What’s wrong with a Hollywood ending?

If you have a truly well-written story, why would a happy ending diminish its value? Why is it that writers believe happy endings are a cheap Hollywood device? The majority of cinema goers prefer a happy ending. Why don’t we want to give it to them?

It may have to do with the confusion between our taste and our trade.

Film professionals tend to see more movies than the average punter. Because of our inherent interest in the how to of film, on occasion we will be focusing on other aspects than the story and we are enthralled by the cinematography, sound design, music, philosophical statement of etc.

Because we see so many movies, we like diversity in the offering. We want to be challenged. We are expecting the happy ending, but instead prefer to be surprised.

This, however, doesn’t apply for those who only see one or two movies a year; those we are actually making these movies for. Hence the difference in taste between many filmmakers and the majority of filmgoers.

There may be an other powerful force at play. Peer pressure.

Educated cinema goers like to be intellectually challenged. Perhaps some filmmakers don’t want to appear uneducated. Perhaps they don’t want to lower themselves (in their own perception and that of their peers) by making movies for the masses.

When your taste monopolises your trade, you are gambling your career.

Chris Morrissey brings Aristotle into exactly the same discussion when he says:

“The problem still remains why Aristotle in Poetics 14 would rank later, allegedly formulaic developments in plot composition higher than the earlier, high culture “unhappy ending” type of tragedy. Surely an appeal to chance or formula would define not the superiority, but rather the inferiority, of “happy ending” tragedies, just as people imply today when they sneer at the haphazard and formulaic composition of Hollywood endings.”

Can you see how the author is perverting his own logic by allowing for his taste to interfere? He goes by the assumption that formula is de facto inferior.

This is exactly where in my view filmmakers stray. We are losing the context of the audience for which the art is created in the first place.

If the author had asked WHY happy endings are being ranked more highly, the answer would have been right there, with the audience.

Speaking of audience’s responses, a recent survey commissioned by the Australian Federal Government concluded:

1. Moviegoers do not lump all Australian movies into one genre
2. Australian films do not suffer from a handicap
3. Broader Australian population prefer mainstream Australian movies to art house
4. There is a clear positioning opportunity for Australian movies

I have an inkling that you won’t go too far wrong by replacing the word ‘Australian’ with any other nationality.

The start of Act Two is a good place to move to the antagonist’s POV.

We have just seen that our protagonist is ready to take on the main mission of the film. He knows what he is up against, he may even have a plan on how to approach it.

At the beginning of Act Two, you can immediately increase the stakes by creating dramatic irony. You show the protagonist only knows half of the truth and the antagonist is really a lot more powerful and the protagonist may be missing a crucial piece of information.

The shift can happen to any other character, exceptionally even to an omniscient POV. But the most powerful and most frequently used POV outside the protagonist will be that of the antagonist.

Almost always does this increase the stakes as you show how well the villain is prepared, how much stronger this character is than we (and the protagonist) believed and what he/she is capable of.

One of my favourite Act Two opening scenes is in NORTH BY NORTHWEST. Roger Thornhill has to clear his name of the UN murder and he must find out why he is being mistaken for the mysterious Mr. Roger Kaplan.

At the opening of Act Two we are in a boardroom full of unknown faces. The audience’s instinctive reaction will be to find a character to empathise with, to latch on to. None such in this scene.

This is the Secret Service, discussing a fictitious agent, created by them as a decoy for the spies. Now Roger Thornhill has been identified by the spies as this imaginary agent, the secret’s service’s plan works better than hoped for.

Not only do we now know Thornhill’s predicament, we also realise he cannot expect any support from the government as confirmed in the last line of the scene, spoken by one of the agents:

SECRET AGENT
Goodbye, Mr. Thornhill, wherever you are.

This scene shows how powerful a shift of POV can be to reveal an important piece of information the protagonist doesn’t have.

Another favorite example of dramatic irony created by a shifting point of view is taken from ONE FLEW OVER THE CUCKOO’S NEST and it constitutes the Mid Point Reversal.

McMurphy has just been on a fishing trip with his mates, sampling freedom outside the asylum.

The next scene shows the staff of the asylum discussing his fate, whether they should send him back to the work farm or keep him. McMurphy’s antagonist nurse Ratched drives the scene and the outcome is disastrous: he will stay in the asylum indefinitely.

See also:

Introduction to POV
Omniscient POV
Shifting POV
When to Shift?
POV in Ratatouille’s Deleted Scene
POV as Controller of Tone

Commercial common sense will tell you: yes, you should.

Robert McKee says: “Tell the truth.” (see the previous post)

McKee means: your story needs to reflect your worldview. If you contradict whatever you believe in for the sake of commerce, you will fail. During his Arthouse seminar, he gives the example of Bergman’s THROUGH A GLASS DARKLY, where Bergman forced an ending upon the story in which he didn’t really believe. The story didn’t work, McKee says. Even the great Bergman couldn’t go against his instinct.

The discussion about happy endings is not exactly the same as the discussion about arcs. Protagonists without arcs have starred in films with tremendous success (see the reference to Mystery Man on Film in the previous post).

Although writers with a positive world may have more success in connecting with a large audience, I believe that talented and skilled screenwriters can create stories that work, irrespective of their worldview.

First-timers will have a harder time.

Here is the dilemma: to break in, you need to write something the market wants to see. Yet you’ll have a better chance if this first spec screenplay is written from the heart. You need to tell the truth.

My advice to beginning screenwriters: see how different genres allow to make different statements about the human condition without compromising the chances of success. Horror, crime and satire are darker genres than romance, adventure or kids movies.

Finally, to illustrate McKee’s point, below is a transcript of his introduction to THROUGH A GLASS DARKLY for British television.
______________________________________

Robert McKee: I saw my first Bergman film in Detroit, Michigan when I was 15. It was The Virgin Spring, a tale of revenge for rape and murder. Next came a comedy, Smiles of a Summer Night. After that Brink of Life, a social drama set in a maternity ward, Monika: A Teenage Love Story, Hour of the Wolf, a psycho-horror film. Bergman was like a one-man film studio bringing a fresh eye to many genres and by word of mouth filling cinemas everywhere. But then in the sixties he became a creature of the critics. They treated his films as intellectual crossword puzzles and drove the audience back behind a barricade of critic-speak � symbology, metaphysics, alienation � until it was impossible to watch a Bergman film without the feeling that you were taking an exam. And that�s where he stands today, on a pedestal, intimidating, distant, watched only by a tiny circle of cineastes. I think that over the years we forgot what the early audiences instinctively knew � above all else, Ingmar Bergman was a master storyteller.

Bergman�s difficult. Not to understand, but emotionally tough. He shines light into the darkest corners of life. He asks us to empathise with complex characters who, although very human, are not particularly loveable. Then he spins his stories over an emotional rollercoaster, taking us on a quest for the truth, truth that explodes the little lies that make life comfortable. To watch a Bergman film you have to be willing to invest all your humanity, to open yourself up, to care about life so much you want to know the truth though heaven may fall. It is not intellect Bergman demands so much as courage.

Bergman�s also difficult because he explains nothing. He doesn�t force his ideas into the mouths of his characters. Like Hollywood he tells stories visually, writes naturalistic dialogue and layers his meaning in the subtext. Unlike Hollywood his films are not tales of wish fulfilment, telling seductive lies about how everything works out for the best.

1a: The Film

�for now we see through a glass, darkly:
but then face to face; now I know in part;
but then I shall know even as also I am known

In 1998 McKee signed my first edition hardback of STORY. He wrote:

“To Karel: Tell the TRUTH!”

Ironically with the quote at the top of this article, McKee is not telling his own truth.(*)

He contradicts something he teaches in his art film seminar. On Ingmar Bergman’s THROUGH A GLASS DARKLY(**), McKee makes the point that Bergman

“set out to prove what he desperately wanted to believe and carefully designed this film as a rhetorical argument in dramatic form to make his point. But then his instincts, his integrity, his sense of truth overwhelmed his intellectual ambitions and somehow all the scenes that say the opposite of what he believed overwhelmed the other and as a result the film says that rather than love showing the way to happiness, the more likely fate is that you will end up alone, desperate, blinded with self deception.”

In other words:

If you don’t believe the happy ending, don’t write it.

If you don’t believe characters change in the real world, don’t make them in your screenplays. Tell the Truth.

You don’t have the option to choose between a-protag-with or a-protag-without arc. You must write what you believe in.

Bergman, one of the great storytellers of all time, tried to end THROUGH A GLASS DARKLY on an uplifting note.

He didn’t believe it. It didn’t work.

(*) Earlier this year, Mystery Man refered to the same quote before building his brilliant Case AGAINST Character Arcs. MM substantiates his point with numerous classic films.
(**) Full transcript of McKee’s television introduction to that movie in my next post.

The ’setup’ is often a complete sequence in which we see the ‘Ordinary World’, the protagonist’s ‘normal life’, an area of the story that by its name and nature risks to be a dull stretch. We see the life of the main character before the overwhelming event that marks the real start of story.

For the solution, we go back to a lesson from Alfred Hitchcock.

Remember the difference between surprise and suspense? Surprise is when a bomb suddenly explodes. Suspense is when we know there is a bomb, and it can explode any moment.

The Inciting Incident is our first story explosion.

How do we make our audience hang in there until it explodes? By foreshadowing the Inciting Incident. By creating anticipation.

Create strong anticipation during the story setup by foreshadowing the Inciting Incident.

DIE HARD: While John McClane argues with his ex, we see bad guy Gruber et al. preparing their actions. Worse is yet to come for John.
JAWS: Swimmer Chrissie is crab meat by the time we meet with hero Chief Brody. We know the reported ‘missing person’ won’t be seen again.
TOUCH OF EVIL: In the classic opening shot we see a bomb planted on a car, it ends on the explosion. This marks Vargas’ (Heston) call to action.
OMAGH: Terrorists from the Real IRA plant the bomb that will later cause carnage in the Northern Irish town, and kill the hero’s son.
E.T.: In the opening scene, an alien is left behind on earth, 12mins later it will disturb the life of little Elliott.
THE UNTOUCHABLES: Capone’s hitmen bomb a pub and kill a girl. In the I.I., her mother calls on Eliot Ness to stop the violence.
BLADE RUNNER: At the end of the Voigt-Kampf test and before we meet with Deckard, we see replicant Leon shoot his interviewer.

Note that these examples show the foreshadowing of an Inciting Incident of such a magnitude that it would not just disturb the hero’s life, but anyone’s under the circumstances. In other words, we don’t really need a lot of exposition or setup to understand that this Inciting Incident will stir the pot.

This approach may not work with just any story.

Most stories will still need you to first set up the protagonist’s character before introducing the Inciting Incident, just because the impact of the Inciting Incident is specific to that particular character.

First we are fully immersed in the life and world of Truman Burbank in The Truman Show before the appearance of his father on the street will be seen as a major event.

We need to know the character – and flaw – of Stu Sheppard in Phonebooth before we fully get how important it is when some stranger seems to know all those secrets he has been carefully hiding.

Even in most of the seven examples above, between the foreshadowing near the opening of the movie and the actual Inciting Incident, the screenwriters make sure they build on the gravity of the I.I.’s impact:

- in Jaws, Chief Brody is relatively new in Amity so he may only have limited authority when he asks to close the beaches.
- in Touch of Evil we learn that Mr. and Mrs. Vargas are still honeymooning, so Mike is not really prepared to take on a case.
- in Omagh we see how close father and son Gallagher really are, before the son dies in the bomb attack.
- In The Untouchables, the domestic scene at the Ness home shows a dedicated father Eliot, so he is the right person to respond to the distraught mother later on.

Can you abbreviate “Mister” into “Mr.” in a film script?

Answer:

Abbreviations are allowed in character headings (names) and Action, but not in Dialogue.

Any spoken words need to be fully printed, to keep an approximate page count/screen time ratio of 1p/min.

Question:

Does that mean I have to use ‘Missus’ instead of ‘Mrs’?

Answer: Well, err… Technically, yes. But I agree that it may distract from the reading, which may be good enough reason to keep “Mrs.”, even though it takes proportionally less page space than it should.

Is it possible for the Inciting Incident to happen in backstory?

Answer:

Technically, ‘backstory’ is not in the movie. It is the history of your characters before the time the story starts. Because we need to see the Inciting Incident and how it affects the protagonist, it cannot happen in the backstory.

However, the inciting incident can happen ‘in the past’, as long as we see it.

Let’s look at Sweeney Todd. The barber’s wife was taken by the judge in the past. Because we see it in a very brief flashback shot, I guess you could still call this backstory. Todd returns to London and the Inciting Incident occurs when he learns the details from Mrs. Lovett about what happened to his wife and daughter .

As a result, he plans on taking revenge (end Act One).

Let’s assume a different order for a moment: say the exact details of how the judge destroyed the barber’s wife had been known by Todd at the time he was deported (Inciting Incident). He could still only take revenge after returning many years later. It could have worked, but it wouldn’t have been so strong, I think.

The Inciting Incident in the film really happens ‘in the now’, where it should be.

When McKee talks about the conscious desire being a contradiction of the unconscious desire, would you relate this to the mid act 2 reversal / change in approach? Or would this be true from the very start of the story, script or life of the protagonist?

Answer:

Let’s start with quoting exactly what it is that McKee says:

“The PROTAGONIST may also have a self-contradictory unconscious desire(*).”

He goes on:

“Although these complex protagonists are unaware of their subconscious need, the audience senses it, perceiving in them an inner contradiction. The conscious and unconsious desires of a multidimensional protagonist contradict each other. What he believes he wants is the antithesis of what he actually but unwittingly wants.”

McKee makes a statement, then doesn’t really explain it. He doesn’t give an example either. But here is what I assume he means:

The conscious desire is what Michael Hauge calls the ‘visible goal, with a clearly defined end point’. In DIE HARD, John McClane wants to stop the gangsters and arrest them. In THE LIVES OF OTHERS, Wiesler wants to expose the theater director Dreyman. In JAWS, sheriff Brody wants to stop the shark from killing the people of Amity.

The subconscious desire is what John Truby calls the ‘need’, it is what the protagonist needs to become a more complete character, to overcome the flaw. This flaw often stops the protagonist from doing the right thing:

John McClane is a macho cop who can’t accept his wife to put her career first and Chief Brody can’t swim, so his fear of water keeps him initially from going out and kill the shark out on the sea. Wiesler wants to be a good man, but has only pursued this by following the stasi rule book.

Each of these have to overcome their flaw, before they can succeed in their outer objective: McClane makes a confession over the radio, Brody goes out on the open sea and Wiesler realises being a good man has nothing to do with justice fabricated by a totalitarian system. Sometimes this realisation happens at the mid-point, sometimes at the end of Act Two.

In each case, the inner need is in conflict with the outer ‘want’ from the start. Sometimes the mid-point causes the reversal, sometimes it is the Act Two turning point.

(*)From Robert McKee “STORY”, p.138

The shot could have been spectacular, reminding of the opening shot of TOUCH OF EVIL and its pastiche in THE PLAYER.

Brad Bird’s commentary talks about the reason why it was cut and it is simply: Point of View.

The natural question that would occur is “Why would you cut this spectacular shot?”, because it is obviously great. “I want to see that film!” Well, I feel that way, too.

The problem, once you get passed the initial sort of rush of seeing this very elaborate shot that shows you a lot of different things in one shot and very impressively, is that it is no character’s point of view.

It is just a sort of God-like shot where you’re presented this whole world and it is spectacular and there have been many fine shots like that – Touch of Evil being one – that were great but I felt that this is Remi’s movie and it needed to be Remi’s perspective.

And I want to know the emotions that lead up to Remi looking into the kitchen. I don’t just want it laid on a platter, you know, just cut to Darth going “You’re my son, Luke.”

We should be with Remi when he has that moment. We should know how he is experiencing it and what is he feeling when he is experiencing it. And you kind of aren’t, this way.

It did lay everything out, but I don’t think that it took the audience with it.

-Brad Bird

Brad Bird’s reasoning confirms what I have written about ‘omniscient POV’: it is weak, or worse, it doesn’t work.

Movies are inherently about empathising, even identifying with characters.

When you step out of the protagonist’s POV, it should be to shift to another POV, most often the antagonist’s, never to take an omniscient POV, because it is devoid of emotion.

One exception: you may use an omniscient POV to create dramatic irony, i.e. to reveal information the protagonist doesn’t know but which has an impact on his journey.

See also:

Introduction to POV
Omniscient POV
Shifting POV
When to Shift?
POV in Ratatouille’s Deleted Scene
POV as Controller of Tone

Inevitably, though, once you have figured out your characters and their journeys, you are down to the daunting task of writing that next draft. You will be writing at the scene level, and a slightly different set of rules comes into play.

Suddenly the very particular way in which you organise and formulate your thoughts becomes crucially important, as your mastery of language, i.e. grammar and vocabulary.

From the most common mistakes I have found in my clients’ scene writing, I have deducted three particular qualities.These three qualities your screenplay MUST have if you want the discerning reader to continue reading all the way to THE END, if you want your script to stand up to the competition and have a chance of being produced.

In each and every scene of your screenplay, your writing must be:

1. Clear
2. Concise
3. Colourful

Let’s look at these primary qualities one by one, in order of decreasing priority:

CLARITY

It is of the utmost importance that what you want to show, is on the paper. Don’t leave anything essential to the interpretation of the reader, the actor, the director. If it has to be on the screen, even if you want it to be felt by the audience rather than seen, it still must be on the page and it must be undeniably clear in the mind of the reader.

If it is not going on the screen, it shouldn’t be in the script anyway.

Aesthetics are less important than clarity. If you can’t find an unobtrusive alternative to a long-winded description or dialogue phrase without causing confusion about the intention of the scene, leave it in.

CONCISENESS

An elegant screenplay moves fast. Clutter, both in action and dialogue slows down the reading experience and gives the impression of a slow moving film. Be brief, catchy, summarise as much as possible, but always without causing any confusion (see the first primary quality).

Using ‘lots of white’ is a crucial style tip, but this is only possible if you are able to condense the meaning of your scenes in only a few well-written sentences.

COLOUR

What Robert McKee calls ‘Vivid Action in the Now’, I believe is a successful combination of conciseness and colour. It is concise enough to move fast, yet colourful so it speaks directly to our imagination.

Film is a visual medium and therefore you can argue that it doesn’t necessarily matter how you express something, as long as we can imagine what the scene looks like. Although this sounds right in theory, the reality is slightly different.

People making decisions on film funding read many, many screenplays. If you make the reading a burden by using a defective, unimaginative style, this will have a negative impact on the reading experience and potentially on the assessment of your script.