In the five or six
years I have spent investigating the 34 common cinematic plot patterns, I have broken down and analyzed the structures of literally
hundreds of popular films. I have since used the best, most
prototypical examples I could find to illustrate each particular
pattern on this blog and my book Screenwriting & The Unified
Theory of Narrative, Part II.
However, this pool of study films has always had one shortcoming: it
was limited to movies I personally own or have access for close
study. While my personal movie collection is quite large, it is far
from an exhaustive library of every excellent film made over the last
fifty years. As such, there have been many popular films
conspicuously absent from my writings. In my free time over the past
month, I have sought to remedy this issue. As you shall see from the
list below, I have identified for the first time the plot patterns
contained in over two dozen popular favorites.
Also
included on this list are films I viewed very early in my
investigation, back when I had only a vague conception of the shape
of the various patterns and before I began mapping out each film plot
point by plot point. As such, there were films whose pattern I could
not yet identify or initially miscategorized. As I now realize (and
as you shall read below) the patterns of these films were difficult
to identify because many take advantage of the alternative options
found in each pattern or contained acceptable deviations from the
prototypical norm. As a result, analyzing these deviant examples
reveals the flexibility of cinematic plot patterns. Plot patterns are
not rigid formulae, but have the capacity to bend and stretch to
accommodate individual story premises and artist intentions while
still producing effective, well-received narratives.
The
bottom line is that the following overlooked films continue to
confirm my theory of the 34 Common Plot Patterns of American Cinema.
Some have just proven more difficult to analyze due to their use of
alternatives, deviations, combo patterns, hybrid patterns, or their
use of dual or triple protagonists.
(Warning: Lots of
SPOILERS ahead.)
The Cider House Rules (1999)
Let’s
start with a simple one. The Cider House Rules
is a Type 5a: The Escapist, one of the most commonly-seen Hollywood
plot patterns. The pattern offers a wealth of prototypical examples
in all shapes and sizes, from Lawrence of Arabia
to Office Space, Coming to America to
American Beauty, Dances With Wolves
to The Nightmare Before Christmas, Tootsie to
Trainspotting. To
summarize, the Escapist begins with a protagonist who has grown
dissatisfied with his or her life or environment, roles or
responsibilities. At the end of Act 1, the protagonist abandons this
current reality to escape into what he or she sees as a more pleasing
alternative. Things first go well in this new way of life. However,
it proves to be a fool’s paradise. Unwelcome doses of reality begin
to invade the protagonist’s happy refuge in late Act 2A, bringing
the carefree paradise to a potential end at the Midpoint. Yet rather
than return to reality or face its problems, the protagonist
formulates a second alternative: an Option C. Act 2B follows the
pursuit and ultimate demise of Option C, resulting in an end-of-act
crisis event. Here the protagonist must make a difficult choice:
either return to the former reality to face its problems directly
(and/or take responsibility for past mistakes), or continue to deny
the reality of the situation by attempting to escape even further—a
foolish path which leads to a sad or ignoble end.
We
can see this pattern quite clearly in The Cider House
Rules. The protagonist Homer
Wells (Tobey Maguire) has lived his entire life at St. Cloud
orphanage. During that time, Homer has become the skilled assistant
of Dr. Wilber Larch (Michael Caine), the man who not only runs the
orphanage, but performs abortions and births the babies of unwed
mothers. Homer is expected to become Larch’s successor. But Homer
is young and restless, never having stepped foot off the orphanage
grounds. In addition, he secretly questions the moral necessity of
Larch’s work. At the end of Act 1, Homer seizes an opportunity to
escape. In Act 2A, Homer enjoys the rustic life of an orchard worker
and begins to fall in love with Candy (Charlize Theron). Meanwhile,
trouble is brewing at St. Cloud’s. Dr. Larch may lose control of
the orphanage unless Homer returns as Larch’s official successor.
However,
when apple-picking season ends at the film’s Midpoint, Homer
ignores Larch’s letters urging his return, opting to stay on his
own to begin a love affair with Candy while her boyfriend Wally (Paul
Rudd) is away at war (Homer’s Option C). While this again goes well
for the first half of Act 2B, the new path begins to fall apart when
Wally is wounded in battle and set to return. Homer’s destiny also
rears its head when he must perform an abortion on fellow worker Rose
(Eryka Badu) after she is impregnated by her own father. A double
tragedy then permanently ends Homer’s escape at the end of Act 2B:
Rose kills her father and runs away; Dr. Larch dies of an accidental
overdose. With this, Homer chooses to return to the reality from
which he originally sought escape, and saves St. Cloud orphanage by
accepting his destiny as its new caretaker.
Home Alone (1990)
Home Alone
is also an Escapist narrative, but demonstrates an interesting
alternative to the pattern’s central premise. Rather than a
protagonist escaping his/her unhappy reality, everything undesirable
about that reality escapes the protagonist. Eight year-old Kevin
(Macaulay Culkin) hates being the youngest child in a house packed
full of obnoxious family members. He hates it so much that he wishes
out loud that his whole family would disappear. By a twist of fate,
Kevin is accidentally left behind when his family leaves for
vacation, fooling Kevin into believing he has gotten his wish. Kevin
has escaped his family.
Just
like the Act 2A of any Escapist narrative, Kevin first finds his new
family-free world to be a child’s paradise. But Kevin soon realizes
that life alone can be difficult and frightening, especially when
burglars Harry and Marv (Joe Peschi & Daniel Stern) start
snooping around the house. At the Midpoint we find another necessary
deviation from the standard pattern. While most Escapist protagonists
(like Homer Wells) consciously avoid a return to their former reality
in favor of an Option C, the story circumstances of Home
Alone preclude the possibility
of return at the moment. Furthermore, Kevin does not even realize
return is an option, as he believes he has permanently wished his
family away. Therefore, in response to the Midpoint event, Kevin must
transition from simply enjoying his private paradise to a quest to
hide his secret solitude in order to protect himself and his home.
However, this Option C falls apart when Harry and Marv discover
Kevin’s secret at the end of Act 2B.
Kevin
now prays aloud for his family’s return. He has had enough of his
escape and wants to return to his previous reality. While Home
Alone’s Act 3 is comprised
mostly of the comic hijinx of Harry and Marv’s botched home
invasion, it ends with Kevin welcoming his family back with open
arms. Kevin has learned that, while escape was fun, a stable family
life with people who care and watch over him is far more preferable.
Big (1988)
Let’s
move on to the next plot pattern, Type 5b: The Ejected. I am happy to
find three new
examples of the Ejected since, as one of the more rarely-seen plot
patterns, I have previously had only a shallow pool of cases for
study. As for prototypes, the best I could find for Unified
Theory of Narrative were Jerry
Maguire (1996), Darren
Aronofsky’s The Wrestler
(2008), and the Paul Newman poolhall classic The Hustler
(1961). The pattern’s name issues from its first act, where the
protagonist initially pursues a flawed, ill-advised, or naive
ambition. (Jerry Maguire’s manifesto to his sports agency calling
for systemic change; Randy “the Ram” chases his fading glory as a
professional wrestler; Fast Eddie challenges Minnesota Fats before he
is ready.) The protagonist’s errors in judgment have the
consequence of forcibly EJECTING the protagonist from his/her world
at the end of Act 1. (Jerry is fired from his agency; Randy has a
heart attack and can no longer perform; Fast Eddie loses in
spectacular fashion and is left broke and destitute.) Act 2A then
sees the protagonist exiled, wandering in the wilderness, seeking out
allies and new paths to hopefully get his/her life back together and
hopefully find a way to return to the original ambition.
This
pattern is found quite clearly in the first half of Big.
Thirteen year-old Josh Baskin feels the frustrations of being stuck
between childhood and adolescence, wishing he could simply skip over
this awkward stage of his life. In a fateful moment, Josh expresses
this ambition to a magical “Zoltar” machine and awakes the next
morning transformed into a 30 year-old man. The consequences of
Josh’s wish completely eject him from his 13 year-old world. He
cannot even remain at home, as his mother is terrified of this
stranger calling himself her son. Josh and his best friend Billy
decide that Josh’s only option is to enter the wilds of New York
City and try to survive as an adult until they can find a way to
reverse Josh’s wish. While first scared and confused, Josh manages
to get a job, find some allies, even score a major promotion. Yet
Josh remains an outcast; a 13 year-old trapped in a 30 year-old’s
world.
The
Ejected pattern is further distinguished by a “Great Compromise”
at the story’s Midpoint. Here, the protagonist chooses to
compromise his/her original ambitions, long-term objectives, ethics,
or integrity in favor of some immediate gain. In some cases, this is
a potentially positive path which is then sabotaged by the
protagonist’s personal flaws (as seen in The Wrestler).
More often, this is an ill-conceived path motivated by the
protagonist’s Flaw which leads the character further away from
his/her required personal change. (In Jerry Maguire,
the emotionally-needy Jerry begins a romantic relationship with, and
eventually marries, his assistant Dorothy even though he does not
love her. In The Hustler, Fast
Eddie makes a deal with seedy manager Burt to earn the money to play
Fats again.) In Big,
Josh makes this compromise by choosing to blow off his best friend
Billy to start an adult relationship with his coworker Susan. Over
the rest of Act 2B, Josh forgets his desire to return to his 13
year-old life (much to Billy’s disgust) in favor of the life of a
mature adult. Yet by the end of the act, Josh comes to realize this
is the wrong path. He recognizes all he will miss by remaining an
adult.
Thus,
in typical Ejected fashion, the protagonist’s moment of Crucial
Decision occurs at the start of Act 3 (not at the Midpoint, as in
most patterns). Josh runs out on his big business meeting, abandoning
everything he has achieved as an adult, to find the Zoltar machine
that will change him back into a kid. As in most Ejecteds with
Celebratory “up-endings,” the film ends with the protagonist
successfully returning to the original world.
The Shawshank Redemption (1994)
I
do own a copy of The Shawshank Redemption and
have used it for study many times. However, until now, the film
had perplexed me in terms of its
plot pattern. Shawshank has
never been an easy film to analyze from a structural standpoint. It
lacks the clear Problem > Goal > Path of Actions spine found in
most Hollywood films. Nor is there an overtly-defined
protagonist-antagonist conflict. Instead, Shawshank
contains a long, episodic yarn
covering over thirty years of story time in which the forces opposing
the protagonist often shift or fade. As such, it is difficult to put
a finger on various structural elements in the way one might for a
more traditional, action-oriented movie. For instance, I originally
mused that Shawshank might
be a highly abstract take on the Destructive Beast plot pattern (a
pattern which contains, among many others The Terminator)
where the “Beast” is the despair determined to consume
protagonist Andy Dufresne (Tim Robbins). But that was just silly.
No,
it is now clearly obvious that The Shawshank Redemption
follows the Ejected pattern. The reason it took me so long to realize
this comes from a significant deviation in Shawshank’s
opening act. The easiest way to recognize an Ejected is by the End of
Act 1 Turning Point whereby the protagonist is forcibly expelled from
his/her former environment. However, in Shawshank,
this event is used as the inciting incident (Andy is convicted of
murder and sentenced to life in Shawshank prison). In fact,
Shawshank compresses
the entire Act 1 of a regular Ejected into its first six and a half
minutes. The second sequence of Shawshank’s
Act 1 then picks up where an Ejected’s Act 2A usually begins; with
the protagonist lost in the new wilderness. For its own End of Act 1
Turning Point, Shawshank instead
uses the plot point where the protagonist takes the first step toward
establishing a place in his new world: the moment when he befriends
Red (Morgan Freeman). (This is comparable to the moment in Big
when Josh gets a job in New York.)
The
rest of Shawshank,
however, follows the Ejected pattern quite closely. This is made most
obvious by the clear Great Compromise found at the story’s
Midpoint. Warden Norton takes advantage of Andy’s intellectual
pride (Andy’s Fatal Flaw) by making him the prison’s unofficial
accountant, a role which tangles Andy in Norton’s crooked
schemes, essentially making Andy a criminal accomplice. This turns
out to be a foolish path which leads to Andy’s ruin at the end of
Act 2B. Andy, given a chance to prove his innocence, is crushed under
Warden Norton’s power out of the fear that Andy will reveal the
prison’s secrets upon his release.
Shawshank
again deviates somewhat from the norm in Act 3 by the simple fact
that the protagonist disappears into thin air at the first turning
point. Yet as the remaining act fills in the narrative gaps behind
Andy’s disappearance, we see that Andy’s Act 3 course of actions
follows the same path as Josh's in Big:
Through self-reflection and personal evaluation, Andy makes his
Crucial Decision at the start of Act 3. Finally purged of his flaws,
Andy chooses to take the actions necessary to return to world from
which he was originally ejected.
Rushmore (1998)
Well,
this is embarrassing. In the past, I have used Wes Anderson’s
Rushmore as a
prototypical example of Type 3a: Crisis of Character, both in this past article
and in my book Screenwriting
& The Unified Theory of Narrative.
However, one thing about Rushmore
never completely meshed with the Crisis of Character pattern – its
Act 2B. I have now come to realize that Rushmore
is
NOT a Crisis of Character, but yet another Ejected.
It
is an easy mistake to make. The Crisis of Character and the Ejected
are very similar in terms of their first two acts. As already
covered, the Ejected begins with a flawed protagonist who, through an
ill-conceived ambition, ends up ejected from his/her former world at
the end of Act 1. Act 2A then finds the banished protagonist seeking
a new path, hopefully to make an eventual return. In comparison, the
Crisis of Character begins with a deeply-flawed protagonist who lives
a self-satisfying life in a private, socially-isolated niche. (Think
of Shrek [2001]
or As Good as it
Gets
[1997].) Unexpected events cause Act 1 to end with the loss of this
precious niche. Act 2A then starts with the protagonist taking
actions intended to regain the niche. The line between “ejection”
and the “loss of a niche” is fairly thin. The main difference is
that the former suggests a more forcible expulsion which is in some
way the protagonist’s own fault. In the latter, the loss more often
comes through a twist of fate or stroke of bad luck. (In Shrek,
the titular character’s private swamp is suddenly turned into a
ghetto for banished fairy tale creatures. In As
Good as it Gets,
OCD-ridden Melvin Udall’s (Jack Nicholson) tightly-regulated life
is disrupted when Carol the waitress is no longer able to serve him
at his daily eating place.)
The
action in Rushmore
blurs the line between these two patterns. Narcissistic teen Max
Fisher (Jason Schwartzman) has created a private wonderland out of
his life at Rushmore Academy (Max’s niche). An infatuation with
teacher Miss Cross (Olivia Williams) motivates Max to launch a crazy
scheme to impress her—a plan which gets Max expelled from Rushmore
Academy at the end of Act 1. Rushmore’s
Act 2A blurs the lines to an even greater degree. The act is
comprised mostly of Max’s efforts to make the best of his new life
in public school (with the hope of being invited back to Rushmore)
with the help of Miss Cross and Mr. Blum (Bill Murray). But is this
an attempt to chart a new path in the wilderness, or a quest to
regain the lost niche?
Rushmore’s
Act
2B then cracks the case wide open. In a Crisis of Character, the
Midpoint presents a moment when the protagonist, through his or her
increasing interactions with other people, comes to realize
that there is something better in life than his or her isolated
niche. The protagonist comes to desire a closer connection with
another character. In Act 2B, the protagonist largely forgets about
the niche in favor of pursuing this healthy, more positive
relationship. This does not happen in Rushmore.
Here,
the Midpoint involves Max’s discovery of the secret love affair
that has developed between Mr. Blum and his crush Miss Cross. In
response, Max launches a savage campaign of revenge, believing this
will free Miss Cross for his own affections. This, of course, is a
very poorly thought-out Great Compromise of Max’s original
ambitions. And, like in Shawshank,
this path leads Max to the bottom of a deep, dark pit by the end of
Act 2B.
To
be honest, I should have identified Rushmore
as an Ejected right away by the placement of the Character Arc's Moment of Crucial
Decision. In a Crisis of Character, the
Crucial Decision typically occurs at the story’s Midpoint. In the
Ejected (as already mentioned) it happens at the beginning of Act 3.
Indeed, it is not until the start of Act 3 that Max finally realizes
what a selfish jerk he has been and takes the necessary actions to
make amends. A Celebratory Ejected need not always end with the
protagonist’s return to the original world. Alternatively, the
story can end with the protagonist finding a new life which is just
as satisfying, or even more so than the original. This is how Jerry
Maguire
ends, and this is also what occurs at the conclusion of Rushmore.
Up (2009)
While
we’re on the subject of the Crisis of Character, let’s talk about
Disney/Pixar’s Up. Up checks off most of the boxes of
a prototypical Crisis of Character.
Flawed,
antisocial protagonist? (Carl is a misanthropic curmudgeon.) Check.
A
socially-isolated niche which the protagonist loses at the end of Act
1? (After the death of his wife, Carl has shut himself off from the
world in his old house. By court order, Carl is evicted from his
house, which is then to be bulldozed.) Check.
A
quest to regain that isolated niche (or a niche of equal or greater
value) in Act 2A? (Carl lifts his house off the property on a quest
to live the rest of his life alone at the top of Paradise Falls.)
Check.
A
“Character of Disapproval” whose function is to continually
criticize the protagonist’s flaws in order to nudge the protagonist
toward personal change? (Young explorer scout Russell winds up stuck
tagging along on the adventure.) Check.
A
Moment of Crucial Decision where the protagonist decides the niche is
no longer so important, and gives it up in favor of a greater
personal connection with other characters? Check.
Yet,
there are also some clear discrepancies in Up. For starters,
there is an uncommon amount of action and adventure in Up’s
second half. There are also additional characters and story elements
which do not fit the Crisis of Character’s norms. When Carl and
Russell reach the island of Paradise Falls, they encounter a giant
prehistoric bird (who Russell names “Kevin”) chased by
superintelligent dogs. Carl learns the dogs belong to his childhood
idol Charles Muntz. Muntz is on an obsessive quest to capture Kevin
at all costs. While first in awe of Muntz, Carl soon realizes Muntz
has gone dangerously mad. Russell begs Carl to defend Kevin from
capture. Yet Carl is apathetic to the bird’s plight – until
Muntz’s mad actions put Russell in danger. With this, Carl puts all
personal concerns aside and rises to the occasion, heroically
opposing his former idol to save Russell and Kevin.
This
summary also sounds familiar. It is a simplified version of the
Crisis of Character’s sister pattern, the Crisis of Conscience. As
exemplified by films like Casablanca, On the Waterfront, and
Schindler’s List (and discussed in detail in this previous article), the Crisis
of Conscience begins with a protagonist allied on the side of a Force
of Darkness (Carl has been a lifelong devotee of Charles Muntz). A
Victim/Advocate character then begs the protagonist for help against
the Force and its evil deeds (Russell asks Carl to save Kevin from
capture). Though this creates a moral dilemma, the protagonist
resists these pleas until the Force commits an action so
unconscionable that the protagonist can no longer look the other way
(Russell’s life is put under threat by Muntz). The protagonist then
turns on the Force of Darkness and transforms into a selfless hero.
Up
is therefore a hybrid Taking on the Mantle, incorporating plot and
character elements from both of its subtypes. (Hybrid patterns are
briefly explained in this article.)
As an added note, Iron
Man
(2008) is also a hybrid Taking on the Mantle (as discussed in detail
in this article),
although Iron
Man combines
the elements of the Crisis of Conscience and the Crisis of Character
in a much different way. In any case, you can sound smart if anyone
ever asks you what Up
and
Iron Man
have in common.
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