Unit 1.

Film Narrative: The Basics

What's the potential relevance film narrative conventions can have to audiovisual
translation? Why do you need to learn about them? We will deal with the way
understanding the mechanisms of film storytelling may help us make more informed,
accurate choices; being aware of what's at stake in storytelling choices will contribute
to make our translation say exactly what we want it to say.

Anybody who does any kind of translation works with language and needs to be aware
of how language works, what its resources are. Film is also a language: there are
conventions for storytelling, and conventions create meaning and coherence. And
understanding the language entails understanding the functions of each specific
element in film. This unit helps you have a more structural view of how films work, so
that as a translator you can always be aware of what the film is trying to do and what
each segment of the film is trying to achieve within the general structure.

The next two units are about how films organize themselves to construct stories. It will
give you an overview of basic film structures. Some of them are common to many
other kinds of narrative and can apply to TV series, novels, short stories or plays,
although each media has its own specific set of conventions. In the first unit, we'll look
at general structures that apply to most narrative films. It is true that many films,
particularly art films deviate from the norm. But it is always useful to know the norm.
And deviation creates meaning. The second unit will look at specifics: different types of
films have different configurations. Recognising the "type" can help you understand
what the film is about.

Concepts: Acts, Climax, Midpoint, Turning point, plot, character, characterization,

inciting incident, causal chain, diegesis, exposition, rhyme, hanging cause, motive,
controlling idea, narrative agenda, motivation.

Texts: Be warned that books on scriptwriting keep on proliferating and although they
share a vision on how successful plots are constructed, the fact is that they also clash
on some aspects, shift emphasis or use different terminology. In this unit I shall be
drawing from several basic manuals. Robert McKee’s Story (translated into Spanish as
El guion) is a compelling description of story-writing conventions which quickly
became one of the bestsellers of the genre. As for McKee, his live seminars also
became hugely successful among academics (if you’ve seen Spike Jonze’s film
Adaptation, there is a parody both of McKee, played by Brian Cox, and of one of his
seminars). Christopher Vogler’s The Writer’s Journey, also a big hit in scriptwriting
courses, takes a whole different approach, reducing all plots to a series of stages based
on the metaphor of the jouney or the quest. He provides aspiring scriptwriters with a
12-step structure which is uncannily similar to Lord of the Rings.

Kristin Thompson’s Storytelling in Contemporary Hollywood uses a distillation of

scriptwriting manuals to create a basic structure which she then goes on to use on
several Hollywood films. For those who are interested in a more history-based approach,
the indispensable volume is David Bordwell, Janet Staiger and Kristin Thompson’s section
on the script in their collective Classical Hollywood Cinema. Bordwell also wrote The Way
Hollywood Tells It, a kind of follow-up based on the evolution of classical film narrative
which is interesting to apply those principles to contemporary films. It constitutes a good
summary of key ideas and it has de advantage of applying them to contemporary trends in
film storytelling.

It would be impossible to give a comprehensive view of what experts say in just two short
units. If you’d like to extend your knowledge on scriptwriting (which you are strongly
advised to do), you should study the books suggested. However, there are some key
concepts and ideas that will be useful when approaching a script for translation as they will
help you give a name to what the script is “doing” at each point.

1.Telling stories

Storytelling has always been there. As human societies were first being constituted,
individuals felt the need to communicate certain events, for instance about a particularly
exciting hunting expedition. That’s story: it needs to be structured, and events in the
hunting expedition needed to be selected; the story could be just a description but often
had a point. For instance communicating someone was very brave. Or a coward. Or that
something funny happened as the bear came closer. Or that so and so stole some food as
he passed by a neighbour's cave on his way back.

A hunting expedition is an event, but the event itself is not the story. The story is about
selection and structure. But some things just could not be described in any realistic way.
And although descriptions can be stories, many stories are just imagination: when our
cavemen were lost and confused about nature phenomena or about relationships, they
also used well structured imagined narratives to fix reality. They invented superhuman
divinities who could control nature in exchange for sacrifices, rituals or certain behaviors.
Their narratives on supernatural forces or on how to relate to each other might have been
invented, but they had very real effects in the organization of society. And narratives
worked better if they were “well explained”. Again, one needed to put together events in
a way that was convincing: movies do the same. Sometimes the ritual of storytelling was
the key: stories had to be staged to convey meaning more forcefully. At other times, the
main issue was to tell the story in ways that were successful. Not much has actually
changed.

We still tell stories either to “re-present” reality, to mistify aspects of our lives or to give a
certain structure to chaos. Stories still create ways to perceive reality. There are many
ways to tell stories. From pieces of legislation to newscasts. Through literature and
theatre. And definitely through film.

1.1 Conventions and individual choices.

Telling a basic story

It seems easy. Imagine something happens on your way home. An old lady slips on a
banana skin, people come to help her, she says something funny. You get home, and want
to relay this moment to your partner. Simple, isn´t it? The story almost “tells itself”. If
“telling a story” were such a straightforward process, we would not need to discuss plot
mechanisms or conventions. Actually, it’s a bit like taking for granted that
“transparent” translation is straightforward, that texts can somehow “translate themselves”.

But it does not really work out that way. In putting the anecdote into words we’ll have to organize our
material, no matter how simple this was. The scene may have lasted a minute, but the amount of
things going on in that minute could take much longer to be explained in detail. We’ll probably have to
provide some background, so that our listener knows we are talking about. Sometimes we may choose
to be more explicit about where we were coming from, where we were going. Then we’ll have to
structure it. Events are always complex, so we need to organize them in some kind of straight line in
order to explain them. And then we’ll need to start a process of selection: do we want to describe the
lady? Was there something funny about her that somehow accounts for the whole story? Do we want
to focus on the actions of a particular passerby? On top of that, we might choose a perspective: do we
want to tell the story as something funny? Do we want to use it to make social critique about the
people involved? Do we want to use it as example of how the city council should clean more often? We
might prefer to be detached, but we might be involved in the story, being considered as a character. Or
add pathos. Link it to other personal experiences. And then there is our listener. What kind of story will
go down well with our listener at that point? Does he or she have a sense of humour? Does he or she
have a grandmother who went through a similar experience? And so on: choices are almost endless.

In a film script, like in our story, choices produce meaning. Primarily, the story is "about" the old lady.
But the choices provide another layer of meaning.

Conventions and personal choices

The fact is there are choices to any story. Stories need certain elements to be considered stories and
we need to structure them in certain ways to maximize meaning or to make them more personal
(comedy, suspense, social criticisms are possible ways to “personalize” the above). There are rules to
those structures. We need a point to start from. We need to choose our ending (we shall use the word
"closure"). And a development has to be worked out (in drama and film the standard is to use a "three
act" structure). Development has to hold attention and hopefully be smooth. And then there are
“better” ways to tell the story. And the rules become even more complex if we decide to add a
particular intention to our story (making it really humourous, for instance). We always make individual
choices, but the repertoire of possible structures is well established and precedes those choices.

Because storytelling in general is such a complex matter, we shall restrict ourselves to film storytelling
and the particular sets of conventions that most scriptwriters tend to use. There are reasons why this
particular set of conventions (that we will label as as “classical scriptwriting”) are more relevant to
translators than in the case of literature. Film narratives tend to be very economic, as commercial films
usually ran under two hours (recently there are many exceptions). As a consequence, meaning in film
both about what characters say AND about maximizing meaning. Scriptwriters tend to have only under
a couple of hours to tell a full story. Besides, audiences have to be able to follow, so clarity is more
important than in a novel, where things can be explained and readers can stop and think. Conventions
will contribute to make the film both comprehensible and engaging.
1.2. Early storytelling.

The essentials of storytelling

In order to understand what’s at stake in storytelling, it is useful to look at the most basic manifestations of it. In
the next section we shall follow the evolution of storytelling, focusing on how it became a stable system of
conventions known as
“classical storytelling”.

To start with, most figurative paintings tend to have some kind of narrative content. Any image will imply the
tree basic elements of storytelling: a sense of time, a sense of space and a point of view. Let’s focus on each of
these by looking at the image on your right. The example is a Courtyard Scene by Pietr De Hooch.

Sense of time: a painting represents a moment which implies a previous one and another that will follow. The
painting may represent a relatively quiet, uneventful moment, but it´s not hard to imagine a “before” and an
“after” the moment represented. The story would consist of a timeline that goes from what happened before to
what happened after.

Try to construct a timeline out of this image. Of course you’ll have to guess your
“before” and your “after”.

Sense of Space: framing implies cutting space in a given way, making decisions about focus, about what we want
to show and what will remain outside. In this painting framing is perfectly balanced and it shows an attitude
towards the world. The point of view is there, but attempts to be unobtrusive. There are also other decisions to
be made. Depth, for instance. And the relationship between what we see and what lies outside of the frame.

Think about the same scene with a different sense of space and what it would communicate.

Point of view: as hinted above, this is related to the use of space. To “re-present” is to recycle, to stage
something; a “re-presented image” would not exist if someone was not representing it, making numerous
decisions about this re-presentation.

Can you think of a different point of view projected into this scene? Could you suggest some changes in the
painting that might alter the original point of view?
From still images to moving images:

The earliest films are clumsy in narrative terms, they follow very few rules, but clearly they
need to make decisions about space, time and point of view. Those three areas are at the
inception of film narrative.

The earliest film narratives tended to be minimal events: there was no intention to keep
audiences’ attention for long periods and some of the earlier filmmakers were closer to
magicians than actual storytellers.

An example from one of the earliest “narrative films”: a gardener is watering plants, a kid
puts his foot on the pump, the gardener looks into it, the kid withdraws the foot, the
gardener gets soaked.

But even at its simplest, decisions needed to be made about framing, the order of events and
whether the treatment is comic or dramatic.

Most primitive films just presented similar anecdotes and people attended them moved by
the novelty of the new technology. But by 1900, the technological trick had stopped being
fun in itself, and new, more complex stories began to be explored so that duration could be
extended.

There were issues to think about: for instance how do you hold attention when you put
events together. One solution was to make the story engaging, including a sense of logic,
telling something that audiences might relate to. Another solution was to use spectacular
effects. Early filmmakers like Georges Meliés specialized in creating special effects. Those
two directions have always been present to some extent in film. There are filmmakers who
make efforts to produce stories which are “real” and believable so that people can relate to
them; and also there are filmmakers who want to fascinate, shock or delight even if the
content is minimal and completely unrealistic. Ideally, a balance had to be found between
sensation and logic, between spectacle and plot, between the surprise and the event.

Introducing the classical model

The classical narrative model is the answer. The “classical narrative model” is a series of
conventions and structures that make film storytelling smooth and clear. Because they are
logical and they are repeated in each film, audiences can easily become familiar with them.
Any story told through those structures or conventions will seem to be more readable or
make more sense.

The general objective was to turn the balance between plot and spectacle into some sort of
general set of structures that could make this possible, thus encouraging longer narratives
that did not feel just like a series of events put together.

From the 1910s, most conventions that constitute the classical narrative model come into
place. Some have to do with framing and depth of field. Others suggest ways to
put events and images together. Yet another set of conventions have to do with narrative
structure: telling a story in a certain way it will be more clear. They are still a basic film
grammar. Filmmakers don’t have to follow every convention every time, but as a starting
point, they are still worth knowing.

Basic Film Conventions

If these are more or less constant, if films tend to be framed all following the same spatial
conventions, then it will be easier for audiences to “read” the frame, thus making it easier
for them to “engage” with content. So, for instance, it was important to keep focus on the
center of the frame and “close” the sides as far as possible, so people knew where to look.
The film became a tightly framed “stage” rather than a
“window” into the world. Rules also affected the way light fell on characters. And the
relationship between what was seen and what remained “outside of the frame”.
Conventions were repeated in each film and they became “natural” to the extent that,
when broken, audiences could easily be “disoriented” and lose interest. But films, like
paintings, can be said to "teach" people where to look.

Another set of conventions regulated editing and the treatment of time. Early films were
simplistic in the way they represented time. Editing normally indicated progress in time.
Editing was also used to show detail. A whole system of editing norms, outlining what kind
of progression of shots would make storytelling “fluid” or not, was introduced. It is easy
now for contemporary audiences to read editing and we consider it “natural”, but the fact
is that even relatively simple conventions like shooting a conversation using a shot and a
counter-shot had to be introduced. Editing constituted a conventional “film grammar”.

Even now, if you want to turn an event into a story you might benefit from following this
grammar. The recipe is more or less as follows.

Think of an event, for instance a lecture. Of course too many things happen in a lecture
with twenty students, so it is important to select a strand. Grammatically the clearest
way to do it would be to start with a general shot that gave you an overview of the
relative positions of the students and the lecturer. Then you would start cutting
between the lecturer, who teaches and the different reactions of the students. We
might choose to show bored faces. Amused faces. Complicit faces. Interested faces. We
might choose to focus on students interactions among them. And we might find smaller
events going on while the lecture progresses. Again, editing would help us focusing on
details.

One outcome of conventions was that they make films more easily “readable”. It was also
important to make them more “transparent”. As suggested, one result of transparency is
to create the impression that “films tell themselves”. This is a concept we have already
encountered. Classicism in film is a kind of “degree zero” of film storytelling. It’s not the
only alternative, but it is the one that becomes a blueprint for everything else. And it is
some kind of ideal which was especially imposed in periods
when film worked as a compact industry (basically in “classical” Hollywood, between 1920 and 1960). You
have to remember that film was supposed to address millions of spectators: it was worth having a basic
system that appealed to as many people as possible.

Classical conventions also apply to narrative and we shall see some of them in the next section. The key
idea to remember now is that classical narrative is all about making films clear, efficient, engaging and
conventional. This is why classicism is so successful in terms of audiences. This is also why some educated
audiences find it boring and repetitive. Of course once we assimilate these norms, we take them for
granted. Some of us will feel comfortable with them. Others may want something new, or even
experimental.

Non classical narratives

Are all narratives classical? Do we always need to follow editing, framing and script conventions? Not really.
Some films are successful in spite of not following strict conventions, and an ideal for artists tends to be
originality. And by breaking the rules we might not only make our films more original, but also create effects
that might surprise audiences. But as scriptwriting gurus like McKee keep on insisting, scriptwriters must
know the rules before they break them. And breaking them will always have a meaning: you are doing
something your audience does not expect. A film like Memento (Christopher Nolan, 2000), which follows
two timelines, one of them that goes "forward" and another going "backwards", takes you out of your
comfort zone and you have to actually work at putting the pieces together. It is rewarding to do so. But
some people might lose patience. Besides, knowledge of basic classical structures will help audiences to
make sense of the reverse .

Other directors can opt for the rougher, less careful framings of neo realist film or the sophisticated, almost
abstract ones of Antonioni. They will achieve intense effects. But their films will be less easily readable and
audiences will find them harder to follow.

The same thing can be said about plots. Authors can choose to make them impressionistic, disjointed,
absurd, and they can be successful. But they will also introduce difficulties and short circuit expectations.
Ambivalence is a feature of life but not so much of classical film.

European art film is successful because it opposes the “easy choices” of classicism, providing ambiguity,
open endings, intellectual plots, slow tempos and spatial disorientation.

2. Film Elements and concepts

In his best selling Story, Robert McKee gives a condensed recipe for classical storytelling structure:

Structure is a selection of events from the characters’ life stories that is composed into a strategic
sequence to arouse specific emotions and to express a specific view of life.

So when preparing a structure writers need to “select” and “organize” events in order to “engage”
audiences’ attention and “express” a worldview. In the next section we shall explore further the
mechanisms that make up classical storytelling.
2.1. Character

In real life, speech and action don´t have to construct character. One cannot be thinking about consciously
conveying an idea about oneself that will have a narrative impact (although social theorists such as Erwing
Goffman have seen social interaction in terms of performance). But film dialogue is produced so that
what characters say and the way they say it contribute to push the narrative forward. And character
information needs to be explained to audiences so that they are able to follow the narrative.

Narrative characters are constructed, first, through external appearance: costume, make up, casting
decisions, gestures and the kind of works performers do.

For script analysts, though, the essence of character is not what he o she look like, but their decisions
within the demands of the narrative and the way those decisions lead to personal change. This is the main
lesson scripts gurus such as Robert McKee attempt to teach their students. For McKee, character is plot
and plot is character.

Good film characters have desire, a wish, a program or a lack that they need to address. McKee insists
that in good popular films we need to care about these. Those elements become the spine of the plot.
They need to be active in order to deal with desire or pursue their agenda. Also it is recommended that,
in the case of the protagonist, they balance out positive and negative aspects.

In Se7en detective Mills (Brad Pitt) has qualities but he also has flaws. Among the latter, he is
enthusiastic, idealistic, active, energetic and a good husband; among the latter, he is impatient in
general and with other people and he is unworldly. Both his qualities and the flaws will be responsible
for his evolution in the film and eventually will decide his fate.

2.2 Plot

We have already introduced this word in our illustration of storytelling: it referred to the organization of
elements in the story. “Plot” is an organized series of events that communicate the story content. Experts
like Bordwell suggest that most films start out of a situation of equilibrium or balance. Something happens
and that balance is broken. Plot development is aimed to restore balance according to a different set of
rules. Plot does not have to be organized chronologically, but strategically. In terms of progress, the plot
works according to causality. Think of causality as the "glue" to storytelling: we move from episode A to
episode B because B is the effect of A. If too many events or episodes in a film happen without a cause,
audiences are likely to lose interest or become confused. The main motor of narration in film, then, is a
chain of causes and effects. Causes are psychological or ethical: a decision or a flaw can be the cause of
an event. This cause will have an effect, and so on. The first cause that gets the chain started in a film is
called “inciting incident”.

In Up in the Air we start with a situation of balance for our protagonist. He is, he tells us, perfectly
happy living “up in the air”. Professionally: he is good at his job, a job that requires a lot of traveling.
Emotionally: he has no attachments and he does not believe in them. Psychologically: he likes to live
out of a suitcase. But things are
going to change. The inciting incident is the arrival to his company of Natalie, a new efficiency expert
with a plan to keep staff “grounded” and working online: soon he won´t be able to live “up in the
air”. After many plot events, and learning different truths about himself and others, he will come
back to the situation he had at the start, but this “new” equilibrium, ironically, does not make him
happy anymore.

Although causes can be natural, classical Hollywood cinema tends to link causes to characters:
individuals´s actions and psychology are the cause for any narrative twist.

Even in disaster films like Titanic there is an element of personal responsibility alongside the natural
forces causing the catastrophe.

2.3. Structure

Film structure needs to be tight as time to tell a story is limited. In order to focus narrative material,
scriptwriting experts tend to divide it into a number of large sections. Those sections are called “acts” in
most manuals. Basically, they help guide audiences' attention. The most typical type of structure
includes three such sections (“three act structure”) but Kristin Thompson interestingly likes the idea of
dividing the second act into two shorter units separated by the “midpoint” (right at the center of the
film). An “act” is a unit of meaning which is logical: in classical terms there were “preparation”,
“development” and “denouement”. The “midpoint” is an important turning point (see below), literally
in the middle of the film (or very close to the middle) in which crucial information is provided that
redefines the film’s agenda and prepares the conclusion. Once we get used to working with "acts", we
develop expectations on what is supposed to happen.

First act: sets up the plot by introducing characters and their dreams, desires, lack or problems to be
overcome in the plot. More than one “strands” can be introduced: a “strand” is a more or less
independent line of events with its own development. Most films develop more than one strand:
normally there is an “external” plot (for instance professional) and an individual plot (for instance a
“love strand” or a “family feelings” strand). For many analyst, good protagonists should have several
dimensions to account for more than one strand: typically each character has psychological evolution, a
professional development and emotional relationships.

Although it can happen later, one crucial task of the first act is exposition: giving the background to the
situation or explaining how the character got to where he is at the start of the plot. This can slow down
the story and easily become boring. At the same time it’s necessary. The challenge is to make it as
synthetic and inventive as one can.

In Casablanca “exposition” is done at least in three different ways. The first one, the voiceover
narration that comes right after the credits, is unoriginal and dull, but it is acceptable as it works as
an introduction to the film and it soon becomes an action sequence which underlines the essential.
The second is through dialogue: Rick’s Act I conversations with Renault and Strasser provide some
background (which clarifies
but also intensifies the mystery) about how or why he got to Casablanca. The third procedure
is the flashback that opens Act II, which finally clarifies the specific cause of Rick’s pain. Notice
how these three “expositions” all are different and refer to different spheres of narrative. Can
you imagine this was all done with a monologue during the first act? It would certainly stop the
narrative dead. Can you imagine the flashback came (chronologically) at the start of the film?
We would not be ready for it, it would not have any impact.

The first act also introduces the world of the story (also known as diegesis) and something we
might call “the story’s agenda”. It also includes what McKee calls “the inciting incident” (see
above) that starts the chain of causes and effects. Each strand in the plot may have one.

In Casablanca the theft of the letters of transit get the “thriller strand” going, whereas the
arrival of Ilsa is the inciting incident for the love strand of the plot.

After the agenda has been set up, the inciting incident initiates the chain of events. It can be a
coincidence or it can be something planned.

In Apt Pupil the first encounter between the kid and the nazi is a coincidence. To a certain
extent so is Ilsa coming into Rick’s café in Casablanca. In Se7en the Brad Pitt character has been
assigned to work with Morgan Freeman.

The first act normally constitutes about 25% of the length of the film. It can be a bit longer than
that, particularly when there are many strands or more than one protagonist. Classical films had
a strong protagonist and a less important second plot, but contemporary films can be more
ambitious in the amount of characters the plot is following, therefore needing more time for
characterization and exposition.

Second Act: The second act normally takes up to 50% of the film’s length. It develops the agenda
set up in act I. Normally more than one strand will be developed. There are two ways of
constructing strands: through subplots or through symbolic levels.

For instance, in Casablanca the story of the Bulgarian couple is a small subplot, but Rick’s story
also has several strands, including love or political activity. In Up in the Air there is a wonderful
interweaving of events that belong to a professional, psychological and emotional strands.
Looking at the second act we realize how the scriptwriter introduces reminders of each of them
whenever it has not been discussed for too long.

The way to progress through this long second act is by means of a chain of causes and effects.
And what moves the main character’s evolution tends to be overcoming obstacles: the
protagonist has certain intentions, an obstacle prevents him or her from realize them, then a
different strategy must be tried. The tighter this chain is organized, the easier it will be to keep
audiences’ attention alive. Events happen that send the plot into a slightly different direction; or
information comes up that gets us closer to the solution of the problem (this is the way clues
work in a mystery thriller).
One of the ways to organize this chain is through deadlines. As the end of the film approaches,
deadlines become shorter and more urgent.

In Casablanca, Major Strasser makes it clear he needs to keep Laszlo in town. Then he makes an
appointment to speak to him. Later he threatens to put him in prison
“that night” and before the climax he says Laszlo must die. Each deadline is shorter and more
threatening than the previous one, increasing pressure on the character.

For most authors classical film should reach a central point (normally close to the actual center of
the film) in which the agenda is redefined. This is what is known as
“the midpoint”. The midpoint changes the direction of development and redefines aims. This
redefinition cannot be too radical and in any case it needs to be related to the previous
development. The revised agenda set up at the midpoint will be resolved at the end.

In Apt Pupil, the midpoint is a game-changer: the nazi gets some leverage on Todd; in
Casablanca Rick learns that Ilsa was married when he first met her and it becomes clear that if
Laszlo wants to leave they will need to ask Rick.

Third Act: The third act tends to comprehend slightly less than 25% of the total length and it is
concerned with resolving issues. Characters need to achieve aims. Or not. Recent films ending in
a long action sequence (superhero movies such as Black Panther or Wonder Woman) have very
long third acts, but not much is resolved in them: they're all about things exploding and people
dying or being heroic.

For McKee, in classical films ending is irreversible: if characters fulfill their love through marriage,
for instance, audiences will tend to assume it will be forever after. If the world is saved, that will
also be final. It gives an idea of “how the world works” that must be satisfying. Classical endings
are about fixed meanings. Non classical plots tend to be more ambivalent or “open”.

Although it may not seem so, Casablanca offers a “closed” ending. The character has become
more open, more willing to participate in political events, more of a person. Although the
ending in Up in the Air leaves an open door to change, it is closed in form, as it ironically
presents the protagonist as a prisoner of his initial worldview. Apt Pupil is a story of corruption
and evil that ends confirming that evil from the nazi has been instilled into Todd. The Wizard of
Oz and Se7en end by expressing some moral point on life: the former is positive (“There’s no
place like home”); the latter makes it clear that the world is not worth saving but one must
keep on fighting.

2.4. Other key terms

Motive: A “motive” is a visual, verbal or musical element in a film that keeps on being repeated.
In the case of visual elements it can be charged with symbolic meaning or can clearly refer to
some plot element. Each time the element appears it will be “the same” but also “different”: its
position in a different section of the narrative is both a reminder that the plot element is still to be
resolved and a “handle” to follow the evolution of the plot.
Example: In Beginners, the first line in the script is this: “A single daisy stands in a vase
in an empty kitchen.” This image reoccurs several times later in the film. It becomes a
visual counterpart of the protagonist’s isolation and need to reach out. The object is not
external to the story world, but it is through repetition that it achieves full emotional
meaning.

Turning Point: “Turning point” means “change”. The plot changes direction through new
information or an unexpected event. A character corrects his or her objectives. Plots
progress through turning point. Inciting incidents are turning points that get the
protagonist started into his or her quest. Midpoints are radical turning points that redefine
the plot. For scriptwriting experts, each scene must entail some kind of
“turning”. Awareness of turning points is crucial for translators as it helps them articulate
how information makes the plot progress and to articulate exactly what information is
being given in each scene.

In Casablanca, learning that the woman accompanying Laszlo had met Rick before is an
important turning point. The information helps audiences understand better Rick’s
personality and guess how his character is going to develop. Each clue in Se7en is a
turning point: the list of library books used by the murderer, for instance; other truning
points are related to plot progress in a different way: the clash in the car between Mills
and Somerset after the first murder (as it establishes their initial relationship), the
invitation to dinner, the introduction of the apocalyptic theme during the library scene.

Hanging Cause: As explained above, films progress through a chain of causes and effects.
A “Hanging cause” is a cause which has not its effect yet; an unanswered question,
something unexplained to be developed later. Hanging causes tighten the structure by
creating anticipation and suspense.

“The letters of transit” in Casablanca are a “hanging cause” for a while, as they are
passed on to Rick and hidden before they become a key element in the plot.

Controlling Idea: This is a term introduced by Robert McKee, to refer to the hidden
gravitational center of the film. Whereas “theme” sounds general and too abstract
(many films could be “about love/justice/family/ etc”) a controlling idea is a way to find
the specific core of the film. In a way it works as its main agenda. Writer Paddy Chayefsky
told McKee that he always wrote the “controlling idea” of the film he was working on in a
piece of paper and put it somewhere visible; any idea he could have, he considered
whether it fit in with the controlling idea; if it didn´t then it was not included in the draft.

In your work for this module you will be asked to find the "controlling idea" of the film,
which is a way of discovering what the film is really about. The "controlling idea" is not
about describing the plot or the way events hang together. It is about the spirit of the film:
you need to identify what was the point, what the film is trying to communicate.

Casablanca is about “overcoming memories of a past love affair in order to become a

better person”. In Gosford Park it could be something like: “The class system in Britain,
preserved both by servants and aristocrats, worked to mystify relationships and hide
reality; in the mystification it coul lead to extreme acts”. Up in the Air: “Too much
freedom can lead to loneliness”.