Story

by Robert McKee

  STAR WARS: When Darth Vader offers Luke the chance to join him in running the universe, bringing “order to things,” Luke’s reaction is to attempt suicide. Again not a logical reaction, but one that makes perfect sense, for both Luke and the audience read Darth Vader’s subtext: Behind “bring order to things” is the unspoken implication “… and enslave billions.” When Luke attempts to kill himself, we read a heroic subtext: “I’ll die before I’d join your evil enterprise.”

  Characters may say and do anything you can imagine. But because it’s impossible for any human being to tell or act the complete truth, because at the very least there’s always an unconscious dimension, the writer must layer in a subtext. And when the audience senses that subtext, the scene plays.

  This principle also extends to the first-person novel, theatrical soliloquy, and direct-to-camera or voice-over narration. For if characters talk privately to us, that doesn’t mean for a moment that they know the truth or are capable of telling it.

  ANNIE HALL: When Alvy Singer (Woody Allen) speaks directly to the audience “confessing” his fears and inadequacies, he also lies, dissembles, cajoles, exaggerates, and rationalizes, all in a self-deceived effort to win us over and convince himself his heart’s in the right place.

  Subtext is present even when a character is alone. For if no one else is watching us, we are. We wear masks to hide our true selves from ourselves.

  Not only do individuals wear masks, but institutions do as well and hire public relations experts to keep them in place. Paddy Chayefsky’s satire HOSPITAL cuts to the core of that truth. Hospital staffs all wear white and act as if professional, caring, and scientific. But if you’ve ever worked inside a medical institution, you know that greed and ego and a touch of madness are invisibly there. If you want to die, go to a hospital.

  The constant duality of life is true even for the inanimate. In Robert Rossen’s adaptation of Melville’s BILLY BUDD a man-o-war rests in tropical waters at night. Uncountable stars gleam above, all magnificently reflected in a black, calm sea. A low, full moon trails its light from the horizon to the ship’s prow. The limp sails tremble in the warm breezes. The cruel master-at-arms, Claggart (Robert Ryan) is holding watch. Billy (Terence Stamp) can’t sleep, so he comes out on deck, stands at the gunnels with Claggart, and remarks on what a beautiful evening it is. Claggart answers, “Yes, Billy, yes, but remember, beneath that glittering surface is a universe of gliding monsters.” Even Mother Nature wears her masks.

  THE TECHNIQUE OF SCENE ANALYSIS

  To analyze a scene you must slice into its pattern of behaviors at the levels of both text and subtext. Once properly examined, its flaws become vividly clear. Below is a five-step process designed to make a scene give up its secrets.

  Step One: Define Conflict

  First ask, who drives the scene, motivates it, and makes it happen? Any character or force might drive a scene, even an inanimate object or act of nature. Then look into both the text and subtext of this character or force, and ask: What does he (or it) want? Desire is always the key. Phrase this desire (or in the actor’s idiom: scene objective) as an infinitive: such as, “to do this…” or “to get that…”

  Next, look across the scene and ask: What forces of antagonism block this desire? Again, these forces may come from any level or combination. After identifying the source of antagonism, ask: What do the forces of antagonism want? This too is best expressed as an infinitive: “Not to do that…” or “To get this instead…” If the scene is well written, when you compare the set of phrases expressing the desires from each side, you’ll see that they’re in direct conflict—not tangential.

  Step Two: Note Opening Value

  Identify the value at stake in the scene and note its charge, positive or negative, at the opening of the scene. Such as: “Freedom. The protagonist is at the negative, a prisoner of his own obsessive ambition.” Or: “Faith. The protagonist is at the positive, he trusts in God to get him out of this situation.”

  Step Three: Break the Scene into Beats

  A beat is an exchange of action/reaction in character behavior. Look carefully at the scene’s first action on two levels: outwardly, in terms of what the character seems to be doing, and, more important, look beneath the surface to what he is actually doing. Name this subtextural action with an active gerund phrase, such as “Begging.” Try to find phrases that not only indicate action but touch the feelings of the character. “Pleading” for example, suggests a character acting with a sense of formality, whereas “Groveling at her feet” conveys a desperate servility.

  The phrases that express the action in the subtext do not describe character activity in literal terms; they go deeper to name the character’s essential action with emotive connotations.

  Now look across the scene to see what reaction that action brought, and describe that reaction with an active gerund phrase. For example, “Ignoring the plea.”

  This exchange of action and reaction is a beat. As long as it continues, Character A is “Groveling at her feet” but Character B is “Ignoring the plea,” it’s one beat. Even if their exchange repeats a number of times, it’s still one and the same beat. A new beat doesn’t occur until behavior clearly changes.

  If, for example, Character A’s groveling changed to “Threatening to leave her” and in reaction Character B’s ignoring changed to “Laughing at the threat,” then the scene’s second beat is “Threatening/Laughing” until A and B’s behavior changes for a third time. The analysis then continues through the scene, parsing it into its beats.

  Step Four: Note Closing Value and Compare with Opening Value

  At the end of the scene, examine the value-charged condition of the character’s situation and describe it in positive/negative terms. Compare this note to the one made in Step Two. If the two notations are the same, the activity between them is a nonevent. Nothing has changed, therefore nothing has happened. Exposition may have been passed to the audience, but the scene is flat. If, on the other hand, the value has undergone change, then the scene has turned.

  Step Five: Survey Beats and Locate Turning Point

  Start from the opening beat and review the gerund phrases describing the actions of the characters. As you trace action/reaction to the end of the scene, a shape or pattern should emerge. In a well-designed scene, even behaviors that seem helter-skelter will have an arc and a purpose. In fact, in such scenes, it’s their careful design that makes the beats feel random. Within the arc locate the moment when the major gap opens between expectation and result, turning the scene to its changed end values. This precise moment is the Turning Point.

  An analysis of the design of the following two scenes illustrates this technique.

  CASABLANCA

  Casablanca’s Mid-Act Climax is played within a unity of time and place that puts emphasis on personal conflict and expresses its primary action verbally.

  SYNOPSIS

  Rick Blaine, an antifascist freedom fighter, and Ilsa Lund, a Norwegian expatriate, meet in Paris in 1940. They fall in love and begin an affair. He asks her to marry him, but she avoids an answer. Rick is on the Gestapo arrest list. On the eve of the Nazi invasion the lovers agree to meet at the train station and escape the city together. But Ilsa doesn’t show. Instead, she sends a note saying she loves Rick but will never see him again.

  A year later, Rick runs a cafe in Casablanca. He’s become an isolate, determinedly neutral, uninvolved in all matters personal and political. As he says, “I stick my neck out for no man.” He drinks too much and feels as if he has killed his former self. Then Ilsa walks in on the arm of Victor Laszlo, a renowned resistance leader. The lovers meet again. Behind their cocktail chat their passion is palpable. Ilsa leaves with Laszlo, but Rick sits in the dark cafe drinking through the night, waiting.

  Hours after midnight she reappears. By now Rick is very maudlin and equally drunk. Ilsa tells him guardedly that she admires but doesn’t love Laszlo. Then, before she can tell him that she love
s him, Rick, in drunken bitterness, belittles her story by comparing it to one told in a brothel. Staring at her with a twisted smile he adds insult to injury: “Tell me. Who’d you leave me for? Was it Laszlo? Or were there others in between? Or aren’t you the kind that tells?” This slur, implying she’s a whore, sends her out the door as he collapses in drunken tears.

  THE MID-ACT CLIMAX

  The next day Ilsa and Laszlo go in search of black market exit visas. While he tries to make a deal in a cafe, she waits at a linen stall on the street. Seeing her alone, Rick approaches.

  Step One: Define Conflict

  Rick initiates and drives the scene. Despite inner conflict over the pain he has suffered since she abandoned him in Paris, and the anger he suppresses at seeing her with another man, Rick’s desire is clear: “To win Ilsa back.” His source of antagonism is equally clear: Ilsa. Her feelings are very complex and clouded by mixed emotions of guilt, regret, and duty. She loves Rick passionately and would go back to him if she could; but for reasons only she knows, she can’t. Caught between irreconcilable needs, Ilsa’s desire can be phrased as “To keep her affair with Rick in the past and move on with her life.” Although entangled with inner conflicts, their desires are in direct opposition.

  Step Two: Note Opening Value

  Love governs the scene. Rick’s insulting behavior in their last scene turned the value toward the negative, yet it leans to the positive because the audience and Rick see a ray of hope. In previous scenes Ilsa has been addressed as “Miss Ilsa Lund,” a single woman traveling with Laszlo. Rick wants to change that.

  Step Three: Break the Scene into Beats

  BEAT # 1

  EXT. BAZAAR—LINEN STALL

  The sign over the Arab Vendor’s stall reads LINGERIE. He shows Ilsa a lace bed sheet.

  Vendor’s action: SELLING.

  ARAB

  You’ll not find a treasure

  like this in all Morocco,

  Mademoiselle.

  Just then, Rick walks up behind her.

  Rick’s action: APPROACHING HER.

  Without looking Ilsa senses his prescence. She feigns interest in the lace.

  Ilsa’s reaction: IGNORING HIM.

  The Vendor holds up a sign reading 700 FRANCS.

  ARAB

  Only seven hundred francs.

  BEAT #2

  RICK

  You’re being cheated.

  Rick’s action: PROTECTING HER.

  Ilsa takes a second to compose herself. She glances at Rick, then with polite formality turns to the Vendor.

  ILSA

  It doesn’t matter, thank you.

  Ilsa’s reaction: REJECTING RICK’S ADVANCE.

  To win Ilsa away from Lazlo, Rick’s first task is to break the ice—no easy task given the recriminations and angry emotions of their last scene. His warning seems to insult the Arab Vendor, who takes no offense, but in the subtext it hints at more: her relationship with Lazlo.

  BEAT #3

  ARAB

  Ah… the lady is a friend

  of Rick’s? For friends of Rick we

  have a small discount. Seven

  hundred francs, did I say?

  (holding up a new sign)

  You can have it for two hundred.

  RICK

  I’m sorry I was in no condition

  to receive visitors when

  you called on me last night.

  Rick’s action: APOLOGIZING.

  ILSA

  It doesn’t matter.

  Ilsa’s reaction: REJECTING HIM AGAIN.

  ARAB

  Ah! For special friends of

  Rick’s we have a special

  discount.

  He replaces the second sign with a third, reading 100 FRANCS.

  Rick’s protective action of the first beat comes naturally; the apology in the second beat is more difficult and rare. He masks his embarassment by using an excessive formality to make light of it. Ilsa is unmoved.

  BEAT #4

  RICK

  Your story left me a little

  confused. Or maybe it was

  the bourbon.

  Rick’s action: EXCUSE MAKING.

  ARAB

  I have some tablecloths, some

  napkins…

  ILSA

  Thank you, I’m really not

  interested.

  Ilsa’s reaction: REJECTING RICK FOR THE FOURTH TIME.

  ARAB

  (exiting hurriedly)

  Only one moment…please…

  The Arab vendor enriches the scene in a number of ways. He opens it in a comic tone to counterpoint a dark ending; he sells lace which adds connotations of weddings and the sexuality of lingerie; most importantly, however, he tries to sell Rick to Ilsa. The vendor’s first line declares Rick a treasure. To demonstrate the power of Rick, the vendor drops his price for “friends of Rick’s.” Then, hearing something about last night, the vendor cuts it even more for “special friends of Rick’s.”

  This is followed by Rick’s second reference to his drinking, as he tries to make this take the blame for his insulting behavior. Ilsa will hear none of it, and yet she stands and waits and it’s safe to assume she isn’t waiting to buy lace.

  BEAT #5

  A small silence as she pretends to examine the lace goods.

  RICK

  Why’d you come back? To

  tell me why you ran out on

  me at the railway station?

  Rick’s action: GETTING HIS FOOT IN THE DOOR.

  ILSA

  (quietly)

  Yes.

  Ilsa’s reaction: OPENING THE DOOR A CRACK.

  After hearing no four times in a row, Rick wants her to say yes to anything. So he asks a question that supplies its own answer. Her quiet yes opens the door—keeping the chain on, perhaps, but indicating she’s willing to talk.

  BEAT #6

  RICK

  Well, you can tell me now. I’m

  reasonably sober.

  Rick’s action: GETTING DOWN ON HIS KNEES.

  ILSA

  I don’t think I will, Rick.

  Ilsa’s reaction: ASKING FOR MORE.

  The taciturn Rick insults himself over his drinking for the third time. In his tough guy manner, this is begging, and it works. Ilsa demurs, opposing him in a mild, polite way, yet continuing her lace-buying guise. To paraphrase her subtext: “That begging was nice for a change. Could I hear a little more, please?”

  BEAT #7

  RICK

  Why not? After all, I was

  stuck with the railroad ticket.

  I think I’m entitled to know.

  Rick’s action: GUILT-TRIPPING HER.

  ILSA

  Last night I saw what has

  happened to you. The Rick I

  knew in Paris, I could tell

  him. He’d understand—but

  the Rick who looked at me

  with such hatred…

  Ilsa’s reaction: GUILT-TRIPPING HIM BACK.

  These two people have a relationship. Each feels like the injured party, and each knows the sensitivity of the other so well that they hurt each other with ease.

  BEAT #8

  ILSA

  (turning to look at Rick)

  I’ll be leaving Casablanca

  soon. We’ll never see each

  other again. We knew very

  little about each other when

  we were in love in Paris. If we

  leave it that way, maybe we’ll

  remember those days—not

  Casablanca—not last night—

  Ilsa’s action: SAYING GOODBYE.

  Rick simply stares at her.

  Rick’s reaction: REFUSING TO REACT.

  In the subtext, Ilsa’s kind, forgiving prose is a clear goodbye. No matter how well-mannered, no matter how much her language implies her love for Rick, this is the kiss-off: “Let’s be friends, let’s remember the good times, and forget the bad.”

  Ri
ck will have none of this. He reacts by refusing to react; for ignoring someone’s action is, of course, a reaction. Instead he starts the next beat.

  BEAT #9

  RICK

  (voice low and intense)

  Did you run out on me

  because you couldn’t take it?

  Because you knew what it

  would be like, hiding from the

  police, running away all the

  time?

  Rick’s action: CALLING HER A COWARD.

  ILSA

  You can believe that if you

  want to.

  Ilsa’s reaction: CALLING HIM A FOOL.

  Rick’s had a year to figure out why she left him, and his best guess is that she was a coward. She, however, dares death with Laszlo every day, and so she insults him in return with a cool sarcasm that implies: “I don’t care what you think; fools believe such nonsense; if you want to join them, believe it too.”

  BEAT #10

  RICK

  Well, I’m not running away

  anymore. I’m settled now—

  above a saloon, it’s true—but

  walk up a flight. I’ll be

  expecting you.

  Rick’s action: SEXUALLY PROPOSITIONING HER.

  Ilsa drops her eyes and turns away from Rick, her face shaded by the wide brim of her hat.