Category Archives: Films

analyzing films

#screenwriting, Films, Menu A, Structure

3 Act Structure in 127 Hours

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127 Hours runs at 90 minutes and adheres to perfect 3 Act Structure:

Act  1: 15 minutes.

Act 2a : 30 minutes. 

Midpoint

Act 2b: 30 minutes.

Act 3: 15 minutes

NB: The Midpoint or Point of No Return happens at 45 minutes – exactly half way through the movie.

Each act break + plot point is not only marked with a Turning Point  but is also marked with the end of a musical sequence.

Watch the film carefully paying attention to what happens at these exact times.

So, what happens at each Turning Point?

SPOILER ALERT – watch the movie before you read this analysis!

Act  1 begins by foreshadowing the moral revelation the hero will have in the climax – Aron’s selfishness – as he refuses to answer his mum’s phone calls or tell his work mate where he’s going. Next we’re shown an excited young man off on an adventure. He’s a daredevil. When he spectacularly falls from his mountain bike he simply smiles, snaps a pic of himself and he’s ‘back on the saddle’ foreshadowing his tenacity and resilience displayed in extremis in the Climax.

After exactly 15 minutes, Aron falls: the film’s inciting incident. He’s trapped by the rock. Danny Boyle inserts the film’s title 127 Hours here, telling us the movie, the real story, starts now. Like any Act 2 this is the new world, the upset Status quo which must be re-balanced.

So Act 2 begins at 15 minutes.

Then, 15 minutes into Act 2 (30 minutes into the movie) we have Plot Point 1 which points us towards the film’s major Theme.

So what happens here? Well, we see Aron as a small boy sitting on the Grand Canyon in his father’s loving embrace as they both stare out at the rising sun. (Theme: interconnectedness + familial love).

Between 30 minutes and the midpoint at 45 minutes we witness Aron beginning to make his video diary. He addresses his mom and dad – we hear his mother’s voice saying ‘call me – lots of love’  (Theme reinstated: connectedness + familial love).

The Midpoint or Point of No Return comes at exactly 45 minutes: Aron takes his pocket knife and tries to cut his arm – foreshadowing the Climax. Why is this the Point of No Return? Because Aron is considering another option, if all else fails.

And we’re into the second part of Act 2 which we’ll call Act 2b.

Immediately after the Midpoint we’re back with the video camera and treated to the hilarious spoof radio show and Aron’s self-examination. This is a superb blend of comedy and tragedy. He reveals the fact he’s always seen himself as a ‘big fucking hard American superhero’ who can do everything ‘on his own’. This is writing of the highest quality; the hero’s moral / psychological revelation that his ‘supreme selfishness’ – his character flaw – has led him to this place of captivity and isolation, later to become a place of extreme suffering, is delivered with a ‘spoon full of sugar’ as this self-revelation is presented to us by the writers gift-wrapped in brilliant dialogue as Aron attacks his own flaws with  scathingly funny self-deprecating humor.

Then, 15 minutes after the Midpoint at Plot Point 2 Aron rams the blade into his arm. Danny Boyle takes us visually inside his arm and we see the blade ‘close to the bone.’ An idiom often used when remarks cut close to the truth. And the truth Aron has just revealed to us? He has been living life selfishly. In fact, he apologizes to his mom and dad into the camera for being ‘unappreciative.’

After another 15 minutes, at around the 75th minute of the movie – leading towards the End of Act 2 Turning Point Aron apologizes to his sister that he won’t be able to play piano at her wedding. Another apology. This dialogue tells us he has accepted his fate and that fate is death. Michael Hague calls this the ‘All is Lost’ moment. Blake Snyder the ‘Visit to Death’.

Then, still at the 75th minute mark, we enter ACT 3 as Aron makes one last ‘do or die’ drive to set himself free, and, as a mirror to the Midpoint – BANG! – he rams the blade back into his arm and drags us, screaming and terrified, feeling every nerve of his tortuous pain, into the bloody, horrific Climax.

The next 15 minutes are the Resolution as Aron is rescued. Here Aron’s learning curve – his character arc – is clear as the ‘big hard fucking superhero’ who can do ‘everything on his own’ screams for help from strangers – a changed man.

127 Hours sticks to perfect 3 Act Structure as taught by Michael Hague and also adheres to John Truby’s teachings on Moral and Psychological Revelations in his book Anatomy of Story.

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#screenwriting, Films, Motifs

127 Hours – motifs

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Part of the genius of 127 Hours (screenplay by Danny Boyle + Simon Beaufoy) are the recurring motifs which illuminate the major theme – that every living thing on earth is dependent on each other. We cannot survive without each other. But how do the writers portray this theme visually?

Two major motifs are Light and Water. Watch the movie again and see how prominent these are and how the writers and director uses them. And what are Light and Water ? Sources of Life itself. We can’t survive without either. Our very planet would die and so would we.

Another motif the writers use with subtle but powerful effect are how other creatures we share the earth with (symbolized by birds and insects) are also interdependent: the raven which flies overhead each day; the ants crawling on Aron’s skin. Birds feed on insects. Aron jokes in a seemingly irrelevant line of dialogue that almost escapes us:

‘I’ve peed twice but no number 2’s – which must disappoint my insect friends.’

But far from a throw-away line this is actually a profound statement about how we living creatures depend on each other – feed on each other. Literally.

A third motif used in this multi-layered movie is familial love, especially between child + parent. The memory of his father’s hug juxtaposed with the repeated use of his mother’s voice on the answer phone asking him to call her back, to connect.

We are all connected. We cannot survive alone. The laws of nature confirm this. No living thing can survive without  another. We all need Light + Water. Without them we could not survive.

What are your themes, and how are you expressing them visually and through dialogue?

Films

Writers – are you suffering alone ?

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127 Hours (screenplay by Danny Boyle + Simon Beaufoy) is about a man who endures the extreme depths of psychological and physical suffering but who learns through the experience, grows and changes – a heavy price to pay for character growth, especially as the story’s true.

Delve deeper and we see the movie’s major theme is connected to the protagonist’s psychological self-revelation. Before his journey into hell  Aron Ralston’s a self-proclaimed ‘big fucking hard Superhero‘ who can do everything on his own. But by the end of the movie he’s screaming for help from strangers. That’s a changed man. But what a journey it takes to get him there. His revelation and the major theme of this movie is that we need others. We cannot go it alone in this world. No man is an island.

This theme is brilliantly captured in the movie’s set-up with the eye contact between Aron and a cyclist.  Aron is on a solo adventure. The cyclist is with a bunch of others. The big question the movie asks is: should we do things alone or together?

Are you as a writer going it alone? If you’re a novelist do you use an editor? If you’re at marketing stage do you use a PR strategist? If you’re a screenwriter do you use a script consultant? Or are you, like Aron, suffering alone ?

Films, Structure

3 Act structure.

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Having explored most of the major screenwriting books like Story by Robert McKee, Anatomy of Story by John Truby, Screenwriting for Hollywood (audio book) by Michael Hague, The Writer’s Journey by Chris Vogler, Save the Cat by Blake Snyder   and The Sequence Approach by Paul Joseph Gulino (among others) I’m still convinced 3 Act structure is the way that feels right, the most organic. What about you? Are you using 3 Act, or finding Truby’s 22 Steps better, or the 8 Sequence approach?

I see the ‘Turning Points’ in 3 Act structure as stepping stones between which we the writer have absolute freedom to create character, scribble scenes, dabble with dialogue, search for subtext etc. while needing to step on these crucial stones  so that our heroes can reach their goals. What do you think? Which structure are you using? Or if you’re a novelist do you follow structure at all? Should novels obey the rules of screenplays or should there be more freedom for fiction?