Ordering the World Through Narratives

University of Amsterdam In(ter)dependent Coincidences Ordering the World Through Paul Thomas Anderson’s Screenplays By Robin Jerrel Zwaan MA. THESIS 10272178 25 June 2017 Film Studies Graduate School of Humanities Supervisor: Dhr. Dr. F.A.M. Laeven Second reader: Dr. T. K. Laine Abstract This thesis explores the possibility for contingency within the causative structure of the narrative constructed for film. This inquiry will be conducted on the basis of the screenplays of the first three feature films of Paul Thomas Anderson; respectively Hard Eight (1996), Boogie Nights (1997) and Magnolia (1999). The theory that will be applied to this corpus will consist, for one thing, of the dominant discourse, guided by Aristotle and David Bordwell, concerning the fundaments of the narrative constructed for film. In contrast to their elaborations on the linear narrative, the notion of contingency will be considered in relation to the narrative in pursuance of exposing possible deviations from this causative structure. From this conceptual framework evolving around the notion of contingency, the screenplays will be analyzed especially in regard to their depiction of space and time. Conclusively, the conviction will appear that contingency is possible on a limited level, but, ultimately, the narrative is inevitably subject to a form of structuring according to cause and effect on a meta-level, this all for the sake of generating a narrative that is, in the end, comprehensible. 1 Table of Contents Thesis Introduction p. 3 Chapter 1: Aristotelean Dramaturgy p. 8 Chapter 2: Deviations from the Aristotelean Structure p. 16 Chapter 3: Hard Eight p. 24 Chapter 4: Boogie Nights p. 33 Chapter 5: Magnolia p. 42 Conclusion p. 53 Bibliography p. 56 Appendix Appendix 1 p. 59 Appendix 2 p. 64 Appendix 3 p. 72 Appendix 4 p. 81 Appendix 5 p. 85 Appendix 6 p. 95 2 Introduction “It is the function of all art to give us some perception of an order in life, by imposing an order upon it.” (Elliot 86) Taking this idea from essayist, poet and play writer Thomas Stearns Eliot, one can extract the suggestion that order is an essential element of art. As Eliot states, art is supposed to present a feeling of order regarding our lives. But art, at the same time, also forces a specific order upon the same life. Since Eliot articulates this idea for all art, it should also apply to works of art created for and through the medium film. At first sight, this seems to be a clear case. After all, film – or at least the drama in film – makes life comprehensible, it helps the audience understand life by presenting it in an intelligible and manageable order (Mamet 11). One of the elements of film where order, in one way or another, happens to be most essential, is, undeniably, the screenplay (Stapele 132). That is to say, the screenplay has to present the narrative constructed for film according to the everyday rules of clear, linear causality. Normally the screenplay, or screenwriting is understood as the practice of writing a manuscript concerning a narrative destined for film ‘understood through notions such as story, spine, turning points, character arc and three-act structure’ (Maras 1). In other words, a screenplay is a drama-text written for the creation of film. However important this blueprint for the production of a film seems to be, the screenplay has for a large part been neglected throughout the study of film in an academic context (Nelmes 107). The rejection of the study of the script is, among other things, triggered by the common understanding of the screenplay as part of ‘an industrial process and thus viewed as a craft rather than a creative act’ (Nelmes 108). In extension, the screenplay has an ‘intermediate’ essence; its ‘fate’ is to eventually dissolve into film. Concerning this understanding, the screenplay functions merely as a means, instead of an end in itself; its part ‘in the process is by definition transitional and transformational’ (Maras 6). Despite these ontological and methodological issues raised by the ‘intermediate’ character of the screenplay, I still consider the screenplay to be a fruitful field to employ academic research. For one thing, due to the fact that this manuscript plays such a significant role both in the production and the essential structuring of the film’s narrative. But, furthermore, also because academic studies are eminently suited for, and specialized in, textual analysis – and seem, therefore, an 3 appropriate practice for the analysis of the textual script. For this reason, it seems plausible that the academic field of media studies – besides their varied contributions on the audiovisual level –will, by the study of screenplays, also be able to offer substantial insights concerning the scholarly and practical dimensions of screenwriting. In the conclusion I will return to the question whether or not this assumption turned out to be well-founded on the basis of the results attained in this research. In the last couple of years, a discipline called screenplay studies has originated from the international conference ‘re-thinking the screenplay’ first held in 2008 (Veld 1). Within this discipline, two major positions can be distinguished. First, there is an understanding that scripts should be studied as independent texts; free of their potential production as a film. Moreover, scholars employing this position suggest that the study of scriptwriting ‘is better situated within the domain of creative writing than that of film studies or screen production’ (Baker 7). According to the scholars engaging in this position, the research focused on the script can only contribute to a more creative and critical understanding of the screenplay by dealing with them as independent texts and, therefore, products of creative writing. Second, there is an idea that screenplays, above all, should be understood as texts written for the production of film (Batty 68). The latter is the position I will occupy during this research, with, thereby, the endeavor to find new understandings in regard to the screenplay as a practice, and, moreover, conceivably discover new techniques and mechanisms that can help the practice-oriented field of the writing and evaluating of screenplays (Koivumäki 142). Besides the scholarly research regarding the screenplay, a large theoretical foundation on the nature of the screenplay has been laid in several popular screenplay manuals. Despite the fact that both the academic study of screenplays and screenplay manuals deal with the same object, they have succeeded to neglect each other in the past decades. This development has led to the case that both film professionals and film academics ‘have missed opportunities to learn from each other’ (Cattrysse 84). In order to make this connection, I will implement the ideas of a selection of popular screenplay manuals in this investigation. This research will approach the screenplay from a narratological perspective since the narrative is the element where structure is particularly important. In extension, I will employ this approach in regard to the screenplay considering that this 4 manuscripts is essentially the carrier of the narrative. As a starting point, the ideas of Aristotle will be appealed, and, furthermore, the deliberations of his heirs within contemporary film studies. At the hand of this variety of authors, guided by David Bordwell, I will distill the dominant discourse concerning the fundaments of the narrative constructed for film. The common belief moves, for one thing, around the idea that screenplays should be built around ‘strong central characters who struggle to achieve well-defined goals’ (Stapele 103). And, more significant for this inquiry, that the events within the narrative should occur in a causative distribution (Chatman 46). Since the vast majority of the narratives considered in relation to the academic study of film are all based on causative structures, I am eminently interested in the possibility for deviating from this causative structure. Deviating from the strict causative order seems to be a challenge with greater reason concerning the screenplay because this carries of the narrative emerges from the practice of writing. And writing, moreover, is a particularly regulative system; i.e. writing is ‘a way of imposing order on the unstructured and undifferentiated, of producing sense from non-sense’ (Bruckner 280). It is, therefore, rather questionable whether it is, for the screenwriter, possible to implement an intentional form of non-causality in the screenplay. In this case, the screenwriter should be able to make events within the screenplay appear as coincidental or ‘contingent’, while at the same time the construction of these events has to be, at least on a meta-level, highly causal and determinate. In order to investigate this, I will conclude the theoretical considerations regarding the structure of the narrative by taking a look at the notion of contingency – an idea which occupies the conceptual space of causality’s counterpart – and see if there is also a possibility for the non-causality within the assumed causal structure of the screenplay. The aim, moreover, is to explore the fundamentals of structure and causality in regard to the narrative by introducing the notion of contingency; i.e. a relation which is not determined with causative certainty. Since the non-causal-relation has for a large part been neglected in the studies on the narrative, I hope, with this examination of the idea of contingency, to make a modest but significant contribution to the theoretical body in question within the field of film studies. That is to say, among other things, my aim is to open up a discussion concerning the possibilities to deviate from the strict 5 causal structure of the narrative in regard to films intended for a relatively large audience. The corpus that will be consulted during this research consists of the screenplays developed for the first three feature films of Paul Thomas Anderson; respectively Hard Eight (1996), Boogie Nights (1997) and Magnolia (1999).

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