One protagonist to rule them all
1 goal
A whole bunch of obstacles"
Moving Pictures, Chapter 4 Narrative
Who knew that all films boiled down to one formula?! I was at first very skeptical of this statement as I was unsure of how it applied to movies that follow a team. Let's say Marvel movies or even the Magnificent Seven but then I started to think deeper about it. All these team movies always have one person that joins everyone together. The goal is to get a team together and there a whole bunch of obstacles getting in the protagonist's way to forming the team and having the team work together. While I did know about the three-act structure, the "Narrative Structure" aspect was a new concept to me.
I think what makes this formula so hidden from me is that filmmakers hide it well. You'll have side-character have an arc, the anti-hero has a redemption arc, or one of my favorite tropes, the found family trope. So many characters grow and develop that it makes me forget that the movie has been one person's story all along.
Even posters for movies point to one protagonist. Usually, the main character stands at the center, it's a nice visual cue to the audience that the movie will be about this one character as compared to the rest. Now what makes or breaks the film, is if the protagonist is a well-written character. I've seen many movies where the side characters are much more interesting than the protagonist.
It got me reflecting more on different genres of movies I've seen, and how obstacles are formed. For some reason, my brain went immediately to mystery genre films as they usually have the largest cast of characters. In my most recent favorite mystery film, Knives Out, you follow around the detective as he interviews many different types of characters, leading to the obstacles that stand in his way. It's just interesting the obstacles can be something as simple as another person, and not some life or death, world-ending monster.
Having one protagonist makes sense in hindsight, as the audience is supposed to identify with the person on screen. But the fact that script writers can make their side characters as interesting as the main one, shows a message that everyone is a protagonist in their own eyes.
SCREENWRITER AT WORK, People!
ReplyDeleteThis makes a lot of sense and now that I think about it I can see it in many of the movies that I have watched. Knives out is a great mystery film and I strongly suggest you watch Death on the Nile, very similar plot and just a really interesting, exciting movie.
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