Key points for this class
Introduction
Origin of drama
Dramatic engine
The four ages
Archetypes
The Golden Age
What to read for
Physical form of the screenplay
Visual language in Intolerance (D.W. Griffith
Introduction
Will be getting screenplays every week -- bring them back to next class or won't get next batch of screenplays
Will be expected to know source/screenwriter for each screenplay
Back to top
The origin of drama/storytelling
The origin of drama is divinatory and salutary. It all started with divination. You might go to a diviner with a problem (can't give birth, can't find mate), and diviner will give instructions based on a story of someone with that same problem (ala Snail and giving birth). If Snail followed instructions, made proper sacrifices, etc. she achieved her goal -- if not, she didn't.
| The dramatic event | |
| propritiation, sacrifice | outcome |
| involves world of gods, goddesses, ideas | |
| humankind | nature |
The diviner contains the history of the tribe ... defines who they are.
Divination --> sacred rites, which are in essence elaborate divination rituals. Gods appear not through divination, but through performance.
The purpose of drama, according to Aristotle: catharsis, healing yourself.
Back to top
Conflict (cosmic, mythic, tribal, national, natural, personal) leads to resolution (or synthesis) and to new identity, new myth, new archetype, new circle.
Back to top
The Victorian model related to screenplay and the cinema
Model based on that of Vico's theory on the cycle of civilization, moving from golden to silver to bronze to lead -- becoming more rigid and dense until ripe for revolution.
Four aspects to be looked at for each age: nature (environment -- weather, color, setting, etc. not just physical), society, man, and cinematic form.
The Golden Age
Nature: enormous, a friend to man
Society: mythic, archetypal
Man: heroic
Cinematic Form: mythic, heroic, poetic
Examples: Ivan the Terrible I & II, Lawrence of Arabia
The Silver Age
Nature: bold, to be tamed by man (man equal to nature)
Society: hierarchical, seeming "Eternal"
Man: a child of the social hive
Cinematic Form: epic, solid, formulaic
Examples: Stagecoach, The Seventh Seal
The Bronze Age
Nature: indifferent to man, sinister
Society: hostile to the individual, indifferent
Man: alienated from society, questioning all life
Cinematic Form: subjective, less formal
Examples: Wages of Fear, Malcolm X, Question of Attribution
The Lead Age
Nature: chaotic, alienated from man (global warming, hurricanes, tornadoes in unlikely places)
Society: fractional, sinister, feudal
Man: anarchic, self-involved, anti-social
Cinematic Form: experimental, anti-formulaic, anti-epic, anti-hemic
Examples: Do the Right Thing, Blow-Up, The Servant
Archetypes become stereotypes, which become cliches, which become laughable.
Lead Age, the most rigid, paradoxically results in experimental work that can result in new archetypes forming and a new golden age, and so on and so forth.
Back to top
Classic definition: 1) first moulded as model; 2) original pattern or model from which copies are made.
Jung's definition: primordial mental concept inherited by all from the collective unconscious. (New Shorter OED)
Geller's use of word: the original idea or model from which a nation, society, tribe or individual defines itself to itself and to others.
Archetype can arise from collective unconscious, or can be shoved down people's throats and become part of collective unconscious (media using terms like "collateral damage", "preemptive strike" and "body count"). Frog on radiator story.
Back to top
Golden Age: from cosmic to national identity
These stories involve the whole tribe.
A. Story
B. Scale
archetypal model of dramatic art
1. anti-entropic (anti-death) 2. extremely ordered 3. dualistic - us vs. them (barbarians, outsiders) 4. conservative. must retain primacy 5. threatened by madness, revolution, bad witches, the other 6. existing order will survive 7. narrative structure - defined, attacked, survives
Everything outside ourselves is evil. A paranoid, schizophrenic model.
Back to top
To read a screenplay well, read for:
The use of archetype (characterization)
the journey: narrative, theme
poetic correspondence
dramatic cinematic language
Concentrate on story & character, language of film.
Back to top
Studio system: scenario --> treatment --> structural script --> script with dialogue --> shooting script (then and only then does director get it) --> editing script
Back to top
Intolerance - D.W. Griffith
Choice of shots: master shot/establishing shot, medium/long shot, close-up, extreme close-up, iris/transitions
Theatrical techniques: lighting, grouping of crowds (photo)
Parallel stories: cross-cutting in scene, between scenes.
Each story has its own language.