Date: Thu, 08 Oct 1998 19:54:01 -0400
From: Claudia <Claudia-AT-blue-diamond.cnchost.com>
Subject: Re: The 3 act paradigm


I agree with your point about stretching a film/story over the framework
of a given model -- not unlike fitting the prophecy of a horoscope to
one's actual life...

Anyway, I don't think that a play in 4 or 5 literal acts would not
necessarily fit into the 3-act story structure.  I say this with no
examples to back me up, but it is my instinct that the act breaks in a
play don't have to correspond with the traditional/standard act breaks
recognized when analyzing a story.

The types of movies I think may not fit so succinctly into the 3-act
struture would be "road movies".  Again, no good examples, just an
educated guess.  But, I think road movies may sometimes be structured
differently because of the number or way the main character faces
obstacles.

...FWIW..............Claudia

David Gibson wrote:

> 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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