Some people just don’t get French films. While on the surface many would attibute that to language barriers or xenophobia, there is something that is happening structurally that can account for the dislike.
Chris has posted the storyform for the most recent Dramatica User Group Meeting Analysis - Amelie. I’m sure the audio will be soon to follow.
As is often the case when analyzing foreign films, there was great difficulty in narrowing down the throughlines, and in particular, their Concerns. One reason offered for this confusion had to do with cultural differences between American storytelling and French storytelling - they perhaps do not find it as important to focus on the individual Concerns of throughlines, instead preferring to hit upon them, almost subliminally and more accurately, holistically.
I found it interesting that we ended up placing it in the “Huh?!” throughline I’ve written about before. In that post, I suggested that the majority of American storytelling lies within the upper right quad and lower left quad - dealing mainly with Obtaining and Doing and Being and Drives and the Future, etc. - all American Western-type stuff.
Chris had an interesting explanation about this. If you look at the Character Build quads, you’ll notice the items are (in clockwise order) - Purposes, Evaluations, Methodoligies, and Motivations. Now, applying these to the Concern level, it appears that American storytelling focuses on Evaluations and Motivations.
Stories are written to address problems, or irritants, in the writer’s personal life and the culture around him. The writer is often “working things out” when writing a story and therefore would spend most of his time focusing on the things that caused him the most grief.
Western culture does not have a problem with our Purposes or how we go about doing things (Methodologies), but we are concerned with our and other’s motivations and how we evaluate our progress along the way.
What was interesting to me was that these also line up with the Male Mental Sex blind spot - known as Desire-Ability. The upper right quad and the lower left quad are blended in the Male mind. Perhaps the overriding Male influence on American Western culture can account for our interest in Evaluation and Motivation stories.
Amelie, on the other hand, is concerned with Thoughts, and the Present, and Coming up with Ideas, and Learning. While only one film is not enough to label French thought as focusing on this one area of concern, most independent “arthouse” films tend to veer towards this area.
One would then think that French films are based on a Female Mental Mindset, but this does not seem to be the case. Female Mental Sex blindness has to do with a term known as “Knowledgability.” The top two quads are blended in the Female mind. Amelie, and other independent films, are in the bottom right.
While I’m not quite certain right now, how this can help your own screenwriting, it is an interesting observation and proof that the theory of Dramatica is much more than just selling a screenplay.
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3 responses so far ↓
1 Jody Perkins // Aug 13, 2006 at 2:17 pm
Fascinating post!
There may be a way to extend some of your points here – by generalizing and combining them with information in two of your previous posts, “a different look at MC dynamics†and “dramatica sentence structure†– to address American writing advice that focuses on grammatical parts of speech.
Specifically:
As you interestingly point out: For the Western Male Mental Sex mind, the Purposes-Methodologies quads are relatively problem-free, while the Evaluation-Motivation quads are more problematic. Therefore, since stories are written to address problematic areas, and since Male Mental Sex minds are dominant, lots of Western stories address the Evaluation-Motivation quads.
Since we can express these same problematic quads as Desire-Ability, can we also express them as Space-Time, or Adjective-Adverb?
If we can, then we can say that Male Mental Sex minds find the Noun-Verb quads relatively problem-free, while the Adjective-Adverb quads are more problematic.
Which could explain why American wiring advice strongly discourages writing with adjectives and adverbs. “Write with nouns and verbs,†we are told, again and again. Further, some advice-givers put down writing containing adjectives and adverbs by labeling it “feminine.†(This conclusion assumes two things: that Male Mental Sex minds dominate American writing advice, and that, unlike stories (which FOCUS ON problems), American writing advice steers AWAY FROM problematic areas.)
I don’t know if all of my reasoning is correct . . . but it’s sure fun to contemplate.
2 Chris Huntley // Aug 14, 2006 at 10:31 am
Jody –
As a gross generalization, I agree with your adverb/adjective observation and analysis. Well done.
You touch on the space/time analogy. It is Melanie and my contention that male mental sex cannot separate the two which is why the equation e = mc2 has the CONSTANT c2 (space x time). We believe it is the male mental sex perspective (problem solving process) that forces the temporal limitation, not “reality.”
Just a thought.
Chris Huntley
Write Brothers
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