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In Reply to: The 8-step "Secret" Hollywood Formula posted by Bambi B on December 13, 2002 at 12:24:29:
You didn't mention this: Hollywood films typically have two parallel stories, one public and one private, both of which resolve together.For example, the public story is that the main character is a detective working to solve a whodunit, or a man being chased. The private story is that the main character is going through some personal problems, or there is a romance budding between him and another character, or whatever. In resolving the public story, the main character also resolves the personal story.
It is not a secret that films follow formulas like the above. You haven't said anything that people don't already know. Why does this "formula" work so well in, say, Vertigo but not in Pearl Harbor?
Because it's not about the formula. It's about *how* you get to the ending. Since you mention Star Wars, did you know that George Lucas consulted mythology expert Joseph Campbell to help construct his story to resonate with many of the themes found in mythology? Ideas that touched the Greeks will still touch us today - this is because we're funadmentally the same deep down inside.
Look, you can break any rock song down to verse-chorus-bridge-guitar solo-verse-chorus. So what if it's a formula. We enjoy it because of the tunefulness of *how* it's done. You say that you want something different from the formula, but I would suspect that you yourself have a more enjoyable time listening to a formulaic Mozart opera than the Ring cycle.
Now, what I don't like, and what I suspect you really have a problem with, is not formulas but cliches that get played over and over and over.
Follow Ups:
TA,Some good points. There is often a parallel public and private story that resolve togther, and this is used to enrich the overall "task" the main charcter undertakes, but it is really part of that task/ desire/ need of the main character, not essential to the basic structure.
You're right that Lucas' consultation with Campbell did add Campbell's brand of Jungian collective unconscious and enliven the first Star Wars set. Possibly the lack of Campbell in the current set may have dropped Star Wars back in depth. The current series to me are broken, epsisodic, and more driven by jargon, hardware, and action sequences than say Luke's fulfilment of his destiny through self-knowledge.
And again, you're correct that this kind of formula works relative to the skill in using it. I would suggest though that Vertigo was made somewhat before the formula was so codified (I think about 1970) and, of course, Hitchcock is debatable classed as a regular US studio director. He was often looking to break studio patterns- such as "Rope." "The Sting" is a case where the formula was set and everything worked together well. "Raiders of the Lost Ark" worked too on it's chosen level.
As for operas, I'm a medium fan of "The Ring" because it is largely not written idiomatically for the human voice, but the story is great and music is brilliant. I wonder if those with the Tolkien craze realize the great number of 'similarities' to Wagner- magic gold ring with powers, historic swords, races/species with special powers, etc? I particularily like "Goetterdaemerung" because it begins with giants who are building contractors- any epic opera that tries that is admirable. The first Harry Potter is full of discount Wagnerisms. I do like "The Magic Flute," which is mythology laden as well as humourous, but I would say Britten's "Billy Budd" has it all.
I'm fairly neutral as to formula for the reasons you mention. If it's well done and given interesting characters and situations, something mysterious or intriguing, it's fine, but cliches are tiresome. I'm so on guard- jaded- I didn't enjoy "The Sixth Sense" because it's obvious in the first 30 minutes the 'trick' that the Bruce Willis character had already died. It becomes a one-liner when everthing works off of one concept.
And sorry, I didn't mean to preach something that everyone already knows- that's why "secret" is in quotes. I imagined that there are many who recognize the pattern but don't know the rigidity of it in detail today and it's relationship to getting a movie financed and distributed.
Cheers,
Bambi B
I claim to have fugured it out in under 10 minutes! Any other claims?
Hey Bambi, You don't need to be defensive - I think these boards are for playing out ideas and getting a good discussion going so we all come away with new ideas.The "formula" has been around forever. Some movie books talk about it with His Girl Friday as their example, and if you run through old Hollywood film (It's a Wonderful Life, Casablanca, etc.) you'll see that it's always been there.
What I think often distinguishes "good" films from "bad" films these days falls along the lines of what Victor's post talked about. A good film will develop good characters, and the story and action "naturally" comes out decisions and choices that are the products of their nature and character, and maybe their one flaw if it's a morality tale. A bad film just drops action out of the sky onto the main character and makes those choice for the character.
Maybe the main character trimphs at the end, or maybe he fails (and either outcome might have been done many times before). The crucial difference is that the outcome is a product of the character's nature and choices developing over the movie, rather than just the writer dropping a situation on the character. In other words, you see how the charcter's flaws drive him into a situation where he's got to make a final stand against his enemy, versus random bad guys showing up out of nowhere for that final fight. Either way, you wind up with gunfight at the OK Coral, but it's a matter of *how* you get to the fight that makes the difference.
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