Dialectics and Ghost World

I’ve been reading The Art of Dramatic Writing by Lajos Egri. It’s all about dialectics and makes me think that Blake Synder didn’t suddenly turn into some Hegelian Mr. Hyde after all when he labeled the three acts Thesis, Antithesis, and Synthesis. He’d simply read Egri's book.

These are ways he’s stated dialectics, so far:

Character > Conflict > Resolution

Physiological > Sociological > Psychological

I’m going to be reading the book Screenwriting: The Sequence Approach fairly soon. It describes a movie as consisting of eight sequences. I’m thinking ahead a bit and predict that those sequences will track along with Field, Snyder, and Egri something like this:

Eight sequences:

-Show the character (initial state)

-Six sequences to grow the character through conflict

-Show the character (resolved/changed state)

I’m mixing and matching terms from Field and Snyder here. The six conflict sequences end with:

1. Break into 2

2. Pinch 1

3. Midpoint

4. Pinch 2

5. Break into 3

6. High Tower Surprise

In Ghost World, the eight sequences chart like this:

a. Enid gazes affectionately upon the nerd who can’t relate at the post graduation party.

1. Enid reads Seymour’s personal add > Enid decides to enter Seymour’s world.

2. Enid buys a record from Seymour > Enid tells Seymour that she loved it.

3. “I’m going to be your personal dating service.” > Seymour gets the call from the original woman from his personal ad.

4. Enid’s first brush with the other woman > Seymour telling Enid he can’t hang out.

5. Enid alone in tears > Enid sleeps with Seymour > Enid leaving Seymour alone in bed.

6. Enid won’t return his calls > Rebecca tells Seymour the truth.

b. “You’re like my hero.”

That’s the spine of Ghost World. It has two sub-stories that track along with it: Enid and Rebecca growing apart and the art class. The Seymour story was invented for the movie as was the art class sub-story. The Enid/Rebecca story has its origin in the graphic novel. That comic created the two characters, a couple of in-sync, best friend Holden Caulfields. There’s no plot. It’s a snapshot of two teenage girls who think the world is phony. The movie introduces the all-important element of character change.

Back to dialectics: What is it anyway? It’s about taking one thing and juxtaposing it with another thing that is opposite or antagonistic toward it in some way. This creates a conflict between the two. The two don’t annihilate each other though. This isn’t matter versus anti-matter. Instead, they produce a third thing.

Egri speaks of dialectics in terms of a story’s premise: Place a character in conflict and the conflict will lead to a resolution. He speaks in terms of character: Place a character in an antagonizing setting and it will lead to conflict. (There are no weak characters—he wrote—just characters not in the right place at the right time to produce conflict.) David Mamet, in his book On Directing Film, takes dialectics down to the smallest units of filmmaking. Each moment, or beat, of a scene expresses an idea through the juxtaposition of two uninflected shots. Just as a character is inert and waiting for the right setting (time and place) to start moving and a setting is waiting for the right character to enter it to be activated, a shot of a twig being stepped on and snapped and a shot of a deer suddenly looking up don’t mean anything on their own, but express the idea of extreme alertness with juxtaposed.

The dialectics involved in Ghost World are working in at least two ways. We could’ve encountered Enid at any point in her life, but meeting her as she’s just entering the phony adult world is just the time that her attitudes would conflict with her surroundings. Her first act state of not relating with 99% of humanity is juxtaposed with her relating to the other 1% in the form of Seymour during the second act. This leads to her realization that it is she who can’t relate to anybody. She carries out her fantasy of getting on a bus and disappearing alone to some random place.