the world." Sayat Nova.!
"
The power of the imagery in such a film can never be
conveyed by the written word; attempting to analyze the
imagery would be an even more fruitless task. Such imagery
speaks directly to the viewer, there is no story to describe,
no character's psychology to analyse. The viewer may either
surrender to the poetic image, or resist it.!
"
3. Poetic film: Dreams and Imagery!
"
If the contest is the most elementary form of dramatic
narrative, then the dream may arguably be the most diffuse
form. A dream may consist of a fragment of a story, or
fragments of images. The lyric form of film narrative is
perhaps closest to attempting the realisation of dreams, and
in terms of structure, the most difficult to define.!
117
Many films depicting dreams or the dream state, re-
construct dream images into a dramatic form with David
Lynch's Eraserhead or Kurusawa's film Dreams (1990). Just
as the dreamer may impose a narrative form to a dream,
which is often formless, so does the film-maker impose
structure to the images of the sub-conscious. Surrealists
have attempted to capture the randomness of dreams,
where images have meaning unto themselves, defying
rational analysis but open to an interpretation entirely
reliant on the recipient.!
"
Federico Fellini describes his films as "expressed in the
language of dreams... there is nothing more honest than a
dream," he says. "And because it's honest it resists obvious
interpretation. Like a labyrinth with torturous routes,
speaking the language of symbols, much truer than the
language of concepts."!
"
The dream which begins 8 1/2 (1960) shows a man sitting in
a car stuck in stationary traffic in a dark tunnel. No-one
moves, passengers in neighboring vehicles mouth their
screams as the claustrophobia becomes more unbearable.
The man flies out of the car, out of the tunnel and into the
open sky. He soars over a beach, like a kite, with a rope
attached to his leg. When the rope is untied the man
plunges to the ground. "Down for good!" mutters a priest.!
"
Fellini reconstructed this dream in City of Women (1979)
where once again Marcello Mastroianni flies up into the
heavens, this time in a hot air balloon formed in the shape of
118
a large breasted woman. A masked terrorist machine guns
the balloon and Mastroianni plunges to the earth once more.
The terrorist removes the mask revealing the face of a young
woman. "Everything means something in a dream," says
Fellini. "There is nothing in the image of a dream that is
casual, occasional or pertinent in the sense that it wants to
compliment or resemble reality. In a dream each colour,
every detail has its own meaning, and it’s this, the
expression, that gives cinema its own nobility, that makes it
equal to other arts."!
"
The film theorist, Siegfried Kracauer, described three
'intentions' of the experimental filmmaker, which relate to a
cinematic lyric form.!
"
" 1. He wished to organise whatever material he chose to work
on according to rhythms which were a product of his inner
impulses, rather than an imitation of the patterns found in nature.!
!
2. He wished to invent shapes rather than record them. !
"
3. He wished to convey, through his images, contents which
were an outward projection of his visions rather than an
implication of those images themselves.”!
"
Art has been defined as 'making the phenomena strange.'
The everyday things that surround us can become so
familiar that we may fail to see them at all. The artist, by
focusing attention on the things we may take for granted;
the sound of the sea, the play of light on a landscape, water
119
rippling over stones, creates 'art'. Whether its milk pouring
from a jug as painted by Vermeer, or cans of soup
photographed by Andy Warhol, or a breeze blowing over a
field of grass as filmed by Andrei Tarkovsky - they are
everyday phenomena that have become 'strange'. With its
combination of narrative, sound and image, film is an art-
form well suited to transform the everyday into the
remarkable. The surrealists, and the 'poets of the cinema' go
even further by breaking down the everyday reality around
us into a dream-world where the normal rules of logic and
structure no longer apply.!
"
In Sculpting in Time, Tarkovsky expresses his appreciation
for Japanese - short poems, three lines long, that in
describing a phenomena of nature, may inspire the reader to
a state of 'satori' or enlightenment.!
"
A visual equivalent in Tarkovsky's film, Stalker portrays the
main character lying prone in the middle of a flowing
stream. At the sound of his breath, a black dog runs toward
him, splashing through the water, then lies beside him.
There seems little point in attempting to analyze such
imagery (Tarkovsky insists there is no point); like poem, it
resonates like a struck chord.!
!
Jean Cocteau claims that his film, Blood of a Poet (1931)
"draws nothing from either dreams or symbols. As far as the
former are concerned, it initiates their mechanism, and by
letting the mind relax, as in sleep, it lets memories entwine,
move and express themselves freely. As for the latter, it
120
rejects them, and substitutes acts, or allegories of these acts,
that the spectator can make symbols of if he wishes."!
"
He claims that his, "indifference to what the world finds
'poetic'... create a vehicle for poetry," and that he tried to film
poetry the way deep-sea divers film the bottom of the sea.!
"
Cocteau gives interpretations of the images; the poet that
has a mouth in the palm of his hand, a dead statue that
comes to life, children in a snowball fight and the poet
finding immortality, and he concludes; "I'd be right to tell
you all that, but I'd also be wrong, for it would be a text
written after the images... life creates great images without
realizing it."!
"
Cocteau describes the cinema as, "a first-class vehicle of
ideas and of poetry that can take the viewer into realms that
previously only sleep and dreams had led him to.” His film,
The Testament of Orpheus (1960) begins with the sub-title
"Do Not Ask Me Why", and Cocteau himself, in the role of
the Poet, draws the profile of Orpheus on a blackboard, and
says: "It is the film makers privilege to be able to allow a
large number of people to dream the same dream together,
and to show us, moreover, the optical illusions of unreality
with the rigor of realism. In short, it is an admirable vehicle
for poetry.” At the end of the film, Cocteau is speared to
death. On his death bed, he removes the spear and declares,
"...poets only pretend to die."!
"

121
A Cinematic Form!
"
"The cinema is far too rich and capable a medium to be left to the storyteller." Peter
Greenaway.!
!
A narrative thread running through Otar Iosseliani's film,
Favourites of the Moon (1984) concerns a large eighteenth
century painting which is constantly being stolen. The
painting portrays an elegantly dressed woman in the attire
appropriate to 18th century upper class Europe, against an
elegant rural background. Each time the painting is cut out
of its frame its size is reduced, until finally only the
woman's face remains. When framed this final picture is in
itself, complete.!
"
The narrative line articulates an analogy to a new kind of
cinema that has emerged in recent years, which has its
origins in the Italian films of the 1950's, the French New
Wave, and European trends in the late 1960's and 1970's.!
It is a cinema where the priority is not the narrative, but the
cinematic form itself. When David Lynch was asked to
describe Wild at Heart (1990) he called it a 'film' film, in
order to distinguish a cinema outside the commercial
mainstream.!
"
The movement that began in Italy and was embraced by the
New Wave in France, came to northern and eastern Europe
in the late 1960's and early 70's; notably with such directors
as Milos Forman and Jiri Menzel in Czechoslovakia, Bo
Widerberg, Roy Andersson and Kjell Grede in Sweden, and

122
later Werner Herzog, R.W. Fassbinder in Germany. The
French philosopher, Gilles Deleuze, argues that the
Europeans were able to break away from what he calls
'action-image' cinema in favour of a 'time-image' cinema,
and says that, “in Italy the great crisis of the action-image
took place. The timing is something like: around 1948, Italy;
about 1958, France; about 1968, Germany."!
"
Iosseliani's 'painting' takes a different form with each theft
and is appreciated by new generations, in much the same
way that a cinematic style of film, removed from the
commercial mainstream, is handed down to new
generations of film-goers. !
"
In recent years the localising of a cinematic form is less clear,
and in the same way that Iosseliani's stolen painting could
be interpreted as representing the post-modernist
movement, so have some critics identified a post-modernist
cinema, together with literature and art and architecture.
However, this poses a problem. Where pre-modern art was
the art of the anonymous artist - the icon painter, the
medieval illuminist; and modern art, the art of the
individual - the self-portrait painters from Rembrandt to
Van Gogh - paintings bearing signatures; then Post-Modern
art is meta-art, "choosing from the old to create the new”,
where art has become a 'text' disassociated from the artist. A
cinematic form, however, is the cinema of the individual, in
glaring contrast to the cinema of the 'film industry'. In this
new cinema the name of a director is synonymous to an
individual style; Wim Wenders, Jim Jarmusch, David Lynch,
123
Peter Greenaway, Aki and Mika Kaurismaki, Derek Jarman,
Terence Davies, Alex Cox, Juzo Itami, Otar Iosseliani, Sergo
Paradjanov, to name but a few.!
"
There are those who describe a crisis of post-Hollywood
cinema; a bankruptcy of old Hollywood genres and an
inflation of images, resulting in the breakdown of traditional
narrative cinema. “A new kind of image is born that one can
attempt to identify in the post-war American cinema,
outside Hollywood," writes Gilles Deleuze.!
"
The dominant cinema is an industry based on providing a
commodity which aims at fulfilling the expectations of the
consumer. The dramatic conflict begins with a crisis or
problem, the presentation of the protagonist who is
obstructed in overcoming the crisis, but ultimately resolves
the crisis, with the most satisfactory, which is usually, but
not always, the 'happy ending'.!
"
A cinematic form is indifferent to the contrivance of a
gratifying ending; and may even parody such endings.
David Lynch's Wild at Heart ends with the Good Witch
from the Wizard of Oz, descending upon a defeated
protagonist, Sailor, in the manner of a god descending to the
stage at the climax of a Greek drama. She inspires him with
the moral fibre he needs to return to claim his woman and
restore the unity of the family.¨!
"
According to Gilles Deleuze "the five apparent
characteristics of the new image (include): the dispersive
124
situation, the deliberately weak links, the voyage form, the
consciousness of clichés, the condemnation of the plot.”
Richard Kearney in his book The Wake of Imagination -
Ideas of Creativity in Western Culture, describes these as
aspects of post-modernist cinema:!
"
1. Dispersive situation; images without a single identifiable
context of reference.!
2. Dissolution of Spatial and Temporal Continuity.!
3. Replacement of Action Plot by open-ended anti-plot of aimless
wandering.!
4. Denunciation of Faceless Conspiracies.!
5. Critique of Rule of Cliché!
"
In attempting to define a cinematic form I would also list:!
"
1. The international aspect!
"
Apart from the array of international director’s names as
listed above, the names of films include; Paris, Texas;
Helsinki Napoli All Night Long, Leningrad Cowboys go
America, Himmel Über Berlin (Wings of Desire). Helsinki
Napoli All Night Long (1985) is about an itinerant Finn,
married to an Italian girl (and her family) cohorting with
Americans and Russians in a German city, friendly with a
Liverpool prostitute (Margie Clarke from Letter to
Brezhnev), with bit parts played by Jim Jarmusch and Wim
Wenders, directed by Finn, Mika Kaurismaki. Everyone
talks English.!
"
125
Jarmusch made Stranger than Paradise (1984) with black
and white film stock donated by Wim Wenders. Jarmusch
helped the Kaurismaki's establish in the US; Wenders
produced Chris Petit's film Radio On (1982), and the Dutch
producer Kees Kessander salvaged Peter Greenaway's The
Draughtsman's Contract (1982) when the English financers
ran out of money. Greenaway’s films have since been
produced by a predominantly Dutch film team. The
Sacrifice (1985), the final film of Andrei Tarkovsky, the
Russian film director, was co-produced by Sweden, France
and Great Britain (Japan withdrew at the last minute).!
"
A cinematic form is international in the positive sense of the
word. Hollywood has long been described as an
international community, attracting filmmakers such as
Peter Weir (Australia) Renny Harlin (Finland), an entourage
of British directors; Ridley and Tony Scott, Michael Winner,
Adrian Lynne, Stephen Frears, eastern Europeans; Andron
Mikhalkov-Konchalovsky, Milos Forman (the list is long);
and the marketing machinery of the Hollywood film
industry ensures the films reach every corner of the globe.
Yet regardless of Hollywood’s internationalism (and it has
been dominated by European exiles since the 1920's) the
films it produces, promotes a white middle class, patriarchal
ostensibly American ideology, pertaining to the ruling
power elite. The industry's interests lay firmly entrenched in
commerce.!
"
The international family of a cinematic form promotes an
internationalism through highlighting specific cultures and
126
their differences, rather than brandishing the universal
'sameness' of the dominant cinema.!
!
2. Film style as opposed to narrative content!
!
The dramatic form prescribes a movement from crisis
(beginning) to resolution (end). Each scene propels the
narrative forward, from the crisis towards its resolution. In a
cinematic form, scenes may exist for their own sake, without
a specific dramatic function. The plot may or may not be
resolved; endings are recurrently open, or ambiguous,
inviting a degree of creative participation on the part of the
spectator.!
!
3. Independent as opposed to supportive soundtrack!
!
Sound, music and songs, rather than a contributing factor to
the dramatic element of the narrative, are either used in
counterpoint or independent to the narrative. Mainstream
cinema uses suspenseful music in suspenseful sequences,
romantic music in a romantic sequence; music is a means of
emphasizing narrative components. In contrast, Michael
Nyman's music in Peter Greenaway's films enhances the
narrative, yet, at the same time, is independent to it. The
song motif in the films of David Lynch, embellish the
narrative, without being defined by it. "In heaven,
everything is fine” sings a deformed woman in Eraserhead,
as she dances on stage, crushing unbilical cords beneath her
feet.!
"
127
In Shadows in Paradise (Aki Kaurismaki, 1985) Nylander,
the main character of the story, a garbage collector, begins a
working day. The night before his girlfriend walked out on
him - he is uncommunicative, she claims. He picks up a
rubbish bin and finds an undamaged long playing record. It
is just the disc, without a cover. He picks it up and holds it
to his ear. A raspy blues number begins playing. The next
shot shows Nylander sitting in his sparsely furnished
apartment, surrounded by empty hi-fi equipment boxes.
The hi-fi itself is playing the record; "My baby gone done
left me". Nylander roams the streets of Helsinki, looking at
TV's in shop windows, and drinking coffee in a night cafe,
the song continuing through the sequence.!
"
4. Cross-genre or no genre!
!
Mainstream commercial cinema is genre driven and genres
have been developed by the studios and distributors of the
film industry for the purpose of marketing. Categorising
films into types facilitates sales. Genres have developed
their own narrative conventions and rules; the thriller has
its own set of conventions, as does the horror film, or the
romantic comedy, or the court room drama. Notably, one
‘genre' not created by the film industry, but a style defined
by film critics, film noir, is arguably the most creative phase
of Hollywood cinema. A cinematic form disregards or
parodies genre and genre conventions.!
"
Blue Velvet has elements of film noir but it isn't; there are
elements of the romantic comedy in Fellini's Fred and
128
Ginger but it isn't romantic comedy.!
"
A cinematic form has embraced the 'road movie’ format;
from The Passenger, Easy Rider, Leningrad Cowboys Go
America, Stranger than Paradise, Down by Law, Paris Texas,
Wild at Heart, Pierrot le Fou.!
!
5. Dramatic elements but not dramatic form!
!
The style is essentially filmic, rather than dramatic.
Mainstream cinema is either theatrical or novelistic, and
relying heavily on the conventions of these dramatic forms,
whereas a cinematic form is 'cinematic'; 'film' films. There
are comic elements but they are not comedy. There are tragic
elements but they are not tragedy. Aki Kaurismaki's Hamlet
Goes Business includes the above, but fits uneasily in any
conventional classification.!
!
6. The portrayal of the outsider!
!
Just as a cinematic form exists on the fringe of commercial
mainstream cinema (some directors, like Lynch, making the
transition from one into the other), so do their characters
exist on the fringe of conventional society, or they are
displaced persons; people in the wrong place in the wrong
time. Bruno S 'lost' in consumer America in Strozeck
(Herzog), Sailor and Lula traveling across the States in Wild
at Heart, the Leningrad Cowboys on an endless tour, the
displaced Italian in Down by Law, escaping from prison
with two local boys and wandering across Louisiana;
129
though it is he who finds roots in the wilderness, while his
comrades continue their aimless wandering to the different
directions of a forked road. !
"
The cinematic form accentuates alienation; the eternally
wandering angels in Wings of Desire (Himmel über Berlin);
Harry Dean Stanton wandering glaze eyed through the
wilderness of an American desert en route Paris Texas, a
Japanese couple in search of rock and roll in Memphis,
together with an Italian Mafia wife, and a displaced
Englishman called Elvis, all out of place in Memphis, where
even the ghost of Elvis himself appears in a hotel room in
the middle of the night and asks "What am I doing here?";
the ensemble Mystery Train (Jarmusch; 1989). The hero of
Tampopo (Juzo Itami, 1983), a parody of the western hero,
comes into town, helps the woman-in-distress create the
most celebrated noodle-bar in the neighbourhood and,
Shane-like, disappears into the sunset.!
"
The cinematic form's emphasis of style over narrative
precludes a unified narrative structure, however, individual
styles reflect individual narrative themes, even forms. The
films of Peter Greenaway resemble games in which the
spectator is invited to participate. The Draughtsman's
Contract (1982) is a picture game, A Zed and Two Noughts
(1985) is an alphabet game, Drowning by Numbers (1988) is
a counting game, The Belly of an Architect (1987) is a
symmetry game, and The Cook, The Thief, His Wife and
Her Lover (1989), is a colour game. Peter Greenaway claims
that he uses lists to tell stories in the tradition of Borges and
130
Calvino. The “Indeterminacy" stories of John Cage, he says,
are a source of inspiration, as they suggest new ways of
structuring narrative. The most important feature of these
stories was not the subject but the length of time it took to
read them.!
"
In A Zed and Two Noughts, two brothers, Oswald and
Oliver, in order to contend with the grief following the
deaths of their wives killed in a car accident, obsess
themselves with the process of decomposition. As they
watch David Attenborough’s Life on Earth television series,
based on Darwin's eight phases of evolution, they
photograph life forms decomposing, beginning with an
Apple and ending with a Zebra. Alba, who survived the car
accident that killed the brother's wives, sacrifices her
remaining leg for the sake of symmetry, and 'to facilitate
penetration’. She expresses her wish to sire 26 children, one
for each letter of the alphabet. The two brothers lie on each
side of Alba, on a bed, the wrought iron pattern on which
forms a circle at each end and a zed shape in the middle. At
the outset Oliver and Oswald are two men working at the
same zoological gardens. It soon becomes apparent they are
brothers, then twins, then identical twins. Toward the end of
the story they reveal they are separated Siamese twins, and
resolve to perform the same photographic chronicling of
their decomposition subjected to life forms from A to Z,
reunited as brothers of the same flesh. The narrative
structure's fixation with symmetry is reproduced in the
images. Not since Alain Resnais has a director been so intent
on the symmetrical representation of the image. Sacha
131
Vierny, who photographed Resnais' Year at Marienbad
(1961), has collaborated on many of Peter Greenaway's
films.!
!
Drowning by Numbers begins with a young girl skipping
and counting stars in the night sky to 100. In the course of
the narrative, Madgett the coroner, is seduced by three
women who woo his silence. They have done away with
their husbands and his falsified reports can spare them the
invocation of the law. The numbers from 1 to 100 appear
conspicuously throughout the film; "Number 1 appears in
the first scene after the main title - boldly white on a tree
that was set upright after the ravages of the October 1987
hurricane. 2 appears on a tin bath holding windfall apples,
etc " through to "100 painted on the brow of Madgett's
rowing boat - the instrument of his apparent drowning, and
the last image of the film."!
"
Greenaway lists the placing of all the numbers marked in
the film for the benefit of game playing aficionados.
Whereas in the dramatic film, structure is a means by which
the narrative is strengthened, for Peter Greenaway structure
is narrative, and narrative is structure; the two are
inextricably linked.!
"
The obsessive symmetry in art of A Zed and Two Noughts
becomes an obsession with symmetry in architecture in The
Belly of an Architect, and whereas the former uses the art of
Vermeer as a motif in the film, here it is the architecture of
Etienne-Louis Boullee. "Eight of Rome's celebrated
132
architectural sites chronologically structure The Belly of an
Architect.!
"
Peter Greenaway, The Belly of an Architect. Faber, 1988. The
film begins with American architect, Stourley Kracklite,
making love with his wife in a train compartment en route
to Rome. His climax, and wife’s conception, occur as they
cross the border at Ventimiglia, from France to Italy. On the
same day he complains of stomach cramps. The nine
months represented in the film's duration, portray the
gestation of his wife's pregnancy; life - and the simultaneous
gestation of his stomach cancer; death. He enters Italy in a
state of euphoria, and nine month’s later, with the birth of
his son, in despair and agony, falls to his death from one of
the buildings that provided his original inspiration.
"Cinema is far too rich and capable a medium to be left to
the storyteller", Peter Greenaway claims, though some
critics consider his films "emotionally cold and so removed
from everyday reality that they verge on self-parody".!
"
The characters of a Peter Greenaway film rarely engage an
empathy with the viewer; in The Cook, The Thief, His Wife,
Her Lover (1989), the gangster protagonist is so extreme in
character as to dispel any form of identification with the
narrative, leaving only style for its own sake, sublime
though that may be Peter Greenaway, describes the
character, Albert Spica, as "a man who is thoroughly
despicable in every part of his character. He has no
redeeming features, and is consumed by self-interest and
greed."!
133
Misanthropic characters dominate his films, which he
regards as a way of distancing an audience, together with
"no use of close-ups, very little editing, a concern with static
frames and complex soundtracks." Peter Greenaway claims
he seeks universal structures; numbers in Drowning by
Numbers, the alphabet in Zed and Two Noughts, 13
drawings in Draughtsman's Contract, The Cook, The Thief,
His Wife, Her Lover, is structured around a colour coding;
red for the restaurant, green kitchen, white toilet, blue car-
park. "I want to bring colour back, to use it as a structural
device, not merely as a decorative one."!
"
"Most of my concerns for the cinema are to do with the
European model," says Greenaway, "which readily uses
metaphor, allegory and other story-telling methods with a
considerable amount of freedom. It could be described as
the cinema of ideas."!
"
Greenaway refers to the post-modernist concern of, "looking
over our shoulders to see what other people have done to
see what we can utilize and make valuable in our current
situation." He sees an easy dialogue between cinema and
the rest of European culture.!
"
In The Wake of Imagination, Richard Kearney describes what
he terms "the paradox of cinema trying to deconstruct itself
from within, trying to combat the power of the cinematic
image by means of cinematic images".!
A director scrutinised in detail by Kearney, Wim Wenders,
says himself that "cinema has been profoundly affected and
134
emptied by advertising and by television."!
"
However, much of contemporary cinema that could be
regarded as a European 'cinema of ideas' seem more
concerned with mass-produced images of television,
newspaper photo-journalism, and film history.
Contemporary films such as Fellini's Ginger and Ginger,
Intervista, Godard's Prenom Carmen and Detective, Wim
Wenders Paris Texas and Tokyo-ga, Truffaut’s Day for
Night, share a preoccupation with the manufacture of the
cinematic or televisual image. On the one hand, such films
attempt to demystify the mesmeric power of mass-produced
images by such images, constantly skirting the danger of
constructing parodies which may degenerate into pastiche.!
"
"
"
"
"

135
Feminist Cinema!
!
The business of making films has, since its beginnings,
remained in the control of a patriarchal power structure.
Writers and directors are predominantly male. Recent
narrative theory tends to suggest that dramatic structure is
also a 'masculine' structure. Is there a dramatic structure
that can be termed 'feminine'? The recent emergence of a
feminist cinema has given rise to speculation that this
indeed is the case. That the action based drama, beginning
with a crisis and ending with a climactic resolution has its
correspondence in the male sexual experience. A feminist
structure by contrast could be regarded as based on
situation rather than action, on character rather than plot,
and on the process of 'what is happening now?' rather than
'what's going to happen next?'!
"
A feminist film director, Bette Gordon, discussing her film,
Variety (1981), about a young woman watching men
watching pornography, argues that; "from a feminist
perspective the pleasure of looking in the cinema has been
connected with the centrality of the image of the female
figure. This has involved an exploration in the way in which
sexual difference is constructed in cinema, the way in which
the gaze is split (men look, women are looked at) and the‹!
representation of female pleasure."!
"
In Women's Pictures, Annette Kuhn suggests "...the
possibility of a 'feminine language' for cinema, by offering
unaccustomed forms of pleasure constructed around
136
discourses governed either - quite literally - by a woman's
voice, or by a feminine discourse that works through other
cinematic signifiers.” She says that a feminine language
would subvert the established masculine form of discourse
by "posing plurality over against unity, multitudes of
meanings as against single, fixed meanings, diffuseness as
against instrumentality." The 'masculine' tends to limit
meanings whereas a feminine language would be more
open enabling a multitude of meanings. “A feminist text
then has no fixed formal characteristics, precisely because it
is a relationship: it becomes a feminine text in the moment
of its reading."!
"
Another view holds that classical dramaturgy has its roots
in the western economic concept of time, that time is a
commodity to be used with the efficiency necessary to
generate the optimum profit. Time is money. In the language
of film this means that a story must be tolds as effectively as
possible from beginning to end, without any 'dead' time or
occasion for ambiguity. Lineal time and the principle of
causality (cause and effect) limits the possibility of
interpretation and leads to a result which is absolute.‹!
"
Instead of catharsis (Aristotle's definition of the function of
tragedy), a feminist structure is based on catastasis, so the
argument goes, which is cyclic, rather than lineal. Time is
not bound to economics, or effectivity; it is a process which
can't be regulated or controlled. Figuratively it can be
described as a spiral where the 'theme' is central.
Chronology is irrelevant – one scene is driven to the next by
137
a stream of consciousness. Journeys in time and the
simultaneous examination of several dimensions are all
possible. Interpretations are many, and the audience is
placed in a position of participating in the creative process.!
"
Marguerite Duras' film India Song (1975), based on her own
play and described by one critic as "the most feminine film
I've ever seen” tells the story of a love affair in India in the
1930's. "Two days in this love story are presented," writes
Marguerite Duras. "Four voices speak the story, two young
women, two men... they speak among themselves and do
not know they are being heard... we never know who the
voices are…"!

! India Song: The evocation of memory – a narrative of mood !

! in preference to predicament. !
138
She describes the film as a story in three movements, where
the emphasis does not lie in the 'dilemma' of love affair -
with a 'crisis' moving toward 'resolution', but the memory of
a love affair, unresolved and fragmented in its recollection.!
"
Similarly, Tarkovsky's film Mirror (1975) is a portrait of a
childhood; fragments of memories which are not born of
'crisis', nor does the narrative move toward a ‘resolution'.
India Song, and other films of Marguerite Duras, including
the screenplay to Hiroshima Mon Amour represent a
particular approach to narrative structure, which, like the
films of Tarkovsky, pertain to the 'release of the feminine'
rather than ‘feminist' filmmaking.!
"
Films of Robert Bresson, Carl Theodor Dreyer, Terence
Davies, the Japanese director Yasujiro Ozu, employ a
dramatic structure, like Duras and Tarkovsky, not based on
crisis, but mood; where character's impressions rather than
character's actions, form the central core of the narrative.
Similarly, 'feminist' filmmakers, such as Agnes Varda,
Margaretta von Trotta, Larisa Shepitko, Lina Wertmuller,
make films employing a traditional dramatic structure.
Which raises the question as to whether gender is relevant
to a narrative's dramatic structure. Is it an issue of ideology
rather than dramaturgy?!
"
Chantal Akerman, the Belgian film director of Jeanne
Dielman 23, Quai du Commerce, 1080 Bruxelles (1975), All
Night Long (1982) and American Stories (1989) says "we
speak of 'women's rhythm' but it isn't necessarily the same
139
for all women. I also think that Hollywood doesn't express a
man's rhythm either, but the rhythm of capitalism or
fascism. Men are cheated by it too..."!
"
Recent feminist theory suggests that "...soap operas are not
altogether at odds with a feminist aesthetic." Tania Modleski
argues that "...soap opera is opposed to the classic (male)
film narrative, which, with maximum action and minimum,
always pertinent dialogue, speeds its way to the restoration
of order.” And "..soap opera catastrophes provide
convenient occasions for people to come together, confront
one another, and explore intense emotions. Thus in direct
contrast to the male narrative film, in which the climax
functions to resolve difficulties, the 'mini-climaxes' of soap
opera function to introduce difficulties and to complicate
rather than simplify character's lives."!
"
Film theorist, Marsha Kinder, reviewing Ingmar Bergman's
Scenes from a Marriage (1973) suggested that an "open-
ended, slow-paced, multi-climaxed structure is in tune with
patterns of female sexuality."!
"
The serial is television's most favoured narrative form, both
in viewing ratings and production costs; as a form it
encompasses a variety of programmes (news programmes
included) but in terms of ratings figures, the soap opera
dominates. If film structure is about beginnings, middles
and ends, then the structure of the television serial could be
described as extended middles and open endings. Is a serial
form 'feminine'? For serials too have their roots in
140
'commerce'; an episode’s ‘cliff hanger' contrived to lure
viewers back the following night or the following week.
Identifying distinctive dramatic structures - 'serial' and
'classical' - invite designations counter to each other.
Designation by gender is convenient but inappropriate.!
"
The influence of television on film structure becomes more
apparent with each year closer to wide-screen HD television
and HD TV cinema complexes; a cinema in every living
room, and a television screen in every cinema. Nowadays
the screenwriter is writing as much for television as for
cinema, and the influence of television writers such as
Dennis Potter, Mike Leigh, Troy Kennedy Martin, and
others, on film structure is becoming more apparent.!
"
The advent of the cinema at the turn of the century inspired
Leo Tolstoy to write; "A new form of writing will be
necessary. The swift change of scene, this blending of
emotion and experience. It's much better than the heavy
long drawn-out writing to which we are accustomed. It's
closer to life - in life changes and transitions flash by before
our eyes and emotions of the soul are like a hurricane. The
cinema has divined the mystery of motion."!
"
Again on the brink of a new century, with the technology
and economics of both cinema and television facing radical
changes, and with the decreasing distinctions between
narrative forms for television and film, a new form of
writing may yet emerge.!
"
141
PART THREE: NARRATIVE!
"
"There are some fools who actually think that a story is unimportant. But a good
story will satisfy anybody. Beautiful lightings, sets, costumes, fancy camera work,
intensity of style - this is for a coterie." William Boyd: The New Confessions.!
!
"On the flap of an envelope, I had written an opening
paragraph: 'I had paid my last farewell to Harry a week ago,
when his coffin was lowered into the frozen February
ground, so that it was with incredulity that I saw him pass
by, without a sign of recognition, among the host of
strangers in the Strand.'"!
!
So begins Graham Greene's story, The Third Man, "never
written to be read but only to be seen." The novella was
published in 1950, a year after the film's release. Written in
the first person, from the perspective of Major Calloway, it
begins with Calloway's impressions of 'Rollo Martins': "a
cheerful fool" who "drinks too much", and a man who
"believed in friendship." But, whereas the novel describes a
series of internal processes, either from a subjective or
'omniescent' perspective, the film narrative is a process of
'externalising inner conflicts', developing from a series of
perspectives vacillating from character to character.!
"
Graham Greene writes that for him it is "impossible to write
a film play without first writing a story. Even a film depends
on more than plot, on a certain measure of characterization,
on mood and atmosphere" which is "impossible to capture
for the first time in the dull shorthand of a script." !
"
142
In the first pages of The Third Man novella, Calloway pre-
empts a sorrowful conclusion ("what happened to him later
was a worse shock to him than it would have been to you or
me... this strange, rather sad story...") absent from the film,
which unravels toward an unknown end.!
"
The film's 'plot' - the sequence of events in the order they are
portrayed - commences with an anonymous narrator
providing back-ground information on the state of affairs in
Vienna, 1946. (The original opening was changed at the
insistence of the US producer, David Selznick - see:
Openings)!
"
The 20 narrative sequences (+ coda) which make up the
'plot', consist of 140 scenes, and about 1200 shots. Each
sequence makes up a narrative unit with a self-contained
infrastructure.!
"
1a. Vienna, 1946. v/o describes situation.!
(1 min. 30 shots)!
"
1b. A train pulls into a station and 'Holly Martins' presents himself and the
nature of his business at passport control. "I've been offered a job by a friend
of mine... Lime - Harry Lime. I thought he'd be here to meet me." He proceeds
to Lime's flat only to be told by the porter that he's been killed in an accident.
He's to be buried that day. Martins attends the funeral. Those present include
Major Calloway, his assistant, Sgt. Paine, a young woman, Anna Schmidt, and
two men - associates of Harry Lime. Martins pays his respects and walks
away. !
(4 min. 50 shots)!
"
2. Calloway approaches and offers Martins a lift. They go to a bar. Martins
gets drunk. Background exposition: Martins writes Westerns. He's broke.

143
Lime was "the best friend I ever had." "He was about the worst racketeer that
ever made a dirty living in this city," says Calloway. Martins is taken to a
hotel, and provided with a ticket to leave the next day. A man called Kurtz, "a
friend of Harry", calls Martins and wants to meet. Captain Crabbit invites
Martins to stay at the hotel so he can lecture at a literary club.!
(5 min. 50 shots)!
"
3. Martins meets Kurtz. Some details concerning Harry's death conflict with
the porter's story. Martins is confused. He wants to meet Harry's girl, Anna.
Kurtz advises against it. "You oughtn't to speak to her. It would only cause
her pain."!
(5 min. 60 shots)!
"
4. Martins meets Anna. He sees her performing at a theatre and they talk
back-stage. Further details regarding Harry's death confound Martins. "I
don't get this. Kurtz and the Rumanian - his own driver knocking him down -
his own doctor - not a single stranger." Anna: "I've wondered about it a
hundred times - if it really was an accident. What difference does it make?
He's dead." Martins: "The porter saw it happen. You know that porter?"!
(5 min. 50 shots)!
"
5. Martins (with Anna) questions the porter. They are in Harry's apartment.
Anna fondles various artefacts, a picture, a comb, dice, disinterested in
Martins' interrogation of the porter. Porter: "There was a third man!" Martins
insists he should go to the police with such evidence. The porter insists they
leave and not come back. Martins accompanies Anna back to her apartment.!
(3 min. 30 shots)!
"
6. Police raid. Anna's apartment is searched by Calloway and his men. Anna's
papers are forged. She's taken to police headquarters. Calloway: "Martins, go
home like a sensible chap. You don't know whay you are mixing in. Get the
next plane." Martins insists on speaking with Harry's doctor. Anna spells it
for him. Winkel.!
(4 min. 40 shots)!
"
7. Martins meets Winkel. Martins: "Could his death have been... not
accidental?" Winkel: "I cannot give an opinion. The injuries to the head and
skull would have been the same." Martins has reached an impasse.!
144
(4.5 min. 25 shots)!
"
8. Calloway questions Anna. The investigation concerns the dis-appearance
of a medical orderly, Joseph Harbin, a friend of Limes. Anna: "You're wrong
about Harry. You're wrong about everything." She's allowed to leave. Martins
is waiting for her.!
(2.5 min. 25 shots)!
"
9a. Casanova Club. (Meets Crabbit - lecture arranged). Kurtz playing the
violin. He introduces Martins to Popescu. Anna stays at the bar and drowns
her sorrows. Martins: "The police say Harry was mixed up in some racket."
Popescu: "That's quite impossible. He had a great sense of duty."!
(5 min. 50 shots)!
"
9b. The gathering. Popescu finishes a telephone call: "He will meet us at the
bridge, good." Kurtz, Winkel, Popescu meet with another party on a bridge at
dawn.!
(1 min. 15 shots)!
"
10. A lead. Martins outside Harry's apartment reconstructing the accident.
The porter agrees to see him later that evening. Martins and Anna at Anna's
room. Reminiscing about Harry. At nightfall they visit the porter. A crowd
gathered outside the building. The porter has been murdered. His son points
to Martins. The crowd gives chase. He and Anna take refuge in a cinema.
Anna: "Be sensible. Tell Major Calloway." Martins leaves.!
(6.5 min. 95 shots)!
"
11. Pursuit. At the hotel a chauffeur takes Martins and rives across the city at
breakneck speed. Martins suspects the worst. He is delivered to the literary
club and Capt. Crabbit to give a talk on the modern novel. As the crowd
disperses, exasperated by references to cheap Westerns and Zane Grey,
Popescu appears, and asks about his 'new book'. Popescu: "I'd say you were
doing something pretty dangerous this time... mixing fact and fiction. Haven't
you ever scrapped a book Mr Martins?" Martins: "Never." Popescu: "Pity." The
meeting ends and Martins finds himself alone. He is pursued by voices in the
dark, runs up to an attic, and escapes through a window. Finally he reaches
Calloway's office, and safety.!
(6 min. 105 shots)!
145
"
12. Lime's racket. Calloway enlightens Martins on Lime's penicillin trade,
responsible for untold deaths and deformities. At the end of the 'show'
Martins slumps in his chair. "How could he have done it?" Calloway makes
arrangements for Martins departure the following morning.!
(4 min. 50 shots)!
"
13. Martins drunken farewell. He gets drunk in a bar and visits Anna with
flowers, confesses his love, then goes his drunken way. In the street he chides
at a man standing in the shadow of a doorway. A light illuminates the man's
face. Harry. Martins gives chase, but Harry disappears somewhere in the
dark streets.!
(7 min. 100 shots)!
"
14. Martins leads a disbelieving Calloway to the place where Harry Lime
disappeared. Calloway opens a door to a kiosk which leads to Vienna's sewer
system. Calloway: "I've been a fool. I should have dug deeper than a grave."
Lime's coffin is exhumed. It contains the body of the medical orderly, Joseph
Harbin. Lime is alive.!
(3 min. 30 shots)!
"
15. Calloway questions Anna. Calloway: "If you help us we'll help you."
Anna: "Martins always said you were a fool."!
(4.5 min. 30 shots)!
"
16a. Martins visits Kurtz and demands to see Lime. "Tell him I'll wait by the
Wheel for an hour."!
(0.5 min. 10 shots)!
"
16b. Holly Martins and Harry Lime. The Prater, the Great Wheel. The two
men take a trip. Harry pays. Lime: "I carry a gun. You don't think they'd look
for a bullet wound after you hit that ground." Martins: "They dug up your
coffin." Lime: "And found Harbin? Pity." Then: "I'd like to cut you in, you
know. We always did things together, Holly. I've no-one left in Vienna I can
really trust."!
(6 min. 50 shots)!
"
146
17. Calloway's office. Calloway attempts to enlist Martins aid in capturing
Lime. Martins refuses. The Russians threaten to deport Anna Schmidt.
Martins to Calloway: "What price would you pay?" Anna's put on a train for
the British Zone with bona fide British papers. She's bewildered. In the
station buffet she notices Martins. Anna: "You have seen Calloway. What are
you two doing?" Martins: "They want me to help take him." Anna: "If you
want to sell yourself I'm not willing to be the price." She tears up the ticket
and leaves. !
(6 min. 75 shots)!
"
18. Martins returns to Calloway, and opts out. He collects his plane ticket and
Calloway drives him to the airport, stopping off at the hospital en route.
Martins sees the victims of Lime's penicillin trade. Martins: "All right,
Callaghan, you win."!
(2 min. 25 shots)!
"
19. The set-up. Martins awaits Harry in a cafe. Military police surround the
area. Will Lime appear? Anna enters. "Harry won't come. He's not a fool."
Martins: "I wonder." Lime appears. Anna: "Harry, get away. The police are
outside." Lime vanishes.!
(4 min. 50 shots)!
"
20. The chase. Lime is pursued through the sewers. Martins goes after him,
and Calloway's assistant, Paine is shot and killed. Martins picks up the gun
and shoots Lime.!
(8 min. 180 shots)!
"
CODA: Funeral. Lime buried. Martins stops to talk with Anna. She walks on.!
(3 min. 15 shots)!
"
An analysis of the dramatic topography of The Third Man
reveals dramatic peaks as determined by the rate of shots
per minute within each narrative sequence. Peaks occur at
the opening, the porter's murder and the crowd's pursuit of
Holly Martins, and the climactic pursuit of Harry Lime. !

147
Film is not a language, but it is like a language. Film theory
has drawn substantially from linguistics and semiotics in
attempting to define the specific qualities of film narrative.
In a study of narrative conventions in fairy tales, the
Russian folklorist, Vladimir Propp, summarised themes,
with what he termed 'functions'. !
"
Propp's system of morphology - a branch of linguistics
concerned with the internal structure and forms of words -
concerned itself with the folktale, an oral tradition, before a
written tradition. The 'functions' he describes were applied
to stories which were 'told', rather than stories which were
written. As such, Propp's method of analysis is relevant to
film, as the film narrative is 'told', not written. (Film is also
shown, but it is closer in narrative convention to the spoken
word than the written word).!
"
The Third Man is an example of a dramatic narrative 'told'
within the conventions of the cinema's dramatic form. A
central character confronts a dilemma, overcomes obstacles,
and resolves the dilemma. Propp defines the hero as "that
character who either directly suffers from the action of the
villain", or, "who agrees to liquidate the misfortune or 'lack'
of another person." The conflict in The Third Man is
between Holly Martins and Harry Lime. Martins situation is
the result of Lime's action; Lime pretends to be dead in
order to avoid the consequences of his crimes. Martins
situation is further complicated by involving himself in
attempting to save Anna from the 'misfortune' of the
Russian police.!
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 Propp's Functions!
"
"
1 Initial situation ! Introduction of hero or members of family!
2 Absentation ! Family member absent from home!
3 Prohibition ! A prohibition is addressed to the hero !
4 Violation ! The prohibition is violated!
5 Reconnaissance ! The villain attempts reconnaissance!
6 ! Delivery ! The villain gets information on victim!
7 ! Trickery ! Villain attempts to deceive victim!
8 ! Complicity ! Victim deceived: unwittingly aids villain!
9! Villainy ! Villain harms family member!
10 ! Lack ! Family member lacks or wants something!
11! Mediation ! Misfortune made known: hero despatched!
12 ! Counteraction ! Seekers counteract!
13! Departure ! The hero leaves home !
14 ! Donor's action Hero is tested: receives magical agent !
15 ! Hero's reaction ! Hero reacts to actions of future donor!
16 ! Magic agent ! Hero acquires magical agent!
17 ! Transference ! Hero led to object of search!
18 ! Struggle Direct confrontation between hero & villain!
19! Branding ! Hero is marked!
20 ! Victory ! Villain is defeated!
21 ! Liquidation ! Initial misfortune or lack is vanquished!
22 ! Return ! The hero returns!
23 ! Pursuit ! A chase: the hero is pursued!
24 ! Arrival incognito ! The hero arrives unrecognised!
25 ! Unfounded claims A false hero presents unfounded claims !
26 ! Difficult task ! A difficult task is proposed to the hero!
27 ! Solution ! The task is resolved!
28 ! Recognition ! The hero is recognised!
29 ! Exposure ! The false hero or villain is exposed!
30 ! Transfiguration ! The hero is given a new appearance!
31 ! Punishment ! The villain is punished !
32 ! Wedding ! The hero is married & ascends the throne !
"
"
"
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The narrative unit, the 'function', "is understood as an act of
a character, defined from the point of view of its significance
for the course of the action." Propp defined 32 functions,
each with sub-functions of up to 20 or more, to make
syntagmatic analyses of selected texts. !
"
Propp devised four laws relating to these functions:!
"
1. Functions of characters serve as stable, constant elements in a
tale, independent of how and by whom they are fulfilled. They
constitute the fundamental components of a tale.!
2. The number of functions known to the fairy tale is limited.!
3. The sequence of functions is always identical.!
4. All fairy tales are of one type in regard to their structure.!
"
In addition, there are seven role figures in Propp's scheme:!
"
1. Villain - in conflict with hero!
2. Donor - provides the hero with a magical agent!
3. Helper - helps hero in solving difficult tasks!
4. Princess - object of quest!
& King - assigns quest/difficult tasks!
5. Dispatcher - sends hero on mission!
6. Hero - on 'quest'/fighting villain!
7. False hero - treasonous figure, to be unmasked!
"
The Third Man begins with a description of time and place,
Vienna 1946, then introduces Martins (function # 1). (The
original script began with Martins leaving the US by plane
and stopping over at war-torn airports in Europe en route to
150
Vienna). His friend, Lime, is dead, and introduced as "the
worst racketeer who ever made a dirty living in this city."
i.e. the 'villain'.!
"
Martins is prohibited to stay in Vienna. (f#3) He violates the
prohibition and stays anyway. (f#4) Limes' friends contact
Martins - reconnaissance (f#5). Kurtz re-enacts Lime's
'death' (f#7). Martins is deceived (f#8). Lime's girlfriend,
Anna Schmidt, is arrested for possessing forged papers. It
transpires Lime had 'sacrificed' Anna to avert the Russian
police (f#9). Anna lacks official papers (f#10). Martins
pledges his help. Anna has named Harry's doctor as an ally.
He is 'despatched' (f#11).!
"
Calloway questions Anna in order to uncover details of
Lime's villainy (f#12). Meanwhile, Martins attempts to
uncover the truth of Lime's death. The porter who saw the
accident has refused to involve himself in the matter. Now
he addresses Martins and says he will help him (f#14). The
porter is murdered and Martins is forced to flee (f#15). At
police headquarters Calloway enlightens Martins on the
true nature of Harry Lime and his misdeeds (f#17). Martins
sees Harry, and convinces the police that Lime is not dead
after all.!
"
The first direct confrontation between Lime and Martins
(f#18). Martins agrees to help the police capture Lime. In
return, Anna gets her papers (f#21). Anna refuses help,
Martins prepares to leave. Calloway appeals to Martins
moral resolve; he must betray his best friend in order that
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the police can capture him (f#26). On seeing some of Lime's
hospitalized victims (f#27), Martins agrees (f#28).!
"
Harry meets Martins in a cafe - the 'villain is
exposed' (f#29). In the pursuit of Lime in the sewers beneath
the streets of Vienna, Martins picks up a gun and walks
forth to mete out justice in the style of a stereotype hero
from one of his own Western novels. He wears a 'new
face' (f#30). Lime is killed (f#31). Martins stops to address
Anna - the girl he's fallen in love with. He is ignored - there
is no 'wedding' (f#32). (Greene's original script ended with
"her hand through his arm", but was persuaded by Carol
Reed to amend it).!
"
Propp's system is one method of classifying and codifying
narratives. According to the dramatist, George Polti, there
are a total of 36 'dramatic situations'. The linguistics theorist,
L. Dolezel, proposes four modal systems for the analysis of
(literary) narrative texts. !
"
In Dolezel's scheme, The Third Man could be classified
under a Deontic system - concerned with permission,
prohibition, obligation and stories about moral and legal
restraints: interdiction, violation, punishment, reward and
test. The character's course of actions are governed by
norms, social restraints and the 'collective's' perspective of
moral right and wrong.!
"
The other systems proposed by Dolezel are:!
"
152
Alethic system!
Concepts of possibility, impossibility and necessity. Often explore 'alternative
possible worlds'. Fantasy characters - gods, spirits, etc perform actions in the
fictional world. Characters from one fictional world might intervene in the
events of another fictional world e.g. Alice in Wonderland.!
"
Axiological system!
Concepts of goodness, badness and indifference - good vs evil. Stories
involving the 'quest'; a character wants something, and is prompted into
taking action in order to get it. A modal base for "a host of narratives, ranging
from the expedition of the Argonauts to typical erotic narratives."!
"
Epistemic system!
The mystery or secret - the development from ignorance to knowledge - a
moment of revelation. Concepts of knowledge, ignorance and belief. Most
detective stories and murder mysteries come under this category.!
"
Christian Metz defines narrative as "a closed discourse that
proceeds by unrealising a temporal sequence of events."
The 'assertion' is the basic unit of the narrative (the
predicate) - film is a sequence of assertions or events. Thus,
the narrative is a text which consists of a number of codes -
messages with meanings. Narrative theory has been
described as "the examination of the strategic and aesthetic
devices which develop when someone tells a story to a
reader or listener... there are three elements in the narrative
mixture, teller, tale and listener." !
"
Graham Greene's novella establishes the fictitious character,
Major Calloway, as the 'teller', and the reader as the
'listener', whom 'he' - Calloway, addresses as 'you'. The
same 'tale' told filmically similarly establishes a 'teller' at the
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outset. An anonymous voice proclaims: "I never knew the
old Vienna before the war, with its Strauss music, its
glamour and easy charm - Constantinople suited me better...
" and ends with; "oh wait, I was going to tell you - I was
going to tell you about Holly Martins from America. He
came all the way here to visit a friend of his. The name was
Lime. Harry Lime. Now Martins was broke and Lime had
offered him - I don't know - some sort of a job. Anyway,
there he was, poor chap, happy as a lark and without a
cent." His words are juxtaposed to images of Viennese
landmarks, bombed streets, war-worn faces, black
marketeers, a dead body in a river, the four divisions of the
city. Some of the lines are taken from 'Calloway's account' of
the 'affair', the voice is that of the film's director, Carol Reed.!
"
The process of shot - counter shot editing establishes the
point of view of a central character. In The Third Man, the
narrative's perspective is principally that of Holly Martins.
In some scenes the perspective is that of Calloway, or Anna
Schmidt. In one sequence, Popescu summons his colleagues
to a dawn meeting on a bridge. They gather to meet, we
discover later, Harry Lime. The meeting is filmed in long-
shot to conceal his identity - the perspective is suddenly
'omniescent' - from an identified eye that sees all. Or have
we reverted to the initial narrative mode of the film's
prelude: are we being addressed by the film director?!
"
"The significance of identifying the source of the narrative
discourse is a debate that film inherits from the narrative
analysis of literature, where the necessity of a concept of a
154
narrative voice has also been challenged," claims Robert
Bourgoyne in his essay ’The Cinematic Narrator.’ !
"
Either the film story "tells itself"; a kind of non-personal
narration, or, it's told from one person, like the private eye
story - with occasional exceptions of when the viewer is
allowed to see something the main character doesn’t. Thus
the perspective changes from 'personal' to 'omniescent', or
told from a number of different character perspectives.!
"
Bourgoyne writes that "impersonal narrative discourse
involves two activities: it both creates or constructs the
fictional world while at the same time referring to it as if it
had an autonomous existence..." !
!
For the first 25 minutes of Hitchcock's film, Psycho, the
perspective is that of Marion. With the exception of the
opening shots, establishing time and place, Marion is the
story's subject, and what she sees, the viewer also sees. The
shot - counter shot of each situation from Marion's
perspective entrenches our identification so utterly that each
of Marion's threatening situations becomes our threat. We
are accomplices in her crime of stealing money from the
safe, we are uneasy as Marion is interrogated by an
inquisitive road patrol policeman.!
"
Our encounter with Norman Bates is also from the
perspective of Marion, but only briefly. The narrative
switches drastically to Norman's perspective, then to an
'impersonal narrative', and again, half way through the
155
story, to Marion's perspective. She decides to turn back,
return the money and face the consequences. Having
'cleansed' herself spiritually, she undergoes a metaphoric
cleansing under the purifying water of the shower. The
perspective is so intimately allied to Marion (particulars
concerning her private life are known to us that will not be
known by anyone within the closed fictitious world of the
narrative), that her murder becomes an unremittingly brutal
assault upon the viewer.!
"
Now, almost half way through the story, our identification is
absorbed by Norman, as he attempts to conceal 'Mother's'
heinous crime. For a further sequence the narrative
perspective remains with Norman, then shifts to an
'impersonal' mode as Marion's boyfriend, Sam Loomis, and
Marion's sister, Lila, consider steps to trace Marion's
disappearance. The subsequent narrative sequence belongs
to the private detective, Arbogast. Once more, the intensity
of identification, this time with Arbogast, amplifies the
dramatic impact of his demise. !
"
The narrative sequence leading to the exposure of Norman
Bates is 'Sam and Lila's story'. The psychiatrist's explanation
of events which concludes the story, returns us to the
'impersonal' mode of the opening shots with which the
story began.!
"
"
"
156
Story!
!
"The essential thing about a script is, in the final analysis, suspense - the talent for
developing a plot so effectively that the spectator's mind doesn't wander even for a
moment. You can argue forever about the content of a film, its aesthetic, its style,
even its moral posture; but the crucial imperative is to avoid boredom at all costs."
Luis Bunuel: My Last Breath!
"
The components of a cinematic narrative consist of:!
"
The opening: its dramatic function can be likened to an
'overture' - a prelude, an introduction. The opening defines
the mood and character of the narrative, in addition to
providing information and describing the situation from
which the narrative unfolds.!
"
The frame: a single image - see Part One!
"
The shot: an uninterrupted image that can be as a brief as
one twenty fourth of a second - a single frame; or as long as
ten minutes - a full magazine of film. On average, a shot in a
fiction film lasts between ten and twenty seconds. See Part
One. !
"
The scene: a narrative unit consistent to a particular time
and a particular place. !
"
The sequence: several scenes which make a narrative unit -
characters and events unified to a complete breadth of
action. A sequence often entails a 'complicating action' - a

157
dramatic occurrence, the consequences of which impel the
development of the plot.!
"
The act/movement: a sequence of dramatic events, which
begins with a proposed dilemma and ends with a response
to that dilemma, denoted by a 'turning point' in which the
'narrative flow' changes direction.!
"
The coda: a musical term - a passage formally ending a
composition. A narrative component which signals that a
story has ended, bringing the 'listener' back to the point at
which the narrative began, or a recognisable event. The first
narrative sequence of The Third Man includes a scene in a
cemetery - the simulated funeral of Harry Lime. The coda
re-enacts the same scene (cf. Todorov's return to a 'state of
equilibrium'), only now Harry Lime's funeral is authentic.!
"
The coda to Blade Runner (Ridley Scott, 1982) re-states the
opening sequence shot where a vessel slowly descends into
an endless city, flames dispersing into the night sky - akin to
a vision of a Plutonic underworld. The coda implies
deliverance - a flight into a green and rural terrain,
illuminated by the light of day. !
"
These components are unified by the narrative's theme.!
"
"
"
"
"
158
Theme!
"
If one was to devise a premise, or sum up a theme for
Hitchcock's film Rear Window (1954), it might be
"voyeurism leads to trouble", or "What happens when a man
suspects his neighbour of murder?", or "How does a man
view the world if he is unable to commit himself to a long
term relationship?" Hitchcock described Rear Window as "a
film about people watching people."!
"
The screenwriter, Robert Towne, told producer Robert
Evans: "I have an idea about a detective told in the thirties
when L.A. was a small town; he gets involved with a case,
and the case he's involved with has nothing to do with what
he's really involved with. The real problem is a woman he
does not understand." From this idea developed the
screenplay of Chinatown.!
!
A premise may formulate a moral stand; "Poverty leads to
crime" describes the premise to De Sica's film, Bicycle
Thieves (1948). De Sica's construction of a narrative around
a jobless father, with family to support, and his chance of
work dependent on owning a bicycle, can be interpreted as
a conscious theme concerning social deprivation resulting in
crime; a cause and effect.!
"
In The Art of Dramatic Writing, Lajos Egri, devotes a
substantial section of the book to defining the premise. He
gives examples such as "Ruthless ambition leads to its own
destruction" as the premise for Macbeth; "Jealousy destroys
159
not only itself but the object of its love", for Othello; "The
sins of the fathers are visited on the children", as the premise
for Ibsen's play, Ghosts, amongst others.!
"
According to Egri; "you can arrive at your premise in any
one of a great many ways. You may start with an idea which
you at once convert to a premise, or you may develop a
situation first and see that it has potentialities which need
only the right premise to give them meaning and suggest an
end."!
"
However, the cinema narrative, as distinct from other forms
of dramatic writing, emphasises pictures above words. The
construction of a narrative around a pre-determined
premise or theme, is more particular to drama and the
novel. That cinema narrative is constructed around a theme
or premise in such a way - A leads to B, a cause and effect -
is more attributable to the cinema's theatrical borrowings
rather than the form integral to film itself. !
"
The 'cinematic' film narrative is structured around visual
associations, the themes or premises to which are left for
theorists and analysts to contend with. Writer/directors
including Bunuel, Fellini, Ingmar Bergman and recent
filmmakers such as Woody Allen, David Lynch, Jarmusch,
Wenders, etc; (see A Cinematic Form) avoid analysing their
own work, maintaining that their films are based on a
spontaneous impulse leading to a series of associations,
around which a narrative is constructed. A nightclub singer
singing Blue Velvet, a human ear in a field, and a young
160
man watching a woman alone in her bedroom were the
images that inspired Lynch to write the script to Blue Velvet.!
"
Ingmar Bergman describes the genesis of Persona (1968)
during a period of personal crisis. He wrote in a notebook:
"I imagine a bleached white strip of film. It runs through the
projector and gradually words can be made out on the
soundtrack... Gradually just the word which I imagine. Then
a face appears almost indiscernible within all the white. It's
Alma's face. Mrs Vogler." From that point materialised the
opening montage of Persona, which led into the story of an
actress in a rest-home, unwilling or incapable of
communicating. A relationship develops between her and
her nurse, Elisabet, which becomes a crisis of identity for
both women. !
"
A film can be identified by a theme, as too can a body of
work by a director/writer; in Bergman's case, a recurring
theme is that of loss of identity, or losing face; humiliation
before authority, temporal or secular.!
"
Theme is a musical term describing a leit-motif; a recurring
passage that serves to unify a movement. Fellini's Amarcord
is a series of episodes in an Italian coastal town; Woody
Allen's Radio Days, episodes involving radio stars and their
listeners; Tarkovsky's Mirror, memories formulated as
episodes from childhood during the Soviet Union's Stalinist
period. It would be plausible to articulate a dramatic
premise for any of these films, but questionable as to how
useful such an exercise would be in understanding them
161
any better. A more suitable approach may be discerning
'theme', which, in these examples, pertain to memory, and
the cinematic representation of a particular period of time.!
"
Film structure can be related to rhythm (as suggested by
Noel Burch), or to movements (Marguerite Duras describes
India Song as a story in three movements), so the
application of 'theme' to cinema, identifying cinema in a
context comparable to structure in music, is not
incongruous. !
!
!
The Opening: Prelude !
!
A film's opening establishes the rules by which we 'play the
game'. The viewer is disciplined to read the film in a certain
way. A formal exposition of location and character
introduces the chronological account of events over four
days and four nights in Rear Window; a 'despatcher'
establishes a narrative built around a series of flashbacks as
characters provide their own recollections of a central
character in Citizen Kane, The Killers (Robert Siodmak,
1946); a collage of flashbacks introduces Point Blank
(Boorman, 1967 - see below); random incidents from the
past and future collide in the opening to Performance (Roeg,
Cammell, 1970). A single flashback framework, a story told
in retrospect, precedes the main narrative in Road Warrior
(Miller, 1981 - aka, Mad Max II), Peyton Place (Robson,
1957), Rebecca (Hitchcock, 1940) - "Last night I dreamed I
went to Manderley again...". However, in the former the
162
identity of the narrator remains unknown - in Rebecca and
Peyton Place the mode of opening establishes both the story
to follow and the main character. Such an opening suggests
a fortuitous outcome for the character behind the narrative
voice - this traditional reading of the convention, ruthlessly
exploited by Billy Wilder in Sunset Boulevard, for indeed,
regardless of the events foretold, the character behind the
narrative voice, has at least survived 'to tell the tale?'.!
"
The 'voice-over' prelude indicates a subjective story from
the perspective of a single character. Farewell My Lovely
(Dmytryck, 1944) opens with Marlowe under police
interrogation, denying his implication in a murder. His
account is related in the filmic equivalent of the 'I' form of
Raymond Chandler's novel. Robert Montgomery's The Lady
in the Lake, (1946 - also based on a Chandler 'Marlowe'
novel) attempts the experiment of relating the entire
narrative from a subjective perspective - we see what
Marlowe (Montgomery) sees, and we only see Marlowe in
mirrors or shadows on the wall - his identity represented by
the camera itself. The opening of Mamoulian's Dr Jekyll and
Mr Hyde (1932), cut from some prints, instigated the
technique, imitating the novelistic 'I' form. !
"
The dream prelude to a film narrative intimates the
nebulous division between reality and fantasy, as in
Eraserhead (Lynch, 1976), Kurosawa's Dreams (1990), 8 1/2
and other films of Fellini, Bunuel and the surrealist cinema.
Director, Walter Hill, employs 300 hundred separate shots of
film in the opening 8 minutes to 'set-up' the story of Streets
163
of Fire (1984) - in the same length of time Andrei Tarkovsky
opens The Sacrifice (1985) with a single uninterrupted
sequence shot. (The film - two and a half hours long -
consists of 125 shots). Each opening serves as a
proclamation to the style of discourse - the 'discipline' to
which the viewer is subjugated.!
"
The narrative 'core' - the point at which the story-teller
realises the narrative conflict - may occur within the first
frames of the film's opening shot, (The Marriage of Maria
Braun), or half-way through the story with the emergence of
a central character, (The Sheltering Sky, Bertolucci, 1990). In
The Marriage of Maria Braun (1978), Fassbinder opens with
a shot of a faded and tattered Nazi poster depicting Adolf
Hitler on a crumbling brick wall. Within a second (24 frames
of film), a shell hits the wall, forming a hole through which
we see the interior of a church, and a priest executing the
rites of marriage. He reacts nervously to the falling shells of
a bombing raid - the bride insists the ceremony continue;
Maria Braun's marriage materialises against a background
of Germany on the brink of defeat and ruin. Within the
passage of a few seconds Fassbinder establishes time, place,
character, situation, plot and conflict. (The film's coda
portrays an explosion from a gas stove).!
!
The opening shots to Rear Window show:!
1. Three windows with blinds drawn. The blinds open slowly, one
by one, revealing a view over apartment block windows. Camera
dollies out into the forecourt.!
"
164
2. Tracking shot of a cat climbing a stairway. Camera follows cat,
tilts up and pans left, to window, to CU L B Jeffries, asleep.!
"
3. CU thermometer. 85 degrees F.!
"
4. MLS View of window; a man gets up listening to the radio
("Do you have that tired run down feeling..."), goes to his piano
and tries a few bars, but gives up in exasperation.!
"
5. MLS Another window, and balcony. A middle aged couple
awaken to their alarm clock. They sleep on their balcony with a
small dog. Camera pans left and tilts to a third window. A rear
view of a young woman dressing in front of a kitchen
refridgerator, and performing dancing exercises at the same time.
Tilt to street; a group of children chase after a street cleaning truck
spraying water on the road. Camera tilts up and pans 180 degrees
to CU of L B Jeffries asleep. Camera pulls back to MS to show
Jeffries asleep in a wheel chair. His leg is bound in plaster,
inscribed with the words; "Here lie the broken bones of L B
Jeffries" together with other scribblings and signatures.!
"
6. Camera pans over bureau and wall to show broken camera,
photographs of a car race and a spectacular car crash, a framed
negative of an attractive woman, and a pile of magazines
illustrated with the same photograph.!
!
These shots establish the private and professional life of the
protagonist which Hitchcock describes as "using cinematic
means to relate a story. It's a great deal more interesting than
if we had someone asking Stewart, "How did you happen to
165
break your leg?" and Stewart answering, "As I was taking a
picture of a motor car race, a wheel fell off one of the
speeding cars and smashed into me."!
"
The opening to John Boorman's Point Blank (1967), based on
The Hunter by Richard Stark, is a montage of fragments,
from several incidents in the past, to a vague and
indiscernible present. According to John Boorman "the
fragmentation was necessary to give the characters and the
situation ambiguity, to suggest another meaning beyond the
immediate plot."!
"
Producer, David Selznick's advice to screenwriters in the
1940's, to "start with an earthquake and build up to a
climax" affirms the contemporary demands of television,
where dramaturgy aspires to arrest uneasy fingers on the
buttons of the remote control unit. The dramaturgy of the
commercial film emphasises the strong ending, founded on
the credo that no-one walks out of a picture in the first ten
minutes.!
"
However, a literary story does not begin with its first
sentence - a film does not begin with an opening shot. The
intention of the narrative has been outlined before the first
word or first frame has met our eyes. A narrative's title
codifies specific aspirations - in the case of a film, preparing
the viewer for specific messages. !
"
When Carol Reed and Graham Greene presented the
American producer, David Selznick, with the script to The
166
Third Man, his insistence on changing the title met with
opposition. "Listen, boys, who the hell is going to a film
called The Third Man?... What we want is something like
'Night in Vienna', a title which will bring them in."
Selznick's suggestions included 'The Claiming of the Body'
and 'The Changing of the Chair'. Alfred Hitchcock's claimed
that, "titles, like women, should be easy to remember
without being familiar, intriguing but never obvious, warm
yet refreshing, suggest action, not impassiveness, and finally
give a clue without revealing the plot."!
"
Luis Bunuel maintains he devised film title with "the old
surrealist trick" of finding a totally unexpected word or
group of words which opens up a new perspective... Un
Chien Andalou, L'age d'or, The Exterminating Angel... A
film that began as Down with Lenin, and The Virgin in the
Manger, finally became The Charm of the Bourgoisie, but
screenwriter, Jean-Claude Carriere said that it lacked an
adjective. "So after sifting through what seemed thousands
of them, we finally stumbled upon 'discreet'. Suddenly the
film took on a different shape altogether, even a different
point of view. It was a truly marvelous discovery."!
"
John Huston's version of Dashiell Hammett's The Maltese
Falcon (1941), previously filmed as Satan Met a Lady (1931)
and Dangerous Female (1936), met with continued
resistance in regard to Huston's wish to keep the original
title. "Warners publicity department wanted to call it 'The
Gent From Frisco'." Woody Allen's film, Annie Hall (1977)
began as 'Anhedonia' (the inability to experience pleasure),
167
became 'Anxiety', then 'Anhedonia' again, switched to
'Annie and Alvy', and finally Annie Hall. "It's now hard to
suppose it could ever have been called anything else,"
concludes the film's editor, Ralph Rosenblum.!
"
A metaphor is a figure of speech, likening one thing to
another. In the process of 'externalising an inner conflict',
film constantly draws on metaphor, in order that visual
associations refer back, either to plot or character. For
example: !
"
Vienna 1946. The aftermath of World War Two.…!

"
The Third Man: The price a man is prepared to pay.!

168
… the ruins of what was once the centre of imperial Europe.
Citizens representative of the upper echelons of Viennese
society, now run black market rackets, peddling anything
from cigarettes and rubber tyres to illegal drugs in order to
survive. A disillusioned people abandon morality for
expediency, and the question is always 'what price is a man
prepared to pay?' !
"
This is the moral dilemma Holly Martins confronts in The
Third Man, and the question he himself asks at the end of
the second act, in order to secure the release of Anna, Harry
Lime's girl. The theme of the story is the corruption of the
individual; 'the price a man is prepared to pay.' The
situation in Vienna 1946 serves as a metaphor for Holly
Martin's inner conflict.!
!
"
The Ending: Coda!
!
"A million dollar publicity campaign will buy you one
weekend" as one producer noted. After that the film has to
stand on its own and its the ending that will determine the
success or failure on the market place. Hence, commercial
cinema's insistence on making the ending the priority.
When John Boorman completed The Emerald Forest (1985)
two endings were filmed and tested on audiences, a
standard practice for Hollywood studios, to determine an
ending with the strongest audience approval.!
"
169
The demands of commerce and narrative film conventions
necessitates the most satisfactory ending, often 'the happy
ending' - the ending designed to gratify the broadest
possible audience. Consequently, in screen adaptions
particularly, dramatic intensity is forfeited for the sake of
'gratifying' the viewer.!
"
Discussing Picnic at Hanging Rock (1975), Peter Weir claims:
"The (US) audiences couldn't handle a story without a
resolution. Three girls go missing and there's no
explanation. But that's just why I made the film. It was a
mystery that was never resolved. But a nation that can put a
man on the moon - they just can't think like that... " !
!
In some dramas the down-beat, even pessimistic ending,
may be deemed by the industry the most 'satisfactory',
particularly if it enforces the status-image of a role model
fashioned by studio publicity. !
"
John Huston's version of The Maltese Falcon (1941)
concludes with Sam Spade (Humphrey Bogart) sending the
woman he "maybe" loves ("maybe you love me, and maybe
I love you...") Brigid O'Shaughnessy (Mary Astor), either to
the gallows, or to prison, for having killed his business
associate, Miles, a man for whom he had precious little
regard. Not exactly 'a happy ending' (it marks the beginning
of the American film noir period, according to some critics),
but it is thoroughly gratifying, that Spade, a seemingly
corruptible individual, when pressed, abounds with moral
fortitude.!
170
"
A hi-jacker sneezes continually over the telephone while
making ransom demands to the police chief, in The Taking
of Pelham 1-2-3 (Joesph Sargent, 1974). A subway ex-
employee at home sick with a cold, believed innocent,
receives a visit by the police chief, played by Walter
Mattheau. Mattheau believes the man's innocence and
heads for the door. The ex-employee sneezes. "Gezundheit!"
says Mattheau, and turns toward the man. The picture
freezes, and the film ends. This type of ending is what
British writer, Frederic Raphael, now based in Hollywood,
describes as film's unique ability to disclose an ending
within the final frame. "Whether that's art, or whether it's
any good, I don't know; but it's what making movies is all
about."!
"
The formal closure of a film narrative can be broadly
classified into one of three endings; optimistically - the 'up-
ending', pessimistically -the 'down-ending', and
inconclusively - the open ending. Endings can be further
categorised into the logical conclusion, the surprise ending,
the abrupt ending, the explanatory ending, and the sudden
twist. However, the formal closure of a film does not
necessarily mark the completion of the narrative. A story
has resonance. Notorious ends with Devlin having saved
Alicia from poisoning and compromising Sebastian so as to
instigate his demise - the formal closure reiterates the
Hollywood axiom: boys gets girl. However, the implications
of the ending (and such could be said of most Hitchcock

171
films) suggest a moral dilemma the principle characters are
unlikely to readily resolve.!
"
In Writing The Script, Hollywood screenwriter, Wells Root,
argues against both the "happily-ever-after finish, as well as
the fade-out in total despair. The first is a relic of a romantic
time... the second is equally unreal in the common
experience..." He claims that, "the most responsive of all
third acts has been called the bittersweet ending" citing
examples like Casablanca and Midnight Cowboy.
"Audiences respond to the bittersweet ending because it
neither enshrines fantasy nor denies hope." !
Stories Within Stories!
"
The Scene!
"
"Just remember that each scene, as you shoot it, is the most important scene in the
picture." Producer, Henry Blanke's advice to debut director, John Huston, about to
film The Maltese Falcon in 1940.!
"
In one of the key scenes of The Third Man, Holly Martins
meets Harry Lime at the Prater, Vienna's giant ferris wheel.
The scene's structure reflects the narrative structure of the
film: the two men meet, and begin the ascent on the wheel.
"The police know you're alive!", says Martins, half way up
the wheel's ascent, which means for Lime that his
subterfuge of 'playing dead' for the police is now over.
When the wheel reaches the top (the scene's midpoint) Lime
makes his comparison to people on the ground with "dots
that stop moving" and tax-free profits. "It shouldn't be too
easy to get rid of you old man", he tells Martins. Half way
172
down his tone changes. "As if I'd do anything to you!" On
the ground Orson Welles makes his celebrated cuckoo clock
speech and the two men part company.!
"
Top!
! + !!
Up .3m Down!
!
0............. *1.5m...................*4.5........6min.!
Beginning ! Middle ! End!
"I told the "They dug up!
police." your coffin."!
"
A scene is a story in itself, with a narrative cohesion,
established by a formal opening and closure. The Prater
scene opens with a presentation of location and protagonist.
The musical motif emphasises the formality of presentation.
Even removed from syntax, Harry Lime's arrival, and
Martins' reaction, states the relationship between them, as
Martins avoids shaking hands with the "best pal a guy could
ever have." The scene occurs two thirds through the film
and is the first confrontation between the two principle
characters. At Lime's initiative they ride the wheel, with a
compartment to themselves. "Lovers used to do this in the
old days," says Lime, as the wheel begins to move. The
narrative cycle of the scene, both figuratively and literally
returning to 'the state of equilibrium', culminates with
Harry Lime's reference to "brotherly love" in Switzerland,
producing only the cuckoo clock, underscoring the unstated
amity between the two men. !
"

173
The conversation's first turning point occurs when Holly
reveals that he told the police that 'there was a third man at
the scene of Lime's accident'; that Harry Lime is still alive.
"Did they believe you?" asks Lime. The narrative's first
turning point occurs when the porter tells Martins: "There
was a third man."!
The conversation's mid-point occurs when Lime threatens to
kill Martins. "I should be pretty easy to get rid of," says
Martins. The narrative's mid-point occurs when Lime's
associates kill the porter.!
"
The conversation's second turning point occurs when
Martins reveals; "The police have dug up your coffin." Lime
realises that the game is up. The second turning point in the
narrative occurs when Martins agrees to help the police
catch Lime. For Harry Lime, the game is up. !
!
Porter killed!
+!
"There was .55m "What price?"!
a third man"!
0......Act.1...*.25......Act..2........*.85..Act.3..110m!
Lime:"The best pal Martins shoots Lime!
a guy could ever have." !
!
"
The scenes that make up a screenplay, differ from 'narrative
scenes' described here, in that they are defined by a change
in lighting, or a change in location where the action takes
place. Citizen Kane has 118 scenes, The Third Man, 140
scenes, Chinatown, 126 scenes, etc. Hitchock's film Rope
(1948) consists of one scene and one shot (in fact, eight
174
sequence shots, each lasting ten minutes - a full magazine of
film - spliced together to give the illusion of a single long
take. See Mise-en-scene).!
"
Like the screenplay, the scene has a main character, a
conflict, a beginning, middle and end; in the course of the
scene a change occurs, a 'complicating action' propels the
narrative forward to the next scene.!
"
Cabaret (Fosse, 1972) is set in Berlin, 1933, and features a
scene in which a blonde haired youth sings a song entitled
"Tomorrow Belongs To Me." The scene begins with a
presentation of the arena - a German beer garden 1933. The
main character is a German youth. He has a black swastika
on his sleeve. His opposition is the crowd of people before
him. How will they respond to the voice of National
Socialism? The boy sings, firstly unaccompanied, then some
instruments gradually join in. The crowd listen, but so far
there is no response. The 'contest' is undecided as to
whether he will win or lose. A girl stands up and begins
singing - the first turning point. Hers is the first voice that
says 'yes'. A male chorus accompanies the youth -
supporting roles to the main character - and the full band
join in with the refrain to the next verse and the beginning
of the 'second movement'.!
"
Will the crowd be won over? Some sing, some don't. Some
are exuberant, others are sceptical. More people stand up,
and some others join in the song. The music swells. Finally,
with the exception of one old man, the entire crowd is
175
standing and singing. The next turning point; the youth
makes a nazi salute, and the song reaches a crescendo:
"Tomorrow belongs to me!"!
"
The crowd sings the refrain, and Brian and Maximillian, two
impartial observers, enter the car to drive away. Everyone is
standing, everyone is singing, National Socialism has won
resoundingly. "You still think you can control them?" asks
Brian. Maximillian shrugs. The cabaret's master of
ceremonies smiles a knowing smile, the car drives away and
the song fades in the distance.!
"
The next scene is a dialogue scene but the structure is the
same. Fritz, an eligible young man seeking a marriable
young woman, is waiting outside Natalia's house. She
comes out, ignores him and goes straight to her car. "I must
speak with you," says Fritz. "It's no good", says Natalia. "I
can never see you again." She drives off. She stops. Fritz
runs up to her. "Is it your parents?" he asks. "Is it the
money?" "No", says Natalia. "It's just impossible. Goodbye
dear Fritz." Tearfully, she drives away once more, but now
Fritz is holding on to the side of the car. Natalia stops in a
panic. The dialogue continues and the issue - if only
temporarily - is resolved. "Don't you see Fritz, what is
happening in Germany today? I'm a Jew and you're not."
Natalia drives away and Fritz is left standing in the middle
of the road.!
!
Frederic Raphael, says that "what is involved in a good
scene is not simply that you convey the information or the
176
emotion which is involved, but it also has to be entertaining,
you have to have something happening all the time. You
can't wait for things to happen. People get bored. Films are
like advertising. You have to deliver your point."!
"
"
The Sequence!
"
A sequence is a narrative unit consisting of a number of
scenes; there are twelve sequences to Casablanca, twelve to
The Seventh Seal, (Bergman, 1957). Sequences to films such
as The Locket (John Brahm, 1946) The Killers, or Kurosawa's
Rashomon (1951), or Citizen Kane, relate to a specific
narrator; the stories are a group of episodes pieced together
- unified by a 'quest for fact'. What was 'Rosebud'? Why did
Olle Andersen allow himself be killed without a struggle?
What's the truth behind the identity of the mysterious wife
in The Locket? A bandit is accused of having raped a noble
woman, but what really happened?!
"
In most films sequences are concealed by the flow of the
narrative; a lineal chronology may signify narrative unity,
but the sequence is frequently an interdependent narrative -
a story within the story - to emphasise a particular character.
Ostensibly, The Seventh Seal concerns the knight, Antonius
Block and his confrontation with Death. In fact the knight's
story serves as a unifying frame in which to 'tell tales',
related by the slenderest of narrative threads to the tale of
Antonius Block.!
!

177
 1. The Knight's Story: The first sequence of The Seventh !
Seal concerns the knight, Antonius Block, his squire, Jons, !
their return to Sweden after a period in the crusades, and !
the knight's confrontation with Death. Before Death !
enshrouds his victim, the knight challenges him to a game of !
chess, and the game begins.!
2. Jof's Story: Presentation of the travelling players; !
Jonas, and husband and wife; Jof and Mia. Jof gets up at !
daylight and experiences his vision of the Virgin Mary.!
3. Jons Story: Jons converses with a church painter. His !
paintings show the figure of death, victims of the Black !
Plague, flagellantes, the Dance of Death - images which !
recur during the film.!
4. The Knight's Story: Antonius Block makes confession - his !
preoccupation with death, salvation, redemption. He reveals !
his strategy concerning his chess game with Death, and the !
priest, concealed in the confession box, turns and thanks !
him; for it is Death who masquerades as the priest.!
The knight raises his arm, and glares at his own veins, !
smiles and declares: "I, Antonius Block, play chess with !
Death."!
5. The Witch's Story/The Mute Girl's Story. The knight !
stares into the eyes of a young girl condemned to burn as a !
witch. Jons saves a mute servant girl from the advances of a !
lecherous priest.!
6. Jonas' Story/The Flagellantes: As Jof and Mia perform !
their play in a village, Jonas pursues the blacksmith's !
wife. In their absence a group of flagellantes descend upon !
the village square - from one form of theatre to another, !
but now the main performer is a priest who inspires the fear !
of God and the Black Plague upon his followers.!
7. Plog's Story/The Priests Story: Plog the blacksmith !
searches for his missing wife, and takes consolation in the !
tavern. The priest deprived of 'female companionship" before !
Jons intervened, joins the blacksmith, and the two of them !
begin to goad Jof. Jons intervenes once more, saves Jof, and !
scars the priest.!
"
178
!
The Seventh Seal: Stories within stories - six characters portrayed above, each with
their own tale to tell.!
"
179
 8. Mia's Story: On a summer meadow Mia feeds her boy, !
Mikael, and she gives the knight wild strawberries and milk. !
"This is a moment I shall always remember; one meaningful !
gesture..." declares the knight, in a brief respite from his!
inevitable contest.!
9. Death's Story: The travelling players, and the knight and !
his companions journey through the forest. They witness the !
burning of the witch; Plog regains his wife, Lisa. Jonas, !
hiding in a tree, falls victim to Death's axe. "No-one !
escapes me," says Death. He continues his game with the !
Knight; Jof sees in horror, the knight's contestant. The !
knight spills the chess pieces from the board giving Jof and !
Mia the chance to escape.!
10. Jof and Mia: They journey through the forest and wait !
for a storm to pass.!
11. The Knight's Castle: The knight and his companions reach !
the castle; the knight's wife is there to greet him. But a !
despondency darkens the home-coming, culminating with the !
arrival of an uninvited guest.!
12. Jof's Vision: He sees the knight and his companions, !
being led away by the figure of Death. "Your visions!" !
declares Maria, and they set off on their travels.!
!
!
However we define the narrative sub-divisions of the fiction
film - episodes, development sequences, plot segments -
their sum parts combine to form a unified whole. But,
whereas the narrative conventions of the dramatic discourse
demand 'flow', cinema narrative, as determined by its form,
favour a more 'episodic' discourse. The viewer, subjugated
by the moving image, requires less narrative unity, than say,
demanded by the novel.!
"
Consequently, Casablanca, like The Seventh Seal, can be
viewed as a 'cinematic' narrative with a series of
180
independent episodes bonded by a strong central character.
Edward Dmytryck maintains that "what raises Casablanca
well above the ordinary is that the subsidiary players are
never treated as mere props to the leading players. Each has
his own story and each story is, in its own right,
understandable, acceptable, believable and intriguing."!
"
Richard Blaney (Humphrey Bogart) first appears ten
minutes after the film's opening, and Ilse Lund enters Rick's
Cafe Americain fifteen minutes after that. Up to this point
the narrative is concerned with other stories; the black-
market dealer, Ugarte, and his possession of transit letters,
which bring about his untimely demise; and the characters
of Captain Renault, the Gestapo's Major Strasser, Sam the
bar-pianist, and a number of refugees anxious to make their
departure to Lisbon, to America and to freedom. Umberto
Eco notes the evocation of five genres in two minutes -
before Ilse's entry narrative elements indicate, amongst
other genres, the action film, the war propaganda film, a spy
film, a musical, a romance - in short, the film is an
amalgamation of every Hollywood film a viewer is likely to
have seen, creating a Casablanca of make-believe, and
advancing cliché to the level of archetype. !
!
!
The Sub-Plot !
!
The sub-plot is the story within a story that serves as
reinforcing the main narrative line, or introducing a new
element to the plot, that in one way or another externalises
181
the inner conflict of the protagonist. Rick wants to get away
from Casablanca, but he needs first, an ideal, and second, an
answer to a love-affair from the past gone wrong. A young
girl, just married, who can get the necessary papers to leave
for America, providing she offers herself to the man at the
top, is a case that touches Rick's otherwise embittered heart.
He lets her win at roulette so the couple can pay their own
way.!
"
Sally and Brian embark on a cautious love affair in Berlin
1933 in the film Cabaret. A story within the story concerns
Fritz, a gentile, who seduces Natalie, a wealthy Jewish girl.
He wants her money, but then falls in love with her. Finally,
she falls in love with Fritz, but breaks off the affair, because
she's Jewish and he isn't. Fritz con-fesses that he is also
Jewish and they marry. Brian and Sally split up.!
!
Alfred Hitchcock's film Rear Window (1954, script by John
Hayes, based on Cornell Woolrich's short story) has eight
sub-plots woven into the plot which relate to the main story.
Professional photographer, L B Jeffries, thinks that one of his
neighbours is a murderer. Has Lars Thorwald murdered his
wife? Simultaneously, Jeffries is undergoing a relationship
crisis - Jeffries exhibits a fear of marriage (gamophobia). His
'looking outwards', as opposed to 'looking inwards' is
expressed though his voyeurism (scoptophilia); his attitudes
to marriage are projected onto the scenarios played out in
the facing apartments.!
"
182
Confined to his apartment with a broken leg, he begins
watching his neighbours to alleviate the boredom. His day
nurse, Stella, reprimands him. "You can go to gaol for that,"
she says. Jeffries fiance, fashion model Lisa Fremont, is more
interested in marriage. As far as Jeffries is concerned each
one of his neighbours portrays different aspects of marriage,
all negative. He bemoans the destructive side of marriage,
looking particularly at one neighbour, Lars Thorwald,
arguing with his invalid wife. Lisa Fremont leaves, night
falls, and Jeffries sleeps. Across the courtyard a woman
screams. "Don't!" she cries, and Act 1 fades into the early
morning of Act 2.!
"
Jeffries is convinced that Thorwald has murdered his wife.
His detective friend doesn't believe him, neither does Lisa
Fremont. Jeffries thinks he's uncovered more evidence. Half-
way into the story, 55 minutes into the 110 minute long
feature, Jeffries persuades Lisa Fremont, and she becomes
his accomplice in proving Thorwald's guilt. A neighbour's
dog is killed. Everyone reacts except Thorwald. "Why
would anyone kill a dog?" asks Jeffries. "Because it knew too
much?" For Jeffries and Lisa Fremont this is proof enough of
Thorwald's guilt.!
"
Lisa breaks into Thorwald's apartment, but he returns
unexpectedly and assaults her. Jeffries can only watch the
appalling scene across the courtyard, as she is attacked by a
man he believes to be a murderer. Police intervene in time
and Lisa Fremont has found the proof they require.
Thorwald realises Jeffries' implication and goes to the
183
offensive. He attacks Jeffries, who's alone in his wheelchair,
and throws him out of the window. Thorwald is shot by the
police. The body of Mrs Thorwald is discovered. Thorwald
was guilty afterall. Jeffries now has two broken legs. Lisa
looks after him.!
"
The sub-characters that make up the sub-plots of the
surrounding neighbours represent projections of Jeffries'
own views on marriage and relationships. His negative
views culminates with the most abhorrent aspect of married
life of all; that a man can be driven to murder his wife. Each
sub-plot carries with it a presentation, a conflict and a
resolution.!
"
A middle-aged couple own a dog, which is pampered and
spoiled, as though it serves as a substitute child. The dog is
killed and the woman especially reacts desparately,
arousing sympathy and indignation from the other
neighbours. At the end of the story they get a new dog.!
"
A newly-wed couple enter an apartment and close the blind.
Jeffries ignores this couple almost entirely. Occasionally the
young man opens the window, half-naked, for fresh air, only
to be called back by his wife who's demanding attention. At
the end of the story the couple argue; the wife has the last
line in the film: "If you told me you'd quit your job we'd
never have gotten married", she says.!
"
Miss Torso is the nickname for the attractive young dancer
across the way. She regularly entertains, always men. She is
184
sociable to all of them, but resists all of them. In the closing
minutes of the story Stanley comes home, a tubby little
soldier with glasses. He heads straight for the refridgerator. !
"
Miss Lonely-Hearts is the middle-aged woman who lives
alone. She makes dinner for two, but her guest is make
believe. The pretense is too much - she breaks down and
cries. She goes out to a cafe and meets a man, invites him
home, but his advances become violent and she fights him
off, forcing him out of the apartment. "That's a very private
world out there", says Jeffries' detective friend. As Lisa
Fremont is fighting off Thorwald in his apartment, Miss
Lonely-Hearts prepares herself to take an overdose of
tablets. She hears her neighbour playing a wistful melody
on the piano and stops. Finally she meets the composer and
they become friends.!
"
In the opening credits the composer gets up tired and
listless, according to a radio broadcast, and tries a few
chords on the piano. But he can't find the melody. He tries
out a tune with his agent (Alfred Hitchcock), but it's still not
right. At a party he finally gets the tune, and plays it with
inspiration. Miss Lonely-Hearts hears the melody and puts
the tablets away.!
"
Lars Thorwald argues with his invalid wife. But when he
speaks on the telephone she can get up in order to
eavesdrop. She's not ill at all. The next day the bedroom
curtain is drawn, and Thorwald is in the kitchen with some
large blood-stained knives. There's no sign of the wife.
185
Finally Thorwald is provoked into revealing his guilt. His
wife's body is buried in the newly-laid cement floor of the
upstairs apartment.!
"
Stella, the day-nurse, catches Jeffries spying on his
neighbours. "You can go to gaol for that!" she says. But
Jeffries arouses her curiousity concerning the Thorwalds,
and she starts spying too. "We've become a nation of
peeping toms!" she says. Finally Stella becomes completely
involved and crosses the courtyard to help Lisa acquire the
evidence to prove Thorwald's guilt.!
"
The police detective listens to Jeffries suspicions concerning
his neighbour across the courtyard. He finds the theories
implausible. Later he finds evidence to disprove Jeffries
completely. Mrs Thorwald is alive and well and living with
her sister in the country. But of course Jeffries is right and
the detective is wrong. Thorwald is guilty.!
"
The 'contest' of the narrative is between Jeffries and Lisa
Fremont. Thorwald acts as a catalyst provoking them into a
kind of conspiratorial 'marriage', uniting Jeffries the voyeur
and Lisa Fremont the exhibitionist.!
"
In the beginning Jeffries is determinedly single and
determined to avoid the complications of committed
involvement. He refuses to relate. He is 'I - centred'. By
contrast Lisa Fremont is committed to marriage. She is 'he -
centred'. Jeffries externalises his inner conflict. Marriage =
murdering your wife. Lisa Fremont externalises her inner
186
conflict. Thorwald's guilt is secondary. Of primary concern
is union with Jeffries. This she attains through conspiracy.
She joins his side.!
"
Jeffries agonises over his impotence. Through the 'extended-
eye' of his overtly phallic telephoto lens he watches 'his'
woman attacked by another man. Now that she has become
an object of his gaze she becomes of erotic interest. When
they're in the same room he regards her with indifference.
Lisa Fremont secures Thorwald's wife's wedding ring which
is supposed to be the conclusive evidence that Thorwald
murdered his wife. As a plot-point this is a fairly weak
contrivance, however the ring has real significance for
Jeffries and Lisa. Jeffries watches as she slips the ring onto
her finger verifying a conspiratorial union between voyeur
and exhibitionist. Lisa's conspiracy was against Jeffries - not
Thorwald. Now she and Jeffries are truly 'married'. She has
overcome Jeffries resistance and they are united.!
!
Hitchcock regarded Rear Window as "a possibility of doing
a purely cinematic film. You have an immobilised man
looking out of the window. That's one part of the film. The
second part shows what he sees and the third part shows
how he reacts. This is actually the purest expression of a
cinematic idea."!
"
For Hitchcock Rear Window "is a film about people
watching people." Many cineastes regard the film as a
metaphor for the cinema itself. Within the confines of a
darkened cinema auditorium we all become people
187
watching people - specifically watching the most intimate
and private aspects of people's personal lives. Stella's
accusation that "we're becoming a nation of peeping toms"
is directed as much to the viewing public as to Jeffries, for as
he is an immobile but self-willed observer to the scenarios
played out in the apartment windows facing his own, so too
is the cinema goer watching in self-imposed volition, the
scenarios portrayed on the cinema screen. The relationship
between Jeffries and Lisa Fremont is comparable to that of
the film maker behind the camera and the performer in
front of the camera, as well as the spectator watching the
screen - our own legitimised form of voyeurism.!
"
As long as Lisa Fremont is in the same room as himself she
holds little interest for him, but once she crosses the
courtyard and into the opposite apartment, and into the
gaze of the 'extended eye' she becomes an object of eroticism
and excitement. Their relationship is reborn. Lisa, the
exhibitionist, obsessive about clothes and appearance,
satisfies Jeffries sexual voyeurism by allowing him the
clandestine gaze. But when her exhibitionism provokes the
arousal of another man, Jeffries is tortured by his own
impotence. He is prisoner to his wheel-chair, just as we, the
audience in a cinema, are stimulated but powerless to
control the events played out before us.!
!
"
"
"

188
PART FOUR: CHARACTER!
"
"His character was his destiny." Carl Foreman on High Noon (quoting Greek
philosopher Heraclitus)!
!
Film narrative is structured around the development of a
main character. In most cases the main character is self-
evident, but not always. Woody Allen's film Radio Days
(1986) portrays a number of characters around which
anecdotes relating to the early days of radio are told. But the
main character? Is it the young Woody Allen who narrates
the story? Sally White the cigarette girl, and her rise to
fame? Aunt Bea and her search for the right man? The
family itself? These are but minor parts interrelated to the
main character - radio. The story is the conflict between
radio and society. The question posed in the story's
presentation, is whether or not radio is a subversive
influence.!
"
The opening scene shows two burglars cleaning out a house
interrupted by a telephone call. It's a radio contest and the
intruders win some prizes on behalf of the household
they're burglarising. A series of sub-plots develop around
the main character of 'radio'. Young Woody Allen seduced
by a radio hero, is driven to crime in order to secure a
Masked Avenger ring. Sally White, cigarette girl, involved in
a love affair with one of the top radio personalities of the
day, and Aunt Bea, out with a promising young man in his
automobile. In a quiet lover's lane the radio reports an
invasion of Martians and Aunt Bea's escort flees for his life.

189
The broadcast of the Mercury Theatre's War of the Worlds
confirms the established view that radio is indeed a
subversive influence.!
"
A young Woody Allen's predilection to radio meets
continued opposition from parents, church and school. Aunt
Bea takes consolation in radio programmes following a
series of unfulfilled romances, and Sally White is about to
make her radio debut on a radio theatre programme. The
broadcast is interrupted by the announcement of the attack
on Pearl Harbour. Radio is acknowledged a purveyor of
'narratives', no longer in the realms of fantasy; 'narratives'
entrenched in reality and dispersed with immediacy. !
"
By the end of the story 'radio' overcomes all adversity. Sally
White makes a successful radio career, the family household
are unified by the wireless set and finally the entire nation is
unified by the radio broadcasts of attempts to rescue a
young girl, Polly Phelps, trapped in a sunken well. The
young girl dies and the tragedy is shared throughout the
country via the medium of radio. The wireless voice
disperses drama, tragedy, and extends unified social
catharsis.!
"
Inevitably 'radio' either as an inanimate object or abstract
concept, would make for dull drama without the
performance of actors to actualise dramatic situations. The
dominant cinema emphasises the actor and 'performance'.
The actor's role is such that, whoever interprets a particular

190
film role, takes with them their own story that no
screenwriter can ever write into a script.!
In his book Stars, Richard Dyer describes how "aspects of a
star's image fit with all the traits of a character", and he cites
the casting of Clarke Gable as Rhett Butler, John Wayne in
any of his roles that use his "relaxed, masculine, Westerner/
leader qualities" and even his "awkwardness with women
and his authoritarian self-sufficiency."!
"
In the Hollywood cinema of the 1930's and 40's character
roles and 'performance' are virtually indivisible. Sam Spade
and Rick Blaney are first and foremost, Humphrey Bogart.
When Bacall asks Bogart, "Who was the woman, Steve?" in
To Have and Have Not (Hawks, 1945) we are referred at
once to Ingrid Bergman and Mary Astor - two lost loves
from 1941 and 1942 respectively. No wonder he's hauling
boats in an obscure corner of Vichy-occupied Caribbean,
wearing his cynicism like a medallion and playing older
brother to an alcoholic; a woman-hating man in a
womanless world. That Bacall and Bogart succumbed so
explicitly to their roles and married shortly after the film's
release (in To Have and Have Not, Bogart finally 'gets the
girl'), only fuels an unfolding Hollywood myth.!
"
The Hollywood protagonist is invariably 'flawed', but a
strategically placed scene or sequence in the initial
unfolding of the narrative, emphasises, regardless of the
'flaw'. that this character is 'likeable'. The screenwriter,
William Goldman, in his screenplay adaption of Ross
MacDonald's novel, The Moving Target, (Jack Smight, 1966 -
191
aka Harper) was assigned to write a presentation scene for
the opening credits. He wrote a scene showing Harper, the
private detective (Paul Newman) getting up to face the day.
He stares at the ceiling before the alarm clock goes off, gets
up and turns off a television set that's been showing the test
pattern all night, and makes coffee with yesterday's thrown
away coffee filter. "What that coffee moment really turned
out to be," wrote Goldman, "was an invitation that the
audience gladly accepted: they liked Lew Harper. From that
moment forward, the script was on rails." !
"
Summarising the varying degrees of popularity of
characters in the television series, Fawlty Towers, John
Cleese concludes "that it's helplessness that makes us feel
good about (other people). If they can look after themselves
then we don't like them."!
"
However 'helplessness' only functions dramatically when a
character has 'purpose'. The passive character to whom
things only happen, but who never makes things happen,
arouses indignation, not empathy. Discussing the
commercial failure of his film, Patty Hearst (1988), Paul
Schrader commented that "the definitive problem... is that it
deals with a passive protagonist. Movies are about people
who do things. The number one fantasy of the cinema is that
we can do something - we are relatively impotent in our
own lives so we go to the movies to watch people who are
in control of their lives. Patty Hearst violates the cardinal
rule of cinema."!
"
192
The Wounded Hero!
"
"Every man has three lives - public, private and secret." Gabriel Garcia Marquez.!
"
Richard Blaney runs a cafe in Casablanca. A self-centred
man who's "allowed himself to be hurt by a woman, and
takes out his revenge on the rest of the world." An
embittered and cynical man who looks after himself, and
cares little for people around him. "I stick out my neck for
nobody. I'm the only cause I'm interested in." Rick's 'friend'
is gunned down by police in Rick's cafe - Rick remains
aloof.!
"
Antonius Block returns to Sweden after fighting the
crusades for ten years. A self-centred man who's self-
righteous quest for 'a meaning to life' is curtailed by the
appearance of Death. A game of chess prolongs the knight's
search for a hereafter. The Black Plague takes it's toll,
religious mania leads to witch burning and flagellantes - but
the knight remains aloof to everything apart from his own
salvation.!
"
These are not heroic characters yet they are central to two
films that have acheived a status in film history by which
other films are measured. Their appeal as characters is two-
fold; they are obsessed with an insoluble dilemma (death in
one case; impossible love in the other); and these obsessions
lead to acts of self-sacrifice. The nature of obsession makes
these characters vulnerable - they are helpless before
insurmountable crises.!

193
Both stories are structured in a traditional dramatic form;
both characters are involved in a contest - Antonius Block
with Death, the figure that "has been walking by his side for
a long time"; Rick Blaney with Ilse Lund, the woman whose
memory haunts him remorselessly.!
"
"This is my hand," declares the knight at the end of the first
part of The Seventh Seal. "I can move it, feel the blood
pulsing through it. The sun is still high in the sky and I,
Antonius Block, am playing chess with Death."!
"
Rick Blaney sits alone in his cafe, glass in hand and says; "Of
all the gin joints in all the world, she has to walk into mine."
Which leads into a drink-induced wallowing in sentiment
and past memories; the flashback of Rick and Ilse's period in
Paris. As the story approaches a resolution Ilse sobs onto
Rick's shoulder; "I don't know what to do any more. You'll
have to do the thinking for both of us, for all of us." "Don't
worry. I will," he declares, and in the closing moments of the
film, he does.!
"
Antonius Block's game of chess with Death reaches it's
inevitable conclusion. He is one move away from checkmate
when he draws his cape and knocks the pieces from the
board. "I've forgotten how the pieces stood," says the knight.
"But I have not forgotten," says Death with a winning smile.
"You can't get away that easily." But the visionary Jof has
seen the knight's adversary, and together with wife and
child, Mia and Mikael, they do get away that easily. A
simple act of selflessness saves the family from the fate of
194
the knight and his travelling companions. The following
morning Jof describes the figure of Death and the victims he
leads. "They dance away from the dawn and it's a solemn
dance towards the dark lands, while the rain washes their
faces and cleans the salt of the tears from their cheeks."!
"
As Rick and Ilse prepare to depart from Casablanca airport,
supposedly to leave Ilse's husband, Victor Lazlo, to his own
devices, Rick hands over the transit papers, explaining that
"the problems of three little people don't amount to a hill of
beans" and that Ilse's place is beside her husband,
continuing the fight on behalf of the resistence movement.
Like Antonius Block, Rick is redeemed through a gesture of
self-sacrifice, walking into the fog and an obscure destiny,
the promise of "the beginning of a beautiful friendship", his
only consolation.!
"
For dramatic purposes the best kind of film character is a
character ready for a change; a protagonist embittered,
cynical and self-centred like Rick in Casablanca, or self-
righteous and self-centred like the knight in The Seventh
Seal. Film historian, Birgitta Steene, describes Antonius
Block as representative of "the modern post-World War One
antihero who has come to replace the tragic hero as the
central figure in the most serious efforts by contemporary
artists to explore the human dilemma." She cites Block's
"lack of affirmative pose, his inability to find a meaningful
direction to his life, his futile search for a godhead." !
"
195
The knight finds respite in a selfless deed, Rick transforms
from cynicism to altruism through a gesture of nobility. J J
Gittes, the private detective of Chinatown (Polanski, 1974),
changes from the self-confident bravado of "all women are
the same" to realising the inadequacy of his own
masculinity. !
"
Character transformation can be summarised by three
narrative models:!
"
1. Inner Realisation: The Self - the 'I' pronoun - first person
singular. At a moment of self-recognition the character
discovers strength, moral fortitude - an awareness of
potential previously unrealised.!
"
2. Interaction: An Other - the 'he/she' pronoun - second
person singular. Involvement with another person results in
change.!
"
3. Catastrophe: Others - 'They' - third person plural. The
trans-formation of character through events and
circumstances over which the protagonist has no control.!
"
These narrative types can perhaps best be illustrated by H C
Andersen's stories; The Ugly Duckling in the first instance,
both The Little Mermaid and The Emperor's New Clothes in
the second, and the 'autobiographical' The Little Tin Soldier
in the third.!
"
196
The transformation of Travis Bickle in Taxi Driver (Scorcese,
1976) is a perverse rendering of an inner-realisation
scenario, as "God's lonely man" finds purpose to his urban
isolation and becomes a political assassin. His failure impels
him to deeds of violence for which he is hailed a 'hero'. An
insomniac, who takes up night time taxi driving, first meets
Betsy, a political campaign worker, and Iris, a teenage
prostitute, working the seedy quarters of New York.!
"
The screenwriter, Paul Schrader , describes Bickle as a
"pathologically lonely man confronted with two examples of
femininity, one of which he desires but cannot have, the
other of which he can have, but does not desire... He decides
to kill the father figure of the girl who rejected him... and
when he is thwarted by that he moves on to the pimp, the
other father figure.”!

! Taxi Driver: "All my life needed was a sense of direction, a sense of !

! some place to go. I do not believe one should devote his life to!
! morbid self-attention, but should become a person like other people."!
197
!
"My whole life has pointed in one direction. I see that now. There never has been any
choice for me."!
"
198
The prowling taxi cab was Schrader's choice of metaphor to
portray Bickle's social isolation - a loneliness transforming
him to a man separated from the 'collective'. Early scenes in
the film show his efforts at social interaction consistently
undermined - the taxi company foreman, the cinema
receptionist, and finally both Betsy and Iris, reject what start
out as timid social advances. His inability to articulate rage
("Sometimes it gets so I just don't know what I'm gonna do.
I get some real crazy ideas, you know? Just go out and do
something...") leads Bickle further into separation. The guns
he aims at surrogate 'father figures', are the projections of
his own dual nature. Rather than direct his aggression at
source, himself, and thus 'heal the trauma', he directs his
violence at his own projections.!
"
The artist as 'wounded hero' is portrayed in the film about
the Danish painter, Soren Kroyer and the artist colony at
Skagen at the turn of the century. Kjell Grede's film Hip Hip
Hurrah (1987), is structured around the contrast of light and
dark.!
"
The opening scene shows an old couple standing on a beach
watching a small boat being tossed about in a violent storm.
They fear for the man's life, but inside the boat Kroyer is
laughing like a delirious child delighting in the intensity of
the experience. As a character Kroyer is presented as an
adult with the heart of a child, an artist who can only see
light and happiness, who is content to express the joy of
existence. The turning point at the end of the presentation, is

199
the voice of a local mad woman who shouts at him: "Paint
dark, Kroyer! Paint dark!"!
"
This was as much Kroyer's inner voice as the voice of a
madwoman - the second act elaborates the contrast of light
and dark, of childhood simplicity and adult complexity.
Kroyer leaves Skagen to work abroad, and the story's
midpoint occurs with Kroyer's return together with his new
wife, Marie Triepke. For Kroyer, a collector and painter of
beautiful things, Marie is an object of beauty. However, she
is a cold woman and unable to return Kroyer's over-zealous
affections, nor can she accept his naive view of reality.
("There is no sorrow Marie!" he declares with religious
fervour). The turning point of their impasse relationship is
marked by the arrival of the Swedish composer Hugo
Alfven, to the Skagen colony.!
"
Alfven and Marie Triepke become lovers but rather than
lose her, Kroyer accepts the situation. The triangle drama
reiterates an earlier sub-plot; the rivalry between two other
Skagen artists, Krogh and Viggo Johansen, over Johansen's
wife, Marta. Finally Viggo accepts her infedility just as
Kroyer now accepts his wife's affair with Alfven.!
"
Kroyer suffers a mental breakdown. In the hospital he
declares; "I just want to live as a child!" He describes himself
as "a headless faun playing a flute." Kroyer's optimism
takes some hard knocks; as he is being beaten by two
ruffians he shouts at them; "But everything is so beautiful!"!

200
As a painter he is obsessed with capturing the nordic light,
but he confesses; "Sometimes the light is too strong." Finally,
regardless of Kroyer's acceptance of his wife's love affair,
Marie Triepke and Hugo Alfven depart Skagen together and
walk out of his life forever. Grede portrays Marie and Hugo
walking out to the sea, ostensibly to board a boat, but
continuing walking into the water, up to their knees, to their
waists, to their heads, and finally disappearing completely,
submerged in the ocean.!
"
Kroyer's acceptance of 'darkness', is death itself. He becomes
a witness and narrator to his own death. Finally he
embraces the 'darkness' he has for so long rejected. In death
he explores the fears he has clung to; his fear of rejection,
fear of 'darkness', fear of death. Now that he is without form
he is detached from these fears. As he walks ghost-like
along the beach where he once exalted his 'being alive', he
has at last 'let go' his worldly fears. The story has little
bearing on the historical figures of the Skagen community
(apart from their obsession with the nordic light), however
the quest of the artist serves as a metaphor for the conflict
between light and dark, life and death. !
"
The 'wounded hero' is an archetype with universal appeal,
as the very essence of the human condition is founded on
the 'traumas' we bear through the course of our lives. The
experience of catharsis which Aristotle describes as the
function of the tragic drama, is both a process of 'cleansing'
and 'healing'. Further, the 'wounded hero' is not only a
figure of individual identification - but a representative
201
archetype of the 'collective'. The central character of The
American Friend (Wim Wenders, 1977) has a terminal
disease. He is given a few months to live, and his immediate
concern is providing for his wife and child. His condition
and his concern is exploited by 'the American friend', Tom
Ripley, who persaudes him to kill a man in exchange for the
guaranteed security of his family. Jonathan Zimmerman, a
picture framer - a craftsman, rejects the proposal, but his
increasing concern for the family's welfare leads to him
accepting the task.!
"
The dramatic structure bears comparison to Hitchcock's
film, Strangers on a Train (1951), also based on a novel by
Patricia Highsmith. A tennis star unwittingly enters into a
contract with a psychotic killer to swap murders, based on
the questionable theory that the unmotivated killer doesn't
get caught. !
"
Ripley's proposal is founded on the same principle, but
whereas in Hitchcock's film, the tennis star's antagonist is
clearly the psychotic, The American Friend becomes just
that, Jonathan's friend. Jonathan's adversary, like Antonius
Block in The Seventh Seal, is death. Ripley is the hero
'favoured by the gods', Jonathan's catalyst, 'friend', forcing
him to confront the 'enemy'. When Jonathan fails to carry
out a second murder, Ripley appears and executes the deed
on his behalf. Jonathan however, has already compromised
himself - he has betrayed his own moral values, both in
regard to the sanctity of human life and the value of money. !
"
202
Jonathan embodies the 'old' Europe. "I don't like people who
use art for money," he says to Ripley when they first meet.
Ripley is the quintessential American, arriving in Germany
in cowboy boots and a Stetson hat. "What's wrong with a
cowboy in Hamburg?" he asks. But the incongruity of his
presence confirms his displacement -the old house he rents
he furnishes with a juke box and a pool table - he is a man
on the move, describes life as a 'game' and finally admits to
Jonathan that the reason he set him up to carry out the
assassinations was because he was "pissed off" at Jonathan's
initial insult.!
"
Jonathan understands that he's 'sold out' to his American
friend, like his generation of post-war countrymen. "The
Yanks have even colonised our sub-conscious," says a
character in an earlier Wim Wenders film, Kings of the Road
(1976). It could have been one of Jonathan's lines. !

The American Friend: Dennis Hopper as Tom Ripley. A friend with dubious
intentions and no morals. !
203
The Shadow!
"
"The dream of reason brings forth monsters." Goya!
"
In Forbidden Planet (Wilcox, 1956), a science fiction version
of Shakespeare's The Tempest, a monstrous creature of
destruction is tearing the male crew of a visiting space
vessel 'limb from limb'. !
"
The monster is created from the sub-conscious mind of the
scientist, Dr Morbius. As he sleeps the monster awakens.
When the ship's captain discovers from the where the 'beast'
comes, he turns on Morbius and shouts: "That monster out
there! It's you!" Finally Morbius perishes at the powers of
destruction he has unleashed upon the 'conscious' world.!

! Forbidden Planet: The 'conscious' Dr Morbius creates a !

! machine of marvel - his 'unconscious' creates a monster.!
204
Jung describes the amoral and malevolent side of the
personality as the 'shadow', the part the 'self' would rather
ignore or pretend did not exist. Consequently, the 'shadow'
qualities of the personality withdraw into the unconscious -
a perpetual adversary ready to confront us at the slightest
provocation. These are the elements unacceptable in our
'conscious' state - 'the beast within'. The monster that
plagued the forbidden planet of Altair IV was, according to
Morbius, a creation of the 'Id' - Freud's term for the part of
the individual separated from the 'ego'.!
"
"The shadow and the opposing will are the necessary
conditions for all actualisation," wrote Jung, which in
drama, translates as antagonist and protagonist - the
characters of the dramatic conflict.

Dr Jekyll and Mr Hyde (1931): The divided self !

!
205
The archetypal 'shadow' narrative was probably articulated
best by Robert Louis Stevenson in The Strange Tale of Dr
Jekyll and Mr Hyde, filmed and adapted more than any
other novel and in more versions, than any narrative in the
western cinema.!
"
Anthony Stevens writes: "Our fascination with Faust and
Mephisto and Jekyll and Hyde derives from the archetypal
problem they crystallise. In a sense both Faust and Jekyll are
heroes because they dare to do what most of us shirk…"!
"
!

"
The Third Man: The Self and the Shadow!
"
206
Graham Greene describes Holly Martins as "an unsuccessful
writer of Westerns, who has never seen a cowboy..." Harry,
on the other hand, is successful, "always got the girl", and
anything else he wanted. The reason Harry to Holly "is the
best pal a guy could ever have" is, like the 'hidden' side of
Dr Jekyll, Harry did all the things Holly wanted to, but
couldn't. The shadow of Harry Lime's brand of 'success'
leads to immorality, villainy, and a separation from the
collective, giving rise to a view of humanity as "all those
dots..." and "do you really care if one of them stopped
moving?"!
"
The Strange Love of Martha Ivers (Lewis Milestone, 1946) is
the story of a young precocious girl raised by an aunt she
detests. They share the same name, but young Martha sees
her aunt as a ruthless and egoistic woman driven by self-
interest and with callous disregard for others. In an early
scene young Martha is called to her aunt's room. As she
slowly opens the door, the shadow of her aunt falls across
her face, and for a moment the two figures are united by the
play of light and dark. Shortly after young Martha murders
her aunt, and as she gets older assumes her personality.
"You sound just like your aunt," says her fiance, a weak-
willed and alcoholic lawyer. Martha's serene reserve
collapses: "Don't ever, don't ever say that..."!
"
Only when a young boy from her childhood returns to her
adult life is Martha finally able to extricate herself from her
own 'shadow' - through his eyes she realises she has become
the very person she despised.!
207
The power of the cinema is through the visualisation and
projection (in both senses of the word) of shadow
archetypes of what Jung calls the 'collective unconscious'.
These "universal images that have existed since the remotest
times" are "part of the unconscious, not individual but
universal; in contrast to the personal psyche, it has contents
and modes of behaviour that are more or less the same in all
individuals."!
"
The monsters, psychopaths, and villains we observe from
the sanctity of the cinema seat, are those intolerable and
unacceptable elements of ourselves we can no longer ignore,
as they reek their fury on the collective victim. Those
monsters out there. They're us.!
"
"
Archetypes of the Collective Unconscious!
"
Like Woody Allen's Radio Days, Network (Sidney Lumet,
script by Paddy Chayevsky, 1976) is a narrative about
narrative - using a narrative frame to analyse a 'mode of
narration'. Network opens with four television screens
showing news bulletins of the three major US television
networks, together with a fourth - ficticious - network, UBS.
An anonymous voice-over states that the UBS news ratings
are low. So low that the UBS board of directors dismiss their
newsreader, Howard Beale (Peter Finch). The next evening
after reading the news on 'live' television Beale challenges
viewers to 'tune in' the following week, when he'll "blow his
brains out right on this programme a week from today." The
208
story ends with "this was the story of Howard Beale, etc",
which in fact it isn't.!
"
The other three consequential characters include, the
director of the News Division, Max Schumacher (William
Holden), the young and ambitious television executive,
Diana Christensson (Faye Dunawaye), and the head of UBS,
Frank Hackett (Robert Duvall). Max Schumacher defends
Beale, his friend of 30 years, jeopardises his own position
and finally loses it, leaves his wife for Diana, and
encompasses all the imprecise attributes of a middle aged
man facing a 'life-crisis'. Diana Christensson, 'television
incarnate' according to Max, is the most proficient executive
who succeeds in boosting UBS's flagging ratings. However,
her involvement with Max presses her to confront 'emotion',
an attribute with which she is distinctly uncomfortable.
Frank Hackett, the pragmatic, somewhat ruthless head of
UBS, who engineers the dismissal of Schumacher and Beale,
and the meteoric rise of Diana Christensson, has his own
crisis to contend with. He, too, is answerable to 'higher up',
and the monuments erected to his own power can be readily
demolished by others. !
"
Four characters and four stories. However, the narrative
structure of Network relates to the UBS Network - the
network with the 'worst ratings' at the beginning, is the
network with the 'best ratings' at the end - "a second state of
equilibrium similar to the first, but not identical."!
"
209
The attributes of the four characters, based on their actions
described in the discourse (evaluations may vary from
viewer to viewer, but preliminarily) can be summarised as:!
"
Beale - inspired, prophetic, 'deranged', impulsive - a man
who in time of crisis, sees himself 'a voice of God', a saviour,
spiritual leader.!
"
Hackett - a pragmatist who takes the necessary action at the
relevant time; the means justifies the end. Motivated by
power for power's sake.!
"
Christensson - a brilliant mind, consumed with ideas, plans
and theories. An organiser whose intellect commands
respect. Emotionally insensitive to others - driven by a
'plan'. !
"
Schumacher - "I'm grateful I can feel anything", he says to
his wife, yet his actions are governed by emotional rather
than rational responses. In crisis, reverts to the past and
memories - his aim at one point is to write the book about
"the golden days of television". Juxtaposed against Diana he
exhibits a wallowing sentimentality.!
"
"
Attributing psychological 'types' to character is a practice
recorded as far back as 350BC. Hippocrates suggested a
'typology' of four 'humours', based on varying degrees of
bodily fluids: choleric (irritable), melancholic (depressed),
sanguine (optimistic) and phlegmatic (stolid).
210
Contemporary psychology disfavours 'type theories',
nonetheless a 'trait approach' theorist, Hans Eysenck, has
developed a 'personality factor' system, identifying four
traits: unstable, stable, introvert and extravert. !
"
A typology proposed by C G Jung similarly describes four
types which exist within the personality to greater and
lesser degrees, assigned as 'superior' and 'inferior' functions.
He called these types: intuitive, sensation, thinking and
feeling.!
"
He defines a thinking type as "orientated by the object and
objective data... Extraverted thinking need not necessarily
be purely concretistic thinking; it can just as well be purely
ideal thinking... "!
"
Women characters dominate representation of feeling types
and Jung notes that "As feeling is undeniably a more
obvious characteristic of feminine psychology than
thinking, the most pronounced feeling types are to be found
among women." Jung's writings from the 1930's when
gender roles were entrenched in traditional views of the
'masculine' and the 'feminine'. The interesting role reversal
in Network - the mature man as a 'feeling type' and young
woman as 'thinking type' is highlighted in several scenes
from the film. The first 'illicit' weekend together, Diana
Christensson discusses programme scheduling
uninterrupted through dinner, the obligatory romantic
beach walk, and love making in the motel room (she is in
the dominant position) with one brief pause at the moment
211
of her climax, immediately after which she continues to
articulate plans for programme scheduling. (See Part One:
Dialogue).!
"
"No other human type can equal the extraverted sensation
type in realism," writes Jung. "His sense for objective facts is
extraordinarily developed. His life is an accumulation of
actual experiences of concrete objects..." Sensation refers to
the sensory perceptions, and the sensation type relies on the
senses - i.e. a value and trust in what can be seen, what can
be heard and what can be touched, and a disregard for the
'irrational'. "This type - the majority appear to be men -
naturally does not think he is at the 'mercy' of sensation...
His whole aim is concrete enjoyment, and his morality is
orientated accordingly."!
"
Jung defines the 'intuitive type' as "consciousness by an
attitude of expectancy, by vision and penetration... an
activity that seizes and shapes its object... intuition tries to
apprehend the widest range of possibilities, since only
through envisioning possibilities is intuition fully satisfied." !
!
Just as the structure of Ettore Scola's We All Loved Each
Other So Much (see Part Two: Structure) has four sections,
so does the narrative follow four characters. In accordance
with Jung's typology they can be described as:!
"
Antonio - sensation. A down to earth and constant character,
who wins Luciana by virtue of his unflagging loyalty. In the
latter part of the story he marries Luciana, becomes a father,
212
and on behalf of his children demonstrates for equal
opportunity in education.!
"
Nicola - thinking. Teacher, journalist, idealist, political
activist - in a television quiz programme he trips up on his
own abundance of knowledge. Abandons wife and child in
the pursuit of abstracts. The ideals of his youth are hard
tried in his mature years.!
"
Gianni - intuitive. Lawyer, businessman, opportunist - he
forsakes Luciana for the boss's daughter. Becomes a
millionaire and declares that the "rich are the loneliest
people in the world." He man who realises his dreams,
rather than just pursue them. But at what price?!
Luciana - feeling. Torn between Gianni and Antonio. Her
romantic ideals crushed by Gianni's betrayal. Dreams of
becoming an actress dissipate to the demands of real life.!
"
Each character is a story unto itself, and the film's episodic
structure provides vignettes for each role figure, with
several key sequences when all the characters meet.!
"
Scola's study of friendship and broken ideals functions by
virtue of the contrasting personality types. The three men,
all of different backgrounds, have been united by the
common experiences and camradery of the war years. As
their lives unfold, so too do their irreconcilable traits of
individuality. They do not abandon each other - they simply
become who they are. !
"
213
!
Past tense: !
"
!

"
We All Loved Each So Much!
"
214
In Notorious the question is whether Devlin "will believe in
Alicia", Alicia's question at the end of the story's first
movement. Devlin must first endure his self-imposed 'test of
faith', by releasing Alicia to Sebastian. Certain 'archetypal'
figures recur in Hitchcock narratives. For example,
Sebastian as the 'charming villain' bears comparison to
James Mason's villainous portrait in North By Northwest.
Similarly, 'Mother' who 'takes care of everything', appears in
several Hitchcock films, most perversely perhaps in Psycho.
The emotionally impaired protagonist and the 'wounded
heroine' are likewise familiar figures. !
"
The four principle characters of Notorious not only
represent quintessential Hitchcock 'types', they also
represent clearly defined psychological 'types':!
Alicia - feeling type; She bears with her a secret past, and
her actions of the present are founded on incidents of the
past. Her attempt at oblivion through alcohol and reckless
living helped conceal her guilt from herself and from others,
but finally she must atone for the sins of the father.
Atonement leads to self-sacrifice. She seeks a nurturing
'father figure'. Her actions are based on feelings, not logic or
reason. 'Spying for the government' has to do with
'atonement' rather than intellectual stimulation, pragmatism
or political ideology.!
"
Devlin - thinking type. 'I don't trust women' says Devlin,
implying 'I don't trust feelings'. Reserved, difficulty in
expressing feeling. Analytical, repressed, full of plans and
ideas and social charm - but detached and fearful of
215
committment. We see 'Devlin' in Roger Thornhill, North by
Northwest, in L B Jeffries, Rear Window; in many Hitchcock
pictures.!
"
Sebastian - intuitive type. A villain, a Nazi, but charming,
romantic, cultivated. His motivations are ideological - he
believes in what he's doing - in the 'cause'. The intuitive
type 'sees beyond themselves' and his romantic involvement
with Alicia has the qualities of idealised love.
Demonstratively affectionate, gallant, a man of (misguided)
vision - an idealist.!
"
Mother - sensation type. Practical, realistic, conservative -
wary of change - and possessive, not only toward her son,
but to retaining the status quo. She is a woman who solves
problems when necessary, and by whatever means
necessary. 'Mother, I am married to an American agent,'
confesses Sebastian despondently. Mother replies, 'Don't
worry son. I'll take care of your wife.' Next morning she
serves Alicia with poisoned coffee.!
"
Types do not define actual personalities; each individual
consists of all four types, but to a greater or lesser extent.
Jung called the dominating quality the superior function,
and the 'subjugated' quality, the inferior function. The
cinema narrative is a series of representations; cinema time
(ellipsis) is a representation of real time; sets, decors and
studios represent places; actors represent characters, and
characters are represented by archetypes, not actual people.
Regardless of the degree of 'realism' to which a cinema
216
narrative aspires, or the degree of 'realism' with which a
character is portrayed, the conciseness of the cinema's
narrative conventions enables only the representation of
specific traits, and a selection of situations to emphasise
those traits.!
!
The narrative structure of Robert Towne's screen-play of
Chinatown has been analysed elsewhere - delving into the
characters elicits another dimension to this fascinating
filmscript. Four principle characters - four archetypes -
juxtaposed against each other in such a way that the
narrative can lead only to a series of intricate and insoluble
conflicts, so entrenched in their 'archetypal mode' as these
characters are.!
"
According to Jake Gittes, Evelyn Mulwray "is a phony just
like the rest." The rest? According to Jake women are "no
good", but at least he knows one funny story about women's
impossible sexual demands. He heard it from a barber.
Evelyn Mulwray heard it from Jake, but if Jake had known
she was nearby he would no doubt have sent her 'off to the
little girl's room', as he did his young secretary. Gittes is a
pragmatist and bewildered by Evelyn Mulwray's
subterfuge, 'secret past' and vague meanings. He knows
what he can hold and touch and feel with his hands. Jake
Gittes can't get a grip on Evelyn Mulwray. They become
lovers which only intensifies the enigma.!
"

217
Evelyn Mulwray's father, Noah Cross is also an enigma.
"What can more money get you?" Gittes asks Noah Cross.
"The future Mr Gitts, the future - my daughter's future."!
"
Gittes liason with Evelyn's husband, Hollis Mulwray was
brief. But he recognised a man of principle, a man of ideas
and ideals. Later he discovers that although Noah Cross's
great vision was 'to bring water to the desert of Los
Angeles', it was Hollis Mulwray, civil engineer, who could
make it work. And when the risks were too great, when
Mulwray was audacious enough to present reality before
the vision, he made himself instantly expendable.!
"
The characters can be summarised as:!
"
J J Gittes: sensation. Relates to the present and sensory perception.!
"
Evelyn Mulwray: feeling. Entrenched in the past - dark secrets
and hidden feelings.!
"
Noah Cross: intuitive. Visions of the future. No-one may hinder
the actualisation of the will.!
"
Hollis Mulwray: thinking. Ideas and knowledge; fatal knowledge
as it transpires. !
"
"
"
"
"
218
Chinatown: Jake Gittes & Evelyn Mulwray; denial, repression, a secret past!
"
The principle conflict of The Third Man is between Holly
and Harry - Self and Shadow. In addition the four principle
characters can also be seen as types. Harry, full of plans and
'deals', organising rackets on a large scale, embodies the
intuitive type; Holly, as writer, mercurial and inquisitive -
thinking type; Calloway - steadfast, patient, purveyor of
reason and factual knowledge - sensation type; and Anna
Schmidt - so attached to the past and a bygone love that any
response to the present and the world of the living must be
rejected if only to preserve the memory - a negative
embodiment of the feeling type.!
"
The Swedish playwright, August Strindberg, spent a period
of his life investigating alchemy, specifically the study
relating to the transformation of base matter to gold. The
principles of alchemy are based on the four elements, like
Hippocrates classification of the personality's four

219
'humours'. Strindberg's alchemical experiments ended in
failure but his perception of himself as an 'alchemist'
persisted. The craft of the dramatist and alchemy has its
parallels. Drama is the combining of opposing characters to
create conflict in order to better comprehend the human
condition. The interplay of archetypal characters in cinema
narrative invite comparison to the alchemical process - for,
at best, the cinema as an agent of the creative imagination,
makes possible the process of trans-forming the base matter
of the human spirit into an experience of value.!
"
"
"
"

220
Notes !
"
Part Two: Structure!
"
Robin Skynner and John Cleese: Families and How to Survive Them.!
Methuen, 1983. pp. 135ff!
"
Tony Crawley, The Steven Spielberg Story. Zomba, 1986. Spielberg's analysis of the film is
included in a BBC television interview with Barry Norman, October 1985. (Film Night
Special, BBC Television). The film was based on a short story by Richard Matheson who
wrote episodes of the television series The Twilight Zone and the screenplay of The
Incredible Shrinking Man (Jack Arnold, 1954), which, like concerns a diminutive man
forced to contend with oversized monsters.!
"
A detailed study in George C Pratt: In the Nick of Time ñ D W Griffith and the Last Minute
Rescue Image' on the Art and Evolution of the Film. Dover,!
"
"The difference between the pupils of Aeschylus and Euripedes is‹!
interesting. Aeschylus turned out stout war-like, old fashioned Democrats; Euripedes,
'intellectuals' of Moderate or slightly oligarchical politics." Gilbert Murray: Annotations to
The Frogs, p. 123. Allen and Unwin, 1908.!
"
Aristotle/Horace/Longinus: Classical Literary Criticism. Translated by T. S. Dorsch.
Penguin, 1965. p. 41.!
"
Gerald Meyers: Managing Crisis, Unwin Hyman, 1987, pp 13 -16.!
"
Rilla: The Writer and the Screen, Morrow, 1979.!
"
Brady and Lee, The Understructure of Writing for Film and Television,!
Texas University, 1987.!
"
Freytag, Gustav, Freytag's Technique of the Drama - An Exposition of Dramatic
Composition and Art, 1880.!
"
Dell, 1975!
"
ibid., p. 13!
"
ibid., p. 132 !
"
Truffaut, Hitchcock, Simon and Schuster, 1984. p. 269.!
"
Ibid., p. 269.!
"
221
Ibid. p. 269.!
"
Ibid. p. 283.!
"
Ibid. p. 277. Truffaut's words.!
"
Tzvetan Todorov, The Grammar of Narratives in the Poetics of Prose, Cornell, 1977.!
"
Popular Film and Television Comedy (Routledge, 1989) Neale and Krutnick outline a three
part structural model for comedy described by the fourth century Grammarian, Evanthius.
They maintain that the Catastasis further complications - was added by a renaissance
scholar, Scaliger. pp 26 !
"
Orson Welles was credited as co-author of the screenplay, although there are varying
opinions as to his actual involvement. See Pauline Kael: Raising The Citizen Kane Book
(Methuen), and John Houseman: Unfinished Business (Chatto & Windus, 1986) p. 228.!
"
Neil Jordan and David Leland: Mona Lisa, Faber, 1986. From Neil Jordan's introduction to
the screenplay.!
"
See David Bordwell, Kristin Thompson, Film Art, Knopf, 1986. p. 98ff.!
"
Robert Ray in A Certain Tendency of the Hollywood Cinema maintains that classical
Hollywood cinema covers the depression to the war years. John Ellis in Visible Fictions
writes: "classical fiction film...owes much to the specific conditions of cinema that were
constructed by and produced for the American studio system between 1915 and 1955. It
still tends to underlie our basic preconceptions of cinema."(p. 76) Film production evolved
into manufacturing a 'commodity'; market-place demands emphasising economy and
efficiency, transferred to the demands of the narrative, which has resulted in a structural
form for the most effective means of telling a story through film.!
"
According to Ray: "...the systematic subordination of every cinematic element to the
interests of a movie's narrative.... insured the commercial failure of those few Classic
Period filmmakers who consistently made style itself the centre of attention (Sternberg,
Welles)."!
"
Bresson, Notes on the Cinematographer. Penguin, 1975.!
"
Australian critic, Sam Rhodie, argues that "so-called better scripts are often the recipe for
worse films." Cinema Papers, Australia, September 1987.]!
"
Bresson, Notes on the Cinematographer. Penguin, 1975. !
"
Ibid.!
"
222
Ibid.!
"
Theory of Film Practice (Secker, 1973), Noel Burch writes: "..what we refer to as structure is
perhaps no more than an extension of a concept that Russian and Anglo-Saxon film
theoreticians continually dwelt on - namely, rhythm." (p. 67)!
"
Aristotle, The Poetic Arts. Translated by T S Dorsch. Penguin, 1965. pp. 65.!
"
Published in Film Culture Vol. 3/1, 1957, reprinted in MacCann, Film – A Montage of
Theories, Dutton, 1966.!
"
Ibid., pp. 124 - 128.!
"
Ted Perry, Filmguide to 8 1/2, Indiana University, 1975. p. 19.!
"
Film historian, Orjan Roth-Lindberg describes 12 major themes recurring in Fellini's films:
1. The Sea 2. The City 3. Woman 4. Child 5. Father 6. The Dead 7. Religion 8. The
Magician 9. The Parade 10. Celebration 11. Miracle 12. Dream. Orjan Roth-Lindberg;
Motivkretsar i Federico Fellinis Filmer (IKM - Uppsala) 1986/1990. !
"
"
From an interview with Jean-Claude Carriere in Bim Clinell: Konsten att skriva ett manus
enligt Jean-Claude Carriere Filmkonst 1 Gothenburg, 1988. p. 71ff.!
"
Ibid. p. 76.!
"
Ibid. p. 72.!
"
Andrei Tarkovsky, Sculpting in Time. Bodley Head, 1985. p. 36.!
"
"
Andrew Sinclair, Under Milk Wood by Dylan Thomas, The Screenplay.Lorrimer, 1972.
From the introduction.!
"
Longinus, On the Sublime, Classical Literary Criticism, Penguin, 1965. p!
"
Andrew Sinclair, Under Milk Wood.!
"
Ibid.!
"
From John Huston's autobiography, An Open Book. p.5

"
Fellini interviewed by Gavin Lambert in The Dream Factory, produced for BBC 2
Omnibus, 1988.!
"
223
Ibid.!
"
Siegfried Kracauer, Theory of Film - The Redemption of Physical Reality. Oxford
University Press, 1960. p. 181.!
"
Andrei Tarkovsky, Sculpting in Time!
"
Jean Cocteau, Two Screenplays. Trans. Carol Martin-Sperry. Calder, 1970.!
"
Ibid. p. 62. From a transcript of a talk given after a film screening in Paris, January 1932.‹!
"
Ibid. p. 66.!
"
Ibid. p. 76. From a piece entitled 'The Film Maker as Hypnotist.’‹!
"
From an interview at Cannes Film Festival, May 1990.!
"
Gilles Deleuze, Cinema 1 - The Movement-Image. Athlone Press, 1986. p.!
"
The term 'Post-modernism' was used in a non-architectural context as early as 1938 by the
English historian, Arnold Toynbee, and was popularised by its application to the arts in
general in the late 1970’s. "Creating the new means choosing from the old", wrote the
architect, Robert Venturi.!
"
Deleuze, p. 207.!
"
Barry Gifford's novel, on which the film was based, ends with Ripley and Lula parting
company; i.e. Lynch's film ending prior to the arrival of the Good Witch.!
"
Deleuze, p. 210!
"
Hutchinson, 1988, p.330!
Quoted in an interview published for the Melbourne Film Festival, 1985. ‹!
"
Peter Greenaway, Drowning By Numbers. Faber, 1988. p. 116.!
"
Melbourne Film Festival interview, 1985.‹!
"
Geoff Andrew, The Film Handbook. Longman, 1989. p. 120.!
"
Peter Greenaway interviewed by Brian McFarlane, in Cinema Papers (Australia) March
1990. Successive quotations originate from the same article.!
"
Kearney, p. 329.‹!
"
224
Wim Wenders, Le Monde, 27.4.1986. Quoted in Kearney.!
"
Feminist Cinema!
"
Bette Gordon: Variety - The Pleasure in Looking in Carol Vance: Pleasure and Danger.
Routledge, 1984. p. 191.!
"
Annette Kuhn, Women's Pictures: Feminism and Cinema. Routledge,1982. !
"
Kuhn paraphrasing Luce Irigaray. p. 11. Kuhn, p. 13.!
"
Tillstand/Handling; Om Kvinnlig Dramaturgi, Helga Fjordholm, Filmhaftet 50, November
1985, Stockholm, pp. 47 - 53.!
"
Molly Haskell in Village Voice, New York, 1975.!
"
Marguerite Duras, India Song. Grove Press, 1976. p. 145.!
"
First published in an article in Camera Obscura, November 1976 – quoted in Monthly Film
Bulletin, March 1990; together with a summary of her films.!
"
Tania Modleski: Search for Tomorrow in Today's Soap Opera in Richard Adler;
Understanding Television, Praeger, 1986. pp. 191 - 192. !
"
Ibid.!
"
Film Quarterly, Winter 1974 - 75. p. 51.!
"
"
"

225
Filmography!
"
Sunset Boulevard (1950) written by Charles Brackett, Billy Wilder, D M Marshman Jr.
Directed by Billy Wilder. (cf Fedora - 1978)!
"
King Kong (1933) written by James Creelman and Ruth Rose based on a story by Edgar
Wallace. Directed by Merian Cooper and Ernest Schoedsack, and special effects by Willis
O'Brien.!
"
Un Chien Andalou (1928) written by Luis Bunuel and Salvador Dali, directed by Luis
Bunuel. !
"
Easy Street (1917) written and directed by Charles Chaplin.!
"
M (1931) written by Thea von Harbou, Paul Falkenberg, Adolf Jansen and Karl Vash,
directed by Fritz Lang.!
"
Yojimbo (1961) written by Ryuzo Kikushima and Akira Kurosawa, directed by Kurosawa
and remade as A Fistfull of Dollars (1964) by Sergio Leone.!
"
Rashomon (1950) written by Akira Kurosawa and Shinobu Hashimoto, directed by
Kurosawa.!
"
Double Indemnity (1944) written by Raymond Chandler and Billy Wilder, based on the
novel by James Cain, directed by Billy Wilder.!
"
Rear Window (1954) written by John Michael Hayes, based on the short story by Cornell
Woolrich, and directed by Alfred Hitchcock (who according to Hayes, was responsible for
most of the script).!
"
Persona (1966) written and directed by Ingmar Bergman.!
"
Metropolis (1926) written by Thea von Harbou, based on her own novel, and directed by
her then husband, Fritz Lang.!
"
Taxi Driver (1975) written by Paul Schrader (in ten days he claims) and directed by Martin
Scorsese.!
"
The Sacrifice (Offret, 1985) written and directed by Andrei Tarkovsky. Screenplays to his
earlier films had all been collaborations.!
"
Cul-de-Sac (1966) written by Roman Polanski and Gerard Brach, directed by Polanski.!
"
Rope (1948) written by Arthur Laurents, based on the play by Patrick Hamilton and
directed by Alfred Hitchcock. !
226
"
The Passenger (1975) written by Mark Peploe, Peter Wollen and Michaelangelo Antonioni,
directed by Antonioni.!
"
Touch of Evil (1958) written and directed by Orson Welles, based on the novel, Badge of
Evil by Whit Masterson.!
"
Duel (1972) based on the short story by Richard Matheson and directed by Steven
Spielberg.!
"
The Thief (1952) written by Clarence Greene and Russel Rouse, directed by Russel Rouse.!
"
On The Waterfront (1954) written by Budd Schulberg, based on his own novel, and
directed by Elia Kazan.!
"
Cries and Whispers (1972) written and directed by Ingmar Bergman.!
"
Scenes from a Marriage (1975) written and directed by Ingmar Bergman, originally as six
part television series, and re-edited for theatrical distribution.!
"
Wild Strawberries (1957) written and directed by Ingmar Bergman.!
Annie Hall (1977) written by Woody Allen and Marshall Brickman, directed by Woody
Allen, and re-structured by editor, Ralph Rosenblum.!
Casablanca (1942) written by Julius and Philip Epstein and Howard Koch, based on an
unproduced play 'Everyone Comes to Rick's' by Murray Burnett and Joan Alison, directed
by Michael Curtiz.!
"
They Shoot Horses Don't They? (1969) written by James Poe and Robert Thompson, based
on the novel by Horace McCoy and directed by Sydney Pollack.!
"
The Third Man (1949) written by Graham Greene at the suggestion of Alexander Korda,
and directed by Carol Reed. Orson Welles contributed some line of dialogue, Anton Karas
played the zither, and the Australian born photographer, Robert Krasker, took the pictures. !
"
India Song (1975) written and directed by Marguerite Duras.!
"
A Blonde's Love Story (1967) written by Milos Forman, Jaroslav Papousek, Ivan Passer and
directed by Milos Forman.!
"
Psycho (1960) written by Joseph Stefano from the novel by Robert Bloch and directed by
Alfred Hitchcock.!
"
Citizen Kane (1941) written by Herman Mankiewicz and directed by Orson Welles. Based
on the life of newspaper magnate, William Randolph Hearst. Photographer, Gregg Toland.!
"
227
We All Loved Each Other So Much (1975) written by Age, Furio Scarpelli and Ettore Scola.
Directed by Ettore Scola.!
"
Satyricon (1969) written by Federico Fellini, Bernadino Zapponi and Brunello Rondi,
directed by Fellini.!
"
Mona Lisa (1986) written by David Leland and Neil Jordan, directed by Neil Jordan.!
"
Notorious (1946) written by Ben Hecht and directed by Alfred Hitchcock.!
"
The Bee-Keeper (1986) written by Theo Angelopolous and Dimitris Nollas, directed by
Angelopolous.!
"
Letter to Brezhnev (1985) written by Frank Clarke and directed by Chris Bernard.!
"
The Seven Samurai (1954) written by Shinobu Hashimoto, Hideo Oguni and Akira
Kurosawa, directed by Kurosawa. !
"
The Dead (1987) written by Tony Huston adapted from James Joyce's Dubliners, and the
last film to be directed by John Huston.!
"
8 1/2 (1963) written by Federico Fellini, Ennio Flaiano, Tullio Pinelli and Brunelli Rondi.
Directed by Fellini.!
"
Amarcord (1973) written by Federico Fellini and Tonino Guerra, directed by Fellini.!
"
That Obscure Object of Desire (1977) written by Luis Bunuel and Jean-Claude Carriere.!
"
Under Milk Wood (1971) Dylan Thomas' poetry and radio play 'Return Journey' adapted
and directed by Andrew Sinclair.!
"
The Colour of Pomegranates (1969) written and directed by Sergo Paradjanov, based on
the poetry of Sayat Nova.!
"
Eraserhead (1970) written and directed by David Lynch.!
"
Stalker (1979) written by Boris and Arkady Strugatsky from their own novella, 'Roadside
Picnic', and directed by Andrei Tarkovsky.!
Blood of the Poet (1931) written and directed by Jean Cocteau.!
"
Favourites of the Moon (1984) written by Otar Iossellani and Gerard Brach, directed by
Iossellani.!
"
Wild at Heart (1989) - the novel by Barry Gifford, adapted and directed by David Lynch.
Much dialogue is from the book.!
228
"
Mirror (1974) written by Andrei Tarkovsky and Aleksandr Misharin, directed by
Tarkovsky.!
"
Blade Runner (1982) script by Hampton Fancher and David People, based on Philip K
Dick's novel 'Do Androids Dream of Electric Sheep?' and directed by Ridley Scott.!
"
Chinatown (1974) Robert Towne's script directed by Roman Polanski, who scrapped a lot
of dialogue, added new plot points and changed the ending.!
"
Bicycle Thieves (1948) written by Vittorio De Sica, Cesare Zavattini, Oreste Biancoli, Suso
Cecchi D'Amico, Adolfo Franco and directed by De Sica.!
"
The Maltese Falcon (1941) John Huston directed his own screenplay based on the novel by
Dashiell Hammett. Huston claims he gave the novel to his secretary to break down into
scenes, which became the production's shooting script.!
"
Cabaret (1972) adapted by Jay Presson Allen from the play 'I am a Camera' from an
episode in Christopher Isherwood's novel, Goodbye to Berlin, and directed by Bob Fosse.!
"
The Seventh Seal (1957) adapted and directed by Ingmar Bergman from his own stage
play.!
"

229
Glossary!
"
Frame: A single image of exposed film. 24 single frames of film comprise one
second (24 f.p.s.)!
!
Shot: The continuous running of film from the time the !
camera starts until it stops.!
!
Take: A version of a shot.!
!
Scene: Strictly speaking, one or a number of shots confined to one time or one place,
referred to as a 'set-up' in production terms. However, the scene can also refer to a
narrative unit, taking place in a single location and dealing with a single action. !
"
Sequence: A segment consisting of an uninterrupted length of action -sometimes one scene
or several scenes dealing with the same section of story. !
"
Sequence shot: A long take - a complex, often lengthy shot requiring a number of different
or complicated camera movements.!
!
Mise-en-scene: A theatrical expression meaning 'put on stage'. What takes place in front of
the camera. The term was used by the French critic, Andre Bazin, to define a particular
kind of cinema, which emphasised the shooting of the film, as opposed to the 'montage
cinema', as defined by Sergei Eisenstein, and developed by Soviet filmmakers.!
!
Montage: Editing or cutting; can also mean the creative use of editing, and a style of film
narrative developed by Sergei Eisenstein, Pudovkin, Kotzinev and other Soviet
filmmakers. !
"
Cut: An edit - two pieces of film spliced together. A rapid montage sequence implies many
cuts, a sequence shot is marked by a cut at the start and the end.!
Ellipsis: the condensation of time - plot time as opposed to story time.!
Plot: events of the narrative in the order shown to the viewer.!
"
Discourse: the way in which these events are shown.!
!
Pan: Horizontal camera movement from left to right or right to left.!
"
Tilt: A vertical camera movement from down to up or up to down.!
"
Dolly: A camera movement on rails or wagon in order to follow action. (Also a 'tracking
shot'). !
!
Zoom: Stationary camera using focal range of lens to determine a LS to CU or CU to LS.!
!
230
Dissolve: One picture mixes with the consecutive picture - as one fades in,the other fades
out. Often used to mark the passing of time, or transition from one place to another, or for
the dramatic affect of the two images superimposed.!
!
Fade: From black to image, for a Fade In; from the image to black, for the Fade Out.!
"
Wipe: A transition between shots as one image replaces another horizontally across the
screen.!
!
POV: Point of view. The subjective camera; a shot from the perspective of a particular
character. The camera sees what the character sees.!
!
v.o.: Voice-over. Spoken narrative recorded onto the soundtrack. (For 'voice-off', see
below.)!
!
Off: or o.c. for off-camera, or o.s. for off-screen; sound or dialogue outside the scope of the
frame.!
"

231
References!
"
Dramatic Structure!
!
Aristophanes; The Frogs. Translated by Gilbert Murray. Allen and Unwin, 1908.!
Aristotle/Horace/Longinus; Classical Literary Criticism. Translated by T.S. Dorsch.
Penguin, 1965.!
Blacker, Irwin; Elements of Screenwriting. MacMillan, 1986.!
Brady, John; Craft of the Screenwriter. Simon and Schuster, 1981.!
Brady and Lee; The Understructure of Writing for Film and Television. Texas University,
1987!
Bronfeld, Stewart: Writing for Film and Television. Simon and Schuster, 1981.!
Egri, Lajos; The Art of Dramatic Writing. Simon and Schuster, 1946.!
Field, Syd; Screenplay. Dell, 1975.!
Field, Syd; The Screenwriter's Workshop. Dell, 1982.!
Goldman, William; Adventures in the Screen Trade. Warner, 1983.!
Mehring, Margaret; The Screenplay. Focal, 1989.!
Miller, William; Writing for Narrative Film and Television. Hastings House, 1980.!
Nash, Constance and Oakey, Virginia; The Screenwriter's Handbook. Harper and Row,
1978.!
Neale, Steve and Krutnik, Frank: Popular Film and Television Comedy. Routledge, 1990.!
Packard, William; Art of Screenwriting. Paragon, 1987.!
Paice, Eric: The Way to Write for Television. Elm Tree, 1981.!
Potter, Cherry: Image Sound and Story - The Art of Telling in Film. Secker and Warburg,
1990.!
Pocket Aristotle, The. Translated by W.D. Ross. Simon and Schuster, 1958.!
Rilla, Wolf; The Writer and the Screen. Morrow, 1973.!
Root, Wells; Writing the Script. Holt, 1979.!
Server, Lee; Screenwriter. Main Street Press, 1987.!
Vale, Eugene; The Technique of Screen and Television Writing. Simon and Schuster, 1982.!
"
"
Screenplays!
"
Allen, Woody; Four Films. Faber, 1988.!
Antonioni, Michelangelo; The Passenger. Grove Press, 1976.!
Cocteau, Jean; Two Screenplays. Calder, 1970.!
Bergman, Ingmar: The Seventh Seal. Lorrimer, 1972.!
Duras, Marguerite; Hiroshima Mon Amour. Grove Press, 1961.!
Duras, Marguerite; India Song. Grove Press, 1976.!
Greenaway, Peter; Drowning by Numbers. Faber, 1988.!
Greenaway, Peter; Belly of an Architect. Faber, 1989.!
Greenaway, Peter; A Zed and Two Noughts. Faber, 1987.!

232
Greene, Grahame; The Third Man. Lorrimer, 1973.!
Hallstrom, Lasse & c; My Life as a Dog. Faber, 1988.!
Jordan, Neil and Leland, David; Mona Lisa. Faber, 1986.!
Lang, Fritz; M. Lorrimer, 1968.!
Lang, Fritz; Metroplis. Lorrimer, 1973!
Mankiewicz, Herman and Welles, Orson; The Citizen Kane Book, Methuen, 1985.!
Polanski, Roman; Three Screenplays. Lorrimer, 1975.!
Schrader, Paul; Taxi Driver. Faber, 1990. !
Sinclair, Andrew; Under Milk Wood. Lorrimer, 1972.!
"
!
"
Film Theory!
!
Adler, Richard, ed.; Understanding Television. Praeger, 1985.!
Allen, Robert (ed.): Channels of Discourse. Routledge, 1987.!
Andrew, J.Dudley; The Major Film Theories. Oxford, 1976.!
Bennet, Tony (ed.): Popular Television and Film. British Film Institute, 1981.!
Bordwell, David; Narration in the Fiction Film. Routledge, !
Bordwell, David and Thompson, Kristin; Film Art. Knopf, 1985.!
Brunsdon, Charlotte; Films for Women. British Film Inst 1986.!
Burch, Noel; Practice of Film Theory. Secker & Warburg, 1973.!
Ellis, John; Visible Fictions. Routledge, 1982.!
Kearney, Richard; The Wake of Imagination. Hutchinson, 1988.!
Kuhn, Annette; Women's Pictures. Routledge, 1982.!
Lindgren, Ernest; The Art of the Film. Allen and Unwin, 1963.!
MacCann, Richard; Film A Montage of Theories. Dutton, 1966.!
Wead, George and Lellis, George; Film: Form and Function. Houghton Mifflin, 1981.!
Withers, Robert; Introduction to Film. Harper and Row, 1983.!
Wollen, Peter; Signs and Meaning in the Cinema. Secker and Warburg, 1969.!
"
"
Film General!
!
Andrew, Geoff; The Film Handbook. Longman, 1989.!
Bergan, Ronald and Karney, Robin: Bloomsbury Foreign Film Guide. Bloomsbury, 1988.!
Boorman, John; Money Into Light. Faber, 1986.!
Bresson, Robert; Notes on the Cinematographer. Penguin, 1975.!
Briggs, Joe Bob; Joe Bob Goes to the Drive-In. Penguin, 1989.!
Brodie; Crossroads to the Cinema. Holbrook Press, 1977.!
Bunuel, Luis; My Last Breath. Cape, 1984.!
Cook, David; A History of Narrative Film. Norton, 1981.!
Crawley, Tony; The Steven Spielberg Story. Zomba, 1986.!

233
Deutelbaum, Marshall (Ed.); "Image" on the Art and Evolution of the Film. Dover, 1979.!
Dmytryk, Edward; Cinema Concept and Practice. Focal, 1989.!
Dmytryk, Edward; On Filmmaking. Focal, 1982.!
Evans, Mark; Soundtrack - Music in the Movies. Da Capo, 1979.!
Geduld, Carolyn; Filmguide to 2001: A Space Odyssey. Indiana, 1973.!
Geduld, Harry; Film Makers on Film Making. Indiana, 1967.!
Halliwell, Leslie: Halliwell's Film Guide Seventh Edition. Grafton, 1989.!
Jacobs, Lewis; The Movies as Medium, Farrar, 1970.!
Malkiewicz, Kris; Cinematography. Prentice Hall, 1989.!
Naremore, James; Filmguide to Psycho. Indiana, 1973.!
Perry, Ted; Filmguide to 8 1/2. Indiana, 1975.!
Ray, Robert; A Certain Tendency of the Hollywood Cinema, 1930 - 1980. Princeton, 1985.!
Rosenblum, Ralph and Karen, Robert; When the Shooting Stops... da Capo, 1979.!
Schrader on Schrader, ed. Kevin Jackson, Faber, 1990!
Spoto, Donald; The Art of Alfred Hitchcock. Doubleday, 1979.!
Spoto, Donald; The Dark Side of Genius. Ballantine, 1984.!
Tarkovsky, Andrei; Sculpting in Time. Bodley Head, 1985.!
Truffaut, Francois; Truffaut on Hitchcock. Simon and Schuster, 1984.!
Wapshott, Nicholas; The Man Between. Chatto. 1990.!
Williams, Susan; 35mm Dreams - Conversations with Five Film Directors about the
Australian Film Revival. Penguin (Aus) 1985!
!
"
General!
!
Easthope, Antony: What a Man's Gotta Do - The Masculine Myth in Popular Culture.
Collins, 1986.!
Eco, Umberto: Role of the Reader, The. Hutchinson, 1986.!
Eco, Umberto: Travels in Hyperreality. Picador, 1987.!
Harvey, Sir Paul; The Oxford Companion to Classical Literature. Oxford, 1937.!
Haynes, John: Introducing Stylistics. Unwin Hyman, 1988.!
Herrick, Marvin: Comic Theory in the Sixteenth Century. University of Illinois, 1964.!
Jung, C G (ed): Man and His Symbols. Aldus, 1964.!
Jung, C G: Collected Works Vol. 5. Princeton University Press, 1956.!
Jung, C G: Collected Works Vol. 6. Princeton University Press, 1971.!
Jung, C G: Collected Works Vol. 9 i Princeton University Press, 1959.!
Jung, C G: Collected Works Vol. 12. Princeton University Press, 1953.!
Kent, Sarah & Morreau, Jacqueline: Women's Images of Men. Writers and Readers
Publishing Co-operative, 1985.!
Longhurst, Derek: Gender, Genre and Narrative Pleasure. Unwin Hyman, 1989. !
Meyer; Management Crisis, Unwin Hyman, 1987!
Skynner, Robin and Cleese, John; Families and How to Survive Them. Methuen, 1983.!
Stevens, Anthony: Archetype; A Natural History of the Self. Routledge, 1982.!
Todorov, Tzvetan: The Grammar of Narratives in the Poetics of Prose. Cornell, 1977.!

234
"
"
Publications!
!
Barnfilmrutan (Sweden), Camera Obscura (USA) Chaplin (Sweden) Cinema Papers
(Australia) Filmhaftet (Sweden) Filmkonst (Sweden)!
Monthly Film Bulletin (UK) Screen (UK) Sight and Sound (UK) !
"
Television Programmes!
!
Arena; David Lynch and Surrealism, BBC, 1987!
Bookmark; The Writer's Contribution to the Cinema, BBC, 1987!
Omnibus; The Dream Factory - The Films of Federico Fellini, BBC, 1988!
Interview with David Lynch (Jonathon Ross) Ch 4, UK!
Interview with Peter Weir, Australian Film and Television School, 1982!
!
"

235
List of Film Titles!
"
! Draughtsman's Contract, The !
All Night Long ! Dreams !
Amadeus ! Drowning by Numbers !
Amarcord ! Duel !
American Friend, The (Der Amerikanische !
Freund) ! Easy Rider !
American Stories ! Easy Street!
Annie Hall ! 8 1/2 (Otto e mezzo) !
! Elephant Man, The !
Bee-Keeper, The ! Elvira Madigan !
Belly of an Architect, The ! Emerald Forest, The!
Bicycle Theives (Ladri di biciclette) ! Eraserhead !
Birds, The ! Exterminating Angel, The (El Angel
Birth of a Nation ! Exterminador) !
Blackmail ! !
Blade Runner ! Farewell My Lovely !
Blazing Saddles ! Family, The !
Blonde's Love Story, A (aka A Blonde in Love - Favourites of the Moon (Les favoris de la lune) !
Lasky Jedne Plavovlasky) ! Fawlty Towers !
Blood of a Poet, The (Le sang d'un poete) ! Fistful of Dollars, A!
Blow Out ! Forbidden Planet !
Blow Up ! Foreign Diplomat !
Blue Angel, The! Fury !
Blue Velvet ! "
Breathless (A Bout de Souffle) ! Gilda !
Brief Encounter ! Ginger and Fred (Ginger e Fred) !
! Godfather, The !
Cabaret ! "
Casablanca ! Hamlet !
Chinatown ! Hamlet Goes Business!
Citizen Kane ! Helsinki Napoli All Night Long !
City of Women (La citta delle donna) ! High Anxiety !
Colour of Pomegranates, The (Tsvet granata, aka High Noon !
Sayat Nova) ! Hip, Hip, Hurrah !
The Cook, The Thief, His Wife and Her Lover ! Hiroshima Mon Amour !
Cries and Whispers (Viskingar och rop) ! "
Cul-de-Sac ! Ikiru !
" Incredible Shrinking Man, The !
Dangerous Female ! India Song !
Day for Night (La Nuit Americain) ! Intervista !
Dead, The ! Intolerance !
Dead Poets Society, The ! !
Death in Venice ! Jazz Singer, The !
Detective ! Jeanne Dielman, 23 Quai du Commerce, 1080
Devil's Castle, The (Le Manoir du Diable) ! Bruxelles 106!
Discreet Charm of the Bourgoisie, The (Le Jour de Fete !
Charm Discret de la Bourgoisie) ! Juliet of the Spirits (Giulietta degli spiriti) !
Don Juan ! !
Don't Look Now ! Kaos !
Double Indemnity ! Killers, The (1946) !
Down by Law ! King Kong (1933) !
Dr Jekyll and Mr Hyde (1931) ! King Lear !
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Kings of the Road (Im Lauf der Zeit) ! Point Blank !
Koyanisqaatsi ! Power and the Glory, The!
! Prenom Carmen !
L'Age d'Or ! Psycho !
La Dolce Vita ! !
La Strada ! Querelle !
L'Argent ! Radio Days !
Lady in the Lake ! Radio On !
Last Year at Marienbad, (L'annee dernier a Rancho Notorious !
Marienbad) ! Rashomon !
Leningrad Cowboys Go America ! Rear Window !
Letter to Brezhnev ! Rebecca !
Lifeboat ! Road Warrior, The (aka Mad Max II) !
Lights of New York ! Roma !
Locket, The ! Rope !
M ! !
Magnificent Seven, The ! Sacrifice, The (Offret)!
Maltese Falcon, The ! Satan Met a Lady !
Man Escaped, A (Un Condamne a Mort s'est Satyricon !
Echappe) ! Scarlet Street !
Marriage of Maria Braun, The (Der Ehe der Scenes From a Marriage (Scener ur ett
Maria Braun) ! äktenskap) !
Metropolis ! Secret Beyond the Door, The !
Midnight Cowboy ! Seven Beauties (Pasquilino Settebellezze) !
Midnight Run ! Seven Samurai, The (Shichinin no samurai) !
Mirror (Zerkalo) ! Seventh Seal, The (Den sjunde inseglet) !
Mishima ! Shadows in Paradise !
Mona Lisa! Shane !
Moving Target, The (aka Harper) ! Sheltering Sky, The !
My Dinner with Andre ! Sherlock Jr. !
Mystery Train ! Short Film About Killing, A (Krotki film o
! zabijaniu) !
Network ! Short Film About Love, A (Krotki film o lubjiu) !
New Babylon (Novyi Babilon) ! Silence, The (Tystnaden) !
Nights of Cabiria (Le notti di Cabiria) ! Soft Skin (La Peau Douce)!
North By Northwest ! Spellbound !
Notorious ! Stalker !
! Steamboat Willie!
O Lucky Man ! Strange Love of Martha Ivers, The !
Odd Man Out! Stranger than Paradise!
On the Waterfront ! Strangers on a Train !
One Flew Over the Cuckoo's Nest ! Streets of Fire !
Onibaba ! Strozeck !
Orfeo Negro ! Sunset Boulevard !
! Sven Klang's Quintet (Sven Klangs kvintett) !
Padre Padrone ! Symphony for Six Million, A !
Paris Texas ! "
Passenger, The (aka Profession: Reporter) ! Taking of Pelham 1 2 3, The !
Patty Hearst ! Tampopo !
Performance ! Taxi Driver !
Persona ! Ten Commandments, The !
Peyton Place ! Tess !
Phantom of Liberty, The (Le fantome de la Testament of Orpheus, The (Le testament
liberte) ! d'Orphee) !
Picnic at Hanging Rock! That Obscure Object of Desire (Cet obscur objet
Pillar of Fire, The (La Danse de Feu) ! du desir) !
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They Shoot Horses Don't They? ! Under the Roofs of Paris !
Thief, The ! Variety !
Thieves Like Us ! "
Third Man, The ! We All Loved Each Other So Much (C'eravamo
Thirty Nine Steps, The ! tanto amati) !
Through a Glass Darkly (Sasom i en spegel) ! White Sheik (Lo sceicco bianco) !
To Have and Have Not ! Wild at Heart !
Tokyo-ga ! Wild Strawberries (Smult-ronstallet) !
Touch of Evil ! Wings of Desire (Der Himmel Uber Berlin) !
Trip to the Moon (Le Voyage dans la Lune) ! "
2001: A Space Odyssey ! Yojimbo !
! !
Un Chien Andalou ! Zed and Two Noughts , A!
Under Milk Wood ! "
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