38 Responses to “Character Theme Plot Part 2”

1. Ben Dover on Tuesday: 9 December 2008|2152

   You’ve stated this is your opinion, but I bet Susan will find something to debate you on this!

2. Susan P. on Tuesday: 9 December 2008|2310

   Tsk..these darn wimmin that don’t know their place!
   :)

3. Susan P. on Tuesday: 9 December 2008|2319

   Anyway, insights are important and you can call an insight anything you darn well like. Semantic debates are just that. If you can get people to leave a film with some dawning discovery about life (that can happen even with animations and comedies) – wonderful. But that discovery is dependent on you setting up issues in the script so well that the audience is drawn into interpretation. After all, it’s the audience who ultimately makes the insight, not you as the writer. You just provide the fodder. Selecting a theme is about what stews your own writing juices and what you’d love the audience to ponder.
   My opinion.

4. Unk on Wednesday: 10 December 2008|0006

   “Selecting a theme is about what stews your own writing juices and what you’d love the audience to ponder.”

   LOL. I thought I said exactly that…

   Unk

5. Susan P. on Wednesday: 10 December 2008|0446

   I give good summary Unk. Sometimes.

6. Grant on Wednesday: 10 December 2008|0849

   “Batman Begins” is a good example.

   ** SPOILERS AHOY IF YOU STILL HAVEN’T SEEN IT **

   The theme running through the movie is all about fear. Batman is batman because he was afraid of bats as a kid. Scarecrow embraces fear as a weapon. Fear is a thread that runs throughout the story.

   Interestingly, the movie doesn’t really say if fear is good or bad. It doesn’t take a moral stance on fear. Batman harnesses fear as a symbol to fight crime, so it’s actually good in that context. But the bad guys use drugs to try to tear the city apart via fear, so sometimes it’s bad.

   And the story isn’t even about Bruce Wayne overcoming fear. The movie begins with him in a Chinese prison camp, not caring if he lives or dies. All the fear has been burnt out over his body. He’s overcome fear long ago.

   And overcoming fear doesn’t really play into the resolution. You don’t have all the people going crazy in the city realizing that fear is wrong, joining hands, and singing kumbaya. Fear doesn’t factor into the climactic battle. Batman knows he needs to stop the bad guys, and that’s that. It’s his job. He doesn’t go into panic attacks when he’s fighting Ras Al’Ghul on the el-train.

   But in spite of all that, a huge FEAR theme permeates the movie.

7. Joshua James on Wednesday: 10 December 2008|0906

   I think themes are just generally more specific than morals of the story … for example, a lot of Critchen’s books are that technology in the wrong hands can be dangerous … but the theme of Jurassic Park is “no matter how you try to cage is, nature always finds a way” as uttered by the Mathematician Ian … an idea specific to the action and scope of that particular story …

   Theme isn’t always a sentence, sometimes it’s an image … like in EASY RIDER, fixing a motorcycle and shoeing a horse in the same shot … that scene itself was the theme of the generational conflict of the film …

   Just my opinion, of course …

8. Nick on Wednesday: 10 December 2008|0924

   I like to put things in metaphors (usually sports related) to understand them better. So I am trying to look at THEME like this:

   You go to a party. When you walk in, you see all the women wearing flowing short skirts and cloche hats. The men have on suits with cuffed pants. Everyone is dancing to jazz.

   You don’t need anyone to tell you that you’re at a “Roarin’ Twenties” party — you feel it.

   In a screenplay, a character usually states a moral. It’s more important for a theme to be felt.

9. Tom on Wednesday: 10 December 2008|0926

   re: Easy Rider. I think the theme is more summed up with the “We blew it” line. The “hippies” or “radicals” or whoever of the 60s had a chance to truly transform the culture, but drugs, greed and corruption got in the way. It’s actually pretty prophetic of the “yuppies” of the 80’s (“Out on the road today, I saw a Dead Head sticker on a Cadillac”).

   Yes, there’s the generational conflict, but more specifically, the theme is “we’re no better than they are” and that they 60’s revolution had failed.

10. emily blake on Wednesday: 10 December 2008|1204

    In my district we always define theme as “A universal idea expressed in a work.”

    So it’s more like a question than an answer. Theme isn’t preachy like a moral, theme is allowing you the opportunity to think at greater length about a concept.

11. Luzid on Wednesday: 10 December 2008|1741

    I like what someone on the last CTP thread said — theme is the argument you make, and the story is the proof of concept.

    Likewise, I found the idea that the theme is two (or more) conflicting arguments about a central idea to be quite compelling. After all, every well-rounded character in the story will have their own idea about the thematic statement. Some might hate it, some might laud it, others might not care at all about the subject. It’s another way to flesh out characters, just as writing the logline from the viewpoint of each of the main characters can reveal the story from their viewpoint, thus giving them a distinctive voice.

    (And it’s nice to know that there’s a name to something I came up on my own. Thematic patterning, eh? Word.)

12. Susan P. on Wednesday: 10 December 2008|1755

    As Unk indicated – a moral doesn’t have to be preachy, nor is a fable traditionally preachy. Putting a point of view forward is not ‘preachy’ of itself. Preachy is a repeated battering of the same point – a form of insistent coverage that effectively denies the potential of other truths or ways of being.

    In all this however, theme has different applications. I think the two blog articles wind up leading to that. A script is better by having an overarching theme. But then the protagonist will have a theme. The antagonist will have a theme. Those personal themes will lend, or speak, to the umbrella one – and so on.

    The patterning – to me – is building up (using covert and overt techniques) that theme to a pinnacle point – and then dropping it into the lap of the audience to make of it what they will.

    I know there’s a definition up there of patterning but it rather invites deconstruction. :)

13. Clive on Thursday: 11 December 2008|0457

    Theme is easy… providing you actually have an interesting perspective on the human condition that you can play out dramatically.

    One of the things that makes it hard for people to actually hold a view-point worth turning into drama is that moral relativism is currently fashionable… or the idea that it’s polite to add “but that’s just my opinion” at the end of every sentence… or that all opinions are of equal worth and merit, which is what that caveat implies.

    This is the reason that it would be almost impossible to find a young screenwriter (under 60 years old) capable of writing a film like “12 Angry Men”… because a modern version of that would never allow the protagonist to persuade all the jurors that a single true verdict existed.

    I genuinely mourn for the days when people were able to actually hold a point of view without apologising for holding it… and also the day that opinions became more important than facts.

    Unk presents techniques that work for him… either use them or don’t… either provide additional or alternative techniques, or don’t.

    But, this is just my opinion (where’s the ironic sarcasm emoticon on this keyboard?)

14. Susan P. on Thursday: 11 December 2008|0614

    Thanks for your opinion Clive.

15. Clive on Thursday: 11 December 2008|0755

    See, sarcasm is contagious.

    But, both subjectivism and post-modernism are creeds of the mediocre… and deconstruction is a shallow bastardisation of the writings of Jacque Derrida used by poor academics to cover up the fact that in the 1980’s he intellectually destroyed the existence of both history and English literature as credible disciplines… which is kind of my point.

16. Susan P. on Thursday: 11 December 2008|0830

    Clive..I was more amused..not sarcastic. Sorry, but that was your subjective interpretation. That being mediocre is your label – not mine.

17. Lee on Friday: 12 December 2008|0632

    Just found your blog, loving it. Never seen ROUNDERS.

    I agree with Luzid – I hate preachy films. Theme, for me, should have conflict and not just preach one viewpoint but simply present both sides of the argument and leave you to ponder on what it says to you. Being drawn into interpretation means the film has worked, beyond being a simple construct of characters and plot, as the film has deeper messages.

    Isn’t that the ‘human condition’? Pondering on your existence….

    Otherwise if you are just forced to agree with or disagree with one viewpoint, your reaction to that viewpoint is what dictates whether the film fails or succeeds.

18. David Kassin Fried on Friday: 12 December 2008|1201

    Don Fried, Writer has an interesting post about a play he’s writing, where he mentions his theme issues.

    I think it was in your concept and execution post where the idea of music came up, and glancing back now I don’t see it in the discussion on theme. But that’s really a good way to look at it. “Theme and Variations” is an accepted structure in classical music, where a composer writes a “theme”, that is, a refrain, a sequence of notes with rhythm, pitch, timbre, etc., and then repeats that theme with slight variations to the rhythm, pitch, timbre, etc.

    The most famous example would be Pachelbel’s Canon in D, which has the same 2 bars (or is it 4 bars?) over and over and over again, with very slight modifications. The solos change, the melodies move a bit, but the refrain is always the same, much to the dismay of cellists everywhere.

    Similarly, in a screenplay, your theme is going to be that refrain – the thing you keep coming back to, off of which the rest of your story riffs.

19. Susan P. on Saturday: 13 December 2008|0516

    David, it’s 2 bar in D Major. I can still remember exactly where I heard the Canon for the first time :). The density (if you will) of the Canon is determined by where the violins enter. Only a section has three.

    It’s an interesting analogy. I can see why you made it however in screenwriting I think you seek discord and other perspectives in order to.. massage? .. the theme – to prevent it from becoming too easily predictable. The Canon is a rhythm that is soothing because of its predictability.

    Still, an interesting idea David. I was thinking the other day about how much a movie score, of itself, can influence interpretation.

20. jimmy b. on Saturday: 13 December 2008|0820

    Your POV and the comments on theme have been so helpful. Overall, you have a great blog with cool contributors to it. Keep up the good work, everyone.

21. Susan P. on Saturday: 13 December 2008|2044

    Q.- does a character have two themes? One that would match outer behaviour (not story goal) and the mindset that lends to that behaviour – and one that speaks to their wound?

22. MaryAn on Tuesday: 16 December 2008|2148

    Theme, to me, it what the writer really wants to say or explore. The story is just the method by which he explores or exposes it.

23. Christian H. on Sunday: 21 December 2008|0847

    [b]A good story, screenplay, and movie doesn’t have to teach us a lesson DOES IT? I’d be interested in what your opinions are… I for one don’t think a movie should be teaching anyone a lesson rather, it should provide some insight into life and people… For lack of a better phrase… Human nature and how it works and hopefully expands our understanding of it.

    Is it a fine line? It sure as hell could be depending on WHO you are and how you write… LOL.[/b]

    Hey Unk,
    Been real busy. I’d have to agree with that. I don’t like a preachy movie that “takes itself too seriously.” Movies can’t be a cure but a useful tool to perhaps help people cure themselves.

    Even the most unlikely genre can inform by carefully examining how people react in given situations with the “life tools” they have acquired.

    And hey, because we’re just making shit up anyway there is no limit to the mixtures of personalities and scenarios in any story.

    I like to leave my stories kind of “raw.” I just finished a comedy that grew into a statement about honor and revenge and how they can drive a person, even a 13 year old.

    I do find though that as I grow I seem to make a lot of statements about the gulf between the genders.

24. johnnygan on Monday: 22 December 2008|1057

    Not to get all Robert McKee on anybody, but here’s a nugget from his ubiquitous STORY writing guide (I’m not an apostle of McKee, or anything, but his book is still helpful):

    “THEME has become a rather vague term in the writer’s vocabulary. “Poverty,” “war,” and “love,” for example, are not themes; they relate to setting or genre. A true theme is not a word but a sentence–one clear, coherent sentence that expresses a story’s irreducible meaning. I prefer the phrase CONTROLLING IDEA, for like theme, it names a story’s root or central idea, but it also implies function: The Controlling Idea shapes the writer’s strategic choices.”

    “The Controlling Idea has two components: Value plus Cause. … Value means the primary value in its positive or negative charge that comes into the world or life of your character as a result of the final action of the story. … Cause refers to the primary reason that the life or world of the protagonist has turned to its positive or negative value. … Therefore, in a Crime Story, neither “Crime doesn’t pay…” (justice triumphs…) nor “Crime pays…” (injustice triumphs…) could stand as a full Controlling Idea because each gives us only half a meaning–the ending value. A story of substance also expresses WHY its world or protagonist has ended on its specific value.”

    In McKee’s opinion, your “theme” sound be expressed as a conditional sentence (This happens BECAUSE that happens). Some examples from his book:

    DIRTY HARRY
    Justice triumps because the protagonist is more violent than the criminals.

    IN THE HEAT OF THE NIGHT
    Justice is restored because a perceptive black outsider sees the truth of white perversion.

    GROUNDHOG DAY
    Happiness fills our lives when we learn to love unconditionally.

    DANGEROUS LIAISONS:
    Hatred destroys us when we fear the opposite sex.

    Whether or not you buy into McKee’s scripture, you’ve gotta admit, his argument turns “theme” into a much more precise, honed instrument in the writer’s tool kit. In my opinion, that’s much more useful than a broad, blanket concept such as “fear,” “greed,” “forgiveness,” or what have you.

25. Mark on Tuesday: 23 December 2008|1934

    Simplest way I can describe theme:

    Any concept/value/idea that the story revolves around. Can be more than one theme…but the key is back and forth.

    For instance, I wouldn’t call “saving the world” in a Bond flick a theme…but it serves as an example here if we pretend it is. If Bond keeps beating the bad guys the entire movie…you don’t have a story. So sometimes he gains the upper hand, sometimes the villains catch him and the girl and he has to escape, etc. Always a back and forth with an ultimate outcome at the end.

    McKee also argues that theme is two parts not just a concept but also an explanation of cause. “Love” isn’t a theme, but “two lovers winding up together because….” or “not winding up together because…” is a theme.

    In any event, there has to be a positive and negative aspect to a theme and I think that’s the most important. If your theme is “greed”, then two important things should happen in your script:

    1. The greed should become more and more or less and less pervasive as the story progresses…that’s an arc and dependent on whether your protagonist is an anti-hero or being redeemed.

    2. Greed (less or more) should lead to both positive and negative results as the movie goes along…generally alternating (or you can have progression in a sequence). The consequences, both positive and negative, should become more and more important as the story moves along.

    .02

26. Chris J. Scurria on Wednesday: 31 December 2008|0448

    Haven’t gone onto site in a while.

    I noticed that a moral is usually something that is seen towards the end of a film or show but the theme is what it is; it is present throughout. A theme is an idea that is seen across the work if it be a screenplay or teleplay.

    Example: I noticed that in “The Faculty” (a film I admit is well-written though I do not believe in aliens) a running theme is the issue of teen problems in everyday life in school. There is bullying and other things that are more symbolic. (SPOILER) One scene involves the kids in a room as they think the person/alien responsible for the teachers acting strangely is with them. They had found out much earlier that a drug could kill these things so they made everyone take it. One by one they “have to take it” and that symbolizes peer pressure.
    Theme can be fun evidenced by Kevin Williamson.

    Take care, God bless Unk and keep on writing,
    c. s.

27. Clive on Friday: 2 January 2009|1427

    Ten years ago I was listening to an academic discuss the Luc Goddard movie “Breathless”… in his lecture this world renowned film theorist talked for three hours on the importance of Goddard’s use of the flat image, which in his esteemed opinion was the key visual theme of the movie and also a revolutionary filmic technique.

    However, the problem is the guy lecturing had never actually made a film, he’d just read a lot of books about it and then watched a lot of films and based his theories on his observations. Which ultimately was his downfall… because, what he’d failed to understand was the reason Goddard left the iris wide open. Basically Goddard didn’t have the budget to use lights and therefore had to expose all of his movie in natural light… which in turn meant he had to leave the iris wide open, which in turn meant that he ended up with flat images. It was the laws of physics and chemistry, not artistic genius which created that look.

    In terms of discussion of screenwriting, you will find massive amounts of theory and suggestions based on book reading and consumer observations… and, very little based on the actual experience of writing a script and then seeing that script turned into a feature length film.

    I can tell you in all honesty that I didn’t understand what the theme of my second feature film was until we were 15 days into a 21 day shoot… and yet the film did have an incredibly strong and persistent theme.

    What I’ve always taken from Unk’s posts on theme is that you need to know what your movie is about… not the plot, but why it’s worth making. And I don’t mean that in a commercial sense, I mean it in the why is it worth 90 minutes of my life sense?

    What I strongly suggest to anyone handing out advice on any aspect of screenwriting, is don’t, not until you’ve actually had some experience of seeing the end results of your labours projected up a cinema wall… I don’t mean a few home made shorts. There is no real connection between writing shorts and writing features.

    It’s easy to create theories and even to find academic support for them… but it’s also too easy to create and believe in what are in real terms idiotic ideas.

    If you want to really learn about theme, finish a screenplay and workshop the script with a group of actors for a few weeks. Savagely cut every single line that is a creation your writer’s self indulgence and get to the heart of each scene… not only that go into the rehearsals with the assumption that every single part of the script is completely wrong… but, that buried in all the dross is an incredible film and all you have to do is discover it.

    Despite the fact as a writer I know that the script is heart of a movie, the truth is it isn’t the movie in total… Alien could have been a hack B Movie if not for great direction and stunning design. Don’t create theories for the sake of having something smart to say… gather your opinions by actually doing things.

28. Unk on Friday: 2 January 2009|2152

    Clive,

    I’m glad you made that comment because one of the things I want to make absolutely clear is that there is no one way to do ANY OF THIS.

    Your comment reminds me of an interview with QT I happened upon many years ago after RESERVOIR DOGS came out… Apparently, thousands of discussions all over the world speculated on why that little orange balloon skittered across the screen after a car drove past…

    QT put that speculation to rest… There was a kid’s birthday party going on nearby and an orange balloon got away from one of the kids.

    In other words… All the discussion was bullshit — plain and simple.

    It was pure chance that the balloon got loose and in the shot.

    I’m still not convinced about following one universal theme throughout a screenplay… In fact, as I perform even more research, it SEEMS that modern screenwriting authors and gurus just might have screwed this up… As I read very early teaching on writing, what I am reading is that what we call theme today was actually called MAIN THESIS back in the day…

    Theme was saved for characters… Each character had his or her own theme and followed that theme or rather, LIVED THAT THEME throughout the story.

    From what I can ascertain, it seems that many a great writer actually TAUGHT MAIN THESIS and THEME in their classes…

    James Dickey
    Paddy Chayefski

    To name a couple…

    What I like about the concept of MAIN THESIS and different THEMES for different characters is that to ME, it fits how I write.

    And that’s all I need to know whether it’s right or not…

    Unk

29. Christian H. on Saturday: 3 January 2009|0605

    Wow, I love this. I believed I mentioned in Part 1 that I use theme for individual characters complete with “theme” music. The overarching “thesis” usually encompasses each character’s motives but they can also stand alone.

30. David Kassin Fried on Saturday: 3 January 2009|0929

    Clive,

    While your points are well taken, I think you’re incorrect that there is no point handing out screenwriting advice until your movies have been made and shown.

    Consider that, just as Gottard’s “genius” was actually the byproduct of his financial and/or technical circumstances, so too was Orson Welles’ “genius” the byproduct of his technical inexperience. He just didn’t know that you just can’t do that, so he said “Let’s do it,” and was fortunate enough to have a DP who was good at problem solving.

    So just because I haven’t had a movie made doesn’t mean I don’t have anything to say. Remember, some of the worst teachers are the people who are (or were) successful at whatever they’re trying to teach, because they try to get you to do it their way. People who were never successful don’t have that problem, but if they’ve watched a lot of movies and read a lot of scripts then they know the form well enough to have a valuable insight.

    Recently I posted a blog about being addicted to the formula. I wonder, to what extent are the best movies a product of filmmakers with tons of experience, versus movies like Citizen Kane or American Beauty that were made by experienced storytellers who were making their first movies? Isn’t it possible that your knowledge and experience can be a liability? Can’t there be an advantage to being outside the tiny little box Hollywood puts itself in?

    I’m not advocating not getting experience, all I’m saying is that the people who haven’t had their films made offer a valuable perspective – that of the outsider, who is closer to the audience than the filmmakers themselves, but is still articulate at expressing problems, trends, and themes in the film. It doesn’t mean that they’re right, but it doesn’t mean they’re wrong, either.

31. Clive on Monday: 5 January 2009|0653

    Well, if I was an un-produced screen writer I’d spend more time writing a blog for my protagonist and getting into her head by writing from the POV of her everyday life, instead of adding more meaningless theory to a subject already flooded with well intentioned but misguided opinions…

32. David Kassin Fried on Monday: 5 January 2009|0752

    I don’t think that was entirely called for. If I was a published author, who’s also interested in screenwriting, I might be trying to drive traffic to my blog, which in turn drives traffic to my book’s website, where I might sell a few copies.

33. Clive on Friday: 9 January 2009|1055

    I sure hope not, because there’s a word for people who try to sell “how to” books without the professional experience to support their theories.

34. Christian H. on Friday: 9 January 2009|1204

    OK, everyone. Let’s all take a deep breath and remember what William Goldman says,

    NOBODY KNOWS ANYTHING…..EXCEPT THE AUDIENCE

    I added that last part, but true it is.

35. Clive on Friday: 9 January 2009|1347

    If nobody knows anything, then everyone should shut up… which works for me… and by extension anyone trying to sell that nothing should be horse whipped… which also works for me.

    And if the only people who know anything are the audience, why are you reading a blog by an industry professional?

    Now, you take a deep breath…

36. Christian H. on Friday: 9 January 2009|1411

    No offense. It’s always good to study the opinions of others. It just seemed that the discourse kind of went off kilter. You’re a regular here with creds. Dismiss it.

    Wait that wasn’t funny?

37. Blogging Is Stupid « The Writer’s Review on Friday: 9 January 2009|1421

    [...] Is Stupid UNK’s fabulous post on Theme has, at my hands (at least in part), deteriorated into a [...]

38. Edge on Wednesday: 4 March 2009|1321

    Yes, I agree. Theme is a question more than a statement. How many films have you watched and then quickly forgotten about? Many, I bet, and I also bet that these are preachy stories that morraly dictate how humanity should behave? What about the films you’ve watched and thought about for days, maybe even weeks after, unable to get out of your head. These are fewer, but better, far more sophisticated beauties because they don’t preach; they simply ask a central thematic question and allow the audience to ponder what they think is the answer. Every element of writing, on all levels including theme, should invite the audience to participate, to think and consider, atherwise where’s the fun in sitting braindead in the cinema?

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