Date: Thu, 08 Oct 1998 15:45:53 +0100
From: David Gibson <djg6-AT-ukc.ac.uk>
Subject: The 3 act paradigm


Hello, you theorists.

I'm doing some work on narrative form at the moment,
and I would appreciate any input about the dominance
of the 3 act form in Hollywood film-making.

I'm only really familiar with the 3 act structure through
reading Syd Field's 'how to write movies' sort of books.
However, it is so profligate in the classical cinema, that
I presume it is made use of in the Hollywood internal
literature comtemporary to the 20s/30s/40s: Does anybody
have references for such works ?

More to the point, can you think of any classical Hollywood
movie that is problematic for the 3 act form; I realise that
there is a certain amount of subjectivity here in that
a film may be stretched post hoc over the framework
of a conceived  model. The only examples that spring to
my mind though, are adaptions of 4/5 act plays, Shakespeare perhaps,
and anthologies like O'Henry's Full House etc.

In that the model is seemingly general enough
to swallow-up disparate narrative strategies, I've not
been too succesful in thinking about exceptions
outside classical filmmaking either; a film like
Last Year at Marienbad that doesn't really do
anything narratively perhaps, and also a film
told markedly in two halves, as Kubrick's
Full Metal Jacket, although, we can see
here again the movement through set-up, conflict 
and resolution. To be perfectly honest, I'm not
sure what alternatives could be found to such
a pattern.

Thoughts much appreciated.

David Gibson.


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