I.T.A.P week five: 2.11.2010

The concept of having acts within a story was at one point restricted to theatre, but after the introduction of film, the idea of a three act structure became more of a layout for the plotline rather than three actual acts. The basic structure consists of a film having a beginning, middle and an end, but this is often translated into the main areas of the story; establish, crisis and resolve.

A film that uses this type of three act structure is “The Nightmare Before Christmas”; in the first act we establish the characters; our protagonist in this film being Jack Skellington and the world in which they live; Halloween Town. At this point we also see their everyday lives; they have just finished another successful Halloween so the whole town is ecstatic to begin preparing for next year.

The crisis occurs when Jack admits that he is unhappy with going through the same routine year after year. While wandering in the forest he stumbles upon various holiday doors, the Christmas tree attracts him the most, and Jack soon finds himself in Christmas Town – Jack is fascinated by this new and unusual place so quickly returns to his town to tell the citizens about his plans to take over Christmas this year, he kidnaps Santa Claus and sets off delivering his own brand of horrifying Christmas, the people of the real world notice he is an imposter and shoot his sleigh down – leading his friends to believe he’s dead.

The final act, resolve, begins with Jack regaining consciousness and realising his mistake, so he travels home to set everything right – starting with rescuing Santa and Sally from Oogie Boogie, Santa leaves to fix Christmas and Jack returns to Sally and reveals his feelings to her; we see the emotional change that has occurred in Jack.

The idea of the monomyth is that every story and fairytale uses the same underlying plot and ideas – to show this I have used the table from the lecture and applied it to the film “Constantine”;

I: Departure
The call to adventure	Constantine given the gift to see half-breeds
Refusal of the call	Commits suicide
Supernatural aid	Is revived by paramedics
Crossing the first threshold	Given his abilities and begins his work protecting the living realm
The belly of the whale	Finds out his lung cancer is in its final stages

II: Initiation
The road of trials	Exocising demons to earn his way to Heaven
The meeting with the goddess	Meets Angela
Temptation away from the path	Gabriel begs him to kill her now she’s human
Atonement with the Father	His faith in God
Apotheosis (becoming god-like)	Uses his powers to reveal Gabriel
The ultimate boon	The rising of Mammon is stopped

III: Return
Refusal of the return	Saves Isobel’s soul from Hell
The magic flight	Constantine rises to Heaven
Rescue from without	The Devil removes Constantine’s cancer
Crossing the return threshold	Angela made to hide the Spear
Master of the two worlds	Balance returned to the realms
Freedom to live	Quits smoking

Common Mythic Elements
Two Worlds (mundane and special)	Earth and Hell
The Mentor	Constantine (to Chas)
The Oracle	Gabriel
The Prophecy	The rising of Mammon
Failed Hero	Chas
Wearing enemy’s skin	n/a
Shapeshifter (the Hero isn’t sure if he can trust this character)	Midnite
Animal familiar	n/a
Chasing a lone animal into the enchanted wood (the animal usually gets away)	Chasing Angela as she is being kidnapped by Gabriel