by Robert McKee
BEAT #16
As if something were crawling up her body, she presses her fists into her groin, then flails wildly at an unseen assailant.
“God’s” action: TRYING TO RAPE KARIN.
Karin’s reaction: BATTLING “GOD’S” RAPE.
Now David joins Martin and tries to hold her.
David’s reaction: HELPING HOLD HER.
BEAT #17
But she breaks away and rushes out of the door into the
INT. UPSTAIRS HALL—SAME
and down the stairs.
Karin’s action: FLEEING.
INT. ON THE STAIRS—SAME
Suddenly, Minus appears at the bottom.
Minus blocks her way. Karin stops and stares at her brother.
Minus’s reaction: TRAPPING HER.
BEAT #18
David grabs her and pulls her down onto the stairs. Martin arrives with a syringe. Karin fights like a trapped animal.
Martin’s and David’s action: SEDATING HER.
MARTIN
Hold her legs.
She thrashes in their arms as Martin struggles to give her an injection.
Karin’s reaction: WILDLY RESISTING THE NEEDLE.
BEAT #19
She leans against her father and looks steadily into the anxious face of her brother.
The sedative’s action: CALMING HER.
Karen’s reaction: SURRENDERING TO THE DRUG.
David’s and Martin’s reaction: CALMING THEMSELVES.
Minus’s reaction: TRYING TO UNDERSTAND.
BEAT #20
KARIN
I was suddenly afraid.
Karin’s action: WARNING MINUS.
All three men’s reaction: LISTENING QUIETLY.
KARIN
(slowly explaining
to her brother)
The door opened. But the god
that came out was a spider.
He came towards me and I
saw his face. It was a horrible,
stony face. He crawled
up me and tried to force himself
into me. But I defended
myself. The whole time I saw
his eyes. They were calm and
cold. As he couldn’t force his
way into me, he climbed up
onto my breast, onto my face
and went up the wall.
(a long look into
Minus’s eyes)
I have seen God.
Although the spider-god rape is a delusion thrown up from her subconscious, once back in reality she treats the hallucination with ironic respect. She offers her terrifying discovery to all three men, but primarily to Minus as a cautionary tale, warning her brother that prayers will not be answered.
Step Four: Note Closing Value and Compare with Opening Value
Karin’s encounter with the spider-god turns the scene from hope to hopelessness. She prays for an epiphany and gives this “miracle” to her father, knowing that because of his own incapacity for authentic emotion, he’s hungry for the life experiences of others to fill the pages of his novels. She offers faith to her husband, but his responses are limited to sexual gestures and medical posturing. Her “miracle” then explodes into a nightmare and her trust in God is shattered.
In the final beat, Karin gives her grotesque vision to her brother as a warning, but this last gesture is slight, compared to the scene’s dramatization of overwhelming despair. We’re left with the feeling that intellectualizing love, as the novelist and doctor do throughout the film, is pitifully weak in the face of the incomprehensible forces that inhabit our natures.
Step Five: Survey the Beats and Locate the Turning Point
Planning Her Escape/Concealing His Guilt
Escaping Her “God”/Helping Her
Searching for Karin/Helping Him Search
Praying/Rushing to Her and Preparing to Recapture Her
Preparing for Her Epiphany/Observing Her Madness and Fighting His Emotions.
Stopping Her Hallucination/Protecting Her Dream
Pulling Her Away/Standing Her Ground
Denying the Existence of God/Defending Her Faith
Ordering Martin Away/Retreating
Drawing Martin to Her Ritual/Surrendering to Her
Caressing Her/Fighting Him Off
Praying with All Her Power/Announcing “God’s” Arrival
Appearing to Karin/Receiving Her “God”
Attacking Karin/Fighting Off Her “God”
Restraining Her/Escaping Martin
Trying to Rape Karin/Battling “God”
Fleeing/Trapping Her
Sedating Her/Resisting the Needle
Calming Her/Calming Themselves and Trying to Understand
Warning Minus/Listening Quietly
Beats begin lightly, almost comically, then progress rapidly. Each action/reaction tops the previous exchange, demanding more from all the characters, and, in particular, demanding more and more willpower from Karin to survive her horrifying visions. The gap opens between Beats #13 and #14 when Karin’s expectation of God results in a sexual attack by a hallucinatory spider. Unlike the revelation that turns the scene from CASABLANCA, the Turning Point of this Climax pivots on action—in this case, an action of appalling power taken by the protagonist’s subconscious mind.
These superb scenes have been used to demonstrate the technique of analysis. Although they differ in levels of conflict and quality of actions, they share the same essential form. What is virtually perfect in them would be flawed in others of lesser worth. Ill-written scenes may lack conflict because desires are not opposed, may be antiprogressive because they’re repetitious or circular, lopsided because their Turning Points come too early or too late, or lacking credibility because dialogue and action are “on the nose.” But an analysis of a problematic scene that tests beats against scene objectives, altering behavior to fit desire or desire to fit behavior, will lead to a rewrite that brings the scene to life.
12
COMPOSITION
Composition means the ordering and linking of scenes. Like a composer choosing notes and chords, we shape progressions by selecting what to include, to exclude, to put before and after what. The task can be harrowing, for as we come to know our subject, every story possibility seems alive and squirming in a different direction. The disastrous temptation is to somehow include them all. Fortunately, to guide our efforts the art has evolved canons of composition: Unity and Variety, Pacing, Rhythm and Tempo, Social and Personal Progression, Symbolic and Ironic Ascension, and the Principle of Transition.
UNITY AND VARIETY
A story, even when expressing chaos, must be unified. This sentence, drawn from any plot, should be logical: “Because of the Inciting Incident, the Climax had to happen.” JAWS: “Because the shark killed a swimmer, the sheriff had to destroy the shark.” KRAMER VS. KRAMER: “Because Kramer’s wife left him and her child, only husband and wife could finally settle custody.” We should sense a causal lock between Inciting Incident and Story Climax. The Inciting Incident is the story’s most profound cause, and, therefore, the final effect, the Story Climax, should seem inevitable. The cement that binds them is the Spine, the protagonist’s deep desire to restore the balance of life.
Unity is critical, but not sufficient. Within this unity, we must induce as much variety as possible. CASABLANCA, for example, is not only one of the most loved films of all time, it’s also one of the most various. It’s a brilliant Love Story, but more than half the film is Political Drama. Its excellent action sequences are counter-pointed by urbane comedy. And it’s the next thing to a Musical. Over a dozen tunes, strategically placed throughout, comment on or set up event, meaning, emotion.
Most of us are not capable of this much variety, nor would our stories warrant it, but we don’t want to hit the same note over and over, so that every scene sounds like every other. Instead, we seek the tragic in the comic, the political in the personal, the personal driving the political, the extraordinary behi
nd the usual, the trivial in the exalted. The key to varying a repetitious cadence is research. Superficial knowledge leads to a bland, monotonous telling. With authorial knowledge we can prepare a feast of pleasures. Or at the very least, add humor.
PACING
If we slowly turn the screw, increasing tension a little more, a little more, a little more, scene by scene by scene by scene, we wear the audience out long before the ending. It goes limp and has no energy to invest in the Story Climax. Because a story is a metaphor for life, we expect it to feel like life, to have the rhythm of life. This rhythm beats between two contradictory desires: On one hand, we desire serenity, harmony, peace, and relaxation, but too much of this day after day and we become bored to the point of ennui and need therapy. As a result, we also desire challenge, tension, danger, even fear. But too much of this day after day and again we end up in the rubber room. So the rhythm of life swings between these poles.
The rhythm of a typical day, for example: You wake up full of energy, meet your gaze in the morning mirror, and say: “Today I’m going to get something done. No, I mean it for a change. Today I’m definitely getting something done.” Off you go to “get something done” through a minefield of missed appointments, unreturned calls, pointless errands, and unrelenting hassle until you take a welcome midday lunch with friends to chat, sip wine, relocate your sanity, relax and gather your energies so you can go off to do battle with the demons of the afternoon, hoping to get done all the things you didn’t get done in the morning—more missed calls, more useless tasks, and never, never enough time.
Finally you hit the highway home, a road packed with cars with only one person in each. Do you car pool? No. After a hard day on the job, the last thing you want is to jump into a car with three other jerks from work. You escape into your car, snap on the radio, and get in the proper lane according to the music. If classical, you hug the right; if pop, down the middle of the road; if rock, head left. We moan about traffic but never do anything about it because, in truth, we secretly enjoy rush hour; drive-time is the only time most of us are ever alone. You relax, scratch what needs scratching, and add a primal scream to the music.
Home for a quick shower, then off into the night looking for fun. What’s fun? Amusement park rides that scare the life out of you, a film that makes you suffer emotions you’d never want in life, a singles bar and the humiliation of rejection. Weary, you fall into the rack and next dawn start this rhythm all over again.
This alternation between tension and relaxation is the pulse of living, the rhythm of days, even years. In some films it’s salient, in others subtle. TENDER MERCIES eases dramatic pressure gently up, then gently down, each cycle slowly increasing the overall tension to Climax; THE FUGITIVE sculpts tension to sharp peaks, then ebbs briefly before accelerating higher still. Each film speaks in its natural accent, but never in flat, repetitious, passive non-events, or in unrelenting, bludgeoning action. Whether Archplot, Miniplot, or Antiplot, all fine stories flux with the rhythm of life.
We use our act structure to start at a base of tension, then rise scene by sequence to the Climax of Act One. As we enter Act Two, we compose scenes that reduce this tension, switching to comedy, romance, a counterpointing mood that lowers the Act One intensity so that the audience can catch its breath and reach for more energy. We coach the audience to move like a long-distance runner who, rather than loping at a constant pace, speeds, slows, then speeds again, creating cycles that allow him to reach the limit of his reserves. After retarding pace, we build the progressions of the following act until we top the previous Climax in intensity and meaning. Act by act, we tighten and release tension until the final Climax empties out the audience, leaving it emotionally exhausted but fulfilled. Then a brief Resolution scene to recuperate before going home.
It’s just like sex. Masters of the bedroom arts pace their love-making. They begin by taking each other to a state of delicious tension short of—and we use the same word in both cases—climax, then tell a joke and shift positions before building each other to an even higher tension short of climax; then have a sandwich, watch TV, and gather energy to then reach greater and greater intensity, making love in cycles of rising tension until they finally climax simultaneously and the earth moves and they see colors. The gracious storyteller makes love to us. He knows we’re capable of a tremendous release… if he paces us to it.
RHYTHM AND TEMPO
Rhythm is set by the length of scenes. How long are we in the same time and place? A typical two-hour feature plays forty to sixty scenes. This means, on average, a scene lasts two and a half minutes. But not every scene. Rather, for every one-minute scene there’s a four-minute scene. For every thirty-second scene, a six-minute scene. In a properly formatted screenplay a page equals a minute of screen time. Therefore, if as you turn through your script, you discover a two-page scene followed by an eight-page scene, a seven-page scene, three-page scene, four-page, six-page, five-page, one-page, nine-page—in other words, if the average length of scene in your script is five pages, your story will have the pace of a postal worker on Valium.
Most directors’ cameras drink up whatever is visually expressive in one location within two or three minutes. If a scene goes on longer, shots become redundant. The editor keeps coming back to the same establishing shot, same two-shot, close-up. When shots repeat, expressivity drains away; the film becomes visually dull and the eye loses interest and wanders from the screen. Do this enough and you’ll lose the audience for good. The average scene length of two to three minutes is a reaction to the nature of cinema and the audience’s hunger for a stream of expressive moments.
When we study the many exceptions to this principle, they only prove the point. TWELVE ANGRY MEN takes place over two days in a jury room. In essence, it consists of two fifty-minute scenes in one location, with a brief break for a night’s sleep. But because it’s based on a play, director Sidney Lumet could take advantage of its French Scenes.
In the Neoclassical period (1750–1850) the French theatre strictly obeyed the Unities: A set of conventions that restricted a play’s performance to one basic action or plot, taking place in one location within the time it takes to perform. But the French realized that within this unity of time and space the entrance or exit of principal characters radically changes the dynamics of relationships and in effect creates a new scene. For example, in a garden setting young lovers play a scene together, then her mother discovers them. Her entrance so alters character relationships that it effects a new scene. This trio has a scene, then the young man exits. His exit so rearranges the relationship between mother and daughter that masks fall and a new scene begins.
Understanding the principle of French scenes, Lumet broke the jury room into sets within the set—the drinking fountain, cloakroom, window, one end of the table versus the other. Within these sublocations, he staged French Scenes: First jury members #1 and #2, then #2 exits while #5 and #7 enter, CUT TO #6 alone, CUT TO all twelve, CUT TO five of them off in a corner, and so on. The over eighty French Scenes in TWELVE ANGRY MEN build an exciting rhythm.
MY DINNER WITH ANDRE is even more contained: a two-hour film about a two-hour dinner with two characters and therefore no French Scenes. Yet the film pulses with rhythm because it’s paced with scenes created, as in literature, by painting word pictures on the imagination of the listener: the adventure in the Polish forest, Andre’s friends burying him alive in a bizarre ritual, the synchronistic phenomenon he encounters in his office. These erudite recountings wrap an Education Plot around an Education Plot. As Andre (Andre Gregory) relates his quixotic adventure toward spiritual development, he so cants his friend’s view of life that Wally (Wallace Shawn) leaves the restaurant a changed man.
Tempo is the level of activity within a scene via dialogue, action, or a combination. For example, lovers talking quietly from pillow to pillow may have low tempo; an argument in a courtroom, high tempo. A character staring out a window coming to a vital life decision may ha
ve low tempo; a riot, high tempo.
In a well-told story, the progression of scenes and sequences accelerates pace. As we head toward act climaxes, we take advantage of rhythm and tempo to progressively shorten scenes while the activity in them becomes more and more brisk. Like music and dance, story is kinetic. We want to use cinema’s sensory power to hurl the audience toward act climaxes because scenes of major reversal are, in fact, generally long, slow, and tense. “Climactic” doesn’t mean short and explosive; it means profound change. Such scenes are not to be skimmed over. So we open them and let them breathe; we retard pace while the audience holds its breath, wondering what’s going to happen next.
Again, the Law of Diminishing Returns applies: The more often we pause, the less effective a pause is. If the scenes before a major Climax are long and slow, the big scene in which we want the tension to hold falls flat. Because we’ve dragged the energies of the audience through sluggish scenes of minor importance, events of great moment are greeted with a shrug. Instead, we must “earn the pause” by telescoping rhythm while spiraling tempo, so that when the Climax arrives, we can put the brakes on, stretch the playing time, and the tension holds.
The problem with this design, of course, is that it’s a cliché. D. W. Griffith mastered it. Filmmakers of the Silent Era knew that something as trivial as another chase to collar the bad guys can feel tremendous if pace is excited by making scenes ever shorter and tempo ever hasty. But techniques don’t become clichés unless they have something important going for them in the first place. We, therefore, cannot, out of ignorance or arrogance, ignore the principle. If we lengthen and slow scenes prior to a major reversal, we cripple our Climax.