by Robert McKee
Ilsa’s reaction: HIDING HER REACTION.
Despite her denials, he senses that her feelings lean the other way. He well remembers their sex life in Paris, and has seen the cold, aloof Laszlo. So he takes a chance and propositions her on the street. Again, it works. Ilsa too remembers, and hides her blush under her hat brim. For a moment Rick feels she’s within reach, but he can’t resist sticking his foot in his mouth.
BEAT #11
RICK
All the same, some day you’ll
lie to Laszlo—you’ll be there.
Rick’s action: CALLING HER A WHORE.
ILSA
No, Rick. You see, Victor
Laszlo is my husband.
And was…
pause, coolly)…
even when I knew you in
Paris.
Ilsa’s reaction: CRUSHING HIM WITH THE NEWS.
With dignity and poise, Ilsa walks away, leaving the stunned Rick to stare after her.
Rick can’t contain the pain caused by Ilsa’s abandonment. As in the climax of their previous scene, he strikes out with a sexual slur, implying that she’ll betray Laszlo to come back to his bed. Called a slut for a second time, Ilsa reaches back for the hardest thing she has, and strikes Rick with it as hard as she can. Notice, however, that this is a half-truth; she doesn’t add that she thought her husband was dead. Instead, she leaves a terrible implication in her wake: She was a married woman who used Rick in Paris, then walked out on him when her husband came back. Therefore, her love was never real. We know from the subtext that the opposite is the truth, but Rick is devastated.
Step Four: Note Closing Value and Compare with Opening Value
The Central Plot turns sharply from a hopeful positive to a negative at a darker depth than Rick could have imagined. For not only does Ilsa make it clear she doesn’t love him now; she implies she never did. Her secret marriage turns their Paris romance into a sham and Rick into a cuckold.
Step Five: Survey the Beats and Locate the Turning Point
Approaching Her/Ignoring Him
Protecting Her/Rejecting Him (and Arab)
Apologizing/Rejecting Him
Excuse Making/Rejecting Him (and Arab)
Getting His Foot in the Door/Opening the Door
Getting Down on His Knees/Asking for More
Guilt-Tripping Her/Guilt-Tripping Him
Saying Goodbye/Refusing to React
Calling Her a Coward/Calling Him a Fool
Sexually Propositioning Her/Hiding Her Reaction
Calling Her a Slut/Destroying His Hope
The action/reaction pattern builds a rapid progression of beats. Each exchange tops the previous beat, placing their love in greater and greater risk, demanding more and more willpower and capacity to take painful, even cruel actions, but at the same time remain in cool control.
The gap opens in the middle of the eleventh beat, on the revelation that Ilsa was married to Laszlo while having an affair with Rick. Until this moment, Rick has hopes of winning her over, but with this Turning Point his hope is shattered.
THROUGH A GLASS DARKLY
In contrast to the stationary dialogue duet in CASABLANCA, the Climax of the Karin/God plot in THROUGH A GLASS DARKLY shifts from place to place with slight ellipses of time, involves four characters, anchors itself at the level of inner conflict, and conveys its primary action physically.
SYNOPSIS
For this film Bergman designed a Multiplot of six interconnected stories. The most powerful is the conflict between Karin and her “God.” She suffers from delusional schizophrenia. During a period of lucidity, she’s released from a hospital to join her family for a brief holiday at their cottage on an island in the Baltic. While she struggles to hold on to her sanity, she’s surrounded by weak, troubled men who turn to her for support.
David, Karin’s father, is outwardly kind but emotionally repressed. He’s a popular novelist but hounded by his lack of critical recognition. He prefers to observe life at a safe distance before cannibalizing it for his art. Karin wants her father to be happy and prays for his artistic success.
Karin’s husband, Martin, is an MD. She craves his understanding and approval; instead, he patronizes her like one of his patients and pesters her for sex.
Karin’s brother, Minus, is her only true intimate. She confides in him, telling him the secrets of her terrifying delusions, but he’s so troubled with adolescent sexuality and estrangement from his father that he gives her little consolation. Instead, Karin, sensing his fears, offers Minus comfort.
Soon Karin’s acute sensitivity (perhaps even psychic awareness) gives way to hallucination. She hears voices from behind an attic wall, telling her that God will appear. Scared, she turns to Martin, but he humiliates her over the lack of sex in their marriage. When she seeks out her father, he gently dismisses her like a child. Alone, Karin sneaks a look at her father’s diary and discovers that his only interest in her is as a character study for his next novel. She tries to tell her brother about the coming miracle of God’s visitation, but Minus is so confused and tormented by his cravings that he doesn’t understand. Suddenly, Karin’s madness takes a sexual turn. With feral intensity, she drags her brother down into incest.
When David discovers what has happened, he’s moved more by self-pity than by concern for his children. Amazingly, Karin sympathizes with him, and knowing that he’s only interested in her as story material, gives her father insights into her illness. Martin interrupts, declaring that he must take Karin back to the mental hospital. He calls for an ambulance and starts to pack.
Step One: Define Conflict
Karin drives the scene. She believes in her voices and desperately hopes to see God, not only for her own needs but for her men. She wants to give them her epiphany, perhaps to win acceptance, but more importantly to help their troubled lives. Her sources of antagonism are two: first, her husband. Martin is drawn to her sexually and pities her, but he can no longer cope with her madness, so he wants to take her away from her “God” and put her safely back in the hospital. The second, and more powerful, is herself. While she hopes to have a glimpse of heaven, her subconscious waits to give her a vision of hell.
Step Two: Note Opening Value
Hope, in a strange way, fills the opening of the scene. Karin is the most empathetic character in the film. We want her desire to see God to be fulfilled. Even if it’s a mad fantasy, it would give joy to a tormented woman. Furthermore, her many psychic experiences earlier in the film have led us to suspect that she may not be hallucinating. We hold out hope for a supernatural event; Karin’s triumph over the self-centered men around her.
Step Three: Break the Scene into Beats
BEAT #1
INT. COTTAGE BEDROOM—DAY
Karin and Martin pack for the ambulance. Martin rummages through a chest of drawers, searching for a shirt. Karin’s thoughts seem far away as she struggles with an overstuffed suitcase.
KARIN
Your shirts are washed but not ironed.
Karin’s action: PLANNING HER ESCAPE.
MARTIN
I’ve got shirts in town anyway.
Martin’s reaction: CONCEALING HIS GUILT.
KARIN
Help me shut the case, please.
Martin wrestles with the lid, but a pair of shoes keeps the latch from catching. He takes them out and looks at them.
MARTIN
It’s my shoes. I can leave them here.
KARIN
Why not wear these and leave those?
MARTIN
(indicating the pair
he is wearing)
These have to be mended.
He drops the shoes on the floor and hurriedly puts on his jacket. Karin slowly closes the suitcase lid.
This beat is almost comic. Karin’s dressed and packed, but Martin, like a boy needing a mother, fumbles around. She’s a psychiatric patient returning to electric shock treatments, yet remains practical and composed; he’
s a doctor flustered over which shoes to wear. On the text Karin seems to be packing, but in the subtext she’s planning her next move. He’s so distracted by his guilty conscience, he doesn’t see that her outward calm conceals a mind scheming to pursue her “miracle” in the attic.
BEAT #2
Karin fingers the suitcase, quietly and thoughtfully. Then:
KARIN
Have you a headache pill?
Karin’s action: ESCAPING TO HER “GOD.”
MARTIN
(looking around the
room)
Where’s the brown case?
Martin’s reaction: HELPING HER.
KARIN
In the kitchen.
MARTIN
(remembering)
Yes, so it is.
Martin rushes into the
INT. KITCHEN—SAME
and finds his medical case on the table. He takes out some pills, fills a glass with water, then pads through the
INT. MAIN HALL—SAME
back to the
INT. BEDROOM—SAME
As he enters, a quick glance tells him that Karin’s gone. Martin puts down the water and pills and rushes back into the
INT. MAIN HALL—SAME
looking for her.
Karin is more perceptive than Martin, but it’s a measure of his self-absorption that she gives him the slip so easily. He knows schizophrenics can’t be left alone, but his guilt over taking her back to the hospital has him doing everything possible to please her. His caring attitude isn’t about her suffering but his.
BEAT #3
He glances outside, then runs to
INT. DAVID’S BEDROOM—SAME
and opens the door, surprising David at the window.
MARTIN
Seen Karin?
Martin’s action: SEARCHING FOR KARIN.
DAVID
No.
David’s reaction: HELPING HIM SEARCH.
As Martin leaves in a panic, David follows out into the
INT. MAIN HALL—SAME
where he and Martin exchange uncertain glances.
BEAT #4
Then suddenly they hear Karin’s voice in WHISPERS… upstairs.
Karin’s action: PRAYING.
Martin prepares a sedative while David climbs the stairs.
David’s reaction: RUSHING TO HER.
Martin’s reaction: PREPARING TO RECAPTURE HER.
UPPER HALL
Karin’s WHISPERS grow louder.
KARIN
(repeating the phrase)
Yes, I see, I see…
Karin’s hallucination gives these men what they want. For Martin, the chance to play doctor; for David, the chance to observe his daughter’s illness at its most dramatic.
BEAT #5
David quietly steps to an unused
INT. ATTIC ROOM—SAME
and opens the door a few inches to peer inside.
DAVID’S POV
through the half-opened door of Karin standing in the middle of the room, staring at a wall with a closed closet door. Her voice is formal and prayerlike as she nearly chants the words.
KARIN
(talking to the wall)
Yes, I quite see.
Karin’s action: PREPARING FOR HER EPIPHANY.
ON DAVID
staring at his daughter, transfixed by the scene she’s creating.
KARIN (OFFSCREEN)
I know it won’t be long now.
David’s reaction: OBSERVING KARIN’S MADNESS.
Martin, carrying his medical bag, joins David at the door. He glares at the sight of Karin talking to her imaginary listener.
KARIN (OS)
It’s good to know that. But
we’ve been happy to wait.
Martin’s reaction: FIGHTING HIS EMOTIONS.
Karin supplicates before the voices behind the cracked wallpaper, but she’s been well aware of the efforts to find her and of the now watchful eyes of her father, the suppressed anger of her husband.
BEAT #6
Martin hurries into the room and over to Karin, who anxiously twists the beads around her neck and stares fixedly, reverently, at the wall and closet door.
Martin’s action: STOPPING HER HALLUCINATION.
KARIN
(to Martin)
Walk quietly! They say he’ll
be here very soon. We must
be ready.
Karin’s reaction: PROTECTING HER VISION.
BEAT #7
MARTIN
Karin, we’re going to town.
Martin’s action: PULLING HER AWAY.
KARIN
I can’t leave now.
Karin’s reaction: STANDING HER GROUND.
BEAT #8
MARTIN
You’re wrong, Karin.
(looking at the closed door)
Nothing is happening in there.
(taking her shoulders)
No God will come through the door.
Martin’s action: DENYING THE EXISTENCE OF HER GOD.
KARIN
He’ll come at any moment.
And I must be here.
Karin’s reaction: DEFENDING HER FAITH.
MARTIN
Karin, it’s not so.
BEAT #9
KARIN
Not so loud! If you can’t be
quiet, go.
Karin’s action: ORDERING MARTIN AWAY.
MARTIN
Come with me.
KARIN
Must you spoil it? Leave me alone.
As David watches from the door, Karin pulls away from Martin, who withdraws to a chair, sits down, and cleans his glasses.
Martin’s reaction: RETREATING.
Karin is simply stronger than Martin. Unable to match her powerful will, he gives up and withdraws.
BEAT #10
Karin kneels to face the wall and clasps her hands in prayer.
KARIN
Martin, dearest, forgive me
for being so cross. But can’t
you kneel down beside me?
You look so funny sitting
there. I know you don’t
believe, but for my sake.
Karin’s action: DRAWING MARTIN INTO HER RITUAL.
Tears well up in Martin’s eyes, as in helpless anguish, he comes back to her and kneels.
Martin’s reaction: SURRENDERING TO HER.
All the while David watches from the doorway.
Karin wants everything to be perfect for the arrival of her God, so she brings the unbelieving Martin into her strange ritual.
BEAT #11
Martin takes Karin by the shoulders and buries himself in the crook of her neck, rubbing his tearful face against her skin.
MARTIN
Karin, dearest, dearest,
dearest.
Martin’s action: CARESSING HER.
Karin is repulsed. She pries his hand off and yanks away.
Karin’s reaction: FIGHTING HIM OFF.
Helpless in the face of her madness, Martin instinctively tries to seduce her out of her mania, but his caresses fail miserably.
BEAT #12
Karin folds her hands in front of her in prayer.
Karin’s action: PRAYING WITH ALL HER POWER.
Suddenly an ear-splitting ROAR fills the room. Karin’s eyes shift along the wall to the closet.
“God’s” reaction: ANNOUNCING “GOD’S” ARRIVAL.
BEAT #13
The closet door swings open, seemingly of its own accord.
“God’s” action: APPEARING TO KARIN.
Karin stands respectfully and smiles at something that seems to be emerging from the empty closet.
Karin’s reaction: RECEIVING HER “GOD.”
Outside the window, an ambulance helicopter descends from the sky.
In the background, David eyes the scene intently.
How and why does the door open by itself? Vibrations from the helicopter perhaps, but that’s not a
satisfactory explanation. By pure coincidence, just as Karin prays for a miracle, door and helicopter join forces to give it to her. Yet, amazingly, the action doesn’t seem contrived. For Bergman’s created, in Jungian terms, an event of Synchronicity: the fusion of meaningful coincidence around a center of tremendous emotion. By allowing us to hear Karin’s voices, by showing us her acute sensitivity to nature, and by dramatizing her burning need for a miracle, we come to expect the supernatural. Karin’s religious passion is at such a fever pitch that it creates a synchronous event that gives us a glimpse of something beyond the real.
BEAT #14
Karin stares into the closet; her face freezes as she sees something startling.
Karin’s “God’s” action: ATTACKING HER.
Suddenly, she screams in terror, and as if being pursued, runs across the room, jamming herself into a corner, bringing her legs and arms up to protect herself.
Karin’s reaction: FIGHTING OFF HER “GOD.”
BEAT #15
Martin grabs her.
Martin’s action: RESTRAINING HER.
She pushes him off and flees to another corner.
Karin’s reaction: ESCAPING MARTIN.