Dispatch from The Quest: Jordan Earls
Last week as we did here on GITS, the Quest writers focused on the subject of Theme. Today’s dispatch: Jordan Earls weighs in on theme as emotional meaning:
To me Theme is what makes a story breathe; Theme is the pulsating heart of a story; Theme bleeds through every page and makes a story seem like something much more than that.
One of my most visceral movie experiences was watching There Will Be Blood for the first time. I remember leaving the theater feeling as bleak as MySpace after the invention of Facebook. And that’s pretty bleak.
Now, I’m an extremely optimistic person. I choose to believe in the good of people even when my best friend tells me the “good of people” is going to spend that few dollars I gave him on beer or crack. Maybe that’s more naïve than optimistic, but that’s how I am. So, of course a movie about ambition and its ugly twin, greed, is going to leave me feeling depressed as fuck for three solid hours. But that’s what good movies do — they affect us. That’s why people who make movies do so.
Theme is so cohesively woven into There Will Be Blood as a whole. If you haven’t seen the movie, it’s probably one of the most prolific films made in the last decade so go watch it because spoilers follow.
In the beginning of the film, protagonist Plainview adopts a fellow oil rigger’s baby after an accident leaves the true father deceased. Of course, H.W. truly takes on the role of Plainview’s son until years later, when H.W. is a grown man and Plainview a lonely alcoholic, he asks to separate from his father’s business to pursue his own ventures. The request ends in his angry father revealing and mocking him for his actual lineage.
Plainview’s rival, Eli, is a man whose sole identity is placed in his religion. Earlier in the film, Eli takes joy in humiliating the self-righteous, “God-hating” Plainview in church. Then, years later Eli feels his wallet suffering from and goes to Plainview to try to sell his land. Whether in desperation or not, Eli bends to Plainview’s demands and renounces his faith in order to broker this deal.
Plainview allowed greed to come between him and the only person who had a smidgeon of love for him.
Eli allowed greed to come between him and his faith, his most cherished identity.
The key point I took away from last week of The Quest is that there is an overriding Theme or, as Jedi Master Scott put it, a Central Theme. Great films, like There Will Be Blood, use each character and relationship to reveal a different aspect of the Central Theme. The Central Theme is like a string of continuity. It’s this continuity that made me leave the theater feeling bleak and blue because the movie was much more than just a story at that point. It was a breathing, Indiana Jones-style adventurer exploring the temples of greed.
It’s interesting about themes. Typically the central theme is tied to the Protagonist’s journey, naturally enough because the story focuses on the P. Then all of of those other key characters, primary and secondary, those subplots, each of them generally have some slightly different angle on the central theme. Something to consider as you develop your GOYOQ script.
Tomorrow: Another Dispatch from The Quest.
About Jordan: Portland based writer. Connoisseur of film with an affinity for Nolan, Boyle and Jackson. Twitter: @jordanpaige00.
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