Scott: Some interesting thoughts on building a dramatic engine. In particular, I had a free association on Goldman's dictum: "You always attack a movie scene as late as you possibly can." In the Poetics, it's clear that Aristotle's highly esteemed the tragedy of "Oedipus The King" by Sophocles. The play serves as the ideal model for his theory of tragedy. And Sophocles' play also had a profound affect on Sigmund Freud. The tragedy is the foundational fiction of psychoanalysis, the Oedipal complex. Why were both Aristotle and Freud so impressed with Sophocles' version of the Oedipus myth? I say version, because there many variations of the myth and other Greek poets wrote tragedies about Oedipus. One reason, I conjecture, is because in "Oedipus the King" Sophocles was 2,500 years ahead of Goldman: he didn't just attack a scene, he attacked the whole myth as late as possible. There was lots of material in the myth for Sophocles to choose from. So where did he start his tragedy? With oracle warning his father, Laius not to have a son because the son would kill him and marry his wife? No. With the infant Oedipus being left to die on a mountain side, discovered by a shepherd? No. With Oedipus fleeing his adopted parents, believing them to be his true parents, when he heard about the curse? No. When he killed a strange man at a crossroads , not knowing the man was his father? Not yet. When he delivered Thebes by solving the riddle of the sphinx? Not yet. When he wed the newly widowed queen, not knowing it was his mother? Not yet. Sophocles attacks the myth of Oedipus at the last possible moment, the moment of supreme tension and irony, the moment of awful truth. He begins his play when Oedipus resolves to find the cause of the plague afflicting the city and discovers he is the cause of the plague, that he was unable to escape the curse. [And, fwiw, I see some structural parallels between "Oedipus the King" and... "Chinatown". Where does Robert Towne begin the tragic life of Evelyn Mulray? At the last possible moment, the moment of supreme crisis in her life, the moment of awful truth (for the audience). That's why, in both stories, I think the Big Reveal is so emotionally powerful.]

I find this entire chapter pretty exasperating due to its vagueness and circularity. Here’s my rough translation: It is the job of the poet not to write what has happened, but what could have happened, the difference between the two being simply that one is reportage and the other creative imagining. While the historian’s job is to report, it is the poets job is to create in such a way that, while not being strictly factual, is, nonetheless, authentic to the laws of cause and effect. In the present paragraph, what I see is Aristotle beating a dead horse about all the reasons poets should not structure their narratives the way historians do, which is to say episodically, which is to say lacking in cause and effect. Whereas in the last paragraph he is cautioning poets against being a slave to factual detail when treating a historical subject, here he is complaining about poets who indulge the actors’ desire to show off with set pieces that are incidental to the story. Both can result in episodic structures, which, of all plots and actions, are the worst. But it’s true that the larger point being served is one of aesthetic wholeness. The frustrating thing about Aristotle is that while he is very clear that a “tragedy” must have unity, and that unity is created by structure, he is not so clear about how one goes about achieving a unifying structure, except to say it must be grounded in cause and effect. Nonetheless, this point is crucial. Whereas an episodic structure says, “This happens, then that happens, then this other thing happens, . . . ” with no particular relationship between the sequential events, a structure based in cause and effect says, “This happens, which makes that happen, which inevitably leads to this other thing happening, . . . “ and so on. Thus, the events are so inextricably intertwined that you can’t take one away without the rest ceasing to make sense. Conversely, if you have an element that can be taken away with the whole remaining undisturbed, then that piece is superfluous and doesn’t belong. This is as much as Aristotle is able to tell us about how to create wholeness, but, as a place to start, it is essential. [BTW, sorry for my absence last week. It was not a veiled protest against this chapter. I was on a road trip, passing through the empty expanse of southern Wyoming with no connectivity but much opportunity for focusing on distant points. A good way to counteract the effects of spending too many hours staring at a small screen. I recommend it.]

Aristotle's reasoning is certainly muddled in this chapter and elsewhere. But when I consider that: 1] The Poetics we have is incomplete, fractured. 2]The Poetics are probably lecture notes, perhaps compiled by his students, not a fully worked out and vetted thesis. 3] Tragedy was a young art form, and Aristotle was a pioneer in tragic criticism and theory. 4] The Poetics is focused on one genre of drama: tragedy, for one venue: the spring religious festival. There are so many more genres and so many more venues in our times. 5] At least Aristotle was an enthusiastic supporter of the art form. In contrast, Plato would have been banished most plays in his ideal republic and censured portions of the rest. Plato abhorred the fact that poetry manipulated the emotions of the audience. Aristotle approved of that "manipulation". He was endeavoring to figure out the dramatic technique, what emotional buttons were being pushed in the audience -- and why. The Poetics is a flawed, but insightful, first draft of dramatic theory. After reading Plato's specious "logic" against poetry in the his "Republic", I, for one, am willing to cut Aristotle plenty of slack.

After reading this section, three movies that struck me as interesting to examine through Aristotle's lens here were "Last Year at Marienbad," "Memento," and "Pulp Fiction." Both "Memento" and "Pulp Fiction" actually offer solid throughlines of narrative sequence, even though the writer/director of each movie has chosen to re-order the scenes so that initially they appear to occur out of sequence (and if you think about where each chooses to enter the narrative action, it's well into the actual story, though the viewers aren't privy to that fact until much later in each movie); in fact, part of the pleasure for the viewing audience is reconstructing the underlying order of the scenes, like solving a puzzle, in order to understand the narrative throughline of each story. With "Last Year in Marienbad" by contrast, director Alain Resnais seems to merely offer up scenes from Alain Robbe-Grillet's screenplay (and novel) with no underlying story sequence or throughline to be found; one meanders through the movie as if wandering an elegant hall of mirrors, or someone else's vague, beautiful nightmare. Gorgeous and haunting though the scenes are, individually, it left me as a viewer ready to bite my paws and howl at its lack of any sense of narrative, much less story. So it seems to me that, as you say, the narrative throughline is the engine that drives the story in a movie, even though modern filmmakers may play at subverting it by re-arranging scenes out of sequence; but where there is no narrative throughline of story, the most beautiful collation of scenes inevitably will fall apart into meaninglessness.

"The Poetics is a flawed, but insightful, first draft of dramatic theory." Absolutely. It has much to offer. But as a starting place. That's why I always feel compelled to caution against reading too much into it and treating it as the last word. A common tendency I see among screenwriters.

Jennine: >>I always feel compelled to caution against reading too much into it and treating it as the last word. A common tendency I see among screenwriters. I agree wholeheartedly. I think too much has been read into the Poetics on several points, like the "character flaw". (To be continued on that point on another day.) And it is my observation that it is a common tendency among screenwriters to seize upon one or two contemporary books on drama as the the last word, the only books they need to study. "The Poetics" is not the only text subject to intellectual idolatry and fetishism.

My thoughtful friends - and I hope you don't mind me calling you that! - again I am struck by the commentary you provide. I have read through each of your posts, remarkable observations. I pressed for time and will hope to return to provide individual responses, but just did want to thank you all once more for your ongoing involvement in this series. I suspect what we are all discussing here will have value to many readers who pass this way in the series' current run and also in years to come in the archives. It's easy to say, "Read Poetics!" and leave it at that. But why? And what relevance does it have to us today? Your involvement is helping to shed much light and perspective. Onward!