Chapter 7

Elements of Plot in Cinema

Objectives: In this chapter, learners will get familiar with the major kinds of plot, along with plot
elements and devices.

Key words: narrative, primary plots, anagnorisis, ocularization

What is a plot?

Plot is the narrative foundations upon which all stories are built. Text is a verbal, written or visual artefact and
narrative is the way a story is told. Film combines all these elements and therefore is more complex of all arts.
Most stories reflect the universal human experiences which are: birth, growth, going on adventure, facing
temptations, winning, losing, falling in/out of love, and life lessons derived.

On the same note, let’s also make a distinction between narratives and narratology. A narrative is a story,
involves events, characters, and what the characters say or do. Narratology expresses interest in general theory
and practice of narrative. The term, often attributed to Tzevtan Todorov’s coinage in 1969, deals especially
with types of narrators, the identification of structural elements and their modes of combination, recurrent
narrative devices, and the analysis of the kinds of discourse by which a narrative gets told.

Anagnorisis

Aristotle terms the plot as the mythos. In Poetics, the Greek philosopher offers another term, that is,
anagnorisis or recognition. What he means by the term is recognition of a person and what they stand
for. It is the moment of realization or critical discovery where the protagonist gains an insight into the
situation as it stands. It changes the way he/she perceives himself/herself, other characters and his/her
relationship to them

Some films that use this plot device are: Vertigo (1958), The Usual Suspects (1995), The Sixth Sense
(1999), Fight Club (1999), The Matrix (1999), A Beautiful Mind (2002), The Prestige (2006), and
Source Code (2011).
For example, notice how in The Prestige Angier learns that the secret of the Human Transporter is just
that Borden has an identical twin, Fallon; in Fight Club the narrator discovers that Tyler Durden is the
personality controlling him during his sleep, and in Vertigo Scottie sees the red necklace and realizes
Judy is Madeleine.
Aristotle also talks about the concept of peripeteia, that is, reversal of circumstances due to anagnorisis
Time is crucial to narrative. But as the novelist E. M. Forster recognizes in Aspects of the Novel (1927), the

temporal ordering of events is not the whole story. Forster makes a memorable distinction between ‘The king

died, and then the queen died of grief’ (Forster 1976, 87). While the first ‘narrative’ includes two events related

in time, the second includes another ‘connection’, the crucial element of causality. The first simply lists two

events, while the second provides the thread of a narrative by showing how they are related. The logical or

casual connections between one event and another constitute fundamental aspects of every narrative. Detective

stories, for example, rely on our expectation and desire for connection.

Alain Robbe-Grillet’s novels, such as The Voyeur (1955) and Jealousy (1957), also narrate the ‘same’ series of

events repeatedly thus dissolving our sense of any one true narrative of events. Now consider how films such as

Last Year at Marienbad (1961) and Groundhog Day (1993) use this device of repetition.

On of the most fundamental distinctions in narrative theory is that between ‘story’ and ‘discourse’. As Jonathan
Culler has suggested, a fundamental premise of narratology is that narrative has a double structure: the level of
the told (story) and the level of telling (discourse) [Culler 1981]. These levels have been given different names
by different theorists- the Russian formalists call them fabula and sjuzhet; the French structuralists called them
either recit (or historie) and discours, and so on. ‘Story’, in this sense, involves the events or actions, which the
narrator would like us to believe occurred; the events (explicitly or implicitly) represented. ‘Discourse’, on the
other hand, involves the way in which these events are recounted, how they get told, and the organization of the
telling.

Narration in film could be of 3 types --Extradiegetic, which is narration from an exterior voice; not a character
from the film for e.g., the voice over in The Apartment (1960); Homodiegetic, where a narrator is a character,
for e.g., Rebecca (1940) Days of Heaven (1978), American Beauty (1999), and Intradiegetic, where characters
speak to one another for further characterization.
Note how Forrest Gump (1994) contains all three forms of narration.

Unreliable Narrator

An unreliable narrator is used to reveal an interesting gap between appearance and reality, and to show
how human beings distort or conceal the latter. This need not be a conscious, or mischievous intention
on their part. His narrative is a kind of confession, but it is riddled with devious self-justification and
special pleading, and only at the very end does he arrive at an understanding of himself, too late to profit
by it, for example, Rashomon (1950) and The Usual Suspects (1995).

A major plot element is Characterization. Characterisation helps an audience to understand a character; his/her
traits & attributes. It is the lead character’s point of view that holds an audience. A director and screenwriter
builds up a character in several ways (for more details, refer to the chapter “Character in Cinema”).

Ocularization

This is an idea proposed by Francois Jost, and relates to the prioritization of the image:

“To distinguish the relationship between how the camera shows the hero and how the hero is
supposed to be seen…When it sees things from the position of the character this is ‘internal
ocularisation’: when the opposite occurs whereby it sees things from the position of some other
person… (we have) external ocularistion.” For example, a film such as Die Hard, dealing with
the lone ranger theme, is about John McClane, an all-American hero, who is a loner. The entire
action in the film takes place from his point of view, whether it is his ideals of race, masculinity
or even cities (LA versus NY).

Theories of narrative structure

According to Viktor Shklovsy in ‘Art as Technique’ (1917) there are two distinct ways of communicating
information to an audience. Poetic forms appeal to an audience’s emotions by using metaphorical devices
to show something in new perspective. Shklovsky observed that that the connotative/poetic approach
has greater impact, where denotation is the literal representation and connotation is the symbolic
representation.

Vladimir Propp, Russian Formalist, in Morphology of the Folk Tale (1928), presents a useful book to analyze
narratology. Propp categorizes characters as given below, which appears in folk tales as ‘The Seven Spheres of
Action.’

• Villain
• Helper
• Donor (magician)
• Female in distress
• Dispatcher
• Hero
• False hero
Propp’s work has been used by Will Wright for film analysis in Six-guns and Society: A Structural Study of the
Western (1977).

Joseph Campbell’s The Hero with a Thousand Faces (1949) is a seminal text on the art of storytelling and
narrative development.

Like Propp, Campbell concluded that plots adhered to the same pattern. All religious tales, mythology
and great works of fiction shared similar traits regarding the hero’s journey. Campbell’s book is divided
into 3 parts tracing a hero’s journey: Departure, Initiation and Return; the examples of which can be seen
in Star Wars (1977); the Batman series, The Lord of the Ring Trilogy, The Matrix series etc.

Gerard Genette in Narrative Discourse (1983) tells us that story (content) includes events that are
arranged chronologically and follow causality. Characters form a part of a story and their
actions/interactions. Narration (Telling) is of two types: reliable and unreliable (we believe a consistent
character). There are levels of narration often with embedded narration. Genette examines the aesthetics
of narrative time under three categories: Order, Duration, and Frequency. Text (Presentation) involves
time: order/duration/frequency. Genette also emphasizes on Duration, which suggests the speed of
narration of time and is understood through the amount of text (number of pages, sentences) devoted to
the narration of a stretch of story-time. Frequency is the relation between an episode in the story and the
number of times it is narrated. In the narrative of Akira Kurosawa’s Rashoman (1950), a particular event
is repeated several times in the film through different points of view.

Roland Barthes says in An Introduction to the Structural Analysis of Narratives (1965, ) that “Narratives
may incorporate articulated language, spoken or written; pictures, and gestures. It is present in myth,
legend, fable, short story, epic, history, tragedy, comedy, pantomime, painting and cinema…the history of
the narrative begins with the history of mankind…”
Many writers have attempted to provide frameworks for the kinds of plots that we see on screen.
Christopher Booker in The Seven Basic Plots: Why we Tell Stories (2004) talks about the seven plots:
Overcoming the monster, rags to riches, the quest, voyage and return, comedy, tragedy and rebirth.

Conflict as an element of plot

Apart from story, narrative, and characterization, conflict too is an integral part of a plot. It is the element that
really captures our interest, heightens the intensity of our experience, arouses emotions, and challenges our
minds.
Forces of conflict should be equal in strength. Conflict can be physical (the western, gangster, action movies)or
psychological (as in films of Bergman, Fellini, Antonioni), and sometimes it could be a combination (The
Searchers, Se7en).When a character is caught between the two sides of his/her personality, the conflict is about
how s/he exorcises the demons. Sometimes the inner conflict is resolved, while sometimes there is no
resolution. Woody Allen’s films can be read as examples where the lead characters are torn by internal conflicts
and insecurities, for example, Annie Hall, Manhattan, Play it Again, Sam.

Seven primary plots

i. Achilles Plot deals with an all-powerful hero; it is a story of overcoming all odds, but the protagonist
has a ‘weak’ spot. For e.g., Superman who can be defeated by using kryptonite.
ii. Cinderella plot are stories of transformation, where the underdog rises against all odds. Often a rags to
riches, a Cinderella plot has a fairy tale ending, For e.g., Rocky (1976) , Pretty Woman (1990)
iii. Jason plot is a story of pursuit and quest for a cause. The protagonists go on a perilous journey,
surmount all difficulties and end up discovering themselves, for e.g.,The Searchers (1956), Thelma &
Louise (1991), The Lord of the Ringsseries
iv. Faust Plot
The Faust plot is concerned with stories of temptation, Bargains where protagonist faces a moral conflict,
for example, Rosemary’s Baby (1968), Wall Street (1985), The Devil’s Advocate (1997), The Devil Wears
Prada (2006)
v. Orpheus Plot
According to Greek mythology, Orpheus attempted to rescue his dead wife Eurydice from the
underworld, and took a perilous journey to retrieve her, ultimately losing her because he turned back to
look at her. The Orpheus plot deals with the theme of irrevocable loss, for example Inception (2010).
vi. The Romeo and Juliet, plot is where boy meets girl and love blossoms. This is a tale of requited love and
may have a happy or tragic ending.
vii. Tristan and Isolde plot deals with the story where love is defeated because one of them is already taken.
This plot has a tragic ending, for example in the French film The Eternal Return (1953), Fatal Attraction
(1987)

In classic tragedy, as mentioned in Aristotle’s Poetics (335BC), the lot is divided into 5 structures (or acts).
This can be broken into exposition, rising action, climax, falling action and denouement. Aristotle defines the
barest elements of narrative:

“A whole is that which has beginning, middle and end. A beginning is that which is not itself
necessarily after anything else, and which has naturally something else after it; an end is that which is
naturally after something itself, either as its necessary or usual consequent, and with nothing else after
it; and a middle, that which is by nature after one thing and also before another.”
The classic Hollywood narrative

The classic Hollywood narrative comprising three acts structure is based on Tzvetan Todorov’s notions, which
are summarized as: establishment of equilibrium, disruption to the equilibrium, identification of the disruption
by characters, characters attempting to resolve the issue, and finally, restoration of equilibrium.

Postmodernist cinema, however, often subverts the conventional plot structure, and so did experimental cinema.
Luis Buniel’s Un Chien Andalou (1929) is an example of surrealist cinema which uses a highly non-narrative
form.

Suggested readings:

1. Booker, Christopher. The Seven Basic Plots: Why We Tell Stories. London & NY: Continuum, 2004.
2. Field, Syd. Going to the Movies. NY: Bantam Dell, 2001.
3. Gerard. Narrative Discourse: An Essay in Method. Ithaca, NY: Cornell University Press, 1980.
4. James, Henry. Art of Fiction
5. Loukides, Paul and Linda K. Fuller. Beyond the Stars: Plot Conventions in American Film.Bowling
Green , Ohio: Bowling Green State University Popular Press, 1991
6. Rimmon-Kenan, S. Narrative Fiction: Contemporary Poetics. London: Methuen, 1983.

Suggested websites

 http://www.keepwriting.com/tsc/magnificent7plotpoints.htm
 http://www.homeofbob.com/literature/genre/fiction/ficElmnts.html
 http://filmschoolrejects.com/opinions/post-plot-cinema.php
 http://www.sandhills.edu/academic-departments/english/film/narrativearc.html
 http://nofilmschool.com/2014/07/martin-scorsese-difference-between-story-plot
 https://www.udemy.com/blog/tips-for-writing-your-novel-difference-between-plot-and-story/

Quiz

1. Answer the following:

i. Explain the 7 primary plots.
ii. What is defamiliarization?
iii. How do writers make use of the device of an unreliable narrator?

2. Match the following:

i Faustian plot a The Lord of the Rings
ii Achilles Plot b The Devil Wears Prada
iii Jason plot c Inception
iv Orpheus d Superman

3. Fill in the blanks:

i. Ocularization is a concept proposed by…………, and relates to the prioritization of the image.
ii.……………. is the relation between an episode in the story and the number of times it is narrated.
iii. …………… is a term attributed to Todorov’s coinage.

Answer key

2. i-b; ii- d; iii-a ; iv-c

3. i- Francois Jost ii. -frequency ; iii.-narratology