by Jeff Kitchen
The Use of Theme in The Godfather
In The Godfather, the way in which Michael resolves his dilemma is by becoming totally hardened, killing his enemies, and then cutting himself off from his wife and from what he might have been. The movie deals with the cost of power and the loss of the soul. While Michael does achieve total power, it costs him his innocence, his family, his freedom, and his happiness. This brings up a profound thematic question: “How much power do we really need, and what price is it worth?” This theme rings a bell with normal people because even in our everyday lives it is easy to overreach, perhaps taking on two jobs to provide for our families but in the process losing contact with the very family for which we’re sacrificing. The famous quote from the Bible says it all: “What profits a man if he gains the whole world but loses his soul?”
The Use of Theme in Tootsie
In Tootsie, Michael resolves his dilemma when he finally earns Julie’s trust and wins her heart. The way in which he does this is by becoming a whole man, honest and solid. Director Sydney Pollack described the theme of Tootsie like this: “Becoming a woman made a man out of Michael.” This indicates a clear understanding of the soul of the story. Pollack discusses Tootsie’s theme in Jon Stevens’s book Actors Turned Directors (Los Angeles: Silman-James Press, 1997):
I concentrate very hard on understanding and articulating for myself and everyone else involved what I think the picture’s about. By “what it’s about” I do not mean story. What a film is about, in my opinion, has nothing to do with story. Quite the opposite. It’s everything except the story. It’s trying to arrive at a sort of spine, if you will, of the picture—a way of viewing it that directorially instructs you on a way to view each scene.
Tootsie was about a man who became a better man for having been a woman. If you start to look at every scene and say, “In what way does this scene illustrate the idea of a man becoming a better man for having been a woman?” you see that, in the beginning, Tootsie works very hard to show you that part of him which needs redeeming, because if he’s going to be better at something, he has to be worse at it first. The minute I define that as an idea, I can begin to measure every scene against it in some way. That doesn’t mean it’s going to be a good movie. It just means that I know what it’s about, and can communicate that to the actors.
The Use of Theme in Blade Runner
In Blade Runner, Deckard resolves his dilemma by waking up and taking control of his own life. He grabs Rachael and runs, dropping out of the system that has trapped him. He not only changes the rules, he transcends the entire game. This is a film about humanity, liberty, and freedom—about living life to the fullest. A person on his or her deathbed will tell you, “Live now with everything you’ve got. Don’t just be getting ready to live. Do it now!” Roy’s intense desire to live electrifies Deckard into action and into life, and this is what the movie is about: living fully.
LET’S EXPLORE THEME FOR OUR DEMO PLOT
When Zack, our detective from Chapter 1, resolves his dilemma, the way he does so is to release his inhibitions, to embrace life and become totally adventurous. This theme is described in the previous section on Resolution as “he comes to life, transforming into a free-spirited wildman”. He was shut down and locked up—virtually trapped in his own life—and when he realizes the true threat to the woman he loves, he breaks free of his bonds and is able to rescue her as he rescues himself. He essentially goes crazy in order to become sane, which psychiatrists will tell you can be a healthy way to liberate yourself from the confines of a restrictive mind. And that’s the essence of this movie: a wild path to liberation.
GETTING IN TOUCH WITH YOUR THEME
In his book On Directing Film, David Mamet writes that a script properly written communicates the theme clearly and powerfully once at the end. He counsels writers to trust in this, explaining that many dramatists are insecure about their ability to create a plot whose theme comes across clearly and powerfully at the script’s end. Writers panic and resort to reiterating their theme constantly, he says, concerned that the audience won’t get it. They restate it in every other scene and insert it into every tenth line of dialog—to the detriment of the drama. Mamet advises that a scene is just a scene, an event that helps make the plot work, not an opportunity to recapitulate the theme:
The nail doesn’t have to look like a house; it is not a house. It is a nail. If the house is going to stand, the nail must do the work of a nail. To do the work of a nail, it has to look like a nail.
Jimi Hendrix’s comment on music can also be related to theme in this way: “We plan for our sound to go inside the soul of the person actually, and see if they can awaken some kind of thing in their own mind because there are so many sleeping people.” If a film awakens something within the viewers, serving as a trigger or catalyst, then the theme can be internalized by them rather than merely impacting them temporarily and then fading away.
You may start out with a theme you feel compelled to communicate and then build a script around it, or you may start out with a killer story idea and gradually discover its thematic depths. Both approaches are valid—although in starting with a theme, beware of coming across as preachy. The most important thing is that you as the dramatist are in touch with your theme.
When Your Theme Takes on a Life of its Own
As you develop a script, your theme may gradually morph into something entirely different from what you set out to communicate. Many times it will end up more profound and more powerful than what you initially had in mind. It is often said that the theme selects the dramatist, so you may find yourself in territory you hadn’t anticipated. Here’s Price again, from The Analysis of Play Construction and Dramatic Principle: “. . . the dramatist begins gathering his material from the moment he selects his Theme—or his Theme selects him, which, perhaps, is the better way.” Sometimes a script will drag you into something deeper or insist on a new tack. This is part of the beauty of the writing process: the experience of changing dimensions as you develop your material. If you’re too stuck on your original theme, you may not be aware that it has gradually morphed into what might even be the opposite of your intention. But while you, the dramatist, are unaware of your theme’s transition, your audience may be absorbing the deeper theme by osmosis. Don’t miss the boat. If you don’t recognize the true theme, you will not be able to work with it, reinforce it, or build upon it, and consequently you will be missing one of the fundamental strengths of your script.
Keep in touch with the theme as it actively emerges in the material by focusing on the way in which your protagonist resolves the dilemma. This will make the difference between seeing what you want to see and seeing what’s really there. You may well be surprised and moved by the dynamic new universe you’ve stumbled into. Conversely, you may say, “No, I see where it has ended up, but I really do want my theme to be in line with my original intention.” In that case, adjust the way in which the protagonist resolves the dilemma and steer it back toward the theme you prefer. This give-and-take is at the core of the writing process. Either let it take you or steer it yourself, though it’s usually a combination of the two. And steering your material may mean hitting it hard with a hammer or feathering it gently—part directing things and part being responsive to whatever comes along.
Your theme shouldn’t come across as a platitude, a Sunday school sermon, or a bumper sticker. Bernard Grebanier, in his book Playwriting (Thomas Y. Crowell Co., New York, 1961), says:
Starting one’s thinking with a theme is intelligent enough but can be somewhat precarious too. It too easily may lead the writer into contriving heavily moralistic or propagandistic demonstrations of an idea, into merely manufacturing situation and character for purposes of illustrating the theme, in which case neither situation nor characters will be dramatically convincing—so that the play ends by being a kind of sermon, which a good play should never be . . . a good theme should be an interpretation of life, not a lecture upon it. . .
. When you have read a story or seen a play, you may not be conscious of the theme, but you may “feel” it . . . the theme should, rather, be deeply embedded in the action and in the nature of the leading characters.
It’s a common misconception that the theme of a movie represents a deep answer to one of life’s mysteries, or is a pearl of wisdom. This may well be, but the theme also might just be exploring an idea or asking a powerful question. As playwright Eugene Ionesco said, “Why do people always expect authors to answer questions? I am an author because I want to ask questions. If I had answers I’d be a politician.” A theme doesn’t necessarily have to be profound, but some thematic gravity can help any movie. Look for instance at the goofy comedy Liar, Liar, which has a resonant theme about integrity.
Starting with a Sense of Theme
As you start to wrestle with understanding your script’s theme, you may have only a sense of it. You may not be able to articulate it, but that’s okay. Audience members leaving a movie theater may be unable to verbalize its theme, but they can appreciate it at a gut level. As the dramatist, don’t be afraid to start at that gut level. Many of us panic when we have only a partial understanding of something—we try to explain it before we really get it. Allow yourself to relax in your partially formed comprehension. Explore your sense of theme; dig deeply and develop it from the source.
Consider our example of the tragedy—the protagonist’s self-destructive thinking and behavior that destroyed him in the end. While it may be easy to identify this theme, could you have articulated it at first? You know what it is, but it can take time to get beyond just knowing and feeling it. It may not be a conscious thought, but it will be embedded in you. Spend some time contemplating the theme and wrapping your brain around it. Don’t feel forced to conceptualize it too early. Free yourself from the compulsion to put words to it prematurely.
Gradually your understanding will gel, and you’ll grasp your theme more fully. You’ll carry it around and work on it at a subconscious level as it echoes within you. You’ll grow antennae for relevant material. You’ll pick up things in the world around you, both plot-wise and thematically, and feed them into your subconscious computer. At a certain point in the process, your understanding will crystallize. Then all of a sudden you’ve got your theme—clearly, cleanly, and completely.
While it’s important to state your theme in clear terms, beware of that cute one-line explanation because it can oversimplify the situation. Using a clever little aphorism or adage to sum up your theme can halt the exploring process. Experts in creativity say there are often ten “right” answers to a problem but many people, thinking there’s only one, stop looking when they’ve found the first. If you’re satisfied with a surface understanding of your theme, then you won’t keep tunneling deeper for more substantial and complete comprehension.
Your theme may seem perfectly obvious once you perceive it, but it can take a great deal of work to achieve that clarity. In The Philosophy of Dramatic Principle and Method, Price wrote, “We keep narrowing down from the most general Theme to a specific one; and when it becomes specific it determines the nature of the play.” You are really distilling your understanding of theme down to its quintessence, and when you arrive at that point the true identity of your story emerges. What was an unclear mass at first, a coalition of ideas and elements, now coalesces into one entity with a recognizable “personality.” This clarity informs the tone, flavor, color, and texture of the script. Have you ever seen a TV weather program showing the formation of a hurricane? The eye forms first and then the storm forms around it. The eye is the core of the storm—the clear point at its center around which everything swirls. In screen-writing terms, theme is the living core of your story.
Using Quotations to Explore Theme and Plot
When exploring a new theme, it may help to consult an encyclopedia or book of quotations. There are many, both in print form and on the Internet, but Bartlett’s Familiar Quotations is probably the best known. Quotations can be useful not only for exploring theme, but also for examining story elements, enlivening characterization, and inspiring possible titles—as well as suggesting great dialog.
Be willing to spend time reflecting on quotes. Be open to unexpected sources; the unexpected can yield surprising freshness, as well as great depth and insight. Think about what you’re trying to communicate to your audience with the complete action of your script, and equally important, listen to your material as it takes on a life of its own.
Here are some quotes that connect with the theme and plot of the six films discussed in Writing a Great Movie:
Training Day
The grand truth about Nathaniel Hawthorne. He says NO! in thunder; but the Devil himself cannot make him say yes.
— HERMAN MELVILLE
If a man look sharply and attentively, he shall see Fortune; for though she is blind, she is not invisible.
— FRANCIS BACON
Honor is like an island, rugged and without a beach; once we have left it, we can never return.
— NICOLAS BOILEAU — DESPREAUX
My honor is dearer to me than my life.
— MIGUEL DE CERVANTES
Bismarck was a political genius of the highest rank, but he lacked one essential quality of the constructive statesman: He had no faith in the future.
— A. J. P. TAYLOR
Powerful people never teach powerless people how to take their power away from them.
— JOHN CLARKE
What Women Want
If we could see the miracle of a single flower clearly, our whole life would change.
— BUDDHA
Your task is not to seek for love, but merely to seek and find all the barriers within yourself that you have built against it.
— RUMI
The person who tries to live alone will not succeed as a human being. His heart withers if it does not answer another heart. His mind shrinks away if he hears only the echoes of his own thoughts and finds no other inspiration.
— PEARL S. BUCK
It takes a lot of courage to release the familiar and seemingly secure, to embrace the new. But there is no real security in what is no longer meaningful. There is more security in the adventurous and exciting, for in movement there is life, and in change there is power.
— ALAN COHEN
Minority Report
Let justice be done, though the world perish.
— KING FERDINAND I
All great truths begin as blasphemies.
— GEORGE BERNARD SHAW
Formerly, when religion was strong and science weak, man mistook magic for medicine; now, when science is strong and religion weak, man mistakes medicine for magic.
— THOMAS SZASZ
Reality is that which, when you stop believing in it, doesn’t go away.
— PHILIP K. DICK
Among a people generally corrupt, liberty cannot last long.
— EDMUND BURKE
Justice without strength is helpless, strength without justice is tyrannical. . . . Unable to make what is just strong, we have made what is strong just.
— BLAISE PASCAL
Laws are like cobwebs, which may catch small flies, but let wasps and hornets break through.
— JONATHAN SWIFT
The Godfather
Power gradually extirpates from the mind every humane and gentle virtue.
— EDMUND BURKE
It is a strange desire, to seek power, and to lose liberty.
— FRANCIS BACON
You shall have joy, or you shall have power, said God; you shall not have both.
— RALPH WALDO EMERSON
In the struggle for power, there is no middle ground between the highest elevation and destruction.
— TACITUS
A partnership with the powerful is never safe.
— PHAEDRUS
Power, like a desolating pestilence, pollutes whatever it touches.
— PERCY BYSSHE SHELLEY
&nbs
p; Whose game was empires, and whose stakes were thrones; whose table earth, whose dice were human bones.
— LORD BYRON
Tootsie
Character is the governing element of life, and is above genius.
— GEORGE SAUNDERS
I have lost all and found myself.
— JOHN CLARKE
Our experience is composed rather of illusions lost than wisdom gained.
— JACQUES ROUX
The wise learn many things from their foes.
— ARISTOPHANES
God offers every mind its choice between truth and repose.
— RALPH WALDO EMERSON
When first we met we did not guess that Love would prove so hard a master.
— ROBERT BRIDGES
Lay me on an anvil, O God. Beat me and hammer me into a crowbar. Let me pry loose old walls; let me lift and loosen old foundations.
— CARL SANDBURG
Blade Runner
What is life where living is extinct?
— THOMAS HEYWOOD
Live all you can; it’s a mistake not to. It doesn’t much matter what you do in particular so long as you have your life.
— HENRY JAMES
Study as if you were to live forever. Live as if you were to die tomorrow.
— ISIDORE OF SEVILLE
Dare to be wise: begin! He who postpones the hour of living rightly is like the rustic who waits for the river to run out before he crosses.
— HORACE
Listen to your enemy, for God is talking.
— JEWISH PROVERB
Let others lead small lives, but not you.
— JIM ROHN
START USING THEME IN YOUR OWN SCRIPT
1. Can you put your finger on the theme of your script? Even if you have trouble articulating it at first, you should be able to sense it. Look at the way in which the protagonist resolves his or her dilemma, and this will take you right to it.