WHERE'S THE DRAMA?

CONFRONTING THE WALL

The Essential  Ecology of Dramatic Screen Storytelling

"Everything that the human race has done and thought is concerned
with the satisfaction of deeply felt needs and the assuagement of
pain. One has to keep this constantly in mind…”

                             - Albert Einstein, Ideas and Opinions


The empirical investigation and extrapolation of an organism’s relationship with its physical environment is preminently the domain of the science of ecology. The identification of ecological fields are expressible as sets of dynamic, vital relationships occuring as natural processes that affect the sustainability of all members operating within that system. While the value and scientific usefulness of such investigations is undeniable, the application of an ecological model to areas of human endeavour not previously interpreted in ecological terms is also capable of producing a number rather unusual and useful insights that are both surprising and illuminating. This is particularly the case when it comes to dramatic, screen storytelling as experienced by the storyteller in the act of finding “the drama”.

In seeking to uncover and examine the ecological dynamic of the set of “natural” relationships that define and vivify the dramatic adventure, one must first assume a process or number of processes in which mutually generating and mutually sustaining sets of identifiable activities are taking place. In terms of the processes relevant to the finding and realisation of dramatic screen stories, these will involve all the conventional considerations of genre, plot, character development, and theme, as well as the dialogical experience, internal and external to the actual screenplay.

Because these primary relationships operate as essential elements in the composition of every dramatic story system, one might posit, at least heueristically, that the way in which these agents transact and transfer emotional energy between and amongst themselves determines the nature and emotional quality of the underlying dialogic, as well as the potency or otherwise of the story-being-found. Ultimately, their meaning and value resides in the expression and appreciation of a dramatically viable screen story.
We can assume that great stories do not happen by accident. They can no more arise from dead matter than maggots spring spontaneously from rotting meat. Nor will an infinite number of monkeys sitting in a room with an infinite number of laptops ever reproduce the classics, though they might come up with “To be or not to be, that is the Guzornin Plan”.(1)

The process of finding the story-that-wants-to-get-itself-told is the outcome of a series of intutitive, intricate and intimate mental and emotional adjustments and re-adjustments transpiring empathetically between and among ALL of the story agents (read: “characters”), including the dramatis personae, the storyteller/s, the audience and the tribe, as they confront and struggle with their anxieties in their quest to grow and overcome and heal. Every effective screenplay owes its development and final realisation to these interactions and to the symbiotic relationships that are forged and sustained as a result of the shareable or dialogical nature of the mediumistic, story-finding enterprise. Considered in this light, it is not such a great leap to suggest that what we have here is something approxmating a working ecology.

All dramatic stories involve “findings”. The characters in the script find what they need to restore order or love or trust, while the screenwriter struggles through draft after draft to discover why he/she is writing the script to begin with. The best stories impact their audience by virtue of a series of inter-related acts of discovery made by the characters (including the storyteller) AND the audience. Each act of discovery tends to build energy or interest by keeping the energy viable and continously moving throughout the life of the story. An ecology of dramatic storytelling must necessarily posit this interdependance; indeed, the characters require each other if the actions they take are to make any sense whatsoever.

In terms of the evolving screenplay, dramatic choices and actions are largely determined and bounded by the societal, cultural, political, economic, legal and/or spiritual contexts in which the actions of the characters are set. These circumstances can be the source of both positive and negative forces affecting the emotional well-being of the characters. They provide the basis or ground for the dramatic problem or opportunity that will goad the characters into dramatic action. For dramatic action to be credible (clearly motivated) the characters’ circumstances must in some way be jeopardised or challenged by the presence of something they have not previously encountered. Whether it be the report of a dead body (as in Stand By Me) or a severe and grave threat to their existence, or the existence of loved ones, as in Deliverance or John Ford’s The Searchers, dramatic characters are stimulated into action by problems that cannot be ignored and will not go away. A dramatic problem carries with it a sense of urgency, and prompt action not only from the characters inside the screenplay but also from those who have a stake in what those characters do. One might say that the characters inside the screenplay are not the only characters whose attitudes, hopes and fears prompt action.

Ecologically speaking, dramatic stories are environments in which storytellers, characters, audiences and tribes meet and address one another within the context of a narrative founded upon the purposeful actions and interactions of characters grounded in an emotionally charged and tribally based logic that operates by way of cause and effect. The logic presumes a set of identifiable circumstances that provide the contextual basis for the characters’ actions. Stanislavski referred to these as “the given circumstances” – the totality of necessary assumptions a dramatist makes concerning the world that the characters inhabit. One cannot hope to enter the drama so long as one refuses to enter into a relationship with the environments that define and condition the scope and value of every character’s actions.

And just as the characters inside the script’s story-world possess “given circumstances”, so too do their “external” partners – namely the storyteller, the audience and the tribe – possess their equivalent “tribal circumstances”. Naturally, in the process of finding the story, it is necessary that the screenwriter work from a vantage point that is connected to or affiliated with one or more of the tribal groups whose story is being told.

Taken together these circumstances provide the impetus for the meaning and nuance of the emotional energy generated within each scene and between one scene and the next, as well as in the transformation or modulation of this energy as it flows sequentially from one scene to another throughout the entire narrative. The given circumstances constitute the elemental dramatic forces operating within the story world, and play an essential – though oft times overlooked - role in the ecology and, ultimately, the dramatic intensity of the story.

Despite the innumerable variety of possible story-worlds, what is common to all is the dynamic flow of energy by which a story moves and lives, conducted by a series of inter-related and highly intuitive transactions amongst all the agents of change, set within a logical, coherent and necessary set of pre-existing conditions.

As I have said, a story is never a given. Its life begins as a potentiality, and very often remains a potentiality, especially if the natural interplay of dramatic forces is stymied or interrupted by the imposition of choices and actions that abuse or disrespect the story’s essential ecology.

In the name of clarity and market forces, a story’s nature is nominally referenced in terms of genre; however, the deep structure of any story – its inner workings and un-workings – is not so easily pigeonholed, nor should the application of genre inhibit or otherwise constrain the creative filmmaker. To be limited by such phenotypes runs contrary to the range of possibilities and adventures that genre considerations invite us to explore and experience. One could say we have lived with genres long enough to realise that they were invented to be re-invented or even transcended; and that this is always possible so long as the filmmaker understands the nature of the form and the grammar with which he/she is playing. All that one can say with any certainty is that in drama, action IS nature, and nature is change; and that fresh and credible change is unlikely short of an intuitive and empathetic understanding of the story’s ecological nature.

Any passionate screenwriter with a modicum of talent and an obsession for finding the drama will, like some driven protagonist in quest of a seemingly impossible goal, fight the fight, which is ultimately a very personal struggle against those self-imposed demons that are the writer’s own expectations, prejudices, and unspoken fears. Writing this, I can almost hear the howls of derision from those whose university courses and creative writing teachers offer faint-hearted training in all the by-products of story. In my experience, Story already exists - in Eternity - and the job of the storyteller is to find a way of getting close enough to it to actually hear it, and letting it become and find its way unhampered by the insecurities that the writer – that all writers – harbour; to bring it down to Earth so that it can more easily be heard and seen by one’s audience.

In the beginning one proceeds with little more than a shred of an idea, an experience, a smell, the hope that something might be found – but even these are not enough if one places too great a reliance upon one’s intellect. The ecological coding of each story is far too intricate and complex for the mind to navigate it with one’s intelligence alone. If one is to trek into the heart of a story one must conceive of the journey as a work of love. In other words, one must become part of it.

Stories are living creatures, but only for those who do not feel the need to kill them in the act of writing them down. The inhabitant of Chestnut Ward still warns us over decades: “with usura hath no man a good house.” (2)

Built in to the imaginative structure of every story’s potentiality is an impulse for its own conservation. Indeed, every story worth telling seems possessed of some kind of organic mechanism for preserving its own integrity. This is evidenced, in part, by the experience of every writer that has laboured over a story enough to discover that it contains a profound and seemingly impenetrable core that is not easily entered - a hidden truth or value that, if it is to be fully realised, must be suffered over and fought for. You can take from a story whatever you like, so long as you pay for it. And a story, like a good writer, possesses its own in-built crap detecting device for weeding out its serious suitors from those who merely wish to exploit it for their own ends.

Every great drama exacts its own price. It will not be farmed, or manipulated, or otherwise abused without incurring such damage as to lose its identity entirely. One must pay for everything one finds. Conceivably, the most “expensive” might even cost you your life, and if one is to pass somewhat unscathed from the profane (mediocrity) into the sacred (originality). one must find the appropriate forms of supplication.

One could say that a story’s intrinsic potency is protected by a veil, and that this veil is the most singular and profound artefact of its ecology of any screenplay-in-the-finding. This veil, or self-conserving “instinct”, operates in conjunction with the storyteller, the audience and the tribe in concealing the story’s essence – its source and power – from anyone who would seek to employ it for selfish or unworthy ends. Interestingly, every story worth telling has as part of its ecology this self-preserving faculty.

The best way to observe the ecology of a dramatic story is by actually entering into and becoming a part of those interactions by which and through which one finds it. As a mere observer you may experience some kind of passive appreciation for what is there, but when you actively enter the fray and live with the characters and their desires and frustrations for weeks, months or even years, you begin to gain some insight into the organic quality and operation of that rich and often sublime matrix of energies that is the dramatic experience. As you do so you, begin to realise that the story itself has a will of its own, a will to be told; and not only that, but a will to be told in a way that is true to itself, even when this is contrary to the expectations and prejudices of the storyteller.

An effective storyteller is one that has grappled with, and endured, frustration and enough fear to be possessed of a willingness to listen to what the story wants to say quite contrary to whatever plans or insecurities the storyteller in his/her anxiousness may have desired to impose on it. As a story is allowed to become its own “person”, the essential ecology that regulates the interactions between all of the agents in the storytelling enterprise is ever more clearly grasped and appreciated. In ascertaining and respecting the story’s essential integrity, one frees it to become a more active, intimate and vivid interlocutor whose dramas are played out both within and around the actual artefact that is the screenplay itself.

The most significant consequence of this freeing of the drama is the storyteller’s unavoidable encounter with what I some times refer to as “the unresolvable problem”, but for the sake of brevity shall henceforth be referred to simply as “The Wall”.

To confront The Wall is to face the story at the epicentre of its being. It is the focus of the inescapable initiation ceremony that every story worth telling requires of its storyteller if he/she is to find and ultimately reveal (or make present) the essential secret/sacred lore that fuels and sustains the active power of the story-being-found.

In acknowledging this phenomenon, Cassavetes stated one of the more sublime truths of dramatic, screen storytelling, namely that “filmmaking is about asking questions concerning things for which one has no answer, while holding (oneself) tenderly open, ready to come across new questions at any moment.” (3)

While every dramatic story worth telling harbours within its becoming a series of obstacles and complications that the script’s characters must navigate with some degree of ingenuity and unexpectedness, the experience of The Wall is an altogether different kind of experience, both in degree and in its ability to derail the entire enterprise. Standing inexorably between the storyteller and his/her understanding of the story’s final cause or purpose, The Wall defies thought and application of any method to its ultimate solution. It is not susceptible to thinking. Thinking is its friend. If you can think of some way of getting around it or through it, you’re wrong. You cannot think your way around The Wall. It is not about thinking. If you think you’re wrong.

To THINK up a solution only robs the drama of its native integrity and authenticity. Thought, too readily tied to the past and past experiences, invariably leads the screenwriter into imposing actions derived from already existing stories. This is the essence of formulistic storytelling; and the uncritical adherence to any formula constantly runs the risk of transforming the narrative from a genuine exploration of a character’s fears, needs and choices – as expressed in dramatic actions – to a plot driven machine in which the central concern of the storyteller is to neatly hit every relevant plot target so as to effect a transition from a beginning to a middle to an end. To operate in this way invariably produces a story that is either predictable or stale; for is the storyteller is able to think up a solution to The Wall, then there is every likelihood that the audience will be able to do so as well.

When one arrives at The Wall one arrives at the “question for which one has no answer”, which is the singular means by which every dramatic story protects and conserves its most powerful and transformative energy. The Wall is the last test of both the characters’ and the storytellers’ ingenuity; it is the sacred initiation into the final meaning and truth towards which the actions of all the characters have been leading - the final artefact under-scoring the unassailable nature of creation – the act of discovery or inspiration that no amount of learning (or thinking) can manufacture except in facsimile.

In the process of finding a powerful and fully realised dramatic story one experiences the equivalent of the “long dark night of the soul” and proceed without knowledge or any guarantees that one will ever find one’s way to the other side. Great and timeless stories – stories that live and move audiences – will not be used or appropriated in the name of money or fame, and they contain within their innate organic processes the means to block every predator who would think or act otherwise.

As an audience, our ability or willingness to care must be built on something more palpable and enduring than sentimentality. The sentiment that drives a character to action must be authentic, and enlivened by an emotional intelligence which we – the audience – admire and might seek to emulate. We are much more prepared to form an emotional connection with a character whose actions evidence resiliency and ingenuity than we are with a character that merely wants to avoid trouble because it makes him feel uncomfortable. The Wall offers both a challenge and an opportunity to discover what is fresh and unexpected.

Character-based screen stories are always subject to – and not uncommonly subverted by – the needs and fears of those who tell them, namely, screenwriters, directors, producers, and others, whose extra-narrative agendas sometimes work to confound or distort the story and the story-finding process in ways that trivialise those emotional energies that might otherwise encourage, motivate and empower the characters. There are no handy methods or sure-fire techniques for dealing with these fears and anxieties. The application of method – as has already been suggested - can itself become an expression of fear; and if allowed to operate unchecked and uncriticised will constantly stand between the storyteller and the story that is seeking to get itself told.

The Wall is the means by which a dramatic story initiates a story-seeker into a story-finder. It is the final initiation and obstacle that every storyteller must face and deal with if the story is to give up its secrets.

The Wall, or the unresolvable problem, is organic to the essential logic and grammar of dramatic storytelling. It proceeds from the dynamic nature of the dramatic quest, which requires the characters to act in the face of increasing urgency and risk, under growing threat to their well-being. For a story to be effective, there must always be the possibility of failure or unexpected calamity; whatever opposes the main character/s must be formidable enough for both the audience and the storyteller to fear that it may be insurmountable, making impossible for the protagonist to ever attain his/her ultimate goal or objective.

Problem, goal, plan - as each new plan for overcoming the problem fails, a new plan must be devised, and each new plan in turn must fail if the story is to go on building the sort of emotional energy that will keep the audience emotionally involved in the protagonist’s quest. Eventually, the challenge to overcome the forces of opposition becomes so great it appears that there is no way out, no way of continuing the fight short of repeating what one has already done. When one arrives at this juncture – when the character and the storyteller arrive at this seemingly unresolvable problem – everything stops. The writer looks at the character and asks: “What’re you gonna do now?” And the character looks back, and says, “I dunno. You’re the writer; what’re you going to do?” When this happens, one has reached The Wall. Interestingly enough, the wall is where the real writing begins – if one has the courage and stamina for it.

So what is one to do?

For many writers, what they do is look at another screenplay whose characters faced a similar or approximate problem, and they make their characters do what those characters did. This is common in the world of high concept filmmaking, where spectacular effects and archetypal conflicts are devised to make up for whatever is lacking in genuine dramatic passion and originality of vision.

A less common alternative is to THINK your way out of the problem. What would I do? The screenwriter asks, and if his/her own life is anything to go by they usually opt for the least dramatic alternative. But even when the screenwriter dares to be dramatic, this is seldom if ever a satisfactory solution because if YOU can think of it, so can your audience; and if they’re able to see it coming – which they probably can – then they’re way ahead of the game and the screenplay again fails by virtue of its predictability.

Successful screenplays succeed because of the authentic discoveries they allow both the storyteller and the audience to make. Surprise is “the magic” that makes the difference between mediocrity and freshness.

But if thought promotes predictability and formula leads to staleness, how is one to confront and successfully navigate The Wall? The answer is graphically illustrated in Escher’s famous “Print Gallery”, which depicts a kind of mobius journey through a European print gallery with no way out, only an area of bright, white light at its centre. Have a look at it.

The screenwriter facing The Wall is like a fly that has flown into a fly-bottle – a large glass container with a very small entrance and the promise of free space all around, except one is separated from it by impenetrable glass.

What one must do is think. Think up something, anything that the character might do to resolve or overcome the unresolvable problem. Write it down in script form. Commit to it as you write; make it convincing, using every bit of talent you have, and when it is down, go for a walk, clear your mind, forget about it for a few hours or a day (if you can). Then come back to it, read it critically, from the vantage point of your audience. It doesn’t work, does it? And you can hear it, you can see it -, and you can see why.

So think of something else, and commit to that and write it out, using all your ingenuity as a writer to make it work, and then go for a walk, or a drive. When you come back it – as audience – you’ll see that his doesn’t work either. And so you think up something else, and the process repeats and repeats and repeats, and every notion is written out and examined later, and nothing you write down works.

Eventually, depending on how many possibilities you can think up, you will come to the realisation that you can’t think yourself over The Wall. This is no mere intellectualisation; it is an existential fact that threatens your very identity and existence. Metaphorically at least there will be much gnashing of teeth and eyeball rolling; maybe you’ll throw yourself in front of a bus, or wind up homeless, living in the street, or maybe you’ll just abandon the project altogether and resume your job as a copywriter. Or perhaps the long dark night of the soul, which is the task of The Wall, will cause you to abandon all belief in what you think you know – perhaps, in one blinding moment of insight you will acknowledge that you know nothing at all. When you can do that, when you can manage that apparent nothingness (a nothingness illustrated by the central white “light” in Escher’s “Print Gallery”) you have arrived at that place where you have the first and last best chance of hearing your characters, and of them hearing you. “Hey,” they whisper to one another, “maybe this writer really is committed to finding our story – maybe we should take pity on him/her”. And then, from the depths of nothingness, one looks again at the characters and their desires and one notices something one has never seen before. The way around The Wall becomes vividly clear, and the solution or course of action for which one has been searching, is revealed in all its obviousness and simplicity.

The way through or over or around The Wall is always simple; when one finally sees it, it is obvious. It stares one in the face, so that one is inclined to ask; why didn’t I see it before? One is overcome with the realisation that The Wall was never in the script to begin with. It was in YOU, in those prejudices and assumptions and expectations you brought with you from the very beginning into the process of finding the story. Some of the assumptions had their use and permitted you to enter and successfully navigate parts of the story world you were seeking, but many of your most cherished and uncriticised prejudices were not only irrelevant but actually prevented you from penetrating into the unique nature of the story you sought. As the emotional energies of the characters’ actions became more intense, these prejudices and assumptions reached critical mass, creating a blockage that metaphorically stood like a wall between you and the final important discoveries that carried and conveyed the ultimate meaning and power of the story adventure.

The drama, if it is to happen, occurs both inside and outside the script. Both the audience and the screenwriter-as-character are adversaries insofar as their expectations, fears and prejudices, subvert or trivialise the story. The ecology forged by the dynamic inter-play of these characters in their interaction with both the dramatis personae and the relevant tribes that speak through these characters provides the coherent and natural system out of which The Wall is formed and operates as the final provocation of authentic discovery. The Wall is the final test of faith concerning the storyteller’s readiness and worthiness to reveal the secrets that lie buried in the hearts of the characters. It is both an obstacle and – if one acts in good faith and with courage – a promise of the exhilaration that accompanies the experience of originality. It is the final initiation ceremony into the sacred lore of the story that one has been looking for – the story behind the story, if you like – that last crucible through which ALL the characters must pass if are to be fully born, alive and forever free. It is only when the storyteller is surprised by what he/she finds on the journey that the audience has a chance of being surprised. The Wall is the means by which ingenuity, originality – and, indeed, the experience of discovery – enter the story and make it eternally fresh.

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(1) From a comedy sketch by Bob Newhart, as performed on The Button-Down Mind of Bob Newhart

(2) Ezra Pound. From The Cantos. Faber.

(3) John Cassavetes, quoted by Ray Carney in “Non-contemplative Art: Thinking in Time, Space, and the Body”, from The Films of John Cassavetes: Pragmatism, Modernism, and the Movies (Cambridge University Press)

"The most important things are the hardest things to say. They are the things you get ashamed of, because words diminish them - words shrink things that seemed limitless when they were in your head to no more than living size when they're brought out. But it's more than that, isn't it? The most important things lie too close to wherever your secret heart is buried, like landmarks to a treasure your enemies would love to steal. And you may make revelations that cost you dearly only to have people look at you in a funny way, not understanding what you've said at all, or why you thought it was so important that you almost cried while you were saying it. That's the worst, I think. When the secret stays locked within not for want of a teller but for want of an understanding ear." - Stephen King

“The world is made of stories, not atoms.” - Muriel Rukeyser


Screenwriting gurus both here and overseas have long "made their bacon" preaching the primacy of structure and formulistic principles. "Three-act structure", "inciting incidents", major & minor turning points" - are part of the lingua franca of those "in the know", as well as their eager disciples, and others desirous of mastering the difficult art of cinematic storytelling.

To be sure, the analysis of structure as presented by McKee and others has its value, but its usefulness is limited, and only really becomes apparent AFTER the storyteller has written a good part of the script. A slavish and single-minded adherence to structure in the hope that it will somehow allow one to conjure up a compelling and enduring film script is as likely as creating a masterpiece with a "paint-by-numbers" set. Though having said that I realise there will be some who will take it as a challenge, and if you happen to be one of them then all I can say is do your worst!

The preeminence of STORY and the conventional wisdom that “story is KING!" confuses ends and means. Story certainly matters in the end, but how do we - as prospective storytellers - actually find it? Where does it come from? And how might we give ourselves the best chance of intersecting with it? How does the dramatic, screen storyteller arrive at that state of being where story-as-intellectualisation gives way to a subtler and more profound recognition that stories are as fundamental to one’s life and well being as air and water.

Drama is principally a present-ation of the emotional and intellectual dimensions of the cause and effect of desire and its frustration. What a character wants (desires) and does (as a result of that desire – or frustration) produces consequences. The character either takes responsibility for the consequences or does not, but his reaction produces further consequences that impact on him and on the other characters and their world, thus creating more consequences. The law of cause and effect (karma) is the stomping ground of drama (including tragedy and comedy).

Likewise, when a story is told, it too has consequences. Perhaps it will cause people to feel something very deeply, or fill them with fear, or cause them to reflect upon some idea, or maybe simply put them to sleep. Just as a good dramatic character is responsible for his actions, so too are the best storytellers responsible for their stories. But here, “responsibility” does not so much signify obligation as the ability to respond.

Successful and satisfying dramatic stories are not created by chance or out of thin air. An essential component (without which all other components languish) is the personal engagement and commitment of the storytellers themselves to the story they are finding.

Metaphorically, it is not so much an affair of craft as an affair of "up-bringing" - or, rather, lifting the lid of one's unconscious, even if only a squeak.

What I am talking about is engagement – an engagement that is driven and inspired by openness to story. In other words, the journey to find the story becomes part of the storytellers’ own, personal journey towards discovering what that story means, emotionally, to the storyteller. It is, indeed, an act of self-discovery.

The attitudes that allow this discovery to happen and the collaborative synergy those attitudes produce take time to evolve, but once underway, the evolution is greatly assisted and encouraged when all members of the storytelling enterprise commit to a frank and respectful dialogue concerning their most intimate understanding of and connection with the story the team is seeking.

One could do worse than ask oneself: what is the story that possesses my being? What myth of self (-deception) is being played out in my life by the same characters, in countless guises, in a thousand various scenarios wherever I go?

The question implies the notion that there is an essential dramatic idea at the heart of each individual’s odyssey. But is this possible? Is there an underlying theme operating in every life? Is every individual possessed, either consciously or unconsciously, by his or her own singular and personal drama?

I believe the answer is, most assuredly, yes; and that in facing and acknowledging the essential characteristics of our own particular drama (or dramas) we can more honestly and fruitfully find, explore and understand how every story we seek to tell or contribute to (in some meaningful way) is in some way connected to us - to our hopes and to our anxieties.

If this is so, then the collaborative enterprise of finding the story that resonates with one's soul and with all of the souls that are seeking it - the greatest enemy is fear and the deceptions (the ignore-ances) that it encourages.

The playwright, Arthur Miller, has suggested that, essentially, drama is always about a fear of falling – the primal fear. Certainly, the first story in Western culture is a dramatisation of this fundamental fact of existence – the so-called Fall of Man. But what is the essence of the Fall? What brings it about, and what does it tell us about the nature of human and non-human reality? What does it tell us about HOW we should live our lives, and why and for what? Any story that prompts us to ask these sorts of questions is a story worthy of our attention.

The fall of Adam and Eve is a story founded on the idea of power and deception. Here, deception must be understood as being synonymous with evil. It might come as a surprise to some, but most of the Old Testament is composed of stories that explore the nature and consequences of deception, which is another way of saying the Old Testament provides a narrative investigation of the nature of good and evil, which includes its consequences.

In the Adam and Eve story, the principal deceiver, at least in the beginning, is the Serpent, who has promised Eve that by eating of the fruit of the tree of the knowledge of good and evil she can make herself like God. In her freedom, she chooses to eat, and afterwards, persuades her consort to do the same. They have been given the freedom to do anything they like, except eat the fruit of this tree, but freedom is meaningless unless one also has the power to choose NOT to be free. And herein lies the God-like irony, the incompatible addition (to freedom) that aborts through method (blame) and fear and guilt (anxiety) the very power Adam and Eve sought to achieve. Instead of becoming like God, they encourage God’s wrath.

When Adam is confronted by this anger and by the question (Why did you eat the fruit?) he blames Eve, and in so doing creates the first method (for escaping response-ability for one’s actions); likewise, when Eve is asked, she blames the Serpent, compounding the lie and avoiding the fact that it was her own desire to be God-like that led her to be tempted in the first place. 1

Deception informs every tragedy. The protagonist, himself, operates under a deception, a deception that he, himself, has helped to create and is invariably involved in perpetrating.

But deception also lies at the heart of all drama, including dramatic comedy. In comedy, the deception points out the absurdity of human life; in tragedy it underscores its pathos.

Every drama begins with a fall, or a fear of falling: falling out of a relationship, or out of a job, or out of society, or out of one’s life, or, existentially, out of meaning itself. It is this fear of falling that is expressed in the four anxieties that form the basis of dramatic action, as well as the protagonist’s impetus to re-establish some form of healing or rectitude. 2

Fear and falling, frustration and deception and the desire for truth and healing – this is the stuff out of which stories are made. The courage to confront one’s fears through acts of faith (in one’s characters and in oneself) is integral to the finding of the story. It is, indeed, such courage that makes the difference between a birth and an abortion. The courage to accompany one’s character on his/her journey is bought with the pain and anxiety one has endured and continues to endure in the act of grappling with the unsolved and seemingly unresolvable. One earns the experience, one buys the wisdom, one takes what one needs for oneself and one’s characters) and one pays for it. In this way, collaboratively – in one’s interactions with one’s collaborators (including one’s characters) one will be continually nourished and transformed by those inner stories without which there is no story at all.

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1 Interestingly, in the image of Jesus hanging on the Cross we find the symbolic fulfilment of the Garden of Eden story. The Serpent in his tree is now transformed into Christ on the Cross, - the being who takes all the blame, and who, in so doing, exemplifies the saving grace of the Christ principle (Love).

2 The anxiety of guilt, the anxiety of doubt, the anxiety of death and the anxiety of meaninglessness.

Aristotle indicates that the medium of tragedy is drama, not narrative. Tragedy “shows” rather than “tells.” According to Aristotle, tragedy is higher and more philosophical than history because history simply relates what has happened while tragedy dramatizes what may happen, “what is possible according to the law of probability or necessity.” History thus deals with the particular, and tragedy with the universal. Events that have happened may be due to accident or coincidence; they may be particular to a specific situation and not be part of a clear cause-and-effect chain. Therefore they have little relevance for others. Tragedy, however, is rooted in the fundamental order of the universe; it creates a cause-and-effect chain that clearly reveals what may happen at any time or place because that is the way the world operates. Tragedy therefore arouses not only pity but also fear, because the audience can envision themselves within this cause-and-effect chain.

Aristotle defines plot as “the arrangement of the incidents”: i.e., not the story itself but the way the incidents are presented to the audience, the structure of the play.  According to Aristotle, tragedies - where the outcome depends on a tightly constructed cause-and-effect chain of actions - are superior to those that depend primarily on the character and personality of the protagonist.

                                                                                        ELEMENTS OF PLOT

1.     The plot must be “a whole,” with a beginning, middle, and end. The beginning, called by modern critics the incentive moment, must start the cause-and-effect chain but not be dependent on anything outside the compass of the play (i.e., its causes are downplayed but its effects are stressed). The middle, or climax, must be caused by earlier incidents and cause the incidents that follow (i.e., its causes and effects are stressed). The end, or resolution, must be caused by the preceding events but not lead to other incidents outside the compass of the play (i.e., its causes are stressed but its effects downplayed); the end should therefore solve or resolve the problem created during the incentive moment. Aristotle calls the cause-and-effect chain leading from the incentive moment to the climax the “tying up” (desis), in modern terminology the complication. He therefore terms the more rapid cause-and-effect chain from the climax to the resolution the “unravelling” (lusis), in modern terminology the dénouement.
2.     The plot must be “complete,” having “unity of action.” By this Aristotle means that the plot must be structurally self-contained, with the incidents bound together by internal necessity, each action leading inevitably to the next with no outside intervention, no deus ex machina. According to Aristotle, the worst kinds of plots are “‘episodic,’ in which the episodes or acts succeed one another without probable or necessary sequence”; the only thing that ties together the events in such a plot is the fact that they happen to the same person. Playwrights should exclude coincidences from their plots; if some coincidence is required, it should “have an air of design,” i.e., seem to have a fated connection to the events of the play.  Similarly, the poet should exclude the irrational or at least keep it “outside the scope of the tragedy,” i.e., reported rather than dramatized. While the poet cannot change the myths that are the basis of his plots, he “ought to show invention of his own and skilfully handle the traditional materials” to create unity of action in his plot.
3.     The plot must be “of a certain magnitude,” both quantitatively (length, complexity) and qualitatively (“seriousness” and universal significance). Aristotle argues that plots should not be too brief; the more incidents and themes that the playwright can bring together in an organic unity, the greater the artistic value and richness of the play. Also, the more universal and significant the meaning of the play, the more the playwright can catch and hold the emotions of the audience, the better the play will be.
4.     The plot may be either simple or complex, although complex is better. Simple plots have only a “change of fortune” (catastrophe). Complex plots have both “reversal of intention” (peripeteia) and “recognition” (anagnorisis) connected with the catastrophe. Both peripeteia and anagnorisis turn upon surprise. Aristotle explains that a peripeteia occurs when a character produces an effect opposite to that which he intended to produce, while an anagnorisis “is a change from ignorance to knowledge, producing love or hate between the persons destined for good or bad fortune.” He argues that the best plots combine these two as part of their cause-and-effect chain (i.e., the peripeteia leads directly to the anagnorisis); this in turns creates the catastrophe, leading to the final “scene of suffering”.

                                                       The Archetypal Journey

                                                             Compiled by Billy Marshall Stoneking

Essentially, this is a fish-out-water story in which the fish are undergoing a primal rite of passage.

Four suburbanites from Atlanta go into a wilderness, dependant on one of their party (Lewis Medlock).

This is a character-driven drama, and the characters are really archetypes. 

                                                    The Four Principle Characters

It could be argued that this starts as a mutlit-protagonist story, but the dramatic action centers mainly upon Ed, who must take up the challenge of the wilderness virtually single-handedly after the canoe accident.

Ed Gentry (John Voigt)  - Joe-Average. Everyman. The Middle-Class.Respectable and Moderate. He craves the normal while flirting with the dangerous. He wants to be safe and indulges in vicarious thrills. Underlying value: to be secure.

Lewis Medlock (Burt Reynolds)  - Physical man. Hunter. Athletic. Materialistic.  Underlying value : to survive.

Bobby “Chubby” Tripp (Ned Beatty) -  Appetitive. Desirous. A sensuous voluptuary who is preoccupied with his own sexual prowess (or lack of it). He is both feminine and lustful. Underlying value: to prove his manliness.

Drew Ballinger (Ronny Cox) -  Artistic. Imaginative and creative. Aesthetic sensibility. A sense of proportion, balance and justice. “The Law”. The group’s conscience. Underlying value : to do the right thing. 

                                                         The Dramatic Question

        Are these guys going to make it down the river safely, “in time to see the football game on Sunday”?

What stands in their way?    Nature (the antagonist),  as well as their own natures.

The source of each one’s strength is also the source of their vulnerability. Where each is strongest, he is also weakest.

Rape of nature is introduced right at the beginning. The reason for the canoe trip is BECAUSE Lewis is anxious to see the river before “they” – the powers-that-be  (i.e.: progress) – build their dam and flood the river. They are, as Lewis says, going to rape the country. But the city boys are, themselves, expressions of the very progress that Lewis abhors. And in the film the Rapists become the raped;  the defilers, the defiled.

What is the essence of the rape?  Lack of respect for nature wedded to a sense of invulnerability. 

The hillbillies are part of nature. They are presented as something to be feared – the dying child – inbred, grotesque, laughable. They are NOT respected by the city boys.

Every major turning point in the film is accompanied by a PLAN, starting with the plan at the beginning : “We’re gonna leave Friday and I’ll get you back in time to see the pom-pom girls at halftime cos I know that’s what you care about.” (Lewis Medlock).

The story presents a journey into the heart of darkness and joins other stories that comprise this enduring tradition of storytelling, from Huckleberry Finn to Moby Dick, from The Odyssey to Ovid’s tale of the Argonauts and the Golden Fleece. It is a journey into the unknown, into the unconscious, where each finds what he fears most and struggles to over come that fear or die. Water is highly symbolical in the journey, associated as it is with the unconscious, with memory (Neptune) – there is also the idea of initiation (baptism), and transformation.

Dreams are associated with the unconscious too – at the end of the film there is Ed’s dream of water and the resurrection of his most hidden fear.

The idiot savant (Lonny) = Spontaneity… as does the dancing hillbilly. There is no learned behaviour here, merely the natural expression of being inside the moment, inside nature, inside one’s own nature. It is what the city boys “sold” as Lewis points out. The banjo and guitar music at the beginning is improvised, free – the conscious mind goes on a holiday… at this point there is real COMMUNICATION between the locals and the interlopers. It is interesting to note that as soon as Drew wants to formalise or acknowledge the connection (with a handshake) he breaks the connection. Lonnie (nature) turns away from him.

The musical motif is repeated throughout at significant moments, sometimes in the form of reverie – as in a musical memory of what has been lost - or sometimes as a dirge or a slow ominous march towards the dark of the not-yet born.

Lonny  is also the gatekeeper – their last connection with so-called civilisation. As they pass under the footbridge, they pass the threshold of the known world and enter into “the belly of the whale”.

The structure is unusual.

What is the inciting incident? Where does it occur?  It all depends on HOW you “read” the story.

In the novel, it’s the men deciding to go on a canoe trip. In the original script it’s the men arriving in Oree. In the film, arguably, it’s the men’s encounter with the Griner brother and his agreement to drive their cars down to Aintry.

The story proceeds by virtue of the contrasts it presents and the tensions that result from these contrasts:

The primitive vs the modern

The backwoods vs the city

The old vs the new

The known vs the unknown

                                               DELIVERANCE - Scene by scene

A scene breakdown of the positive and negative energy shifts/movements occuring in each each. A scene with a plus ("+" )denotes a positive scene, which the major actions of the scene promote the attaining of the characters'  goal or objective.

A scene with a minus ( "-" ) is a negative scene in which the actions and/or events in that scene make it more difficult for the characters to achieve their goal. A "-/+" signifies an ironic positive scene in which the actions of the scene APPEAR to oppose the characters' objective, but don't.

Conversely, a "+/-" signifies an ironic negative scene insofar as it would APPEAR that the actions are favoring the characters' onjectives, when in fact they don't. All dramatic scenes are charged in one of these four ways. Where their is no charge, the scene is said to be neutral, which means lacks drama. 

Act I

Sequence 1 – “Into the Wilderness”

Scene 1  ROAD and WILDERNESS (Two cars make their way along roads that become more and more primitive, accompanied by V/O conversation. First plan)     +

Sequence 2 – “Oree”

Scene 2  - OREE TOWNSHIP       +

Scene 3  -  GRINER BROTHERS COMPOUND   (Inciting incident?)    + / -

Act II

Sequence 3 – “Heading Downstream”

Scene 4  - TRACK TO RIVER    + / -

Scene 5 - THE RIVER  /  RAPIDS   +

Scene 6 – FIRST CAMP   +

Act III 

Sequence 4 – “The Resting Place”

Scene 7 – THE RESTING PLACE     -

Scene 8  - BY THE RIVER  (Burial of the dead hillbilly & second plan)       + / -

Sequence 5 – “Into the Abyss”

Scene 9 – RIVER/GORGE      -

Scene 10 – CLIFFS     + / -

Scene 11 – GORGE     +

Sequence 6 – “Deliverance”

Scene 12 – RIVER  (discovery of Drew)     -

Scene 13  - RAPIDS       +

Act IV

Sequence 7 – “Civilisation”

Scene 14 -  RIVER   (third plan)        +  

Scene 15 – COUNTRY/CHURCH    +

Scene 16 –   HOSPITAL   +                                       

Sequence 8 – “Investigation”

Scene 17 – GUESTHOUSE    -

Scene 18 – RIVER    -

Scene 19 – ROAD  (Church with ringing bell)   -

Scene 20 -  HOSPITAL    +

Act V 

Sequence 9 – “Return”

Scene 21 – PARKING LOT (One more question)   +

Scene 22 – CEMETERY   -

Scene 23 – ED’S HOUSE/ATLANTA       + / -    

as expressed in the film, DELIVERANCE

1. The Ordinary World of the hero with its suffering, boredom and neurotic anguish.  (Back story, played out in exposition in the film)

2. A Call to Adventure, when the ordinary world is no longer endurable and the hero is ripe for change.  (played out in exposition in the film)

3. Refusal of the Call when the hero is scared, even terrified at first, and avoids the challenge.  (not included in the film, except for Ed’s expressed desire to return to the city during Lewis’ encounter with the Griner brother)

4. Meeting a Mentor who acknowledges, supports and spurs the hero onward. (This role is fulfilled by Lewis in both the film and the novel. Most obvious in the fishing scene with Ed)

5. Crossing the First Threshold when the hero begins to feel really weird, and gets very scared. (This begins with the first hillbillies negative reaction to the canoe trip; it is heightened by the Griner brother’s reaction to the trip and further amplified by the journey down to the river, crashing through the trees, etc)

6. Tests, Allies and Enemies when the hero feels greater stress and anxiety than ever before, is tempted to pack the whole thing in but finds people who can help, and often a few dangerous ones who can hurt. (The night camp; the counter with the deer and the climatic confrontation with the hillbillies at the “resting place”.

7. Approach to the Inmost Cave where the hero glimpses the dark side of his true, hidden self, the side he's always denied for most of his life.  (The debate over what to do with the body and its burial)

8. The Supreme Ordeal in which the hero attempts to use those parts of his true self that terrified and shamed him before. (Ed’s scaling the cliff and killing the hillbilly)

9. Reward for Seizing the Sword when the hero slowly discovers new passion and begins to feel a steady, daily glow from harnessing the power of his true self.  (The return to civilisation, - as personified by the wrecked cars – and Ed’s success in returning the group to the relative safety of Aintry.

10. The Road Back when the hero must adjust his new-found passion to the demands of the ordinary world, a trying time for imaginative heroes impatient with bureaucracies and the tedious people who inhabit them. (The police investigation)

11. Resurrection when the hero glimpses his impending death, takes his "What have I done with my life?" exam and grades himself. (The resurrection in the film is of the body of the slain hillbilly, and the guilt that Ed carries and will carry for the rest of his life)