I like McKee. I mean, I don’t hate him. When going through this reading on the train back to Melbourne last night, I showed a friend what we were given this week and he told me he had a speaker come in and give in a similar low-down on the do’s and don’ts of screenwriting. Jokingly, I asked “did he say no deus ex machinas?”, referencing this scene from (the Jonze/Kaufman masterpiece) Adaptation. (2002):
And surprised was I ever when today it was revealed that this lecturer character is in fact the writer of (one of) this week’s readings (he was with us another week too if I remember correctly). The man, the myth, the legend: Robert McKee, played so spectacularly by Brian Cox (that sweetly serenading voice: also see, Zodiac (2007)).
McKee, of course, makes some good points, but with this piece having been published in 1997 I fear that it may be a little (maybe a lot) out of date; the ever-changing face of cinema, and the ever-changing faces of cinephiles seem to be beginning to reject some points McKee so powerfully asserts. Statements following lines such as “A story cannot be told about a protagonist who doesn’t want anything, who cannot make decisions” come off as slightly ignorant as many films have found their protagonist at a perpetually conflicted state, and it is this state which draws the drama in, sometimes in richer form. Obviously these notes are meant to be taken as scripture but McKee seems to be writing off any opposition to this template too quickly. It is the films which push these guidelines to the limits, or completely shatter them that stand out as unique, glorious in their doing so. But I guess you have to know the rules to break them.
McKee’s entire thesis strikes be as odd considering he never penned anything of worth (a few episodes of TV??) with such an extensive knowledge on the inner workings of narrative. McKees reluctance to refer to the protagonist as anything but ‘he’ is also odd, because clearly by 1997 a plethora of women-driven films had been put to screen by then (from The Wizard of Oz (1939) to Safe (1995)). Maybe I’m just being pedantic.
I’m glad that this is a thing.
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Also, my Office subscription ran out, so I guess my notes will be taken here for now. What lazily follows is a list of the ‘big’ (or at least bold) points McKee makes, saved for future use:
- Two ends of a story: the substance V audience’s reaction to this substance
- Protagonist: that who allows the audience to slip into a subjective and highly imaginative POV, to understand the substance of the story and how it performs
- Single character
- Plural-Protagonist: duo, trio, etc. possibly an entire class of people. Two conditions: all individuals in the group share the same desire, and in the struggle to achieve this desire they mutually suffer and benefit. Motivation, action and consequence are communal.
- Multiprotagonist: characters pursue separate and individual desires, suffering and benefiting independently. eg. The Breakfast Club, Robert Altman (finally a mention).
THE PROTAGONIST
A PROTAGONIST is a willful character.
The PROTAGONIST has a conscious desire.
The PROTAGONIST may also have a self-contradictory unconscious desire.
The PROTAGONIST has the capacities to pursue the Object of Desire convincingly.
The PROTAGONIST must have at least a chance to attain his desire.
The PROTAGONIST has the will and capacity to pursue the object of his conscious and/or unconscious desire to the end of the line, to the human limit established by setting and genre.
A STORY must build to a final action beyond which the audience cannot imagine another.
The PROTAGONIST must be empathetic; he may or may not be sympathetic.
THE FIRST STEP
In story, we concentrate on that moment, and only that moment, in which a character takes an action expecting a useful reaction from the world, but instead the effect of his action is to provoke forces of antagonism. The world of the character reacts differently than expected, more powerfully than expected, or both.
THE WORLD OF A CHARACTER
“A character’s world can be imagined as a series of concentric circles surrounding a core of raw identity or awareness, circles that mark the levels of conflict in a character’s life.”
“The inner circle or level is his own self and conflicts arising from the elements of his nature: mind, body emotion.”
“The second circle inscribes personal relationships, unions of intimacy deeper than the social role.”
“The third circle marks the level of extra-personal conflict–all the sources of antagonism outside the personal: conflict with social institutions and individuals.”
THE GAP
STORY is born in that place where the subject and objects realms touch.
ON RISK
The measure of a value of a character’s desire is in direct proportion to the risk he’s willing to take to achieve it; the greater the value, the greater the risk.