by Robert McKee
The Multiplot frames an image of a particular society, but, unlike the static Nonplot, it weaves small stories around an idea, so that these group photos vibrate with energy. DO THE RIGHT THING depicts the universality of big-city racism; SHORT CUTS landscapes the soullessness of the American middle class; EAT DRINK MAN WOMAN paints a triptych of the father/daughter relationship. Multiplot gives the writer the best of both worlds: a portrait that captures the essence of a culture or community along with ample narrative drive to compel interest.
When the Central Plot’s Inciting Incident must be delayed, a setup subplot may be needed to open the storytelling.
A late-arriving Central Plot—ROCKY, CHINATOWN, CASABLANCA—leaves a story vacuum for the first thirty minutes that must be filled by subplots to engage the audience’s interest and acquaint it with the protagonist and his world in order to evoke a full reaction to its Inciting Incident. A setup subplot dramatizes the Central Plot’s exposition so that it’s absorbed in a fluid, indirect manner.
A subplot may be used to complicate the Central Plot.
This fourth relationship is the most important: use of the subplot as an additional source of antagonism. For example, the Love Story typically found inside Crime Stories: In SEA OF LOVE Frank Keller (Al Pacino) falls in love with Helen (Ellen Barkin). While hunting down her psychotic ex-husband, he risks his life to protect the woman he loves. In BLACK WIDOW a federal agent (Debra Winger) becomes infatuated with the killer herself (Theresa Russell). In THE VERDICT, a Courtroom Drama, Frank (Paul Newman) falls in love with Laura (Charlotte Rampling), a spy from the opposing law firm. These subplots add dimension to characters, create comic or romantic relief from the tensions or violence of the Central Plot, but their primary purpose is to make life more difficult for the protagonist.
The balance of emphasis between the Central Plot and subplot has to be carefully controlled, or the writer risks losing focus on the primary story. A setup subplot is particularly dangerous in that it may mislead the audience as to genre. The opening Love Story of ROCKY, for example, was carefully handled so that we knew we were heading for the Sports Genre.
Additionally, if the protagonists of the Central Plot and subplot are not the same character, care must be taken not to draw too much empathy to the subplot’s protagonist. CASABLANCA, for example, has a Political Drama subplot involving the fate of Victor Laszlo (Paul Heinreid) and a Thriller subplot centered on Ugarte (Peter Lorre), but both were deemphasized to keep the emotional spotlight on the Central Plot’s Love Story of Rick (Humphrey Bogart) and Ilsa (Ingrid Bergman). To deemphasize a subplot, some of its elements—Inciting Incident, act climaxes, Crisis, Climax, or Resolution—may be kept offscreen.
If, on the other hand, as you develop your screenplay, your subplot seems to demand greater focus and empathy, then reconsider the overall design and turn your subplot into the Central Plot.
If a subplot doesn’t thematically contradict or resonate the Controlling Idea of the main plot, if it doesn’t set up the introduction of the main plot’s Inciting Incident, or complicate the action on the main plot, if it merely runs alongside, it will split the story down the middle and destroy its effect. The audience understands the principle of aesthetic unity. It knows that every story element is there because of the relationship it strikes to every other element. This relationship, structural or thematic, holds the work together. If the audience can’t find it, it’ll disengage from the story and consciously try to force a unity. When this fails, it sits in confusion.
In the screen adaptation of the best-selling Psycho-Thriller THE FIRST DEADLY SIN, the Central Plot takes a police lieutenant (Frank Sinatra) on the hunt for a serial killer. In a subplot, his wife (Faye Dunaway) is in intensive care with only weeks to live. The detective hunts for the killer, then commiserates with his dying wife; he hunts the killer, then reads to his wife; he hunts for the killer some more, then visits her in the hospital again. Before long this alternating story design ignited a burning curiosity in the audience: When will the killer come to the hospital? But he never does. Instead, the wife dies, the cop catches the killer, plot and subplot never connect, and the audience is left in disgruntled confusion.
In Lawrence Sanders’ novel, however, this design succeeds with powerful effect because on the page main plot and subplot complicate each other in the mind of the protagonist: the cop’s fierce preoccupation with a psychotic killer conflicts with a desperate desire to give his wife the comfort she needs, while at the same time his dread of losing her and the pain of watching the woman he loves suffer contradicts his need for clear, rational deduction in pursuit of a ruthless but brilliant lunatic. A novelist can enter a character’s mind and in first- or third-person delineate inner conflict directly in prose description. The screenwriter cannot.
The screenwriting is the art of making the mental physical. We create visual correlatives for inner conflict—not dialogue or narration to describe ideas and emotions, but images of character choice and action to indirectly and ineffably express the thoughts and feelings within. Therefore, the interior life a novel must be reinvented for the screen.
In adapting Manuel Puig’s novel KISS OF THE SPIDER WOMAN, screenwriter Leonard Schrader was faced with a similar structural problem. Once again, main plot and subplot complicate one another only within the mind of the protagonist. The subplot, in fact, is Luis’ (William Hurt) fantasies of the Spider Woman (Sonia Braga), a character he idolizes, drawn from films he vaguely remembers and greatly embellishes. Schrader visualizes Luis’ dreams and desires by turning his fantasy into a film-within-the-film.
Still, these two plots cannot causally interact because they’re on different planes of reality. They are connected, however, by making the subplot’s story mirror the Central Plot. This gives Luis the chance to act out his fantasy in reality. At that moment the two plots collide in Luis’ psyche and the audience imagines the emotional battle raging within: Will Luis do in life what the Spider Woman did in his dreams? Will he too betray the man he loves? What’s more, the two plotlines ironize the Controlling Idea of Love Through Self-sacrifice and give the film an added thematic unity.
There’s yet another revealing exception in the design of KISS OF THE SPIDER WOMAN. In principle, the Central Plot’s Inciting Incident must be onscreen. But here the Inciting Incident is not revealed until the Mid-Act Climax. In the Backstory Luis, a homosexual convict imprisoned in a fascist dictatorship, is called into the warden’s office and made this offer: A leftist revolutionary, Valentin (Raul Julia), will be put in his cell. If Luis spies on him and gets valuable information, the warden will give Luis his freedom. The audience, unaware of this deal, waits through the first hour of the film to finally discover this Central Plot when Luis visits the warden asking for medicine and camomile tea for the ailing Valentin.
For many this film began so tediously they nearly walked out. So why not open conventionally with the Inciting Incident, as does the novel, and start the story with a strong hook? Because, if Schrader had placed the scene in which Luis agrees to spy on a freedom fighter at the opening of the film, the audience would have instantly hated the protagonist. With a choice of a fast opening versus empathy for the protagonist, the screenwriter violated the design of the novel. While the novelist used inner narration to gain empathy, the screenwriter knew that he would first have to convince the audience that Luis loved Valentin before revealing Luis’ pact with the fascists. The right choice. Without empathy the film would be a hollow exercise in exotic photography.
Faced with irreconcilable choices, such as pace versus empathy, the wise writer redesigns the story to preserve what’s vital. You’re free to break or bend convention, but for one reason only: to put something more important in its place.
10
SCENE DESIGN
This chapter focuses on the components of scene design: Turning Points, Setups/Payoffs, Emotional Dynamics, and Choice. Chapter 11 will analyze two scenes to demonstrate how Beats, changing character behavio
rs, shape a scene’s inner life.
TURNING POINTS
A scene is a story in miniature—an action through conflict in a unity or continuity of time and space that turns the value-charged condition of a character’s life. In theory there’s virtually no limit to a scene’s length or locations. A scene may be infinitesimal. In the right context a scene consisting of a single shot in which a hand turns over a playing card could express great change. Conversely, ten minutes of action spread over a dozen sites on a battlefield may accomplish much less. No matter locations or length, a scene is unified around desire, action, conflict, and change.
In each scene a character pursues a desire related to his immediate time and place. But this Scene-Objective must be an aspect of his Super-Objective or Spine, the story-long quest that spans from Inciting Incident to Story Climax. Within the scene, the character acts on his Scene-Objective by choosing under pressure to take one action or another. However, from any or all levels of conflict comes a reaction he didn’t anticipate. The effect is to crack open the gap between expectation and result, turning his outer fortunes, inner life, or both from the positive to the negative or the negative to the positive in terms of values the audience understands are at risk.
A scene causes change in a minor, albeit significant way. A Sequence Climax is a scene that causes a moderate reversal— change with more impact than a scene. An Act Climax is a scene that causes a major reversal—change with greater impact than Sequence Climax. Accordingly, we never write a scene that’s merely a flat, static display of exposition; rather we strive for this ideal: to create a story design in which every scene is a minor, moderate, or major Turning Point.
TRADING PLACES: The value at stake is wealth. Inspired by Porgy and Bess, Billy Ray Valentine (Eddie Murphy) begs on the streets, pretending to be a paraplegic on a skateboard. A gap opens when police try to bust him, then widens enormously when two elderly businessmen, the Duke brothers (Ralph Bellamy and Don Ameche), suddenly intervene with the cops to save him. Billy’s begging has caused his world to react differently and more powerfully than he expected. He doesn’t resist, but wisely chooses to surrender to the gap. CUT TO: A walnut-paneled office where the Duke brothers have dressed him in a three-piece suit and made him a commodities broker. Billy’s financial life goes from beggar to broker around this delightful Turning Point.
WALL STREET: The values at stake are wealth and honesty. A young stockbroker, Bud Fox (Charlie Sheen), secures a meeting with billionaire Gordon Gekko (Michael Douglas). Bud lives from paycheck to paycheck, but his integrity is intact. When he proposes legitimate business ideas, his sales pitch provokes forces of antagonism he couldn’t anticipate as Gekko retorts: “Tell me something I don’t know.” Suddenly Bud realizes Gekko doesn’t want to do honest business. He pauses, then reveals a corporate secret that his own father had told him. Bud chooses to join Gekko in an unlawful conspiracy, reversing his inner nature from honest to criminal and his fortunes from poor to rich around this powerful and ironic Turning Point.
The effects of Turning Points are fourfold: surprise, increased curiosity, insight, and new direction.
When a gap opens between expectation and result, it jolts the audience with surprise. The world has reacted in a way neither character nor audience had foreseen. This moment of shock instantly provokes curiosity as the audience wonders “Why?” TRADING PLACES: Why are these two old men saving this beggar from the police? WALL STREET: Why is Gekko saying: “Tell me something I don’t know.” In an effort to satisfy its curiosity, the audience rushes back through what story it’s seen so far, seeking answers. In a beautifully designed story, these answers have been quietly but carefully layered in.
TRADING PLACES: Our thoughts flit back to previous scenes with the Duke brothers and we realize that these old men are so bored with life they’ll use their wealth to play sadistic games. Further, they must have seen a spark of genius in this beggar or they wouldn’t have picked him to be their pawn.
WALL STREET: The “why?” provoked by Gekko’s “Tell me something I don’t know” is instantly answered by this insight: Of course Gekko’s a billionaire, he’s a crook. Almost no one becomes immensely rich honestly. He too likes games… of a criminal kind. When Bud joins him, our memory dashes back to previous scenes at his office, and we realize that Bud was too ambitious and greedy—ripe for a fall.
The nimble and perceptive mind of the audience finds these answers in a flash of understanding. The question “Why?” propels it back through the story, and what it’s seen so far instantly clicks into a new configuration; it experiences a rush of insight into character and world, a satisfying layer of hidden truth.
Insight adds to curiosity. This new understanding amplifies the questions “What’s going to happen next?” and “How will this turn out?” This effect, true in all genres, is vividly clear in Crime Stories. Someone goes to a closet for a clean shirt and a dead body falls out. This huge gap triggers a fusillade of questions: “Who committed this murder? How? When? Why? Will the killer be caught?” The writer must now satisfy the curiosity he’s created. From each point of changed value, he must move his story in a new direction to create Turning Points yet to come.
KRAMER VS. KRAMER: The moment we see that a thirty-two-year-old man can’t make breakfast the scene turns. The question “Why?” sends us back through the few minutes of film that precede the gap. Armed with our life experience and common sense, we seek answers.
First, Kramer’s a workaholic, but many workaholics make excellent breakfasts at five A.M. before anyone else is up. More, he’s never contributed to his family’s domestic life, but many men don’t and their wives remain loyal, respecting their husbands’ efforts to provide income. Our deeper insight is this: Kramer is a child. He’s a spoiled-rotten brat whose mother always made breakfast for him. Later her role was filled by girlfriends and waitresses. Now he’s turned his wife into a waitress/mother. Women have spoiled Kramer all his life and he’s been only too happy to let them. Joanna Kramer was, in essence, raising two children, and overwhelmed by the impossibility of a mature relationship, she abandoned the marriage. What’s more, we feel she was right to do it. New direction: Kramer’s growth into manhood.
The Climax of THE EMPIRE STRIKES BACK propels the longest rush for insight I know. As Darth Vader (David Prowse/ James Earl Jones) and Luke Skywalker (Mark Hamill) fight to the death with light sabers, Vader steps back and says: “You can’t kill me, Luke, I’m your father.” The word “father” explodes one of the most famous gaps in film history and hurls the audience back through two whole films separated by three years. Instantly we grasp why Ben Obi-Wan Kenobi (Alec Guinness) was so worried about what would happen if Darth and Luke ever met face to face. We know why Yoda (voice of Frank Oz) was so desperate to teach Luke command of the Force. We realize why Luke’s had so many close escapes: His father has been secretly protecting him. Two films that made perfect sense to this moment now have a new, deeper layer of meaning. New direction: RETURN OF THE JEDI.
CHINATOWN: Before the Act Two Climax we believe that Mulwray was murdered either for financial gain or in a jealous rage. But when Evelyn says: “She’s my sister and my daughter…” the gap splits with a shock. To understand her words, we race back through the film and gain a powerful set of insights: incest between father and daughter, the real motivation for the murder, and the identity of the killer. New direction: the corkscrew twists of Act Three.
The Question of Self-Expression
A storyteller puts a friendly arm around the audience, saying: “Let me show you something.” He takes us to a scene, such as the one in CHINATOWN, and says: “Watch Gittes drive to Santa Monica, intent on arresting Evelyn. When he knocks on her door, do you think he’ll be invited in? Watch this. Now the beautiful Evelyn comes downstairs, happy to see him. Think he’ll soften and let her off the hook? Watch this. Next she fights to protect her secret. Think she’ll keep it? Watch this. As he listens to her confession, will he help her or ar
rest her? Watch this.”
The storyteller leads us into expectation, makes us think we understand, then cracks open reality, creating surprise and curiosity, sending us back through his story again and again. On each trip back, we gain deeper and deeper insight into the natures of his characters and their world—a sudden awareness of the ineffable truths that lie hidden beneath the film’s images. He then takes his story in a new direction in an ever-escalating progression of such moments.
To tell story is to make a promise: If you give me your concentration, I’ll give you surprise followed by the pleasure of discovering life, its pains and joys, at levels and in directions you have never imagined. And most important, this must be done with such seeming ease and naturalness that we lead the audience to these discoveries as if spontaneously. The effect of a beautifully turned moment is that filmgoers experience a rush of knowledge as if they did it for themselves. In a sense they did. Insight is the audience’s reward for paying attention, and a beautifully designed story delivers this pleasure scene after scene after scene.
Yet, if we were to ask writers how they express themselves, more often than not they’ll reply: “With my words, My descriptions of the world and the dialogue I create for my characters. I’m a writer. I express myself in language.” But language is merely our text. First, last, and always, self-expression occurs in the flood of insight that pours out of a Turning Point. Here the writer opens his arms to the world, saying: “This is my vision of life, of the nature of the human beings that inhabit my world. This is what I think happens to people in these circumstances for these reasons. My ideas, my emotions. Me.” Our most powerful means of self-expression is the unique way we turn the story.
Then come words. We apply our literary talent with vividness and skill, so that when a beautifully written scene is acted, the audience is carried willingly and pleasurably through our Turning Points. As important as language is, however, it’s only the surface by which we capture the reader to lead him to the inner life of the story. Language is a tool for self-expression and must never become a decorative end of its own.