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As discussed in parts 1, 2 and 3 of this series, Christopher Nolan’s screenplay Inception is deeply rooted in the principles of hypnosis.   Learning more about these principles may not only change the way you approach your own writing, but also help you understand new ways that you can break through writer’s block and build the writer’s life you’ve been seeking.

The Post Hypnotic Suggestion

Just like the idea, in Inception, that Robert Fischer’s father really loved him, a post hypnotic suggestion is an idea, delivered in deep trance, that the subconscious mind accepts as if it were true.

Post hypnotic suggestions are incredibly powerful, in that when done right, they become anchored in your consciousness, and begin to bring about real life changes in your every day reality.

As suggested in Inception, these post hypnotic suggestions only work if certain conditions are met:

• They are in alignment with the person’s beliefs.  (In other words you can’t “incept” a kind person to be violent, even though you can “incept” a person who desperately wants to write to take action).

• The person chooses to accept the suggestion.  This is why post hypnotic suggestions are more likely to work if they’re given by someone you trust– such as a respected teacher, a great hypnotist, or a person you can depend on (in the case of Inception, Eames masquerades as Peter Browning, the one person Robert truly believes in, to surreptitiously deliver the post-hypnotic suggestion)

• The suggestions, and the “dream” images used to get the person to them, are phrased in the right way for that particular person, using their own language, and their own symbolic systems.

The magic book used in last week’s hypnotic script is just one of many ways of delivering a post-hypnotic suggestion.  Just as the classical three step model is only one of many ways of using hypnosis to bring about profound change.

How Are You Incepting Yourself?

The truth is, you’re delivering post-hypnotic suggestions to yourself every single day, in the words you say to yourself, and the soundtrack running in your head.  And these suggestions can be even MORE powerful than the ones a hypnotist provides, because they are already perfectly aligned with your belief systems, come from a person you trust (yourself), and are perfectly phrased in the way that only you can say them.

So if post hypnotic suggestions really are this powerful– are so transformative, as suggested by Inception, that a person like Mal will continue to accept them as the truth, even if they are not true.  Are so powerful that a person like Robert Fischer can heal his whole relationship with his abusive father based on a simple thought.  Then its worth asking yourself, what are the post hypnotic suggestions that you’re giving yourself about your writing?  And what effect are they having on your writing life?

Stay tuned for next week’s article, in which I’ll be breaking down the structure of Inception in relation to the three step hypnotic technique.

As described in Parts 1 and 2 of the series, the organizing principles of Inception‘s “dream within a dream within a dream” structure seem to be drawn directly from a classical three-step approach to hypnosis.  This technique is used to help people create profound changes in their lives, by “incepting” suggestions for positive change into their subconscious minds.  Just as the architecture of Robert’s dream sequence in Inception is built around around the people, image systems, and beliefs Robert holds most dear, so too is a three step hypnotic technique built around the most resonant images for the person being hypnotized.

After an interview process during which the hypnotist gathers images that have emotional power to the writer, the hypnotist would then induce a trance in the person, creating a dream like journey– a series of three images down into hypnosis, and three images back up–  in which each image leads them deeper into trance, and closer to the transformation they are searching for, just like a dream within a dream.

The following is an example of how this technique could be utilized to help a writer break through writer’s block, by constructing a three step sequence of images with emotional resonance to the writer.

Three Steps Down

For example, if the writer loved the water, the first image might be of them floating in the ocean, feeling incredibly free.  The temperature of the water is exactly the temperature that that is right, and as they float along it feels like the water is caressing their skin.  In the distance, there is a dolphin splashing effortlessly through the water.  The dolphin dives deeper into the water and they find themselves longing to dive down with that dolphin…

This image would lead them to the next sequence, just like a dream within a dream.  Again, working with images that have emotional resonance to the writer.  So if they loved children, we might bring them to a scene at a playground, watching a young child playing happily, creating dream worlds full of magic and creativity, so carefree and playful, completely in touch with their most creative part, just as the writer once was.  The child invites the writer to join them…

This image would lead to the next dream within the dream.  The third level down into the writer’s subconscious, and the third step closer to the transformation they are seeking.  Perhaps they find themselves in a magical forest, where they are approached by someone they completely trust.  This could be a religious figure, like the Buddha or Jesus, a mother or father, or a teacher that they believe in.  The teacher leads them to a special place, a cave, a clearing, a secret room or chamber just for them.

And inside this secret place is an old leather bound book, in which the secret they need to bring about their transformation is written…  all they have to do is read the words, and they will already be transformed….

Those words are the post-hypnotic suggestion.  The key to change, which the subconscious mind will act upon and accept.  Just as in Inception, the hypnotist doesn’t even need to create the suggestion.  They simply need to create the book, and the subconscious mind will populate it with the suggestion it most needs right now…

Three Steps Back Up

Once the post hypnotic suggestion is delivered, the hypnotist brings the writer three steps back up, using different versions of the same images to anchor the suggestion, and project a positive future for the subconscious mind in which the person can experience the positive results of the change they have made, as if they had already occurred.

So taking the example previously discussed, as the writer exits the special place where the book was hidden, they can already feel how the secret contained in the book has transformed them.  As they find themselves in the magical forest, it’s like looking through new eyes… everything is so alive and magical.  It’s like there’s a story in every branch, every leaf, every sound.  Stories the writer is curious to explore, and excited to tell…

Their curiosity then carries them back once again to the playground, where they find themselves playing with the child, recapturing that childlike bliss that writing has always held for them, and always will, if they merely take the step today to open themselves to it.  As they see the child’s smiling face, they recognize that face… as a younger version of their own.  At that moment something shifts inside of them, some inner knowing, as they realize what that means…

…Ask that child, that younger self, if they would like to see the great future that lies ahead.  And they discover themselves back back in that ocean.  Only this time the adult and the child swim together with that dolphin, effortless, happy, free.  The dolphin dives, and the writer and child dive with him, together, swimming all the way to the bottom, where they discover a magical reflecting pool, in which they can see their own future.

And reflected in it, writer and child see the future that lies before them, the days of satisfaction as they work on their screenplay, the eager scribbling of endless ideas, a friend or trusted mentor guiding them, the completion of their first script, and then their next, and next, and next…  a crowded movie theatre in which a movie plays.  Their movie.  The one that’s been waiting inside them, just begging to be written down.    They can hear the applause of the audience.  The laughter.  Or maybe even the tears.  They can feel the pride welling up within them…

“How did I get here?” asks the child.

“We did it together” the writer tells the child… and it all began with the step we took today.

The Power of Hypnosis

If you’ve read this script, you already have some sense of how the hypnotic process works.  If the suggestions were right for you, you may have even seen yourself in that ocean, in that playground, in that magical forest, and in that secret room.  You may have discovered your own post hypnotic suggestion waiting in your own book, or simply felt the feeling of knowing even if you no longer remember the words.

And if these suggestions were right for you, with them you have already taken the first step of becoming the writer you want to be.

The images I used in this script are drawn from Jungian archetypes, but of course these images take on even more hypnotic power when they are shaped directly from your own symbolic systems, your own beliefs, and your own dreams.

Stay tuned for next week’s newsletter, in which I’ll be discussing post-hypnotic suggestion in relation to Inception.

As I discussed in last week’s article, the organizing principles of Inception’s dream within a dream within a dream structure almost perfectly mirror the classical hypnosis training one receives at a weekend certification class in hypnosis.

To understand how a movie can be built from this kind of organizing principle, you first need to know a little about hypnosis.

The Standard Three Step Hypnotic Technique

Weekend certifications in hypnosis generally teach a three step technique which corresponds almost perfectly with the “three dream” technique the characters in Inception are using to convince their subject, Robert Fischer, to break up his father’s company.

Just as the architecture of Robert’s dream sequence in Inception is  built around around the people, image systems, and beliefs Robert holds most dear, so too is a three step hypnotic technique built around the most resonant images for the person being hypnotized.

Dream Research and Hypnotic Research

A hypnotic session using this approach begins with an interview, during which the hypnotist gathers images that have emotional power to the person being hypnotized.

For example, if you were using this method to help a blocked writer pick up the pen after a long period of procrastination, you might begin with images that are not even related to writing, but which capture some of the emotions the person wishes they had when they were writing.

The hypnotist would then induce a trance in the person, creating a dream like journey– a series of three images down into hypnosis, and three images back up–  in which each image leads them deeper into trance, and closer to the transformation they are searching for, just like a dream within a dream.

With each step down, the value of the image is established, and with each step back up, the meaning of each image is deepened and adapted, associating that image with the change the person is seeking, and anchoring that change on a deep subconscious level– as if it had already happened.

The Power of Images

Movies are built around images, because movies are hypnotic.  They carry us out of our own world, and transport us into the dream world of the writer.  Each sequence of images leads us deeper into trance, until we begin to respond to the movie as if it were real, feeling real emotions for characters we know don’t actually exist.

We cry for losses that never happened, feel embarrassed for social gaffs that never actually occurred.  Our hearts race as if we were standing in the character’s shoes– as if their fear was our fear, or their love our love.  We root for them, we care about them.

And we begin to care about their images systems as if they were our own.

When Leonardo DiCaprio’s character, Cobb, sees his children but cannot see their faces, we begin to long for their reunion just as he does.  And when those children turn around and reveal their faces to him, it’s hard to fight the rush of emotion.

Are You Getting The Most Out Of Your Images?

As a writer, you can use the three step hypnotic process to craft a profound journey for your character.  Think about the images that most powerfully capture your character’s experience on the way down toward the heart of their journey, and how you can return to those images in new ways on the way back up in order to anchor and deepen the change your character is experiencing.

And while your at it, think about the hypnotic images that play in your own head as a writer.  What images do you chose to focus on?  What images are holding you back?  And how can you revisit, deepen, and adapt those images in order to anchor the future that you are seeking?

Whatever images you choose, if you get them right your subconscious mind will respond to them as if they were real– just like you do at the movies.  Perhaps it’s time to create some new variations.

Stay tuned next week for my most exciting Inception article yet– a powerful hypnotic script that uses the principles behind Inception to help you overcome your own creative blocks.

By now, you and everyone you know have probably seen Inception.  You’ve read reviews that wax poetic about its dream like nature, its visual innovation, and its extraordinarily ambitious thematic aspirations.

Perhaps you’ve even heard me lecture about Inception, and the ways I feel it could have pushed its themes even further.

The Hypnotic Basis of Inception

One of the truly interesting things about Inception is that its structure seems to be based upon the principles of hypnosis.  In fact, the organizing principles of the dream within a dream within a dream structure of the film almost perfectly mirror the classical hypnosis training one receives at a weekend certification class in hypnosis.

Your Screenplay’s Organizing Principles

Why is this important to you as a writer?  Because as writers we all need organizing principles around which to structure our character’s journey.  Usually we think of such structures in terms of acts and themes, but as Inception demonstrates, the truth is that almost any source of inspiration can become the organizing principal of your story:  from a question, to a character trait, to a work of art or piece of music, or in this case to a classical hypnosis certification class.

As writers we are not only students of screenwriting, we are also students of the world.  And the good news is: you can utilize the hypnotic principles behind Inception not only to inspire the way you create the structure of your own movie, but also to open up new avenues toward building your life as a writer.

An Exciting New Series of Articles

Over the next few weeks, I’ll be discussing the hypnotic principles behind Inception, and ways of applying them to your own writing.  I’ll also be describing ways that you can draw upon your own experiences to create organizing principles for your own movies– and harness those ideas to create unity for your script and profound journeys for your main characters.

To that end, we’ll not only be talking about the things that work in Inception, but also the things that could have been pushed further, to make the film even more dramatically successful and emotionally powerful.

Finally, we’ll be discussing ways that you can apply hypnotic principles in your life as a writer, in order to break through writer’s block, heal old wounds to your confidence, overcome procrastination, and create a better relationship between your writing and your editing brain.

Check back next week, for the first article in the series:  INCEPTION:  Understanding Hypnosis For Writers

As discussed in Part 1, Part 2, Part 3 and Part 4 of this series, the structure of Toy Story 3 is built around the theme of loyalty, and desperate desires of both its protagonists and antagonists to be loved and played with by children.  Love is the currency of Toy Story 3, the one thing that every character wants, and the one thing that has true value. In order to earn that love, the characters must each come to terms with loyalty in their own unique way, and come together to overcome the corrupting force of the greatest antagonist to loyalty: doubt.

Let Your Characters Earn Their Happy Endings

Just as the choices we make in response to the challenges of our lives define us as people, so too do the choices the toys make define them as characters.

In overcoming Lotso and the doubt he represents, the toys come to terms with their own lack of faith, and recapture their loyalty to Andy and to each other.

In doing so, they earn the true fulfillment of their own greatest wish, when Andy bestows them on a little girl, and plays with them one last time before moving on to the next phase of his life.

And that, of course, is why we cry.

Because as silly and zany as Toy Story 3 might be, it draws its structure upon the real emotions, the real desires, and the real losses that we all share as we grow older, say goodbye to old phases of our lives and move on to the new ones.

The desire to be played with.  The desire to be loved.  The desire to relive those cherished memories one last time.

Every Journey Begins With A Want

Just as the journey of your character begins with a simple want, so too does your journey as a screenwriter.  Take a moment to think about what you want today.  And what steps are you ready to take to achieve it.

Then come check out my upcoming screenwriting classes, now available here in New York City, and streamed live ONLINE via the internet.

Your journey begins today.

As discussed in Part 1 and Part 2 of this series, the structure of Toy Story 3 is built around a simple desire shared by its characters, and unified around a simple theme, loyalty.   As Andy grows older and heads off to college, the desperate desire of the toys to be loved and played with leads them to question their loyalty to Andy, and his loyalty to them.  This leads the toys to seek out a new home, and new love, at a daycare center, only to discover that the very thing they most want is likely to be their destruction.

But one of the things that makes the structure of Toy Story 3 so successful is the way it explores different variations of the same theme, though the journey of its main character, Woody the Cowboy, the one toy Andy still loves enough to take with him to college.

Push Your Characters To The Limit

Unlike the other toys, who turn their back on Andy when they think he doesn’t love them anymore, Woody is a character governed by his loyalty.  But it’s easy to be loyal when you’re the most loved toy in the toybox.  So Woody too must be tested.

The structure of Toy Story 3 is designed to test Woody to the greatest extent possible, by forcing him to choose between the one thing he truly wants, to stay with his beloved Andy, and saving his friends from certain death at the hands of the daycare toddlers.

Remaining loyal to his friends, Woody risks losing the one thing he truly wants,  and proves himself worthy of Andy’s loyalty, and of ours.

In the process, he leads his friends to rediscover their own loyalty and their own faith, in Woody, in Andy, and in each other.

Wants Are The Foundation of Structure

As a writer, when you clearly establish your characters’ most deeply held desires early in the script, you arm yourself with the structural ammunition you need to build the kind of emotionally powerful story that moves your audience to laughter and tears.  Structure can then grow organically, as you inspire your characters to seek their desires, and create obstacles that test and challenge who they are, and what they believe in.

Check in for tomorrow’s installment: “Toy Story 3, Part 3: Create The Right Antagonist”

As I discussed in Part 1 of this series, Toy Story 3 does a wonderful job of building its structure around the greatest wish of its main characters: to be loved and played with by children.  When the toys feel that their owner Andy no longer cares about them, this desperate desire forces them to question their loyalty to him and seek out love and attention from new children at a daycare center.  By establishing the character’s most deeply held desire clearly from the start, the writers of Toy Story 3 give themselves the foundation they need for a great structure.

The Beauty of Unexpected Consequences

Great writers know that however beautiful or benign the character’s greatest wish may seem, they must explore both the best and the worst possible implications of fulfilling that wish.  And the toys of Toy Story get a heck of a lot more than they bargained for.

Trapped in a playroom ruled by a psychotic strawberry scented bear, and filled with insane toddlers, the non-age-appropriate toys are literally tortured by the fulfillment of their own greatest desire, played with nearly to death, until the best thing they can hope for is to somehow escape to a life of confinement in Andy’s attic– the very fate that they were fleeing when they came to the daycare center in the first place.

When you can make your main characters run from the very thing they most want, you know you are succeeding as a writer.

Toy Story 3 pushes this irony even further by exploring yet another riff on the theme of loyalty: the journey of the one toy Andy still loves enough to take with him to college: Woody the Cowboy…

Check back tomorrow for the next installment of the Toy Story 3 Series:  “The Foundation of Structure.”

If you’ve read the reviews, seen the movie, or talked to a friend, you know by now that just about everybody loves Toy Story 3.  Audiences cheer.  Critics gush.  Grown adults laugh and weep like children.  So what makes this movie work so well?  And how can you use its secrets to improve your own screenwriting?

Throughout the week, I’ll be exploring some answers to these questions, through a series of articles about the elements that make Toy Story 3 so successful.

Spoiler Alert: For those who have not yet seen the movie, please be aware that this series may reveal details of the story beyond what you’ve seen in the previews.

The Structural Engine of Your Character’s Desire

For all its emotional complexity, the engine of Toy Story 3′s structure is remarkably simple: a single want, shared by each and every one of its characters (just like it’s shared by each and every child): the desire to be loved and played with.

And the big problem which each and every character (just like each and every child and adult) must face is that kids get older, move on, and stop playing with their toys.  

How does a good toy stay loyal in a world like this?  And how does a boy stay loyal to the toys of his childhood?

These questions become the basis of the theme of Toy Story 3, and the glue that holds the emotional structure together.

Characters Who Shape Their Own Destinies

Like any good protagonists, these beloved toys aren’t just carried along by their fate.  Instead, they take action to control their own destinies.  Losing faith in Andy’s love, and believing they’ve been abandoned by the only owner they’ve ever had, they seek out a new life at a day care center, where their desperate desire to be loved and played with can be fulfilled by other children.

Of course, it can’t be that easy.

Check back for tomorrow’s article “Toy Story 3, Part 2: The Beauty of Unexpected Consequences”

Kick Ass! Does Just That…
It’s rare that you see a big budget action movie that succeeds on as many levels as Kick Ass! Hilarious, high stakes action sequences, directorial vision, fabulous characters, bold acting choices, and more-fun-than-you-can-shake-a-nunchuck-at combine to make Kick Ass! the kind of action movie producers and audiences alike can salivate over.  (The audience last night was literally cheering through the credits when the movie ended).  

The Promise of the Premise
Every movie makes its audience a promise– what I like to call  The Promise of the Premise.  This promise is the built-in anticipation that convinces your viewers to pay their 12 bucks on your movie instead of some other flick.

Fulfill the promise of the premise, and your audience will be happy to appreciate your deep meaning, thoughts about the world, brilliant dialogue, and symbolic image systems right along with it.  Fall short, and it doesn’t matter how brilliant your writing is, no one is going to make your movie.

Make The Promise of the Premise Work For You
Unless Brad Pitt is knocking down your door right now, when it comes to selling your script, The Promise of the Premise is the only thing the producer can depend on.

For writers, the adaptation and revision process has many aspects.  But for producers, there’s really only one aspect that’s important: narrowing the gap between The Promise of the Premise, and what the script actually delivers.

As a writer who wants your work produced, you can harness this knowledge to focus your adaptation and revision process– whether that’s you’re adapting an idea for a movie into an actual script, revising a rough draft into more polished form, or creating a film version of a true life story, a novel, or a comic book like Kick Ass!

The best movies don’t just fulfill The Promise of the Premise.  They exceed it.

Make YOUR Premise Kick Ass!
From the title alone, you know the promise of Kick Ass!:  A tongue in cheek, goofy as hell, ass-kicking good time in which the least likely super heroes in the world will triumph over some serious bad guys.

But what makes Kick Ass! so successful is how it takes that promise and pushes it to the extreme, exaggerating both the comedy and the darkness of the main character’s journey, taking it further than he, or his audience, could ever have expected.

The result is a movie that is not only a rollicking good time, but also captures the best elements of the comic book form, to say something real about personal responsibility and how hard it is to actually take action against the things that are wrong in the world.

Stop Selling Out, and Sell In…
Young writers often think fulfilling The Promise of the Premise means selling out.  They then make the mistake of either rejecting the promise of their own premise as an affront to their artistic integrity, or trying so desperately to write something “commercial” that they end up creating nothing but a hollow shell as a movie.

Whether you’re writing a hilarious action spoof like Kick Ass! or a deep character driven movie like A Prophet, your job as a screenwriter is to discover your premise and push it to the max.

But The Promise of The  Premise isn’t something you impose on your script from the outside.  It’s something that’s already there, suggested in every facet of your characters journey, and in every word you write, just waiting for you to discover it and bring it to the surface.

That’s not selling out.  That’s the art of the screenwriter.

And the good news is, you can learn it.
If you’d like to learn how to harness the promise of your own premise, I invite you to join my upcoming screenwriting workshop Adaptation & Revision, starting on Monday April 19th @ 145 W 28th Street, 3rd Flr, NYC.

Whether you’re starting from scratch with a new idea, working on a screenplay adaptation, or revising an early draft of an existing screenplay, this class will forever change the way you look at screenwriting.

Curious?  Come check out your first session for only $20 bucks with no further obligation.

There are many reasons to brave the shocking violence of Thomas Bidigain and Jacques Audiard’s new film, A Prophet (Un Prophéte).  This brilliantly crafted screenplay, which takes you into the brutal world of a French prison through its main character, Malik, makes the prison world of The Shawshank Redemption look like daycare.  As you follow Malik’s haunting and deeply affecting journey, you are forced to empathize with people and actions you would normally consider unforgivable, and discover the humanity in characters whose defining traits are not only immoral, but downright horrific.

As screenwriters and screenwriting students, we often worry about the “like-ability” of our main characters.  In fact, entire books (Blake Snyder’s Save The Cat for example) have been crafted around the principle that unless your main character is a “nice” person– a saver of cats, a lover of children, a hooker with a heart of gold– an audience will be unable to connect with them or care about them.  Writers who cling to this principle often find themselves cut off from their characters, and with them, from their writer’s voice.   Much as we often do in our personal lives, such writers find themselves covering up their character’s “true self” for fear of offending some unknown audience who might judge, hate, or worst of all, stop caring about a character who doesn’t conform to society’s ideals.

The result, of course, is boring, lifeless, one-dimensional characters, who neither live, breathe, nor make mistakes: characters who are less real than the people who write them, and therefore not worthy of our attention.  Building your movie around a character like this is like taking a cruise in a leaky boat.  Without a real character around whom to build your structure, you’re going to spend most of your time bailing out water.

You spend all your time trying to create a character who is likable– only to discover that nobody likes them anyway.

So how do Bidigain and Audiard get away with it?  How do they manage to make an audience fall in love with a cast of horrible people– while you can’t even get anyone to care about the most noble character in your whole movie?

Read on.

But first, a spoiler alert.  If you haven’t already seen A Prophet get yourself to a theatre!  This movie is way too good to miss.  And far too instructive as well.

To understand how Bidigain and Audiard can make your heart break for characters who should, by every definition, be “un-likable”, we only need to examine one scene.  It comes toward the end of the movie.  Cesar Luciani, the white-haired Corsican crime boss, has spotted Malik, our hero, in the yard, standing with his new Muslim friends.  This is a huge change, especially in the racially charged atmosphere of the prison.  Up until now, Malik has spent every day in the yard with Cesar, forsaking his own Arab people for the protection of Cesar’s Corsican gang.   But today, everything is different.  Though Cesar doesn’t yet know it, Malik has betrayed him.  Cesar’s once powerful connections, both inside and outside the prison, are gone.  Malik is the only thing he has left.

Cesar gestures to Malik with a gentle nod of his head to come over.  But Malik doesn’t move.  Cesar nods again, more desperate now.  Still no response from Malik.

Cesar makes a decision.  He stands up, and walks across the yard toward Malik, crossing the invisible line that divides the Corsican from the Muslim prison population.  Malik sends two thugs to intercept Cesar, but the old man pushes right past them.  As weakened as he may be, we know what Cesar can do– his limitless capacity for violence.  And at this moment, seeing how much power remains in the old man, we fear for Malik.  It seems like truly nothing can stop Cesar.

And then, one swift punch from a nameless thug, and Cesar is lying on the ground, writhing in agony, exposed for exactly what he is– an old man for whose only remaining connection in the world has just been severed.

At that moment, your heart breaks for Cesar.

Even as you feel the emotion, you’re shocked that it’s even possible to feel this way.  After all, this is the man who targeted the young Malik, without provocation, and brutalized him until Malik was forced to bend to his will.  This is the man who forced Malik to commit the bloody murder that changed him forever, in a scene so shockingly violent that the man in front of me at the theatre started whimpering and waving his hands in front of his face, unable to contain his visceral reaction.

This is a man who has nearly removed Malik’s eye with a spoon, has beaten him, humiliated him, corrupted him, brutalized him, called him an Arab dog, and treated him like a slave.  A criminal, a racist, a brutal, corrupt man without a noble or kind bone in his body.

How is it possible that you can feel this way about this truly horrible person?  Can your heart really be breaking for him?

Of course it can.

Your heart breaks because you know Malik’s heart is breaking.  And of course it is.  Because at this moment, Malik is losing the best parts of himself: his compassion, his humanity, and even more.

This orphan, this troubled child, raised in a group home without ever knowing his father or mother, is losing the only father he ever had.

Cesar may have been a terrible father.  But he is nonetheless a father.  He has protected Malik, provided for his physical needs, given him protection, opportunity, power, access, leave-days from prison, and even the possibility of parole.  He has bestowed affection and praise.  He has turned Malik into a man– and into an image of himself.

In my classes, I often talk about archetypal structure: using supporting characters in a Jungian fashion to reveal the repressed aspects of your main character, and to force your main character to come to terms with the parts of himself that he doesn’t want to even admit are there.  In true archetypal fashion, Cesar is both the biggest threat to Malik– the key to unlocking the darkest aspects Malik’s personality– and the loving father Malik so desperately needs.

And at this moment, Malik has murdered him.

He’s done so literally, by betraying Cesar to the powerful Italian crime boss that Cesar had plotted to kill, and metaphorically, by leaving the old man trembling in the yard at the moment he most needs him.

For just as Cesar has been an archetypal father for Malik, so too has Malik been the closest thing Cesar has had to a son.

And at this moment, Cesar is losing him.

That’s why, at this moment, you find yourself silently pleading with Malik.

Go to him.  Go to him.  Don’t leave him there, trembling on the ground.

A “like-able” character would do it.  He’d run to Cesar, embrace him like a father, and the two men would be reconciled, like Billy Elliot and his own terrible father after the final dance sequence.

Malik doesn’t.  He makes the “unlikeable” decision.  And you understand.  You empathize.  And you care.  Because Malik doesn’t have a choice.  He has to steel his heart against Cesar, or Cesar will destroy him.

You empathize, because Malik is struggling with the same desire you are feeling as you watch him.  The voice in his head saying Go to him.  That desperate desire we all have: to reconcile with those who have most hurt us, to be a compassionate person, to have everything be okay.

Empathy doesn’t come from like-ability.  Just like back in high school.  Remember that annoying kid who always wanted to hang out with you?  It didn’t matter how nice he was.  You didn’t want to spend time with him.  Because he wasn’t being himself.  He was being who he thought you wanted him to be.

Empathy comes from allowing your characters to be who they are, and to pursue what they most want and need, against impossible odds.

Empathy comes when you make it hard, and allow your characters to make the decisions, right or wrong, that only they can make.

Script Analysis: WHERE THE WILD THINGS ARE

SPOILER ALERT: If you haven’t yet seen Where The Wild Things Are, you may want to check it out before you read this article.

Let’s set aside the question right now of whether or not Where The Wild Things Are is a good movie. Let’s set aside the question of whether you liked it or not (or were a little bit embarrassed for liking it as much as you did).

And if you feel like you wasted your twelve bucks on a movie in which essentially nothing happens, let’s set that aside too.

Love it or hate it, Wild Things is a movie worth studying, because of the bold and unique ways it is structured to reflect its authors’ premise, both in its most wonderful, and its most problematic elements.

PREMISE? WHAT PREMISE?
Wild Things is governed by a simple idea– or at least a strong suggestion– that we are seeing the whole world through the perspective of a young boy– as he works out his rage over his isolated life (and more importantly, his parents divorce) by playing with a bunch of stuffed animals in his room.

The writer-director team of Jonze & Eggers make a very strong (and very risky) decision that nothing in the world of the Wild Things is going to exist outside what a boy Max’s age could reasonably imagine. This is embodied in every element of the film:

In the dialogue and actions of the Wild Things (who reason and dream and play and rage and even accept the impossible just like children).

In a plot limited to events that a moderately intelligent child could be expected to dream up–more interested in reflecting the way children play (with exaggerated simplicity, loose ends, and non-linear and non-sensical elements) than it is with telling a linear narrative story.

In the production design– which looks a lot more like what a child like Max might think was “cool and magical” than what we’ve come to expect from the grown up Hollywood minds that bring us movies like Harry Potter or Pan’s Labyrinth.

In Where the Wild Things Are, boats to magic lands show up out of nowhere, Wild Things instantly accept little boys as Kings, and torn off arms drip sand and not blood. We are in a little boys world of stuffed animals, and if things seem cheesy, overly simple, or just plain goofy, it’s because they’re supposed to.

Because of these choices, the experience of Where The Wild Things Are completely violates almost everything we’ve come to expect in a Hollywood movie. We come expecting magic and spectacle, and are given only the simplest special effects. We come expecting a smooth ride, that’s safe for kids, and fun for adults, and instead are taken on a chaotic journey that floats along the impetuous currents of Max’s joy and rage. We come expecting a “well-made” film, and instead experience the inner world of a child at play.

STRUCTURE? WHAT STRUCTURE?
Most Hollywood movies are built around simple structural rules. If a character shows up at the beginning of the movie pretending to be King, the movie isn’t over until he’s learned what it is to be a real King. If a character shows up at the beginning of the movie in a land where a bunch of otherwise lovely creatures are filled with rage and misery, the movie isn’t over until he’s healed their pain (and his own) and found a way to bring them peace.

As you probably noticed, Wild Things doesn’t play by these rules. Max doesn’t heal the Wild Things. Max doesn’t learn how to be a good King. Max doesn’t even “finish” the story. Rather, he leaves abruptly (if reluctantly) abdicating his crown like a child called inside for dinner.

For the most part, nothing happens in Wild Things. And yet, from a character perspective, so much happens.

The difference is that unlike almost every other Hollywood film of its genre, Wild Things builds its structure not linearly and logically, but emotionally and symbolically, through the use of archetypes.

WHAT THE HECK IS AN ARCHETYPE?
Archetypes are an idea derived from the work of psychologist Carl Jung, and later seized upon by Joseph Campbell and a slew of his disciples as they sought to better understand story. You could spend years studying the different ways different critics, professors, and authors of screenwriting books have described and categorized archetypes.

Fortunately, you don’t have to.

Your job as a writer is not to categorize or memorize archetypes, but to understand them. And understanding them begins with this simple concept:

An archetype is a character who embodies some repressed element of your main character’s psyche, and exists structurally in your movie to force your character to deal with that repressed element.

All movies have archetypes. Big Hollywood movies. Tiny independent movies. Broad Comedies. Serious Dramas. Even big dumb action movies. They all have archetypes. They have to. Otherwise, your main character would never have to deal with the repressed elements in his or her psyche, and wouldn’t have to go through the story.

The difference is that within Wild Things, instead of existing in a traditional linear plot, these archetypes exist within an emotional and symbolic one.

THE NORMAL WORLD
One of the truly remarkable things about Where The Wild Things Are is how quickly screenwriters Jonze & Eggers establish all of the real world emotional and symbolic elements that will comprise the structure of Max’s mythical journey. His isolation and loneliness. His emotional and physical pain. His feelings of betrayal by his sister and his mother. HIs feelings of being left behind as his mother and sister build relationships with new people that he doesn’t like or understand. His shame at being out of control. And most importantly, his violent and destructive reactions to those feelings.

These emotional elements have symbolic counterparts: The Snowball Fight That Ends In Tears. The Destroyed Fort. The Heart He Made For His Sister (which he destroys when he trashes her room). And the moment in which he Bites His Mother after seeing her with her new boyfriend.

THE EMOTIONAL/SYMBOLIC WORLD OF THE WILD THINGS
On a metaphorical level, Max’s journey in the world of the Wild Things is quite simply an attempt of a child’s mind to make sense of his own destructive rage. Each emotional and symbolic element of the normal world has its Wild Things World equivalent, creating a system of metaphorical mirrors through which Max ultimately can see himself and his world more clearly (as he self soothes his way through the guilt and trauma).

The Wild Things bite, just as Max bit his mother. The Wild Things destroy their homes, Just as Max destroyed his sister’s room. Max attempts connect with the Wild Things by building a fort and throwing dirt clods, just as he once built a snow fort and threw snow balls at his sister’s friends. The connections are simple, giving the movie the clarity and through line it needs to take the audience along for the journey. But also complex, honoring the complexity of Max’s pyschology, as he navigates the complexities of his parents divorce and his feelings about it, by navigating his relationships with one archetypal Wild Thing after another.

CAROL: The loving, but violent father, with whom Max’s mother no longer wants to live despite Max’s love for him, and whose behavior Max is emulating in his own.

KW: The perfect mother figure, who “inexplicably” no longer wants to live with Carol, and is instead enamored with “boyfriends” Bob and Terry, the owls that neither Max nor KW can understand.

JUDITH: The embodiment of his jealousy and discontentment– who feels like it’s Max’s job to make her feel better, just as Max wants his mother to do for him.

Even Max himself is an archetype: the quintessential Jungian “Hero”. The developing Ego that wishes to be King of his own world.

Over the course of the story, by interacting with his archetypes and attempting to do for them what he wishes to do for himself, Max develops empathy and understanding that prepares him to return to his new world. He is forced to confront who his father really is, who his mother really is, and even who he really is. He is forced to confront the consequences of his choices, and the terrifying idea that he may not be in control, that he may not be King, that he may, in fact, just be a “boy, pretending to be a wolf, pretending to be a king” and that in fact Kings may not exist at all.

It ends with the gift of a heart that Max has made. Not coincidentally, it looks a lot like the one he once made for his sister, and destroyed at the beginning of the movie.

Linearly, not a darn thing happens. But metaphorically, emotionally, and symbolically, Max undergoes a profound change. He must, otherwise he wouldn’t need to go through the story.

THE WRITER’S JOURNEY
On an archetypal level, Max’s journey echoes the journey of every writer. We must reduce ourselves to children, allow ourselves to play, breathe life into our own archetypes through the words and actions of our characters, create metaphorical and symbolic equivalents for the confusing and contradictory events of our own lives, and ultimately create a structure that forces us to unearth our own repressed emotions, and takes us, and our main characters, on a journey that changes us both forever.

Though your own work may not be as structurally radical as that of Where The Wild Things Are, if a movie in which so little happens can create such a profound journey for its main character, imagine what exploring these emotional, archetypal, and symbolic elements could do for your own work.

Curious about archetypes, emotional and symbolic structure and how to apply them to your own writing?  Learn more in one of my upcoming classes.

Movies are a lot like professional sports. The things we notice tend to be the big plays, the brilliant scenes, the moments that make us say “wow!” But what actually makes movies work is a lot like what makes sports teams successful: not the brilliant moments, but the fundamentals. In football, those fundamentals are blocking and tackling. In movies, they come down to the fundamentals of character: strong wants, huge obstacles, and a profound journey that changes the character forever.

When these elements are working, it’s easy to forget them. Just like it’s easy to forget those big ol’ offensive linemen blocking for the quarterback. But when they break down, bad things happen. And suddenly you’ve got big problems.

Just like professional athletes, even the best writers can lose sight of their fundamentals, especially when they’re striving to make the most out of an exciting premise, push their writing to new levels, or come at a scene in a new way. Once we’ve learned the fundamentals, we tend to take them for granted. And sometimes we forget that we need to practice our fundamentals, even as we strive to master the fancy stuff.

Because fundamentals tend to breeze by unnoticed in truly successful screenplays, sometimes it can be even more valuable to analyze problematic scripts, where the fundamental mistakes, and the problems that stem from them, can be seen more clearly.

Spoiler Alert: If you haven’t yet seen Surrogates and plan to, you may want to stop reading here.

Michael Ferris & John D. Brancato’s script Surrogates is built around a truly seductive premise: a new technology that allows people to experience the world entirely through robotic surrogates. It asks a profound question: what would happen if you could look exactly the way you wanted to look (ie. a man one day, a woman the next), and do whatever you most wanted to do, without any physical risk to yourself. How would it change society? How would it bring people closer together? And how would it keep them apart?

Clearly, this is a question worth exploring. Yet, despite its brilliant premise, as a story, Surrogates falls flat, mostly because the writers forget their fundamentals.

Your Premise is Only As Seductive As Your Main Character’s Journey.

As a writer, if you’re spending your time explaining the world of your story, you’re probably boring your audience. It doesn’t matter how interesting the world of the story may be, or how many brilliant nuances you’ve created. If things aren’t happening, your movie isn’t moving. This is especially true of an action movie like Surrogates. Things have to happen quick. If you spend your precious pages feeding information to your audience, you’re pretty much guaranteed to bring your story grinding to a halt.

In successful scripts, worlds are revealed through the actions of the main character. Contrast Surrogates with films like Gattaca, Pan’s Labyrinth or even Ferris & Brancato’s own highly successful thriller The Game and you’ll immediately see the difference.

These scripts drop you into the world, treat that world as a reality, and let you experience it as the characters do. They don’t waste time “telling” the audience what the world is like. Instead, slowly but surely, they reveal the rules of the world as the character pursues what he or she wants against incredible odds.

The tremendous obstacles that the world creates for the character reveal its nature in a visceral way, compelling the audience to imagine themselves within the world, as they root for the main character to triumph over its obstacles.

On the other hand, when you simply spoon feed the world as information, as Surrogates attempts to do, you accomplish the exact opposite. With no visceral link for the audience to connect to, the movie starts to feel like school. Before long, even the most potentially interesting details are reduced to a litany of boring information. The audience is left twiddling its thumbs, waiting for the movie to start; once you’ve lost them it’s hard to get them back.

Force Your Character To Change in a Profound Way

Bruce Willis plays Tom Greer, the one person (in mainstream society) who dislikes the idea of surrogates because he feels they cut him off from real connections that make life worthwhile. At the beginning of the movie, he begrudgingly uses his surrogate in his job as an FBI agent, but really just wants to connect person-to-person with his wife, who only wants to interact through her surrogate.

When a terrible weapon surfaces that can cause people to die while in their surrogates, it forces Tom Greer on a journey, through which he discovers… drumroll please… that surrogates cut people off from the real connections that make life worthwhile.

See the problem?

Tom has already gone through his journey before the movie starts. This leaves him with no place to go as the story unfolds. He doesn’t NEED the story to happen to him, because he already sees the surrogates for what they are. This robs every action he undertakes of any real meaning– we’re left with smoke and mirrors– “exciting” external plot twists duck-taped together with no visceral journey to support them.

Imagine if the action of the story forced Tom to become seduced by the world of the surrogates he once rejected, so that despite his expectations at the beginning of the film, letting go of his surrogate would be the hardest thing Tom had ever done.

Imagine if Tom felt a profound connection to his surrogates, and the action of the story forced him to realize what they actually were doing to him and his family, and then make a decision between the danger of connection and the safety of isolation.

Imagine if Tom’s wife was the main character– with her desperate need to live through her surrogate to avoid dealing with the death of her son– and was tested in the same way Tom was, by having to deal with life outside of her surrogate.

When characters don’t change, stories don’t move. And when stories don’t move, audiences aren’t moved by them.

Make it HARD. And then make it HARDER.

Of course there have been movies, especially action movies, that succeed despite the lack of a profound character change. Indiana Jones does confront his fear of snakes and reconcile with the woman he wronged over the course of Raiders of the Lost Ark, but he’s still pretty much the same guy he was at the beginning of the movie. Similarly, by the time he gets to the third installment of the series, The Bourne Ultimatum, Jason Bourne has already, for the most part, come to terms with his identity.

Both of these scripts succeed for a simple fundamental reason. The writer makes it REALLY REALLY HARD for the main character. Jason Bourne never stops running– racing from one external obstacle to the next– and overcoming them in such unexpected and spectacular ways it’s hard to care if he’s changing or not. Similarly, Indiana Jones is constantly dealing with such fascinating and escalating challenges, there’s no time to wonder about his psychology.

Get this fundamental right, and you can get away with a lot.

Make it hard. And then make it harder.

Make it easy, and you get Surrogates, a potentially spectacular idea, that falls short because it gets seduced by its own premise, and loses track of the fundamentals that make movies work.

Learn More

Want to learn more about the fundamentals that make your writing successful? Come check out one of my upcoming classes.

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DRAG ME TO HELL
Screenplay By Sam Raimi and Ivan Raimi

I just saw “Drag Me To Hell” tonight. Talk about a great example of how a well structured movie uses theme to craft a character’s journey. Spoiler alert: If you haven’t watched this movie yet, this might be a good time to dash out and see it. Then come on back and read all about it.

The theme of “Drag Me To Hell” is pretty simple: selfish desire leads to the soul’s destruction. The film begins with a woman who is genuinely good. And step by step, the structure of the film quite literally drags her to hell– not just through the terrible curse that she must contend with, but by causing her to make such immoral choices in her attempts to escape it that by the time it’s all over, she just about deserves her fate.

When we first meet Christine Brown, she is pure heaven. She’s sweet. She’s kind. She loves animals, and she cares about others. The first time we see her, she’s delivering good news to a nice young couple– she’s made it work for them to get the mortgage they need. Everyone is so happy.

And it’s just the beginning of the movie. So we know we’re in trouble.

Unfortunately for Christine, there’s something that she wants very badly– a promotion to be assistant manager at the bank. And her chauvinistic boss doesn’t think she’s tough enough to deserve it.

Uh oh.

Characters develop when we test their convictions, so the Raimis come up with a scene to do just that. “Oh, you’re really so good? Let’s see what happens when you have to choose between repossessing the home of a helpless old gypsy woman, and losing your only shot at that job you want so badly.”

What choice do you think she makes?

Selfish desire.

So, even when the old woman prostrates herself before Christine, begging for mercy, Christine still doesn’t budge. She wants that promotion. So bad she can taste it. And she’s willing to do something she knows is wrong to get it.

Next thing you know, she’s cursed. A demon is coming for her soul, and she’s got three days to stop it.

In her attempt to escape, Christine will violate almost every ethical code she once held. She will repeatedly deny responsibility for her actions (even during the seance in which they attempt to cast out the demon), lie about her decision to repossess the old woman’s home, and instead lay the blame on her boss.

She will slaughter her cute little kitten in an attempt to appease the demon’s lust for her soul (so much for volunteering at animal shelters).

She will even come close to murder (or worse), as she attempts to pass the curse on to some other victim instead (by re-gifting the button which marks her as the demon’s target).

Why? Because ultimately she wants to escape the curse more than she wants to uphold her values. Just like she wanted to get the promotion (and escape the “curse” of her unfair work environment) more than she wanted to show mercy to the old woman.

Of course, in a fair world, Christine wouldn’t have to sin. That’s what is so great about the structure of this screenplay. Her dominant trait is her KINDNESS. It’s only the unfairness of the world– the unfair job, the unfair curse– the sheer horror of it all, that forces Christine to choose between her desire and her morality. That’s how the writers test who she is, and force her to change.

Unfortunately, Christine repeatedly fails the test, slowly but surely letting go of what is good about her, and dragging herself to hell in the process.

And even when she decides not to re-gift the button to an innocent stranger, Christine does not fully recapture her morality. She doesn’t sit at the grave of the old woman, admit her wrongdoing and beg forgiveness of her spirit. Instead, she tries to condemn the soul of the woman she wronged, by re-gifting the button to her dead corpse. In the process, she also desecrates the old woman’s grave and commits the same sin her palm reader first assumed she might have committed– speaking ill of the dead in a cemetery).

Having come to this false victory by re-gifting the envelope she believes to contain the button to the old woman’s corpse, Christine thinks she has solved her problem. But she hasn’t. And not because of the mix up with the envelopes. Because she still cares more about herself than she does about those around her.

Selfish Desire.

So even though Christine (after she thinks she’s gotten EVERYTHING she desires) ultimately confides to her boyfriend that she was the one who chose to repossess the woman’s house, and that this was the wrong thing to do. When her selfish desire is tested one last time, she makes the same mistake all over again.

There is her boyfriend, standing with the button in his hand, and presumably damned to hell because of it. Does Christine try to snatch the button from him? Does she risk her life to save his?

No, she tries to escape, once again. Tumbles into the train tracks. And is carried off to hell.

Selfish desire.

It’s not the curse that damns Christine, it’s her decisions.

And it’s not the button that determines her boyfriend’s salvation. It’s the choices he makes.

Time and again, his desires are tested as well. And time and again, he does what is right, even when it means not getting what he wants. He makes the selfless choice for the love of Christine– agreeing to the palm reading, refusing the demands of his parents, giving her 10,000 dollars to see a spiritual advisor he doesn’t even believe in. He does all of this without even believing that Christine is haunted, and without thought of gain for himself. He does it because he loves her.

His morality remains intact, because his love is stronger than his selfish desire.

Hers does not, because her selfish desire is stronger than her love.

And the structure of the screenplay works because it tests them both, establishing their dominant traits, and then forcing both characters to grapple with the theme, by making active choices that drive the story and ultimately bring about their own salvation or their own destruction.

To learn more about theme and the way it relates to screenplay structure, check out one of my screenwriting workshops.

In my Monday class tonight a question came up about the difference between Message and Theme.

It turns out a perfect example can be seen in the “The Watchmen”.

Theme is about the character’s journey. It reflects the want the character is pursuing, the value in that character that is being tested, and the way the character changes.

Message is about the writer. It’s what the writer wants you to believe. And in execution it tends to be preachy and unengaging, because it’s all about PLOT and INFORMATION, rather than about a character on a journey.

For example, “The Watchmen” seems to have a very clear message that human beings are so consumed by hatred, that the only way to keep them from destroying each other is by giving them something even bigger to hate.

Clearly, this is a fascinating idea. and could even become a theme of a film. Yet in this film, the execution is barely watchable.

Why?

Partially it’s because the writers are completely overwhelmed by the exposition, trying so hard to fit in all the “information” they think their audience needs, that for half the movie they’re not telling any story at all.

But part of this is just the symptom of a bigger problem:

The film has a message that we discover loud and clear at the end, but no clearly articulated theme governing the storytelling to bring us to the point where we could accept the message.

Though some of the PLOT and the characters WORDS reflect this message, the way the characters are changing and the values they represent are mostly tangential to it.

In other words, the film is all MESSAGE and no THEME.

Unlike message, theme reflects the journeys of the characters in the story, tying them together, making them feel related, and bringing both the characters and audience to a point of catharsis, where the fundamental ideas they represent are challenged, and ultimately either transformed, destroyed, or strengthened.

Also, unlike message, theme explores the OPPOSITE side of the coin as well. Characters are allowed to fight both in support of and against the ideas of the theme throughout their entire journey, and may either transcend it or succumb to it in a way that leaves them expanded and transformed.

In this film, each character goes on an unrelated journey, and is only allowed to wrestle with the “message” at the very end, when the master plan is revealed. The result is a disjointed narrative that has nothing holding it together.

For our purposes, we’re going to assume that the THEME of “The Watchmen” (if it had one) would be the same as its message:

“The Only Way To Save Humanity From It’s Self Destructive Hatred Is To Give it Something Greater To Hate”

A well structured movie would test this question by building its plot in a way that tests this theme at every turn. Its plot would force its characters to pursue alternative measures for saving humanity, tightening the noose as they met with failure or their successes were undone by humanity’s nature, until FINALLY they had no choice but either accept the truth as expressed in the theme, or to transcend it by saving humanity in spite of that realization. It would also force the characters to deal with their own hatred or capacity for hatred, and to confront the dark sides of themselves.

The Watchmen’s characters never come close.

Spoiler alert: It would be hard to spoil a movie this unfocused, but if you haven’t seen it and plan to, you might want to stop reading.

MANHATTAN starts out passionately engaged in saving humanity, but withdrawn from his girlfriend. He then gets his feelings hurt when his girlfriend leaves him. Decides human life doesn’t matter at all. Then changes his mind and decides he does care about human life after all when he finds out his girlfriend’s father was the man who raped her mother (Why this leads him to care about humanity, I’m not sure). Returns to earth too late to save humanity (in fact, he’s been framed for a nuclear war), but in time to confront the bad guy. However, he discovers that world peace has sprung miraculously from the bad guy’s actions, as now the world has unified in its hatred of Manhattan and don’t want to destroy each other anymore. So he decides that the only thing that matters is the preservation of this myth (so much so that he decides to kill his friend to keep the secret of his innocence safe).

THEME: Caring more about saving the world than about your love life will make your girlfriend leave you. And then you won’t care about the world at all again, unless you find out she had a hard life, in which case you’ll start caring again, only to discover that the only real way to save the world is to trick them all into hating you, even if you have to kill your friend and allow millions of others to die in order to do so.

Because the THEME controlling Manhattan’s journey is both unfocused and not closely tied to the theme of the movie, his character bounces all over the place, and for no apparent reason. A bunch of unrelated plot stuff happens, and then Manhattan gets the message, delivered to him not through his own experience building up to this moment of catharsis but through the words of another character, and exposition via TV screen.

His personal journey with his girlfriend does not force him to confront this idea in any way (his own capacity for hate/his love for a human woman possibly capable of such hatred herself/etc). He neither exhausts the possibilities for saving humanity, nor tries and fails to accomplish them. The elements are there, but the theme fails to focus them. Therefore rather than feeling earned, the message feels superimposed.

The other characters are on even more tangential journeys.

The BAT is pursuing an (at first) unrequited love with Manhattan’s girlfriend and the question of whether or not to start fighting crime again. There’s some brief allusion to the idea that he may have stopped fighting crime because people turned their hate on him. But neither his decision to fight crime again nor his winning of the girl is really related to this theme of coming to terms with inescapable human hatred, falling victim to it or transcending it. He starts fighting crime again because it’s fun. And she falls for him because (as best I can tell) he’s emotionally available, and Manhattan isn’t. I don’t think I need to tell you that “emotional availability leads to happiness” is a LOUSY theme for an action movie, and not related in any way to the message that this movie pretends to be exploring.

The closest the Bat comes to wrestling with the theme of the movie is to get really sad at the end because he doesn’t want to accept human nature. Conceivably this could be a wonderful related theme for his character to wrestle with. But because the focus of his journey is on having fun again, and being emotionally available for the girl, his understanding of human nature is not really tested in an active way (he objects to COMEDIAN’S immoral ways but never does anything about them). His journey in no way prepares him to seriously confront the bad guy’s cynical idea of humanity, and therefore does little to draw the theme of this story into focus.

MANHATTAN’S GIRLFRIEND (sorry don’t remember her name), is on a journey of coming to grips with the fact that her mother was in love with a totally immoral guy who raped her, and that he is in fact her father. Again, fascinating stuff. But how it relates to any of the main action of the movie is beyond me. She’s also letting go of her emotionally unavailable boyfriend and trading him in for an emotionally available model. And, like the BAT she’s learning to have fun again.

THEME: Finding a guy who’s available will lead you to happiness and reconnecting with who you really are.

Again, a nice theme for a romantic comedy, but totally unrelated.

RORSCHACH: At least he hates people and is forced to confront his hatred and the brutality and awful nature of humanity. Bringing him to the point where he is the only person who believes enough in humanity to tell them to truth is a brilliant idea, and well integrated with theme. The problem is, nothing happens in the plot to bring him to this point. His whole journey is preparing him to agree with the bad guy– the humanity he sees is beyond redemption– without a glimpse of hope or goodness. A theme based story would have forced him to change, by coming to terms with what’s good about the world, and in this way become the voice hope, even in his destruction. Instead, his character behaves in ways that defy understanding. The writer hopes to create a powerful moment by having Manhattan destroy his friend. But the action has no value, because the journeys of these characters have not made it inevitable.

THE COMEDIAN: Dead by the end of the first scene, The Comedian is barely an active character in the movie because his story happens in the past, and therefore primarily functions as exposition. There are two exceptions, the moments when his story thematically intersects with that of the Bat and Manhattan, forcing them both to confront the dark side of their nature. These moments could have become the structure of a theme based story, but in this execution, nothing ever comes of them. Which is a shame because he’s the only character whose journey is truly related to the theme: a super hero who wants to save the world, but can’t seem to overcome the dark sides of himself.

The sad thing is that THE WATCHMEN already contains many of the elements that could have been woven into a strong movie, focused by a complex theme that draws us toward an inevitable conclusion. Even looking over the harsh criticism I have written above, you can probably see elements that could have been woven together to explore the theme of the movie and draw it into focus.

Take a minute and think about how these stories could have been refocused. What would YOUR structure look like for this film? And what would your theme be?

Jake