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On Screenwriting

Editor's Note: Authorlink welcomes Los Angeles screenwriter and teacher Neil Flowers and his new monthly column on the subject of writing for film and television. Neil's columns appears on the first of every month.

This facet is peripeteia (pear-i-puh-tay-yah), a Greek word often translated as reversal. In his Poetics, here is what Aristotle says about this aspect of drama: “A peripeteia is the change…from one state of things…to its opposite…in the probable or necessary sequence of events [that comprises the plot].”

Peripeteia takes three basic intertwined forms. A screenwriter must have on her mind these three kinds of peripeteia as she composes her script.

"This peripeteia is a major plot point and launches the events that will change these
characters’ lives."
—Flowers

One form of peripeteia we have already seen: The reversal contained in character arc. Thus, we noted how the journeys of Sarah in The Terminator or Oedipus in Oedipus Rex lead them to a spiritual awareness that is the opposite of what he or she believed in the setup of the film. This is a sort of macro-peripeteia, we might call it, because this reversal spans the entire narrative.

We also looked at peripeteia in the major reversal of the hero’s or heroine’s emotions and fortunes at the hinge or transition point between acts I and II. When the body smashes on Max’s cab in Collateral or Cathy Whitaker opens her husband’s office door in Far From Heaven and finds him in the arms of another man, a total reversal of those characters’ emotions occurs. This peripeteia is a major plot point and launches the events that will change these characters’ lives. As we will see next month, a major peripeteia also occurs as the hinge between acts II and III.

A third kind of peripeteia occurs in virtually every scene in every movie or play. It is a sort of micro-peripeteia in contrast to the macro-reversal contained in character arc. High Noon offers perfect illustrations of this kind of peripeteia. So let’s look closely at two early scenes in this Western that illustrate the concept.

After the news of Frank Miller’s return invades the wedding reception, Will and Amy hightail it out of Hadleyville. However, Will soon realizes that he must face Miller, so the newlyweds return.

Will explains to his bride that he has friends in Hadleyville who will back him, and so he must confront the Miller gang in town. Amy, who is a Quaker and opposed to violence, retorts that she will not wait an hour to find out if she is “a wife or a widow” and tells Kane that she’s leaving on the same noon train that brings Miller.

At the top of this scene, Kane expects Amy will wait for him until after the showdown, while Amy thinks that she can convince Will to change his decision again and leave town. Neither budges, and so both suffer reversals of expectation. Accompanying these reversals are reversals of emotion: Amy leaves the marshal’s office angry; Kane, a model of stoic restraint, begins an angry outburst, too, and barely checks himself. The scene ends in an acrimonious parting -- a reversal of their feelings and their plans.

The scene between Will and Harvey Pell (Lloyd Bridges) shows a similar pattern.

When he leaves the rooms of his lover, Helen Ramirez (Katy Jurado), Harvey is happy. He has concocted a strategy whereby he can become the new marshal of Hadleyville. He walks to Kane’s office and offers his services to fight Miller – for a price.

This price would compromise Will’s integrity; he refuses Harvey’s offer. Harvey reacts angrily and tells Will a story about Helen, who is Will’s ex-lover. Now it’s Will’s turn to fume. Harvey then resigns on the spot, turns in his badge and gun, and abandons Kane in the coming fight.

These two scenes clearly show how the expectations of the characters and their initial and final emotions in the scene are reversed. In addition, the actions of Amy and Harvey are remarkably similar in that they both start out with the intention to support Kane (albeit in different ways and for different reasons) but then desert him.

Next month: Act II: conflicts, complications, rising and falling action.

Suggested films: The Devil Wears Prada, Red Eye.