(In Part 1 we looked at screenplay from the perspective of actions and therefore time. In this part we open up Aristotle to look at the order that these actions might have.)
Screenplay writing, as elucidated in Part 1 of this article, can be described as the noting down of the creative arrangement of a set of ‘events’ as manifested in the ‘movements’ contained therein, the basic unit of which is identified as ‘beats’ or ‘sub events’, so that the resultant finite imagined ‘time’ span could be recorded in the audio-visual medium and projected on to the screen; and through the sound speakers for the benefit of the viewers. Well, this all encompassing exhaustive definition is distinct from the one that looks at the act of writing for movies as just ‘story writing’, which it is and definitely much more. The ‘story’ is a byproduct of this process and can be inferred from the set of ‘actions’ organized in the ‘plot’. A story can be termed as a chronology of events in its entirety, where as a ‘plot’ is a selection of the ‘events’ arranged for a dramatic purpose according to thematic and emotional significance, but more on that as we move on.
The prime deduction is that screenplay writing is the creation of a set of structured ‘events’ or what Aristotle calls ‘actions’ as a ‘plot’. Now having said that, the next question that begs for a natural inquiry is this – what guides these arrangement of ‘events’ and ‘sub events’? And also, what should be these ‘events’? In other words, if you are choosing a particular ‘time’ for these ‘events’ to unfold, where would you begin such a ‘time’ and where would you end it? What would be the basis for such a selection? On an apparent level, the it would seem that it is entirely at the discretion of the writer or the creator of such set of ‘events’ to do so, which it surely is.
For a movie to be made on Mohandas Karanchand Gandhi, one could start the chain of ‘events’ from his birth and continue up to his death. One obviously cannot incorporate all the ‘events’ that have occurred in Gandhi’s life in the movie, in its entirety. One might have to leave many out, just to get a hold of the ‘screen time’ of the movie, if nothing else. Here is the arguable question – which set of ‘events’ would you leave out and which of them would you keep? A complete movie can be conceived and made by concentrating only on the journey that Gandhi undertook into the interior of the country that India was, with a burning quest to know about its people and culture, just as he had come back from Africa. If the movie is highlighting the pro people approach of Gandhi’s politics and philosophy, then this selection of ‘events’ that concentrates only on the said journey of understanding of the masses could be ideal.
The key factor here is to figure out the intention of the creator or the writer. The very selection of the ‘events’ and thus ‘time’, betrays the stand the writer has taken on his subject. Yet another complete movie could be made on a different set of ‘events’ that would depict, say, Gandhi’s views on patriarchy, his relationship with his wife and children. That movie would have a different purpose. The first thing to do before one sits before a pen and paper or in front of a computer to write a screenplay is to figure this out – what is your stand, the movie maker’s or the producer’s stand on the subject? Answers to these automatically leads up to a selection of a particular set of ‘events’ and the resultant ‘time span’ that could then be incorporated into the movie.
A bit about ‘Mimesis’ –
Plato
Over the past many centuries, people have reflected on this aspect in many fundamental ways and in great depth – what are the matters that are to be narrated and how could they be narrated? Books have been written on art aesthetics where inquiries into the nature of such creative constructions were indulged in – many dwelling into the very purpose and the need to have a narration of any sort. Ancient Greek Philosopher Plato (429-347 B.C.E.) believed that the ‘idea’ is the ultimate reality. ‘Life’ itself is the imitation of the ‘ideal’ – or what ought to be. The world that appears to us is an ‘imitation’ of that ‘idea’ and so, is defective. There is a perfect world of ‘forms’ or ‘ideas’ that is eternal, changeless and maybe abstract as we don’t see it concretely in the physical world – things like good, bad, ugly, beauty, evil, pious, massive, tiny etc…
Plato gives an example of a carpenter who first gets an ‘idea’ as to how a chair should be shaped before carving out a wooden chair on the basis of such an idea. Therefore, the wooden chair that exists in physical world is an ‘imitation’ of the ‘idea’ of the chair that existed in the carpenter’s mind; and therefore always imperfect by virtue of being an ‘imitation’ of the ‘idea’ of the chair. Now, if a painter makes a painting of this wooden chair, then such a representation will be an ‘imitation’ of that wooden ‘imitation’, the original being the ‘form’ of the chair that was ideated in the mind of the carpenter.
Therefore all art is ‘mimetic’ in nature, we are told. They imitates life, which in turn imitates ‘forms’ and ‘ideas’. Ancient western art philosophy views different arts as ‘imitation’ of an ‘imitation’ that ‘life’ itself is, the original source being the world of ‘ideas’. Thus, movies as seen from this perspective can be termed as a recording or reproduction of an ‘imitation’ of the ideated structure of a set of ‘events’ that have a particular ‘time’ span to it. If such an ‘imitation’ has been put down on a piece of paper in an intermediary process, then that process could be called as screenplay writing. Thus, ‘movies’ themselves are ‘imitations’ of ‘screenplays’, which in turn can be seen as an ‘imitation’ of the ‘thoughts’, ‘ideas’ and ‘patterns’ that are ideated by the writer. With profound apologies to René Descartes, the 17th century French philosopher, we can audaciously say, “I think, therefore a movie is”.
Plato seems to take a view that Gods and heroes cannot be evil or weak, and since ‘imitation’ is imperfect, a poet’s ‘imitation’ of these figures would lead to a misrepresentation that could cause negative effects on the society. Since poetry caters to intuitions and emotions, it will take people away from reason, which was perceived as the ultimate gratification. On the other hand, another Greek ancient philosopher Aristotle (384 BCE to 322 BCE) believed that the ‘form’ or an ‘idea’ has to be deliberated upon and it is the role of the artist / poet to do so in ‘imitations’ – that is precisely what distinguishes him / her from the rest. The poet ‘recreates’ and ‘rearranges’ the already known facts and presents them in an appealing way, opening a new world of understanding out there.
Aristotle and Modes of Imitation:
Aristotle
In this piece, I would like to scan through one of Aristotle’s works called ‘Poetics’ composed around 330 BCE and discover with awe its continued relevance to the modern screenplay writer. We would be flirting with the world of religious hymns, epic poetry narration, the ancient tragedy, the comedy drama and the likes – but would ultimately settle down with the tragic drama, the form where Aristotle’s biases probably lies. Much of what is said on the tragic drama, could very well be applied to other forms of drama; and even to present day movies.
Aristotle terms Epic poetry, Tragedy, Comedy, Dithyrambic poetry (A frenzied, impassioned choric hymn and dance of ancient Greece in honour of Dionysus, the God of wine), and instrument playing as ‘modes’ of imitation. ‘Modes’ can be termed as ways of representations or ‘imitations’ that differ with each other by their ‘means’, ‘objects’ and ‘manner’. Just as form and colour are used as ‘means’ by painters or voice by orators, a combination of ‘rhythm’ and ‘harmony’ are the ‘means’ of instrument playing. ‘Rhythm’ without ‘harmony’, is the ‘means’ in the dancer’s ‘imitation’. A piece of prose is ‘imitated’ by ‘language’ alone as its ‘means’. A poem has ‘language’ and ‘rhythm’ to it as manifested by metres, the basic rhythmic structure of accents in a line. Certain other arts combine the ‘rhythm’, ‘melody’, and ‘verse’. e.g. Dithyramb (a frenzied choric hymn and dance in ancient Grease in honor of Dionysus, the god of wine and orgiastic religion) and Nomic poetry (lyrics performed in choral song at religious festivals), and Drama – the Tragedy and Comedy.
The ‘objects’ the imitator represents are ‘actions’ of ‘agents’, and not the ‘agents’ themselves. These ‘actions’ of ‘agents’ are necessarily ‘good’ or ‘bad’ in nature. This is a primary distinction that divides mankind on the basis of ‘virtue’ and ‘vice’. These ‘agents’ must either be above our own level of goodness, below it or at par with it. In a Tragedy, the personages are better than we are and get worse by the end of the ‘imitation’. In the various versions of the Indian movie ‘Devdas’ the well bestowed protagonist looses everything that he has by the end of the movie, including his life. In a comedy, ridicule or satire, personages worst than us become at par with us or better by the end of the ‘imitation’ – the 1978 Hrishikesh Mukherjee film ‘Gol Mal’ being the point in case where the unemployed protagonist Ramprasad Sharma immorally lies through his teeth with an intention of living a life that he loves, but hopelessly and humorously falls into a ridiculous trap of his own making. He attains redemption only when he owns up his mess.
The ‘manner’ in which these ‘objects’ are ‘imitated’ or represented also makes way for the differences in these arts. Given the same ‘means’ and the same kind of ‘objects’ for imitation, one may either speak in one moment in narrative (reciting the story singularly) and at another in an assumed character or one may remain the same throughout, without any such change. Alternatively, the imitators may represent the whole story ‘dramatically’, enacting things instead of describing them. When the personages are ‘acting’ and ‘doing’, then the art form can be termed as ‘drama’; the form that movies appear to be closer to.
Origins of Poetry:
Aristotle’s case is that the origins of poetry is ‘imitation’ or ‘mimeses’. Since childhood we learn by ‘imitation’ and take natural pleasure from it. Learning itself is one of the greatest pleasures of life, for a philosopher or otherwise. Similarly we also take pleasure in ‘works of imitation’ because we learn from such ‘imitations’. Though the objects of ‘imitation’ themselves might be painful – like death of a personage – we take delight of its representation in arts. The reason for the delight in seeing a painting is not only because one is learning and gathering the meaning of things and nature of persons; but also if one has not seen the object that is being imitated before, the pleasure will also be due to the execution of the ‘imitation’ like in coloring, acting or something similar. So, it would seem that movies that bases itself more on its formal nature have indeed an aesthetic validation that applies to them retrospectively!!!
A sense of ‘harmony’ (musical sounds) and ‘rhythm’ would be as natural to us as ‘imitation’ is, continues Aristotle. A poetic metre is a specific rhythmic structure of a line in poetry based on syllables and a pattern of emphasis on those syllables. A series of improvements that the ‘imitators’ improvised on ‘harmony’, ‘melody’ and ‘rhythm’ got them to create metric poetry. Poetry soon broke into two kinds according to the differences of ‘character’ in the individual poets, writes Aristotle. The serious ones represented noble actions of noble personages. They improvised and first produced hymns (songs of praise) and panegyrics (speechs of praise) and dramatic accounts of heroic deeds; and of course Tragedies.
The meaner among the poets sought the actions of the ignoble personages. They improvised and first produced ‘invectives’ (insulting and abusive language) and then ‘dramatic invective’ and the dramatic portrayal of the Ridiculous (Comedy). As mentioned earlier, comedy is seen as an imitation of men worse than the average; worse not because of every fault, but only because of one particular kind, the Ridiculous, which is a species of the Ugly. The Ridiculous itself, as per Aristotle, may be defined as a mistake or deformity that does not cause pain or harm to others. They are not ‘evil’ as a ‘bad’ character is, but just laughable. For example – a bumbling dumb witted detective like Inspector Clouseau in the movie series ‘Pink Panther’.
Poetry discarded short stories an acquired a sense of ‘magnitude’. It also left aside the ‘ludicrous’ (ridiculous) diction to pass out of its satyric stage (Satyr play is a genre of ancient Greek drama that preserves the structure and characters of tragedy while adopting a happy atmosphere through a lewd chorus). It assumed a tone of dignity; making the necessary changes to bring into it the commonly used metre, inching towards the Tragic drama. It is necessary to have a basic understanding of the origins of ‘drama’ from an Aristotelian perspective so that we know where we stand while writing a screenplay today, most of which is in any case in the ‘dramatic narrative’ structure.
The Epic Poetry and Tragedy:
Aristotle further differentiates between the ‘Epic Poetry’ and the ‘Tragedy’. Both of them are ‘imitations’ of serious subjects in a grand scale. But they differ in certain ways. The epic poetry is in verse that is spoken in the narrative form (said by one person). The Tragedy also relies on melody (Music) and are spoken by more than one persons. The ‘action’ of the Epic Poetry have no fixed limit of time and there are multiple places that they could go to, whereas Tragedy tries to keep things as far as possible within a single circuit of the sun (a day), or something near that. They also differed with each other in their constituents (parts); some like ‘character’ and ‘plot’ being common to both and others like ‘dramatic enactments’ and ‘spectacle’ (Properties, settings and the other things that we see on stage) peculiar only to Tragedy.
Definition of Tragedy:
Aristotle codifies a ‘Tragedy’ as the ‘imitation’ of an ‘action’ that is ‘serious’ and also having a ‘magnitude’, ‘complete in itself’; in ‘language’ with ‘pleasurable accessories’, each of them brought in separately in the different parts of the work; in a ‘dramatic’, not in a ‘narrative form’; with incidents arousing ‘pity’ and ‘fear’, with the purpose to accomplish a ‘catharsis’ of such emotions. Some portions of the ‘imitation’ in a Tragedy are worked out only with verse, others with song and melody and some others with ‘dramatic enactments’. ‘Language with pleasurable accessories’ would mean the elements of rhythm, harmony or song. Catharsis is the purging of the emotions of pity and fear that are aroused in the viewer of a tragedy. The primary purpose of ‘imitation’ in a tragedy is to attain this purgation, in the audience.
Replace the world ‘Tragedy’ with ‘movies’ and the definition for a screenplay writer would go somewhat like this – A movie is a recording of an imitation of a serious dramatic action, having magnitude, complete in itself, with pleasurable accessories that includes language, rhythm, harmony etc. with incidents arousing pity and fear in order to accomplish catharsis of such emotions. This definition does not seem to be far fetched at all, although movies today have gone beyond what was considered as ‘Tragedy’ then, and even what is considered so now.
Parts of a Tragedy:
Aristotle names six parts to a Tragedy – a ‘Fable’ or ‘Plot’, ‘Characters’, ‘Thought’, ‘Spectacle’, ‘Diction’ and ‘Melody’. Of these ‘melody’ and ‘diction’ arise from the means (devices for attaining a purpose) of imitation, the ‘spectacle’ is a manner (way in which a thing is done) of imitation; and ‘plot’, ‘character’ and ‘thought’ derive from ‘objects’ (a person or thing to which a specified action or feeling is directed) of the dramatic imitation.
The ‘plot’ is the first essential; the life and soul of Tragedy, screams Aristotle. The ‘action’ is represented in the play by the ‘Fable’ or ‘Plot’ which is nothing but the structured combination of the incidents. Aristotle draws a parallel with painting, where the most beautiful colours laid without order will not give one the same pleasure as a simple black-and-white sketch of a portrait with a particular order. The most powerful elements of attraction in a Tragedy, the ‘Peripeties’ (reversals) and ‘Discoveries’, are essentials parts of the ‘Plot’ – that we will ponder over at a later stage. The plot of the 1975 Hindi language film ‘Sholay’ is this – a retired handicapped police officer successfully utilizes two small time crooks to fight a bunch of dangerous dacoits who have been terrorizing his village, although one of the crooks gets killed in the process. So, a plot is simply what you see on the screen and it suggests a story – or a chronology of events in its entirety.
Aristotle values ‘characters’ as the next essential element of the Tragedy. ‘Character’ is what makes us ascribe certain ‘moral qualities’ to the ‘agents’, he says. ‘Character’ reveals the ‘moral purpose’ of the ‘agents’, i.e. the sort of thing they seek to do or avoid to do. ‘Actions’ of the ‘agents’ are derived from their ‘character’. One of the ‘agents’ in ‘Sholay’ is the retired police officer whose ‘character’ makes him believe in the goodness of things and people. Such ‘character’ gets revealed in the ‘moral purpose’ that he has – ie.. to save himself and his fellow villagers from the deeds of the evil dacoits.
‘Thoughts’ comes in as the third important elements in a tragedy in the Aristotelian scheme of things. ‘Thoughts’.. i.e. the power of saying whatever that can be said which is appropriate to the occasion. ‘Thought’ is manifested in all that the ‘agents’ say when they are proving a particular point or enunciating (presenting) a general truth. Coming back to ‘Sholay’, when one of the young innocent villager is killed by the dacoits and his body paraded, the entire village is shocked and people back out of a fight that they have been preparing for quite some time. The blind old father of the boy then makes a case for a continuance of a fight back despite his personal set back, his ‘thoughts’ clearly communicated to the villagers through his speech to them in front of his dead son, post which the villagers gather their purpose once again with rigor and becomes successful in the end.
But Aristotle gives us some warnings – ‘Thought’ and ‘Character’ should not be confused with each other. For example there is no room for ‘Character’ (revealing moral purpose) in a speech on a purely indifferent subject. The speeches in a Tragedy like the one uttered by Mark Antony in Julius Caesar, falls under the arts of Politics and Rhetoric (the ability to see the available means of persuasion). Experienced poets make their personages indulge in their discourses like statesmen (one who exhibits great wisdom), and the moderns ones like rhetoricians. The available means of ‘persuasions’, as per Aristotle, are Ethos, Logos and Pathos. Ethos is an appeal based on the nature of the speaker, Logos is an appeal based on logic and reasoning and Pathos is an appeal based purely on emotions.
Fourth among the elements in a ‘Tragedy’ is the literary element of ‘Diction’ of the personages, i.e. the expression of their ‘thoughts’ in ‘words’, which can be in verse as well as in prose. ‘Diction’ is a means of ‘imitation’, it simply means the composition of the verses or speech.
‘Melody’ is music, a means of ‘imitation’. The Melody is the greatest of the ‘pleasurable accessories’ of Tragedy.
And finally, the ‘Spectacle’, though an attraction, is the least artistic of all the parts of the Tragedy, as Aristotle sees it, because it has least to do with the art of poetry. The ‘spectacle’ is all that are shown on stage – the actors, costumes, properties etc.; in movies the ‘spectacle’ used in this manner and of this understanding (and not referred to as meaning glitter and grandness of scale) is the mainstay of the medium.But in poetry, the tragic effect is quite possible without the performance of the actors; and besides, Aristotle adds, the getting-up of the ‘Spectacle’ is more a matter for the ‘costumier’ than the poet. But then I would suspect Aristotle had his own biases and preferences towards the art of poetry !
Inter connection between ‘Plot’, ‘Character’ and ‘Thought’:
Sholay
Aristotle also points out the intricate connection between the ‘plot’ (action), ‘character’ and ‘thought’. The subject represented or imitated in a tragedy is an ‘action’; and ‘action’ involves ‘agents’ who must necessarily have their distinctive qualities of ‘character’ and may be expressed in ‘thought’. And it is from these that a certain quality can be ascribed to their ‘actions’. In a natural flow of ‘events’, ‘character’ and ‘Thought’ would be the two ’causes’ of the ‘actions’ of the ‘agents’, and consequently of their success or failure in their lives within the ‘plot’.
In Sholay, the retired police officer in the prelude to the plot, while he was still in service, had jailed the two crooks for petty crime. Yet later on after his retirement, he looks out and hires them to guard his village from the evil dacoits. This contradiction of a law officer hiring one set of criminals to neutralize another set of criminals is offset by the ‘character’ of the retired police officer that betrays his ‘moral purpose’; the ‘moral purpose’ being his ‘noble intention’ to save the villagers from the evil dacoits. Thus, the ‘action’ of the police officer in hiring the petty criminals stems from his ‘character’. In the process of hiring, he expresses his ‘thoughts’ to the two petty crooks as to why is he hiring them – the cause being that the two of them had saved his life once, thus making him logically believe in their inherent goodness. It is because of this ‘character’ of the police officer expressed though his ‘thoughts’ that the ‘action’ of hiring has occurred, this in turn directly resulted in the ‘success’ in the life of the ‘agent’ who by the end of the film manages to eliminate the dacoits and free the villagers of their tyranny.
Coming to think of it, ‘Sholay’ and Aristotle are about 2500 years apart! Ramesh Sippy, the director of the film or Salim-Javed the writers can not exactly be called as masters in Aristotelian thoughts! But neither can I or anyone else. But we surely could be in awe of the collective subconscious that allows the seepage of these apparently universal concepts ideated back then, knowingly or unknowingly, into our work. Aristotle is and therefore we are.
To be continued..
by Ramchandra PN 10/10/2020
Click here to read Part 1
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