{"id":33072,"date":"2016-01-09T14:55:28","date_gmt":"2016-01-09T20:55:28","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.davidbordwell.net\/blog\/?p=33072"},"modified":"2017-09-19T19:28:48","modified_gmt":"2017-09-20T00:28:48","slug":"pick-your-protagonists","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.davidbordwell.net\/blog\/2016\/01\/09\/pick-your-protagonists\/","title":{"rendered":"Pick your protagonist(s)"},"content":{"rendered":"

\"Carol<\/a><\/p>\n

Carol<\/strong> (Todd Haynes, 2015).<\/em><\/p>\n

DB here:<\/p>\n

We\u2019re used to sorting movies by periods, genres, and the individuals associated with them (stars and directors especially). But we can also distinguish films by their styles and narrative forms. So there\u2019s not only a \u201cfilm noir\u201d style but other group styles, like the tableau approach<\/a> seen in the silent cinema, or the deep-focus one<\/a> of Hollywood in the 1940s-1950s. Similarly, we can think about types of storytelling strategies.<\/p>\n

Someone might object that at least genre and other categories are in filmmakers\u2019 minds, whereas it\u2019s unlikely that any American in the 1940s set out to make a film noir as we understand it. (That term, and category, came from France, and somewhat after the fact.) Similarly, Ford probably didn\u2019t think he was making a \u201cclassically constructed\u201d Western in My Darling Clementine<\/em>; he was just making a Western.<\/p>\n

One reason we might construct these categories is to bring out the principles that filmmakers seem to follow intuitively. Perhaps no screenwriter ever thought explicitly about scene hooks<\/a>, but the device is common enough to suggest that they believed the device was a useful tool.<\/p>\n

Besides bringing out the regularities of filmmakers\u2019 craft in certain times and places, constructing categories allows us to understand the creative choices they face. Maybe you handle a scene in a two-shot<\/a> or in several reverse-angled singles<\/a>. Both are permitted, each has certain advantages, and filmmakers spontaneously choose among these alternatives.<\/p>\n

In effect, we\u2019re reconstructing the menu of options available to filmmakers in certain times and places. If we do it carefully, we gain understanding of what each option can yield, and what certain filmmakers can achieve if they try something new.<\/p>\n

Kristin and I have been in this game for decades, and our work on norms of film form and style has surfaced in our books, lectures, and blog entries. One set of analytical categories we\u2019ve proposed is based on how movies use their protagonists. I was struck by how many films at end of 2015 and the start of 2016 illustrate a\u00a0range of options currently available.<\/p>\n

It turns out that these options are of long standing; they\u2019re another example of how even recent movies owe a lot to the classical Hollywood tradition. That\u2019s not to say, though, that they might not revise or tweak that tradition. Some filmmakers are innovative by temperament, and besides, there are career rewards when innovations come off. (Just ask the maker of Pulp Fiction<\/em>.)<\/p>\n

The categories depend on determining which character(s) can function as protagonist(s). That depends on the goals, the obstacles to the goals, and the relationship between\u00a0the goal-striving character\u00a0and\u00a0other characters and story lines. Traditionally, in a two-hour Hollywood feature, a principal goal is articulated in the first half-hour or so. Kristin has argued that after this \u201cSetup\u201d portion comes others: a \u201cComplicating Action\u201d (also lasting about half an hour) that changes the goal and in effect creates a new setup; a \u201cDevelopment\u201d which consists of delays, backstory, and fresh obstacles to the goal; a climax that resolves the issue; and an epilogue (screenwriters called it a \u201ctag\u201d) that confirms a certain stability in the situation. The major parts roughly divide the film into quarters, contrary to three-act accounts<\/a>.<\/p>\n

So today I look over the protagonist menu, based on some current offerings. Of course there are spoilers<\/strong>.<\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

One, with benefits<\/strong><\/p>\n

\"Daddy<\/a><\/p>\n

Daddy’s Home.<\/em><\/strong><\/p>\n

Take as a baseline the movie organized around one protagonist<\/strong>. A clear example from this holiday season is Daddy\u2019s Home<\/em>. Stepdad Brad (Will Ferrell) has read all the touchy-feely parenting books and applies their lessons to raising the kids he has inherited by marrying Sara. But Dusty (Mark Wahlberg), Sara\u2019s charming and macho ex, returns from his mysterious life in espionage and rapidly takes over the household. In an escalating series of mishaps, Brad proves unable to live up to the hip and edgy things that Dusty dreams up for the kids.<\/p>\n

\"Daddy<\/a><\/p>\n

The climax comes when Brad, after showering Megan and Dylan with presents, gets drunk at a basketball game and humiliates them all with a public confession of inadequacy and a pair of unguided free throws. Eventually the battle of the two parenting styles\u2014comforting versus edgy\u2014is resolved when at a father\/daughter dance Ward\u2019s nonviolent, somewhat goofy, approach to conflict tamps down an explosive confrontation with a father spoiling for a fight.<\/p>\n

The classic situation is established: our protagonist has an antagonist. Dusty is an infighter who seizes control of every situation. As you\u2019d expect, Dusty is winning the race for the kids\u2019 affection during most of the film; even Sara seems to be feeling some of her old attraction to him. As the antagonist, Dusty makes his intentions clear about two-thirds through the film: He will not give in. This precipitates Brad\u2019s suicidally expensive efforts to shower his kids with presents. Deeply shamed, he moves out. Dusty seems to have won.<\/p>\n

But Dusty has a weakness. He can\u2019t manage the drab daily responsibilities of parenting\u2014making the kids\u2019 lunches, driving them to school\u2014that Brad enjoys shouldering. At the climax, Dusty has gained respect for Brad and soon remarries, becoming\u00a0the devoted father of a stepchild. In a traditional comic reversal, he must confront the kid’s birth father, who is a bigger thug than he ever was.<\/p>\n

Daddy\u2019s Home<\/em> reinforces our alignment with the protagonist Ward through his voice-over narration, though at the end the integration of the two families is given by letting Dusty and Sara chime in too. The emphasis on Ward, his confrontations with Dusty and his kids, and the hilariously bad advice offered by Ward\u2019s boss (a classic sidekick role) fulfill a common template for one kind of classical plotting. The protagonist comes to the plot with his goal already decided on, and he has to defend it against a tangible threat.<\/p>\n

There\u2019s another option: letting the protagonist discover the goal in the setup. And there\u2019s the possibility of presenting not a single powerful antagonist like Dusty but several. These forces in various ways take on the task of blocking the protagonist\u2019s goal.<\/p>\n

\"Joy<\/a><\/p>\n

Some critics have thought David O. Russell\u2019s Joy<\/em> somewhat messy, but I think that\u2019s partly because the film spreads the antagonist function across many vivid secondary characters. In my view, as Bernie Sanders might say, the plot remains pretty classical.<\/p>\n

The Setup establishes Joy\u2019s life as a disaster. Her childhood dreams of creativity have been forgotten after years with her dysfunctional family and the demands of her children and job. Around the half-hour mark, Joy\u2019s wounds from cleaning up a broken wine glass send her into a dream in which she rebukes herself for her passive life. She wakes up and starts designing a miraculous mop. If her initial goal was simply muddling through, her new goal revolves around transforming her life by creating and marketing this product. This new goal sets the key for the Complicating Action.<\/p>\n

At the film\u2019s midpoint, Joy convinces the producer overseeing the Quality Value Channel to add her mop to the offerings. The Development section consists of more obstacles and some triumphs, so that eventually sales take off. But her family butts into her business and plunges her into bankruptcy. This, her darkest moment, is overcome when she confronts her Texan partner and threatens to take him to court for the fraud she has discovered. She pays off her debts. In the epilogue, we see her as a successful businesswoman helping other struggling inventors.<\/p>\n

This, of course, is just the film\u2019s spine. In the course of this plot, Joy discovers she has reserves of courage, determination, and a sense of her own worth. Weaving through it all is the voice-over narration of her grandmother who not only fills in information for us (even from beyond the grave) but also serves as a prod for Joy to persist in her desire to make things of value. There\u2019s also a clever opening showing a soap-opera performance in the manner of Straub\/Huillet; it\u2019s later replayed in normal TV terms.<\/p>\n

Joy has allies\u2014her ex-husband and a loyal friend\u2014but she faces many antagonists, an array of family and predatory business people. Where Joy<\/em> most alters the traditional plot layout, I think, is in its refusal to include a story line involving romance.<\/p>\n

\"Joy<\/a><\/p>\n

Most Hollywood plots are double-stranded: a line of action about romantic love, and another line, usually about work. Joy doesn\u2019t revive her marriage and instead concentrates on her fulfillment of her dream. Having seen Silver Linings Playbook<\/em> and American Hustle<\/em>, we might expect Joy (played by Jennifer Lawrence) to hook up with the QVC producer played by Bradley Cooper, but it doesn’t happen. Still, Joy<\/em> remains a nice example of the plot focused on one protagonist who struggles against a range of antagonists, each contributing particular obstacles. A comparable example from recent releases would be Bridge of Spies<\/a><\/em>.<\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

It takes two<\/strong><\/p>\n

\"Carol<\/a><\/p>\n

Carol.<\/em><\/strong><\/p>\n

Alternatively, there\u2019s the dual-protagonist<\/strong> plot. Two characters share a goal, or have complementary ones, and they work together. They may also come into conflict about it or about other matters. Often they\u2019re a male\/female romantic pair, as in the classic His Girl Friday<\/em>, but they may also be male\/male (The Other Guys<\/em>) or female\/female (The Heat<\/em>). I\u2019m told that Star Wars: The Force Awakens<\/em> eventually settles into a dual-protagonist plot, but one example I\u2019ve seen is Sisters<\/em>.<\/p>\n

\"Sisters<\/a><\/p>\n

At the start our protagonists are characterized as unhappy and incomplete. Maura (Amy Poehler), a divorc\u00e9e, is oversolicitous and lonely; Kate (Tina Fey), a single mother, is irresponsible and frequently jobless. Neither sets out deliberately to improve her life, but they are put out on that path after learning that their parents have sold the family home. Screenplay manuals call this the \u201cinciting incident.\u201d<\/p>\n

An encounter with the house\u2019s snobbish purchasers convince the sisters to relive their wild high school days by inviting their old classmates to a wide-open party. They switch roles: Maura vows to become the wild girl she always hoped to be, and Kate agrees to become, for that night, the prudent one keeping an eye on things. At first the party is a boring affair, as their Gen-Xer friends have become staid parents, but at the midpoint, with the arrival of some serious drugs and a tattooed side of beef named Pazuzu, things explode.<\/p>\n

The Development section is woven out of running gags, including a would-be party animal, a mean-girl rival crashing the event, a hunk attracted to Maura, and Kate\u2019s efforts to keep in cellphone communication with her daughter Haley, who has nothing but disdain for her scatterbrained mom. The climax is precipitated when, having utterly trashed the house, Kate learns that actually she was to get the money from the sale. More seriously, Maura has secretly acted as a surrogate parent for the elusive Haley. The denouement presents a series of resolutions whereby the parents forgive their daughters, the house is rehabbed, and the sisters accept the need to sell the place and grow up. A tag shows the family united at\u2014when else?\u2014Christmas.<\/p>\n

In Sisters<\/em>, the intertwined lines of action yield goals around one the house-based line of action (preserving the house, trashing it, rehabbing it), but other goals emerge around love. Maura gets a boyfriend, Kate wins her daughter\u2019s love, and both reconcile with their parents.<\/p>\n

Sisters<\/em> exemplifies how dual-protagonist films can show characters sharing a goal and still clashing with one another. Here, as in most such films, one of the pair may help the other, work against the other, or keep the other in the dark. Accordingly, so that we can appreciate all the schemes, misunderstandings, and screw-ups, dual-protagonist films tend to supply a wide range of knowledge. In Sisters<\/em>, for instance, we know, as Maura and Haley and the parents do not, that Kate has lied about getting a new job.<\/p>\n

By contrast, a single-protagonist film can restrict our knowledge to the hero or heroine, so that we share the suspense and surprise coming their way. Daddy\u2019s Home<\/em> restricts us almost completely to what Ward knows; Dusty is constantly surprising him with new subterfuges to win the kids\u2019 love. Similarly, Joy is the center of consciousness in her film. True, we have the Grandmother\u2019s voice-over supplying information, but it doesn\u2019t really break with Joy\u2019s range of knowledge. Grandma could have tipped us off early that about the Texan\u2019s scam, but we learn of it only when Joy does.<\/p>\n

In this way, plot structure interacts with what in literature is called point of view, or narration in the broad sense. Carol<\/em> provides a striking example.<\/p>\n

\"Carol<\/a><\/p>\n

Patricia Highsmith\u2019s original novel presents a single-protagonist plot. Therese, vaguely dissatisfied with the men in her down-at-heel bohemian milieu, falls abruptly in love with a wealthy wife and mother. Highsmith rigorously retains our attachment to Therese, so that we never know more than she does. She gets glimpses of Carol\u2019s unhappy life with her husband Harge, her love for her daughter Riddy, and her struggle to obtain a divorce that will let her share custody of the girl. After Therese and Carol\u2019s compromising road trip to Middle America, Carol returns to New York and the legal proceedings Harge is conducting. He has proof of Carol\u2019s lesbian affair and intends to use it against her. But Therese learns of the progress of the case through letters and phone calls. Several chapters showing Therese simply waiting in Sioux Falls for news furnish some of the dread-filled suspense that Highsmith would generate in her crime novels.<\/p>\n

The film displays the traditional four-part structure. The drive west is launched at the midpoint, just when Therese\u2019s boyfriend Richard denounces her as infatuated with Carol. The couple\u2019s trip, trailed by a detective tape-recording their lovemaking, serves as the Development. Interestingly, the book has a similar array of incidents, with the same plot point serving as the pivot to the second half. As I\u2019ve argued before, popular fiction sometimes displays<\/a> the same plot architecture we find in cinema.<\/p>\n

But just following the four-part template doesn’t mean that the film and the novel are congruent. Carol<\/em> shows how choices about narration can reshape plot structure. Apart from some changes in the original situation (e.g., Therese is now an amateur photographer rather than a set designer for stage productions), screenwriters Phyllis Nagy and Todd Haynes have made a crucial decision. They have expanding our access to Carol\u2019s story line.<\/p>\n

Events that are \u201coff-page\u201d in the novel are fully dramatized in the film, and we witness action that Therese never learns of. Harge, a vaguely pathetic presence in the book, is more fully characterized, and as an angry patriarch at that. We get scenes of Carol with Riddy, with her former lover Abby, with her in-laws, and particularly with her lawyer, who\u2019s helping her fight for custody. Crucially, the screenplay supplies a climactic scene not in the book, when Carol yields to Harge\u2019s demands and refuses to condemn her affair with Therese. Something like this must have occurred in the book too, but it’s presented sketchily and at a remove, recounted to Therese by Carol and Abby.<\/p>\n

By creating a wider-ranging narration, Carol <\/em>turns a single-protagonist book into a dual-protagonist film. The two women share the same goal, romantic union, and the narrational patterns balance their individual efforts to achieve it.<\/p>\n

But wait, someone might say. Nagy and Haynes have added a flashback structure to the book, triggered by the early scene showing Therese leaving Carol after their meeting at tea. We watch Therese go to a party in a cab, and her morose face behind the rain-streaked window suggests that she\u2019s recalling how she met Carol. Doesn\u2019t this device respect the restricted narration of the book?<\/p>\n

\"Carol<\/a><\/p>\n

Actually, no. In classically constructed films, extended flashback passages are seldom restricted to the character doing the remembering. Against all realism, flashbacks include material that the recollecting character doesn\u2019t or couldn\u2019t witness. In line with this convention, Therese\u2019s flashback includes a lot of scenes she doesn\u2019t know about. The memory-flashback\u2019s main purpose in a Hollywood film isn\u2019t to represent character memory but to justify shifting the order of events.\u00a0There’s more discussion here<\/a>.<\/p>\n

Perhaps one aim in showing rather than telling <\/a>Carol\u2019s story was to give Cate Blanchett a bigger part, but it has an important function for us as viewers. It avoids a climax portion that would show, almost Bresson-style, Therese simply killing time and waiting. Instead, by being transported to Manhattan and seeing what Carol is struggling against, we can appreciate Carol\u2019s profound sacrifice for Therese. Carol is a somewhat remote and mysterious character in the book, but she\u2019s delineated far more precisely in the film, largely because of these scenes.<\/p>\n

Because Carol\u2019s story line is fleshed out, we have a stronger sense of Therese\u2019s mistake when, returning to New York, she declines Carol\u2019s offer to resume their affair. (In the book, other factors shape Therese\u2019s choice, including an ominous portrait that she seems to recognize from her childhood.) We know Carol to be more courageous than Therese believes she is, which makes the young woman\u2019s decision not to reignite their affair more regrettable. This choice doesn\u2019t block the screenplay from offering, when the flashback has ended and looped back to the present, a modified form of the book\u2019s somewhat hopeful conclusion.<\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

Multiple choices: Men (and women) on a mission<\/strong><\/p>\n

\"Spotlight<\/a><\/p>\n

Spotlight.<\/strong><\/em><\/p>\n

There can be more than two protagonists, of course, so it\u2019s convenient to have the general category of multiple-protagonist films\u00a0<\/strong>too. Two common sorts show up in our year-end Hollywood releases.<\/p>\n

One is what we might call the mission-team movie<\/em>. Again, goals define the options. A group of characters, all more or less equal in importance, devote themselves to achieving a single goal. This is a common feature of combat films, though we find it in peacetime too. Classic examples are heist films like The Asphalt Jungle<\/em>, sports films like A League of Their Own<\/em>, crime films like Johnnie To\u2019s The Mission<\/em>, and numberless road-trip films.<\/p>\n

Spotlight<\/em> exemplifies the mission-team plot. As in a combat film, there\u2019s a hierarchy: the chain of command runs from publisher to editor in chief to managing editor to section editor, and then to the grunts. The Boston Globe<\/em>\u2019s new editor Marty Baron puts an investigative team, called Spotlight, on a story about pedophile priests. Three reporters under Robby Robinson (Michael Keaton) unravel a story that ultimately implicates nearly a hundred priests and reveals many more victims.<\/p>\n

As in a heist film, each reporter is given a specialty. Mike Rezendes (Mark Ruffalo) concentrates on getting information from the no-nonsense lawyer who is suing the Church on behalf of dozens of victims. Matt Carroll (Brian d\u2019Arcy) scans the record and discovers a telltale pattern of priests\u2019 assignment to parishes. Sacha Pfeiffer (Rachel McAdams) focuses on finding and interviewing victims. Robby runs interference with their superior Ben Bradlee Jr. and pursues his own hunches, including the role played by a retired attorney who\u2019s one of his golfing buddies.<\/p>\n

Through our old friend crosscutting, each protagonist is given separate scenes in which their skills are revealed and new information emerges. What\u2019s common to the team members is tenacity and dedication to work (they put in long days and weekends). In addition, all were raised Catholic and feel with greater force the ways in which lawyers and the Church have covered up these crimes. In particular, the interpersonal style of Sacha, warm and empathetic, is contrasted with that of Mike, who tends to be more truculent and easily provoked.<\/p>\n

\"Sacha<\/a>\u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0\"Mike<\/a><\/p>\n

The progress of the investigation falls neatly into the four-part structure, bracketed by a prologue (a 1976 incident in which a priest\u2019s crime is covered up) and an epilogue that celebrates the success of the project and reminds the audience of the ongoing problem with priestly pedophilia. In the Setup, the reporters believe that the story is fairly limited until the spokesman for a victims\u2019 organization provides them some evidence of wider criminality.<\/p>\n

\"Spotlight<\/a><\/p>\n

The Complicating Action consists of the discovery of over a dozen pedophiles, which raises the prospect of many more. Robby also senses a deep story here, based on the conspiracy of silence he\u2019s confronting in the Church\u2019s social circle. A complicating action often resets the initial goal, and this one does just that. Now Baron tasks the team with not merely exposing individual priests, but showing that the Church officials knew of the crimes, covered them up, and created a mechanism for perpetuating them.<\/p>\n

The Development uses the paper trail discovered by Matt to pinpoint likely offenders, so now the team seeks out priests rather than victims. More obstacles pile up, including the unwillingness of victims to testify and the 9\/11 attack, which slows the release of the story. All the while, the Spotlight team has been waiting for a court decision to unseal crucial documents that would prove the Church\u2019s full knowledge of events. Mike learns that the lawyer Garabedian has used a counter-suit to bring some of those documents to light, but they are mysteriously missing from the court archives.<\/p>\n

Delay, a common feature of Development sections, stretches things out. Finally Mike finds the court documents and they support the story. The climax consists of the team deciding on when to reveal the story so as to maintain their scoop and, to seal the deal, Robby getting his attorney friend to confirm their list of names. As in All the President\u2019s Men<\/em>, the press has to be characterized as taking every opportunity to back up its expos\u00e9 with an abundance of evidence. The epilogue shows the Spotlight team, back at work on a Sunday, fielding phone calls from yet other victims\u2014and Robby feeling contrite because back in 1993, he could have followed up a lead and did not. Again, the effort is to portray the press as both idealistic and fallible.<\/p>\n

I said that the characters in a mission-team plot are \u201cmore or less equal in importance\u201d because we often find that some are more prominent than others\u2014they become \u201cfirst among equals.\u201d You could argue that the Ocean\u2019s Double-Digit<\/em>\u00a0films, though dependent on teamwork, give primary emphasis to Danny, Rusty, and Linus. Still, there\u2019s considerable time spent on the secondary members of the team, and often they turn out to be more central to the main action than they might appear. In Spotlight<\/em>, the characters Robby, Mike, and Sacha are the most prominent (given the stars, no surprise), with Matt getting slightly less screen time and featuring in fewer dramatic confrontations. As we\u2019d expect, though, Matt plays a crucial role in advancing the mission. The editor Baron, also downplayed compared to the others, not only launches the investigation but also serves as the wise leader who guides their strategy.<\/p>\n

Again, the double line of action is less visible here. Mission-team plots often eliminate romance (combat films again) or introduce some love interest when a spouse or lover finds a protagonist too dedicated to the mission, or when the romance is part of the mission (as in Ocean\u2019s Eleven<\/em> and Twelve<\/em>). Here there\u2019s a hint that Mike\u2019s dedication to investigative reporting has led to separation from his wife, but those circumstances aren\u2019t worked out to create a love-related story line. It\u2019s as if the journalistic crusade is proceeding on enough fronts not to need distracting subplots.<\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

It\u2019s the end of capitalism<\/strong><\/p>\n

\"Big<\/a><\/p>\n

The Big Short.<\/strong><\/em><\/p>\n

If the mission-team movie is characterized by a rigorous focus on the group\u2019s common goal, another sort of multiple-protagonist movie is more diffuse and tangled. I\u2019ve called it a network narrative<\/em>. It features several more or less equal protagonists pursuing different <\/em>goals, but connected through kinship, friendship, employment, or coincidence in ways that affect their individual fates. The film aims to trace out the links and nodes in the network, all the while pushing forward to create new connections.<\/p>\n

Nashville<\/em>, Pulp Fiction<\/em>, and TV series like The Wire<\/em> exemplify this method of construction, but these sprawling networks are only one option. The groups linked can be more limited. Consider The Big Short<\/em> (based on a book that’s itself a network narrative).<\/p>\n

When the film starts, you might think that the awkward hedge-fund manager Michael Burry (Christian Bale) is the protagonist. In the first ten minutes he cryptically outlines his hypothesis that the US mortgage system is fundamentally flawed, and he formulates a plan to exploit it. But then the narration switches to Mark Baum, a hedge-fund manager deeply critical of the banking system.<\/p>\n

\"Big<\/a>\u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0\"Big<\/a><\/p>\n

For several minutes, the narration alternates scenes of each man\u2019s activities, with an emphasis on Burry\u2019s plan to bet against housing bonds and Baum\u2019s inability to come to terms with his brother\u2019s suicide. At the 25-minute mark, Baum\u2019s team gets a misdirected call from stock trader Jared Vennett (Ryan Gosling) and they learn from him that Vennett\u2019s bank is selling collateralized debt obligations.<\/p>\n

\"Vennett<\/a><\/p>\n

Through a vivid demonstration with building blocks, Vennett illustrates how the rating agencies have overvalued poor housing risks.<\/p>\n

The Complicating Action starts by introducing two more protagonists, Charlie Geller (John Magaro) and Jamie Shipley (Finn Wittrock), who run a small investment company.\u00a0By chance they find Jared\u2019s presentation and decide to check out its strategy of shorting the housing market. Aided by the retired banker Ben Rickert (Brad Pitt), they get the credentials to buy in.<\/p>\n

\"2<\/a>\u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0\"Big<\/a><\/p>\n

Their efforts are intercut with Burry\u2019s tracking the market and with Baum\u2019s team visiting Florida, where they discover that indeed house values are under water and mortgage brokers are snapping up\u00a0unqualified buyers en masse. And the men learn that the rating agencies are routinely lying about the quality of the packages on the market. In the meantime, as mortgage defaults grow, mortgage bonds puzzlingly rise in assigned value.<\/p>\n

The next turning point, launching the Development, is triggered by the decision of several protagonists to visit a Los Vegas forum on securitization. Baum\u2019s team is instructed by Vennett to simply watch, and they learn about CDOs, though Baum can\u2019t resist challenging the complacency of the banksters he meets. Meanwhile, guided by Rickert, the inexperienced Geller and Shipley hit on a new angle: to bet upon not just the low-rated packages but the A and AA ones. The men leave Vegas convinced that the market will collapse. Soon, though, we get the ups and downs characteristic of a Development, as it seems that our protagonists are all going to lose their shirts.<\/p>\n

But their efforts to bet against the US economy pay off when mortgage companies start failing. This initiates the climax. The banks and investment houses struggle to contain the damage, chiefly by shifting the losses to their customers, and soon everyone wants the default swaps our protagonists have bought so cheaply. All wind up rich but disillusioned with the system. As in\u00a0Spotlight<\/em>, The Big Short<\/em>\u2019s epilogue concludes with texts indicating what happened to the protagonists afterward, and hinting that the system could topple once more.<\/p>\n

You could imagine\u00a0The Big Short<\/em>\u00a0as a different film, focused around one protagonist and making the others helpers, rivals, or walk-ons. But as a network narrative, it suggests the sheer sweep of financial corruption, as well as a range of response to it, from cynical acceptance (Vennett) to boiling outrage (Baum).<\/p>\n

What enlivens the film, and makes it look and feel quite different from Spotlight<\/em>, is its narrational texture. First, it\u2019s recounted in voice-over by the least emphasized character, Vennett. Second, the film allows characters to address the camera occasionally, like Jordan Belfort in The Wolf of Wall Street<\/em>, and they sometimes explain that what we\u2019re seeing in the film wasn\u2019t exactly what happened in real life (below left).\u00a0Third, there are capsule sequences in which unlikely experts like Margot Robbie and Anthony Bourdain explain esoteric financial concepts.<\/p>\n

\"Chinese<\/a>\u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0\"Margot<\/a><\/p>\n

One insert comes from Selena Gomez and economist Richard Thaler. (Get his fine book Misbehaving<\/em>!)<\/p>\n

Throughout, the dramatic scenes are interrupted by flash montages of musical numbers, TV commercials, and glimpses of cheerleaders, overpriced houses, and people living under bridges. This gonzo style, reminiscent of the fragmentary montages of Oliver Stone\u2019s JFK<\/em> and Harmony Korine\u2019s Spring Breakers<\/em>, matches the \u201cglum exuberance\u201d of the heroes. They\u2019re simultaneously pumped and appalled. Like the reporters in Spotlight<\/em>, they keep thinking they\u2019ve hit the bottom of the cesspool only to learn that it\u2019s muck all the way down. This style extends the cross-sectional aspect of the protagonists’ network by suggesting the ripple effects of the subprime crisis.<\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

There are other classical narrative models on display in recent releases. Steve Jobs<\/em> is a single-protagonist film, but one rendered through block construction<\/a>. The Hateful Eight<\/em> seems to me a network narrative in the Grand Hotel<\/em> mold<\/a>: several major characters, with initially\u00a0unrelated goals, converge on a limited space. There conflicts and alliances develop. In addition, more nodes and links in the network are revealed through a flashback. One pattern I haven\u2019t seen this season is what Kristin calls the parallel-protagonist plot, as in The Hunt for Red October<\/em> and Amadeus<\/em>. Here two characters with different goals come to learn of one another, chiefly because one becomes fascinated with the counterpart.<\/p>\n

I offer these sketches in a descriptive, analytical spirit. Nothing in what I\u2019ve said indicates whether the movies are good or bad. This is like analyzing a fugue or a sonnet: the form is more or less fixed, but each work will handle it somewhat differently. Some will handle it skillfully, some not. And a fuller analysis of even the weakest of these films would show how the classical format encourages filmmakers to devise parallel scenes to show character change (such as the tea-time meeting in Carol<\/em>), find motifs that develop and pay off (like Mike Burry’s increasingly maniacal drumming), and create call-backs to details that seemed unimportant earlier but that take on bigger roles in the action later (like the dance-fight in Daddy’s Home<\/em>). It\u2019s also pretty remarkable that the four-part format can be adapted to different roles for protagonists.<\/p>\n

What advantages flow from sorting films by narrative strategy instead of by genre or director or period? We can see unexpected\u00a0continuities\u00a0between current filmmaking and older traditions. We can show how different principles of plot architecture allow different opportunities for characterization and thematic implication. We can trace how commitment to one sort of plot can open up further choices about point of view and other narrational matters. And once we\u2019ve detected the basic similarity between certain storytelling strategies, we can go on to appreciate the differences film by film.<\/p>\n

\n

This is a project in what I\u2019ve called the poetics of cinema. You can learn more about it in the book of that title<\/a>. A chapter from the book, on the theory of film narrative I propose, is on this site<\/a>, and there’s a blog entry<\/a> introducing it. \u00a0In each of these\u00a0I consider three major dimensions of cinematic storytelling: narration, plot structure, and the story world. Today’s entry suggests that one\u00a0feature of the story world, the protagonist, can be shaped by a\u00a0tradition of plot structure and some features of narration.<\/p>\n

For more on the four-part model of plot structure, see Kristin’s entry “Time Goes by turns”<\/a> and her book, Storytelling in the New Hollywood<\/em>. I’ve offered some analyses along these lines as well, in for instance “Anatomy of the Action Picture,”<\/a> “Gone Grrrl,”<\/a> and “Birdman<\/em>: Following Riggan’s orders.”<\/a> I discuss network narratives briefly in this entry<\/a>\u00a0and at length (no surprise) in Chapter 7 of Poetics of Cinema<\/em>.<\/p>\n

Naturally, thinking about protagonists and plot structure isn’t the only way we can analyze\u00a0movie\u00a0storytelling. For other tools, see the category Narrative strategies<\/a>.<\/p>\n

\"Daddy<\/a><\/p>\n

Daddy’s Home<\/strong> (Sean Anders, 2015).<\/em><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Carol (Todd Haynes, 2015). DB here: We\u2019re used to sorting movies by periods, genres, and the individuals associated with them (stars and directors especially). But we can also distinguish films by their styles and narrative forms. So there\u2019s not only a \u201cfilm noir\u201d style but other group styles, like the tableau approach seen in the […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[1,57,54],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-33072","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-film-comments","category-hollywood-aesthetic-traditions","category-narrative-strategies"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.davidbordwell.net\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/33072","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.davidbordwell.net\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.davidbordwell.net\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.davidbordwell.net\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.davidbordwell.net\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=33072"}],"version-history":[{"count":17,"href":"https:\/\/www.davidbordwell.net\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/33072\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":37861,"href":"https:\/\/www.davidbordwell.net\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/33072\/revisions\/37861"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.davidbordwell.net\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=33072"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.davidbordwell.net\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=33072"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.davidbordwell.net\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=33072"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}