The Word Cloud

Breaking my own rule this week by talking about a writer/director but, like a lot of writer/directors, Lawrence Kasdan started as a writer, still writes without directing and is probably best known as a writer. Body Heat (on this Wednesday BBC1 11.55pm) was Kasdan's first and probably best film as a director, it's one of the most successful modernisations of film noir and a great film but it does rather suffer in comparison to some of Kasdan's films as a screenwriter because they include some of the most successful films of all time. Kasdan's first credit as a screenwriter was The Empire Strikes Back which he took over after the death of Leigh Brackett (incidentally a writer of classic film noir who wrote almost exclusively for Howard Hawks and was one of the most prominent female screenwriters of her generation). How he managed to get that gig as his first credited job is a longer story than I really have space for, plus it's not the Empire script, good though it is, that I wanted to talk about. Whenever I want to use an example of perfect film structure there is one film I always go straight to; The Raiders of the Lost Ark. You don't have to like the film (although I can't think of one good reason why you wouldn't!), but it hits the beats of the classic three act structure with a precision you can set your watch by. The plot, protagonist and antagonist, and imperative are introduced by the 20 minute mark, the characters and situation build to a mid point twist then things spiral out of control as we head for the big climax. And more than that, think about the way the character of Indy is introduced; the opening set piece is a tight ten minutes, for the first five Indy can do no wrong, his whip never misses, he out smarts every booby trap. Then, on the five minute point, Indy switches the idol for the bag of sand and everything goes to hell, for the next five minutes he can do no right and only gets away with his life through luck. That's the character of Indiana Jones in a nutshell, he's a hero but not a superman, a hero you can believe in and identify with. To make that point using structure and do it so that no one watching notices (unless they're an anal film-obsessive with a stopwatch like me) is simply brilliant. I'm not going to pretend that Steven Spielberg had nothing to do with this, that would be ridiculous, but it's still a very fine piece of writing. I've no doubt that part of the reason that Kasdan wrote in this highly structured, textbook way is that he had not been doing it long, and when you start it's best to stick to the rules. But another reason is that he is a fan of Kurosawa, another very structured writer. He was working with Lucas and Spieberg, two film buffs who revered older movies where structure was king. And of course the most important reason; it works. It worked in the thirties and it works today. Nobody is saying that you can't play with the structure, Hitchcock did it brilliantly, but it's best to learn how to use that structure first. And to keep in mind above all else; structure works. It just does.