You’ve probably heard before that you should withhold
elements of the plot and backstory, but it’s not often pointed out that you
should also play keep-away with your theme.
I’ve mentioned before that I disagree with the oft-repeated
advice that you should have a wise statement of philosophy on page five. If you’ve done that, you should delete
the scene, and maybe replace it with a misguided statement of philosophy that
will get replaced much later, shortly before the climax. I’ve also talked about how, if you have
a character who asks the thematic question early on, then it’s good to
interrupt them before they can get an answer, because the story itself should
be the answer.
As with character and plot, this is hard to do. You’ve got something to say, and now
you want to say it …but you have to stop yourself. You don’t actually want your audience to hear it, you want them to feel it. And they’ll only feel it if they’ve been allowed to draw
their own conclusions.
The meaning of a movie is created not by the composition of
the shot but by the opposition of the cut. It’s no accident that the inventor
of most powerful cinematic cutting techniques, Sergei Eisenstein, was such a
fan of Georg Hegel, who believed that new ideas could
only emerge from the collision of old ideas. Eisenstein knew that butting two contrasting images against each
other created more meaning than any one shot could on its own.
It’s tempting to process your own conflict and then present
your audience with a finalized synthesis, because that way you can carefully
control what their takeaway will be, but there’s no point, because they won’t
care. Instead, present them with a
thesis and an antithesis, slam them against each other, and let your audience
do the rest. Force them to
synthesize it, even if that means that they might reach a different conclusion
than you would.
What were Shakespeare’s politics? Did he agree with Brutus
or Marc Antony? Prince Hal or
Falstaff? No one knows. His plays are filled with huge
ideological conflicts but few definitive statements. He gives us a thesis and antithesis and leaves the synthesis
to us. That’s why he’s
immortal.
2 comments:
This is brilliant, and a huge help. Thanks!
I needed this post. Thank you, once again.
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