John August on “theme”
A helpful post yesterday. The word “theme” does seem to get tossed around in a lot of different ways. In fact, August’s use of theme as the “essential idea” of the movie sounds an awful lot like what Lajos Egri meant when he used the word “premise”:
Everything has a purpose, or premise. Every second of our life has its own premise, whether or not we are conscious of it at the time. That premise may be as simple as breathing, or as complex as a vital emotional decision, but it is always there.
We may not succeed in proving each tiny premise, but that in no way alters the fact that there was one we meant to prove. Our attempt to cross the room may be impeded by an unobserved footstool, but our premise existed nevertheless.
The premise of each second contributes to the premise of the minute of which it is part, just as each minute gives its bit of life to the hour, and the hour to the day. And so, at the end, there is a premise for every life.
Websters International Dictionary says:
“Premise: a proposition antecedently supposed or proved; a basis of argument. A proposition stated or assumed leading to a conclusion.”
Others, especially men of the theater, have had different words for the same thing: theme, thesis, root idea, central idea, goal, aim, driving force, subject, purpose, plan, plot, basic emotion.
For our own use we choose the word “premise” because it contains all the elements the other words try to express and because it is less subject to misinterpretation.
But as great as “The Art of Dramatic Writing” is, when reading it I found myself in a similar place as the writer posing the question to August: How to write from theme? I may start from a premise — how I use the word — the central conceit or concept of the story, but I don’t begin with some sort of central thematic point, rather that ‘stuff’ emerges as the story unfolds. But that’s only natural, I think, because as you go deeper into the story and characters, you tap into its essence, what the story is about. As August says in response to the OP’s question:
I suspect what your pro-theme writer friends were talking about was some essence that permeates every moment of a good film. Something that’s in its DNA. You feel it when it’s there, and notice it when it’s missing — even when the script otherwise seems solid.
The DNA reference is a terrific one:
The alternate version I’m positing above — the core idea or DNA — is practical and actionable. Once you feel confident what your unwritten movie wants to be, you make sure every scene and character and line of dialogue services that ideal. That’s the work of screenwriting, and it’s hard, to be sure.
But if you don’t pick a target, you’re unlikely to hit anything worthwhile.
A story has to be about something. And every scene should reflect that something. Perhaps then theme is what we do when we can articulate that something, but in order to get to that point, we need to go into the story in order to find its DNA, the story’s essence.
Read August’s post here.
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