Some friends gave me a book called How to Build a Great Screenplay by David Howard, who apparently teaches graduate screenwriting classes at USC. I was looking through it; it mostly seems to say the same things as Syd Field’s book Screenplay, but in three times as many words, as well as going into more depth on some subjects.
In the chapter “Time and Complexity”, he talks about three elements of any screenplay: character, story and storytelling. He posits that, if you want a coherent movie that people will be able to get into, you can make any two of those elements complex, but not all three. (Complex storytelling includes not only nonlinear chronology, flashbacks, fantasy and dream sequences and the like, but also any large-scale set-piece action scene, such as a battle.)
That sounds reasonable, and I think I know what he means, but the chapter could use more examples. He mentions Star Wars as a movie with a complex story (and it is; silly but complex), complex storytelling, but simple, even archetypal characters. Fair enough. He mentions Citizen Kane as having a famously complex storytelling technique, and being about a complex character, but actually boiling down to a simple story.
Most of my ideas (including the penguin-related screenplay I’m still working on, after winning at Script Frenzy) seem to involve both complex characters and complex stories, so I guess I’ll need to use pretty straightforward narrative techniques for the sake of clarity.
Howard’s position is that, if all three of those elements are complex, it’ll be too much for an audience to keep track of, and they won’t be able to emotionally connect with the picture. I can see that making sense for a two-hour movie; if you have the space of a novel (or a tv miniseries or series) there’s time for the reader or audience to absorb everything. (Though it seems to me that the upcoming movie of Watchmen, if they’re really trying to be faithful to the source material, is going to be complex in all three areas.)
So, what do y’all think of this rule, and what are some good examples of each combination?