Kristin Thompson, author of "Storytelling in the New Hollywood: Understanding Classical Narrative Technique," a book I can't believe I haven't read and have therefore just ordered, explores her observations and theory of story structure in a blog entry called "Times go by turns," which gets to the heart of how movie storytelling works by showing how familiar structures involve the use of more than the "three acts" we're accustomed to thinking about. She was inspired by the Society for the Cognitive Study of the Moving Image conference in June at the University of Wisconsin in Madison -- and, boy, does that ever sound like something that would be up my street. (Also: See my post "Tell me a story... or don't.")
Kristin writes:
Most screenplay manuals treat turning points as the major events or changes that mark the end of an “act” of a movie. Syd Field, perhaps the most influential of all how-to manual authors, declared that all films, not just classical ones, have three acts. In a two-hour film, the first act will be about 30 minutes long, the second 60 minutes, and the third 30 minutes. The illustration at the top shows a graphic depiction of his model, which includes a midpoint, though Field doesn’t consider that midpoint to be a turning point.What fascinates me is how we feel these classical structures in our blood (metaphorically speaking), even if we're not consciously aware of it. Somehow (conditioning? Some kind of intuitive sense?) we feel the story beats as they occur on schedule, and seem to know just where we are in the picture at any given moment. Sometimes that can be very satisfying, giving us a feeling of momentum as we hurtle forward with the movie. In other cases, it can simply feel dull, predictable, formulaic -- as though the structure is dictating the story. These kind of movies feel like they're on auto-pilot, like nobody cares enough to invest in the story and characters.I argued against this model in "Storytelling," suggesting that upon analysis, most Hollywood films in fact have four large-scale parts of roughly equal length. The “three-act structure” has become so ingrained in thinking about film narratives that my claim is somewhat controversial. What has been overlooked is that I’m not claiming that all films have four acts. Rather, my claim is that in classical films large-scale parts tend to fall within the same average length range, roughly 25 to 35 minutes. If a film is two and a half hours rather than two hours, it will tend to have five parts, if three hours long, then six, and so on. And it’s not that I think films must have this structure. From observation, I think they usually do. Apparently filmmakers figured out early on, back in the mid-1910s when features were becoming standard, that the action should optimally run for at most about half an hour without some really major change occurring.
I'm delighted by movies that play with our ingrained expectations. One that immediately comes to mind is Antonioni's "L'Avventura" (even the title tastes of irony), in which a woman mysteriously disappears and we expect the rest of the movie to be an investigation into what happened to her. Instead, the film itself seems to lose interest in her and goes off in another direction. It becomes an entirely different kind of mystery and opens up with possibilities. Gradually we awaken to a movie that could go anywhere at any time.
Mike Leigh's miraculous "High Hopes" (1988) does something similar, beginning by following a lost young man named Wayne, whom you assume is the protagonist, who encounters another guy on the streets of London, who helps him out. And then Wayne wanders off. The movie stays with the people he's led us to. Twenty years ago I wrote:
A few minutes into Mike Leigh's delightful "High Hopes", you may think you know where the movie is taking you, but believe me, you don't. "High Hopes" -- in story, characters, tone, and structure -- refreshingly confounds the humdrum expectations we moviegoers have built up over years of continuous exposure to formulaic product-pictures.(Yes, I've been slipping stealth-quotes from "Chinatown" -- and "Nashville" -- into my writing for more than 30 years.) I was a daily newspaper critic at the time I wrote that, and continued with the job until 1993, but I was thoroughly bored and frustrated by the number of movies that slavishly followed schematic structures instead of letting structure help to guide and shape the story in ways that felt natural and intuitive. I'm far more interested in a movie in which character seems to guide the story rather than plot or structure.In its own leisurely and unassuming way, this bracing and unpredictable film dares to tease, trick and seduce us with savage satirical wit and gentle compassion. In the process, "High Hopes" becomes a cleansing and renewing experience, stripping away those dingy layers of lusterless formula that have accumulated over time (clogging and dulling your cinematic senses), as if they were so many sticky old coats of waxy yellow build-up on your linoleum. Writer/director Leigh (who later became well-known in America with Life is Sweet, Naked, and Secrets & Lies) magically combines personal and political concerns, outlandish caricature and understated naturalism in a film that moves you in marvelous and unexpected ways.
On yet another level, the Coen brothers' "The Big Lebowski" has a hilarious time playing with the conventions of the private eye movie -- beginning with the character of the Dude, who isn't a Chandleresque private eye at all but lives in Los Angeles (that's "Los Angle-ease," according to the narrator) and finds himself drawn into a crazily contorted 1991 version of "The Big Sleep," complete with all-powerful wheelchaired patriarch and oversexed bad-girl daughter.
The protagonist is clueless, his antagonists are primarily motivated by philosophical nihilism, and the narrator keeps telling us what an enjoyable story he's telling us, in case we didn't notice. (Compare to the droll narrator of "Barry Lyndon," who not only tells us what we're seeing, but informs us in advance of how each act is going to end.) After the inevitable femme fatale seduction scene, complete with post-coital pillow talk, we discover that her ulterior motive is... she wants to get pregnant. This movie assumes you are familiar with the rules, and proceeds to twist them, wringing humor from the overturning of your expectations.
Getting back to Syd Field: On his web site, he writes about reading the screenplay for the chronologically scrambled "Pulp Fiction" (1994)... and finding that it still more or less fits the standard structural model for Hollywood films:
I remembered Henry James' literary question: "What is character but the determination of incident? And, what is incident but the illumination of character?" If this key incident is the hub of the story, as I now understood it, then all things, whether actions, reactions, thoughts, memories, or flashbacks, are tethered to this one incident.You can feel this as you watch "Pulp Fiction" (and, likewise, "Reservoir Dogs"). Field nevertheless comes to the conclusion that "Pulp Fiction" "a new departure," although he finds it superficial: "a "B" movie, shallow, exploitative, the epitome of everything I don't like in the movies. Influential maybe, significant maybe, but in no way revolutionary, as I was defining the term."Suddenly, it all made sense. Understanding "three stories about one story" allowed me to see the film as one unified whole. "Pulp Fiction" is really three stories surrounded by a prologue and epilogue; what screenwriters call the "bookend" technique. Like "The Bridges of Madison County" (Richard LaGravenese), "Sunset Boulevard" (Billy Wilder and Charles Brackett), or "Saving Private Ryan" (Robert Rodat). [...]
It became clear to me that no matter what the form of the film, whether linear or non-linear, there is always going to be a beginning, a middle and an end. A film like "Courage Under Fire" (Patrick Shane Duncan) for example, or "Groundhog Day" (Danny Rubin, Harold Ramis), or "The Usual Suspects" (Chrisopher McQuarrie), or "The English Patient" (Anthony Minghella), or "Memento" (Chris Nolan), are all structured around a specific, inciting incident; only when that incident is shown does the story line split off into different directions. To build a non-linear movie means defining the parts, then structuring each part from beginning to end, at which point the screenwriter can put them into any order he or she desires.
I enjoyed "Pulp Fiction" a lot more than Field, but I don't really have much quarrel with the first part of his reservations (it's by no means the epitome of everything I don't like in movies -- "Mississippi Burning," "Natural Born Killers," "Pretty Woman" and, perhaps, "Mystic River" better fit that bill, guilty of contemptuous, exploitive violations that are far more serious -- not to mention far less witty).
So, as always, I'd like to get your thoughts. Can you describe some movies that employ the three-, four- or six-act structure? How do they work for you? I'm not just talking about those that toy with structural or genre expectations, but films that play by the "rules" and succeed splendidly. Do you think a film with scrambled chronology, like, say, "Pulp Fiction," nevertheless follows these structural guidelines, with peaks and turning points at the expected intervals? (I just realized I'd like to write about that, too, but it's been too long since I watched all of "Pulp Fiction" -- or "Reservoir Dogs," which plays similar games.)
A warning: this is a broad response and only somewhat on topic, but it's storytelling-centric before it goes full-on tangent. You've been warned...
It's this sort of disregard for the rules that drives my love for a number of films, perhaps most notably last year's [i]Aqua Teen Hunger Force Colon Movie Film For Theaters[/i], which destroys/plays with/disregards/juggles the expected narrative form most unlike any other film I've ever seen and in ways too complicated for me to even begin explaining or exploring without substantially increasing the amount of time before I, as they say, hit the sack. Suffice to say, the movie opens with a "Let's All Go to the Lobby" parody in which badass concession stand items instruct the audience on proper theater etiquette (a snippet: "Did you bring your baby? Babies don't watch this! Take the seed outside! Leave it in the streets!"). In terms of the "stoner"-classified humor of the movie/TV show, I find it to be uproarious, but it also announces the movie as something of a manifesto for cinematic chaos, even terrorism (remember the panic in Boston over the light bright ads the studio utilized?). Without going further on theory (seriously, though, I'd like to see an exhibit at the MOMA dedicated to that which is [i]ATHF[/i]), I've always felt an almost profound realization in the film's climax, when the structure wraps back around on itself and basically says that all stories are the same in the end anyway. Or something like that.
Keith Uhlich and I both thought it the best film of last year (though in hindsight I think I liked the [i]idea[/i] of it being the best, and even though I still think it a surrealist and comedic masterpiece, [i]NCFOM[/i] and [i]Zodiac[/i] have emerged as the greater), and I wish he'd written a review of the film itself. A discussion piece may be in order. Also, I feel an Opening Shots contribution coming on. Still taking contributions?
Also, have we yet seen "Hellboy 2"? I think Del Toro may have just given us the closest thing we've yet to see in the way of a superhero movie masterpiece. Stunning, beautiful, rich, funny, dexterous... I'm going to need a new thesaurus before I'm through with this one.
rob: I haven't seen "ATHF," "Hellboy" OR "Hellboy II" yet, but you've got me pumped up for them. I remember Keith's enthusiasm for the Aqua Teen movie, but I've never quite gotten 'round to it. Maybe when I finish watching "Heroes"...
Is it wrong if I find structure to be the least interesting part of a movie? I mean, if the order a movie tells its story in is its most interesting aspect, it's probably a movie I don't want to see.
You mention Mike Leigh as an example, and from his working methods it's clear that he is interested in performances and relationships well before story structure.
In a lot of great films (Cassavetes being the most obvious example), structure isn't adhered to, and it's not "played against", it's pretty much just ignored. There are "turning points", but they aren't divided neatly into three, five, or ten sections, they're happening all the time, with every gesture, line and movement.
In my opinion, when you take a film and boil it down to a few turning points and plot twists, you inevitably miss what's great about the film in the first place.
I was skeptical (which is uncharacteristic of me) of Ebert's 4-star review of 'In Bruges', and also it being Roeper's favorite choice for a movie so-far this year, I mean, I thought it would be good, but I was not prepared for how absolutely great it was. I was struck by it characters, and it humor (both dark and human), and it sense of place.
But what amazed me the most was its structure! I was relieved that it had a complete structure. I assumed it would resolve once Colin Farrel's character got on the train, but there was a WHOLE other act left, and I wasn't prepared for its power. Its amazing sometimes how a simple structure or formula can sneak up on you, but in retrospeck, OF COURSE it had to have a more convolved (no, not convoluted) resolution AFTER he got on the train, and every moment after he got on the train was complete and wonderful and no-cheating and faithful pay-off for ALL that had come before. I was almost orgasmic in applying everything that had come before to add weight to the story (I don't want to give anything away but I will list the most striking reverberations): the child (well, that was the reason for the dwarf), the promise (this was poetic and funny as hell!), the stairs, the canals, the bell-tower attendant, even the coins (that was my favorite one, that broke my heart), I could go on. I know I have been gushing about this film, but I was to re-iterate that it was the 'structure' that made this film work for me; the fact that it rigidly and perfectly followed the formula to the conclusion that it set up from the very start, how brave to follow that straight and narrow path where it would lead. I applaud Martin McDonagh for making a perfect movie.
The first film that comes to mind when talking about structure most recently is "No Country For Old Men." You mention "The Big Lebowski" as an excellent example in your post, and I pretty much think that playing with, destroying, and repositioning "the rules of cinema" is precisely what makes so many of the Coens films more complex than it seems like they should be ("Lebowski" and "No Country" included). What strikes me about "No Country" is that every conversation I have had about it, from discussions on my blog to my MA classmates to my dad, all focus around the defying ending.
When [SPOILER ALERT] (as if people haven't seen it yet...) Llewlyn is killed, off screen no less, the film takes a giant leap from convention and undercuts the structure of acts. Even though it is Ed Tom that we start and end the film with (bookends, anyone?) the rest of the film is so focused on Llewlyn and Chigurh that a confrontation seems and, in any other film, should be inevitable. Instead of a third act showdown, Llewlyn is killed in what is basically the end of the 2nd act. Christopher Vogler's screenwriting book calls the 3rd act "the road back" (or something like that) but in "No Country", violence has invaded so much that there is no way for the simple, kind-of innocent people to succeed.
The 3rd act is left to Ed Tom who is an observer, rather than integral piece, to the mystery, just as he was for the boy he saw killed that he mentions at the beginning of the film. This ending received some really varied reactions, and for good reason. I think the Coens would be a great study in this, but "No Country" and Cormac McCarthy are about as defying as they come, for better or worse.
One more note...I wonder where films like Linklater's "Slacker" fit into this mold...I haven't seen the film for quite a while but that, or even "Russian Ark", seem like they would have act after act after act... Just some food for thought.
In screenwriting classes I've taken, and screenwriters I've spoken with, the four-act structure of a two-hour film is gaining traction as a new "paradigm" (God, I hate that word) in the field. I can't say structure interests me nearly as much as character, style, mise-en-scene, and dialogue. Most screenwriters pay too much attention to it, and that is like watching the line of scrimmage instead of the quarterback snap.
That said, structure can produce its own unique challenges and pleasures. I recently watched "No Country for Old Men" for the first time, and I liked how the Coens essentially skipped the second-act "twist" of action and moved right into a final act that had little precedence (but was still justified).
I wonder if the emergence of four acts as a new standard gained influence from episodic television, where hour-long dramas (like "Heroes," for example) are generally split into a tease and four segments of roughly equal length.
Slightly off-topic, but this seems like a good place to mention something that's nagged at me for a while. In The Empire Strikes Back, after the heroes escape from Hoth, Luke splits off from the others to find Yoda, while Han, Leia, etc. are constantly on the run from Imperial forces until they reach Cloud City, where they're reunited with Luke.
Problem is, it feels like there's some kind of splinter in space-time during the film's midsection that bounces back and forth between Luke's training and the others' chase scenes.
Granted, they never really specify just how much time passes between Hoth and Cloud City, but based on the general "flow" of the scenes, it seems like the group is on the run from the Empire for maybe a day or two (definitely less than a week) before reaching Cloud City. On the other hand, it seems like Luke has spent a *week* or two (if not more) with Yoda by the time he decides to abandon his training to help his friends.
I'm not saying Luke couldn't have acheived so much in a day or two (this is sci-fi, after all). I'm saying that with how it was filmed & edited, it actually feels like I'm watching two different time spans that somehow reconnect simultaneously.
Am I crazy? Has anyone else had the same sensation (and not necessarily with Empire)?
If I'm not crazy, maybe it was a script detail oversight? Or a result of editing choices that unintentionally messed around with those "beats" we're familiar with?
Three movies in particular strike me as successful 3-act films, all of which have the advantage of taking place in three distinct locations during each respective act.
Last year's "Atonement" and Peter Jackson's "King Kong" stand as two refined three-act films, and this is due in a large part to their settings. In a way, maybe it is the settings that further the story rather than character OR structure or plot.
"Atonement":
Act 1 - The Estate
Act 2 - The War
Act 3 - The TV Interview
"King Kong"
Act 1 - The Ship
Act 2 - Skull Island
Act 3 - Manhattan
(I realize these are pretty broad generalizations.)
The third film that came to mind was (as if this movie couldn't be talked about more) "There Will Be Blood." It offers an interesting take on those three acts. I suppose the wordless first 15 minutes and the 1927 coda fit the mold of "bookends." If this is the case, then the film's midsection would act as a standard three-act movie (rise to power, facing obstacles, accomplishing the goal). But I see the beginning and end as whole acts themselves because they are vital to the ultimate destination of the story (especially the conclusion). Perhaps "There Will Be Blood" is indeed a five-act movie.
I was surprised you didn't mention David Lynch in this post. The guy obviously knows how structure three acts...but when, according to the citations in this post, does a movie like "Inland Empire" stifle any explanation for storytelling itself (although your review for that movie is particularly valuable).
Three movies in particular strike me as successful 3-act films, all of which have the advantage of taking place in three distinct locations during each respective act.
Last year's "Atonement" and Peter Jackson's "King Kong" stand as two refined three-act films, and this is due in a large part to their settings. In a way, maybe it is the settings that further the story rather than character OR structure or plot.
"Atonement":
Act 1 - The Estate
Act 2 - The War
Act 3 - The TV Interview
"King Kong"
Act 1 - The Ship
Act 2 - Skull Island
Act 3 - Manhattan
(I realize these are pretty broad generalizations.)
The third film that came to mind was (as if this movie couldn't be talked about more) "There Will Be Blood." It offers an interesting take on those three acts. I suppose the wordless first 15 minutes and the 1927 coda fit the mold of "bookends." If this is the case, then the film's midsection would act as a standard three-act movie (rise to power, facing obstacles, accomplishing the goal). But I see the beginning and end as whole acts themselves because they are vital to the ultimate destination of the story (especially the conclusion). Perhaps "There Will Be Blood" is indeed a five-act movie.
I was surprised you didn't mention David Lynch in this post. The guy obviously knows how structure three acts...but when, according to the citations in this post, does a movie like "Inland Empire" stifle any explanation for storytelling itself (although your review for that movie is particularly valuable).
Andrei Rublev uses some seven characters to provide perspective of its title subject, who spends more time agonizing over action than actually doing anything. I think its unconventional narrative contributes to the Medieval world it presents. It also makes sitting through all 205 minutes of it especially rewarding. By contrast, Bergman's three-acts for The Seventh Seal help orient viewers in his Medieval world while reinforcing the limits to understanding it, especially when it ends.
Vengeance is Mine also comes to mind, in how it tinkers with chronology (opening with the killer's capture) and then forces you to choose whether you're rooting for him or his family (indeed, switching your allegiances as new information is revealed). It seems to follow a conventional three-act structure while challenging ideas of protagonist. You regret your sympathies, when the movie is over.
In fact, Japanese cinema seems especially notable on this front. Sion Sono's Suicide Circle and its sequel, Noriko's Dinner Table, both develop almost elliptically, by establishing a mystery and a protagonist but constantly switching our views of different characters with new information.
Just my two cents. Love the site.
In a way, "2001: A Space Odyssey", which is one of the least conventional films ever made, could be easily used by Field and others as proof of a set three-act structure: "The Dawn of Man", "The Jupiter Mission" and "Jupiter and Beyond the Infinite".
Or, it could be used as proof of Kristin Thompson's theory, since I of course left out one other point of action, which comes between "The Dawn of Man" and "The Jupiter Mission", when the film focuses on Dr. Heywood Floyd's trip to the moon and his team's examination of the monolith.
But aren't these just arbitrary dividers? How does one decide what constitutes an act or large-scale part?
P.S. Kudos once again for chastising "Natural Born Killers" and "Pretty Woman", in my opinion two of the most loathsome, dangerous movies ever to be unleashed on moviegoers. But I'm curious about your feelings on "Mystic River"...I found it clumsily staged and overrated when I first saw it, but it improved on a second viewing. I still don't think it's particularly good, but what precisely do you find loathsome about it? The McDrama device of a murdered child? The exploitative presentation of child abuse? I'm curious...
Todd Alcott, the screenwriter, is fond of analyzing Spielberg's films and pointing out how most of them follow a 4-act structure. Examples abound in his blog.
NOW...on to the post you requested. The most obvious examples of films that have this 4-act, "episodic" quality are the summer action films. Don't get me wrong, I love Iron Man as much as the next guy, but I could see the script unfolding before me like a book...half-an-hour to show Tony Stark's catharsis, half-an-hour of him dealing with his epiphany back home, half-an hour of him becoming Iron Man and kicking ass, and a climactic half-hour focusing on the confrontation between him and Jeff Bridges's character. To me, almost all origin superhero films seem to follow this structure. Sometimes they rearrange the first three acts, but this final act or episode -- the confrontation with the bad guy -- almost always feels arbitrary and forced to me. I like the way you phrased it when you said that you prefer films where characterization determines the structure more than...well, adherence to the accepted structure. "Iron Man," "Spider-Man," even "Batman Begins" (a movie I absolutely loved)...they all feel obligated to turn their backs on interesting character development to force in an arbitrary showdown with the villain.
This tangent leads me to another question that I think you addressed in your post: What is more important, the timing of the act change or what happens in each act change. If films would move into more interesting territory each half-hour and build upon the questions they raised earlier on rather than force showdowns, then the 4-act set-up might not seem so stale so frequently.
This feels like it's been a long post, so before I go, let me draw attention to two films that use the 30-minute divider as a good thing: "Citizen Kane" and "There Will Be Blood." In the former, things are divided concretely by the flashbacks, each of which adds something new to the previous while signaling a unique tonal shift. In "There Will Be Blood," things occur about half-hour or so to reveal new things about the character...the introduction of Eli Sunday, H.W. going deaf, Daniel meeting his "brother", Daniel discovering the truth about Henry, and H.W.'s return. Each of these incidents puts Daniel in a new situation, signaling a subtle change in focus that reveals something about this "protagonist" and develops him further towards what he becomes at the end.
Speaking of "Batman Begins" earlier on, I couldn't help but notice that you put up images from "The Dark Knight" for two earlier posts that were both concerned with story and plotting... seeing the 100% rating for the film on Rotten Tomatoes, is this going to be the flick that transcends the aforementioned limits of structure and thematic development in comic book films?
I've actually been interested in the five act structure that gets attributed to Shakespeare's plays (which weren't performed in acts, but it works well regardless.) Act one is the introduction, act two is complication, act three is actually the climax in that it determines how the rest will go, act four is a "counter movement" (so darker if it's a comedy or lighter if it's a tragedy), and act five is the resolution.
I'm not sure how many films use this, but it maps to Romero's original DAWN OF THE DEAD quite well. Act one, zombies are everywhere and people are on the run. Act two, the people are short on supplies and find a shopping mall. Act three, they take over the mall. Act four, they live weird normal lives cut off from the rest of the world. Act five, some bikers show up and the whole thing goes to hell.
There are all sorts of structures, I think- the three act one has the whole "beginning, middle, end" allure to it, but it's possible to build a story in a number of ways.
A.I. is a great example, with it's much maligned fourth act. There's a natural feeling that it should end with David at the bottom of the ocean. I don't even know that it's the story that really dictates that so much as our natural feeling for a three act structure. I like its structure, and ending, but I seem to be in the minority.
Jack: I know exactly waht you mean about ESB. Even as a kid, I wondered just how Luke could have been trained in what seems like just a couple of days. The second trilogy emphasized that oddity since they show padawans being trained over their entire lives. Obi-Wan wasn't fully realized until he'd had about 20 years of training. I can see Luke's timeframe being shorter, but not down to less than a week. Still love the movie though. =)
Good post, Jim! It's nice to see some decent analysis. I wish pop music blogs could be this good. Also, would you like to guess what I stuck up my butt today?
Jim-
In regards to the Syd Field quote declaring films like "Memento" - which play with time - to embody the 3-act structure. I am inclined to disagree and suggest that devotees to the 3-act model are willing to twist any differing structure to match their perceptions.
As long as we're recommending books written by the UW - Madison film faculty, I'd highly recommend the "Memento" chapter (and all the other chapters) of J. J. Murphy's book on independent film structure: "Me and You and Memento and Fargo." It's a great argument that independent screenplays tend to buck the 3-act structure - and that they are often a lot more interesting because of it.
-Jack
Terrific post, Jim! It inspired me to write a great deal, so hopefully some of it is of interest.
I think one reason it's hard to pin down whether a film is in three or four acts is that it's always possible to subdivide an act further. Acts are not indivisible; a one-hour section can probably be divided into two half-hour sections, or perhaps three twenty-minute sections, or so on, but these sections might still be more closely linked than they are to the rest of the film. For example, with something like "Fight Club" (spoilers!), I would break it down into
Act One: Introduction (From the opening until the first fight with Tyler outside the bar)
Act Two: The fight clubs (from the first fight to the big reveal about Tyler)
Act Three: Trying to set things right (the revelation to the end)
I don't have the film with me for comparison, but I'd imagine that breaks down into about 30:60:30. However, one can also break down "Act Two" into two acts of about equal length, the first being Fight Club and the second being Project Meyhem. The entire act is more or less about the "rise" of Fight Club and Tyler Durden (and the last thirty minutes actually having to fight him/them), but the two parts would then be about the narrator's rise and fall, in his own eyes, within the ranks. So is "Fight Club" a three- or four-act movie? Well...it's both, it just depends on how you want to subdivide it.
Re: "Pulp Fiction" and "Reservoir Dogs," I think it's fairly obvious that both of these films follow a very strong act structure; Tarantino even supplies intertitles at the beginning of each segment to help us along. There's some backlash against his movies for being as revolutionary as some claim, which I think is somewhat akin to people disliking "Citizen Kane" purely because they don't think it's the best film ever made. This might not be the place for it, but I disagree with Field's other criticisms of "Pulp Fiction"--the film is very pointedly "shallow" and "exploitive," with characters having fairly one-track minds and getting themselves into lurid situations, but I don't think that necessarily makes it genuinely shallow and exploitive. I think the key to my understanding and love for "Pulp Fiction" and a lot of Tarantino's work is that the B-movie influences are not so much in the movie's blood as in the characters'. Mobsters in "Reservoir Dogs" explicitly reference Lee Marvin because that's their model for how to behave; in "Pulp Fiction," the highlight of Mia Wallace's life thusfar was one failed, genuinely awful television pilot, and Jules repeats the same biblical passage incorrectly because it gives himself a false sense of gravitas. The movies are sort of comedy-horrors about what happens when characters' built-up worlds and self-images go up against the reality of what they're asking for, which is why the films alternate between ultra-stylization and fairly mundane results. "Pulp Fiction's" entire structure, beyond showiness, is really about redemption and returning to society, leaving false images of life in the biz behind:
Act One (intro): The teaser with Pumpkin and Honey Bunny is followed by a similar pairing, where Jules and Vincent talk, "get into character," and do a hit (no remorse, no morality)
Act Two: Vincent and Mia Wallace's date (Mia's overdose proves that actions have consequences)
Act Three (optionally part of Act Two, if you want to go with the 30/60/30 breakdown): Butch willingly goes in to protect Marcellus from those worse than them, thus "earning" his watch by going through hell the way his forefathers had to (the choice to do good, rather than evil, as one incident)
Part four/conclusion: One last job, and Jules decides to quit the business, with Pumpkin/Honey Bunny again mirroring Jules and Vincent.
The fractured chronology serves the story; finding out Vincent's fate without Jules alongside adds even more resonance to Jules' decision, and so on.
"Reservoir Dogs," is told mostly linearly but with character interviews and a few other flashbacks thrown in for good measure; the interviews usually signal the start of a new act, and getting to know each character in turn brings us closer to getting a full story, and to seeing things from that character's perspective. The movie circles in, sort of like "Kane": we meet all the crooks, then "White" (who has delusions of honour among thieves), then "Blonde" (who shatters such illusions) and finally "Orange" (who turns the movie inside out by shifting perspective back from the "bad guys" to the "good guys", robbers to cops). Each shift in perspective carries with it an appropriate new series of events.
I think that the three-or-four-act structure is actually fairly ingrained into movies; Jim, you mentioned "L'Avventurra," but I think that it still follows that approximate structure: the time on the island is Act One, the woman's disappearance is at the beginning of Act Two, which then becomes about the new lovers, and then Act Three is the gradual realization of sadness on the couple's part, ending with that beautiful final shot. (Sorry, it's been a while since I've seen the film.)
Another interesting and unconventional film that still, I think, follows a three-act structure closely:
"Eternal Sunshine" (again, spoilers)
Prologue: Joel and Clementine meet
Act One: Trying to forget: From the opening titles (about 10 minutes in!) through his decision to have the procedure done, to, I'd say, his realization that he wants to keep his memories--the "Tell me I'm pretty" scene under the covers.
Act Two: Trying to remember: Joel trying desperately to hang onto his memory while the Lacuna guys work against him on the outside...this ends, probably, at about where Mary (Kirsten Dunst) finds out that she had had her memory wiped too; this is about where Joel gives up on trying to protect his memories as well.
Act Three: "Enjoy it": The last scenes of the procedure, and the aftermath, where the goal is no longer to try to preserve the memories but to enjoy them while they last. (Three separate acts for three separate goals.)
Epilogue: after the memory erasure (tying into the prologue).
I think that modern television shows (examples: "Heroes," "Buffy," "Battlestar Galactica," "The Sopranos," "The Office," "Dexter," etc.) are worth discussing at length as well, in that they have, usually, three different substructures worth considering: depending on the show, there's an overall series story running throughout, which can be broken down into somewhat self-contained season-long arcs, which can in turn be broken down into individual somewhat self-contained episodes, which for network hourlong dramas usually divides into four acts and a teaser (as has been mentioned). I think it is possible for some shows to break down a season-long arc into "acts" a few episodes long--or maybe 22 one-episode acts? I'm not quite sure how to approach this.
'Psycho' immediately came to mind as a film that calls attention to its own structure. The murder early on in the film destroys our expectations as viewers.
This event, however, is unconventional in how it happens, not in what happens. The plot still follows a classic format, it just does so with different characters than we would have expected.
One film I rewatched recently that was a prime example was "Raising Victor Vargas" In each section, the film uses it's basic 3 act structure to dig deeper into Victor's life, going from the somewhat superficial (his adolescent love life) to the mechanics and pitfalls of his family dynamic, to a crisis of identity and sense of belonging in the 3rd act. All of it kind of outlining the conventional coming of age drama in a very personal way. One of my recent favorites.
The first time I remember I was conscious of a show playing with structure and defying audience expectations was actually the Simpsons. Especially starting in season 3, one of the hallmarks, one of the most revolutionary aspects of the Simpsons that endeared it to me and I guess millions others was the fact that it would set up an obvious conflict and make you think you knew what the episode was about but then careen 90 degrees away from that and go off on a tangent that was completely unpredictable. Family Guy follows in that tradition and even satirises the Simpsons by taking it to ridiculous extremes. Witness the scene in which Peter and Lois are discussing sex ed in schools, when suddenly a giant rooster bursts in through the kitchen window, Peter and the rooster engage in a 7 minute long fight sequence, then make up and have dinner, then get into 2 minute fight sequence after arguing over the bill. 11 minutes out of a 22 minute episode are devoted to fighting with a rooster that jumps through the kitchen window. Much like the Chinese Restaurant episode of Seinfeld, you have to appreciate balls to the wall creative conceit like that.
"Memento" DOES follow Field's 3-Act structure, in the same way that "The Terminator" does. How? Because the story of Sammy Jankis provides all the Plot Points: Sammy loses ability to make short-term memory (30 min), things get worse because his insurance won't cover it (60 min), and so his wife takes irreversible action (90 min). Most of what Guy Pearce is doing in the mean time is spinning his wheels. We remember what happened to Sammy Jankis because that's the structure of "Memento;" we remember the moods and ideas of what Guy Pearce is up to, but not the PLOT, because his story is essentially "filler."
I compare it to "The Terminator" because the Plot Points are mostly the guy from the future telling Sarah Connor how the Terminator works. Everything between that is just chasing around blowing stuff up.
Even the "Aqua Teen" movie has an act structure. Although the characters don't grow, they do move forward in their quest to learn about the InsaneOFlex about once every 20-30 minutes.
The 4 Act structure is virtually identical to the 3 Act structure. Either you break down your script into Act One (30 min), Act Two (60 min), and Act Three (30 min), or you break it into Act One (30 min), Act Two First Half (30 min), Act Two Second Half (30 min), and Act Three (30 min). Spielberg, "NCFOM," and "2001" definitely lean more towards the 4 Act. But "Andrei Roublev" definitely has 7 acts.
When I was making my way through screenwriting degrees 10 years ago, they were teaching the 4-act structure as an alternative. The problem perhaps with it is there usually isn't a turn in the action with the midpoint. It's just a confrontation that continues the story moving forward and with a movie like "Spider-Man 2" and "Iron Man" the mid-point is far more exciting than the conclusion.
Ted, Andrei Rublev popped into my mind right away. Many of Tarkovsky's films forgo the typical narrative. "Solaris" and "Scanners" have no structure at all. A ten minute car ride hardly seems like the building of story or plot. But it's brilliant all the same.
Max, "The Dark Knight" is more than just a comic book movie but a greatly plotted movie equaling films like "Chinatown" and "North by Northwest". And like "Chinatown" it uses every second of it's screen time to dig deeper and deeper into the souls of all its characters.
Jim, "Hellboy II" is also mindbogglingly amazing.
A 5-Act structure movie? The first that jumps out at me is Kenneth Branaugh's "Hamlet" which tells the tale of the man himself in it's original 5 acts structure.
Michael Haneke's "Code Unknown" follows absolutely no discernible act structure and settles on telling intimate moments rather than big story changing events. It's a fantastic film with an ending that leaves you thinking about what just happened. Worth seeing if you haven't.
Jim, you talk about Tarantino. Pretty much all of Hong Kong cinema from the 90's and before didn't follow our three act structure in any way. They had created a form of telling stories in a completely different way than we do. And it's interesting because that's where Tarantino pulls a lot of his influences from. "Kill Bill" in its entirety is a 7 or 8 act structure story. I wouldn't even call them acts, but chapters. And I suppose that's a better way to describe Hong Kong cinema. There stories are told in chapters not acts. It takes a little getting used to sometimes, because it doesn't feel like a story is being told until you're almost towards the end and you realize just how completely invested you've become. Stephen Ciao of "Kung-Fu Hustle" fame made "A Chinese Odyssey" some time ago and that is a stunning example of that style of cinema. It's worth checking out.
And while writing this I couldn't help but think of one of my favorite movies and one that affected me beyond all reason (watched it three times in the same day the first time I saw it) was Kurosawa's "Rashomon". The structure repeats itself over and over again, changing each time. Again, chapters?
I just think to describe other countrys' cinema in the way we see "Hollywood Structure" is doing a disservice to their cinematic language. Even though director's like Kurosawa were greatly influenced by Western culture. "Seven Samurai" had more than three turning points. "High and Low" also certainly did; it leaves the main character behind and follows the police the second half of the film. Did Ozu always follow a 3 act structure? He fought against what Kurosawa was starting to take hold of. Sometimes it didn't feel like anything happened in his movies..."Happy Times", very little happens in "Floating Weeds" until you reach the halfway point. Many of Jacques Tati's films didn't have acts as we know them.
When talking about the structure of "acts" I think it's typically an American thing, though many foreign filmmakers have been influenced by American cinema and can fall into the "act" category, not all of them did or even have. That's why "Reservoir Dogs" is a scramble of act structure and no structure, much like "Pulp Fiction".
I'd be getting in over my head on anything more than a three act structure, but here are some observations on my choice for the greatest film of all time, a movie in two parts--in more than one sense.
Variations on a Theme: Apocalypse Now Reconsidered
Why “Apocalypse Now The Complete Dossier” Improves a Masterpiece
By Donald Roy Miller
I believe Apocalypse Now Redux is the worst thing a director has ever done to his own film. The horrors inflicted upon this masterpiece by director Coppola are akin to those done to Eric Von Stroheim’s Greed, a film shortened so ruthlessly that Stroheim couldn’t bear to watch it. Redux is a reinvention of the original masterpiece, and not an improvement. The characters, tone, mood, and theme are significantly disfigured. Only the second part is improved, but by then the damage has already been done.
The comedic elements in Redux are at the center of the film’s destruction as a work of art. The mystical nature of the river journey is seriously eroded by the worthlessness of the new material, which needlessly slows the momentum and tension that builds toward the crucial confrontation between Willard and Kurtz in the second part of the film.
Redux’s first victim is Kilgore. In the original, Kilgore makes no effort to avoid mortars, due to bravado. In Redux, it’s because he’s a mental defective. After a napalm drop, he points to the river, then at low tied, and says, “That caused that!” No. The moon’s orbit around the earth caused that. It’s second and most significant victim is Willard.
There are two Willards. In the original version, Willard knows he’s sinned and has some atonement to make. Not so in the second version. Instead of atoning, he piles on to his sins—and in a very big way. He smiles and joins in the crew’s hijinx when they steal Kilgore’s surfboards.
This occurs before a crucial event at the heart of Coppola’s destruction of his masterpiece. After the heist, Kilgore pursues them, and they spend a day evading him. Later, the crew come across a boat of Vietnamese civilians who are tragically killed by the crew’s nervous gunner. Only a little girl and her puppy survive. The boat’s captain wants to take the girl for medical treatment, but Willard doesn’t want to spend the time and executes her on-the-spot. In both versions, the girl is off screen, so we don’t see what kind of condition she’s in when Willard kills her. In the original we can give Willard the benefit of the doubt, the bullet was merciful. This isn’t possible after the surfboard caper.
In the original Willard and Kurtz share many of the same wounds and a strange affinity, for the war has changed them spiritually in profound and fundamental ways that they know exist but can’t comprehend, and it is this more than the river’s current that draws Willard to Kurtz. Both men know they face damnation for their sins. But only Willard is offered redemption. Kurtz can only escape through death. This mutual necessity—Willard’s redemption through Kurtz and Kurtz’s escape through Willard—is undone in Redux. Here, upon leaving the compound, it would be more fitting for the unredeemed Willard to echo Kurtz’s own words: “The horror. The Horror.”
“The Complete Dossier,” released in 2006, and recently purchased by yours truly, fixes that problem. “Dossier” allows the viewer to watch the original first half on the first DVD and the second, greatly improved, second half on the second DVD. This combination is an enormous improvement of both the original and of Redux, for the second half was always much weaker than the first. So, if you haven’t seen this masterpiece or its been some time, this is the way I recommend you watch it.
AKA CanInDeed