Monday 28 October 2019

Film Reviews: Monsters, Inc. (2001) and Linear Structure


Fig. 1: Theatrical release poster for Monsters, Inc. (2001).



This review will be examining the structure, ending, and plot type of Pete Docter’s Monsters, Inc. (2001) by looking at Syd Field’s three act structure, Gustav Freytag’s five act structure, alongside closed, partial, and open endings and arch plots, mini plots, and anti-plots.

Monsters, Inc. is centred around two monsters, James P. Sullivan (or Sulley) and Mike Wazowski, and their line of work in the city of Monstropolis as “scarers” in the titular factory. The city is powered by energy harvested from the screams of human children; the children themselves are believed to be toxic, and as the children are becoming harder to scare, the city is threatened with an energy shortage. Mike and Sulley come across a lost human child whom Sulley nicknames “Boo”, and they try to return her home all the while being antagonised by rival and fellow scarer Randall Boggs. By the end of the film, the company’s chairman, Henry Waternoose, and Randall are revealed to have been forming a corrupt plot together, leading to Sulley replacing Waternoose as the company’s chairman. The energy crisis is resolved when laughter is found to be much more sustainable than screams, and Sulley is reunited with Boo after Mike reconstructs her destroyed door.

The three-act structure proposed by Syd Field originated in 1979 (Strathy, 2008), with each act representing an aspect of the story: act 1 is the ‘Setup’, act 2 is the ‘Confrontation’, and act 3 is the ‘Resolution’. Field’s structure, while following Aristotle’s structure of a beginning, middle, and end, places an emphasis on two “important turning points in a story” (Strathy, 2008), which are known as Plot Points 1 and 2 respectively. Field also makes mention that the middle act tends to be the longest.


Fig. 2: A diagram of Field’s three-act structure (2008).

As for the acts themselves, there is usually a typical pattern followed by media that uses this structure. The first act, as its name suggests, sets up the world that the characters live in, introduces the characters themselves, and begins to lay down the conflict that drives the story onwards (Moura, 2014). The second act tends to focus on the main character “pursuing their objective while coping with a series of obstacles” (Strathy, 2008). Meanwhile, tension increases in relation to the crisis. Lastly, the third act “presents the final confrontation” (Moura, 2014) and is usually the shortest in length as the conclusion of the film is reached. The first plot point, then, generally refers to the point at which the main character “commits to the story goal or embarks on the journey” (Strathy, 2008) whereas the second is the point where it seems all hope is lost and that the main character is doomed (Strathy, 2008).

The five-act structure (sometimes known as Dramatic Structure), on the other hand, is that which was identified by German playwright Gustav Freytag in 1863 (Smailes, 2019). As its name suggests, it details five different acts over which a story takes place; act 1 is the ‘Exposition’, act 2 is ‘Rising Action’, act 3 is the ‘Climax’, act 4 is ‘Falling Action’, and the final and fifth act is that of ‘Dénouement’. Freytag produced a pyramid to illustrate such a structure (Hellerman, 2019):

Fig. 3: Freytag’s pyramid (2019).

These acts refer to specific points in the story just as the three-act structure does. In this case, the Exposition is the setting up of the characters, world, and inciting incident that spurs to beginning of the story, the Rising Action is the obstacles that the main character encounters on their way in attempts to resolve the aforementioned inciting incident, and the climax is the “highest point of tension” (Smailes, 2019). This tends to be where the ‘showdown’ scene happens, followed by the Falling Action that highlights the calm after the climax as the story progresses towards its conclusion. Finally, Dénouement occurs when “conflicts are resolved and loose ends tied up” (Smailes, 2019). 

Accompanying these act structures are different plot types and ending types. The three main types of plot are as follows; the Arch plot, the Mini-plot, and the Anti-plot. The arch plot is considered to be the " classic plot” (Bevis, 2017) as the protagonists have a goal that they are attempting to achieve by the end of the story and are driven by external conflict that gives rise to change (Cross, 2018). Mini-plots focus mainly on internal conflicts wherein the main character battles their “inner demons” (Cross, 2018), and anti-plots are those concerned with fractured narratives and an unchanging protagonist (if such a title can even be applied to characters in an Anti-plot) (Bevis, 2017). These avoid linear plots and definitive purposes; there is no conflict, no clear-cut timeline, no protagonists or antagonists, and no other type of driving force behind such a plot (Cross, 2018).

As for ending types, there are three main ones: closed endings, open endings, and partial endings. Closed endings are those which resolve all aspects to a plot; there are no plot threads left open, and in some cases, there is no future left for the characters to pursue as an entirely conclusive end is reached (Gurskis, 2006). Open endings, on the other hand, are those which leave conflicts mostly or wholly unresolved. No definite resolution is reached, and the audience is usually left to interpret it however they like (Gurskis, 2006). Partial endings, then, are those that see all story arcs completed but there is still an opportunity for future endeavours to happen, as is the case with a lot of media.

Monsters, Inc. could arguably fit both the three and five-act structures. Looking at the third-act structure first, though, sees the first act, or the setup, occurring with the establishing of the factory and the city that Mike and Sulley live in as well as the characters themselves. The film makes note of the energy crisis that the monsters are facing and that the monsters are led to believe that human children, the source of their energy, are toxic. This act focuses on the more mundane side of Mike and Sulley’s life as it delves into their daily routine as workers in the factory as well as at home.



Fig. 4: The first act of the film (when considering both the three and five-act structures) is dedicated to setting up the world that Mike and Sulley live in. In this case, it’s the city of Monstropolis (2001).


The second act, or confrontation, begins with the first plot point kicking in when it’s revealed that Randall has been cheating in order to boost his numbers to beat Sulley out of the ‘top scarer’ spot; Sulley stays behind to file paperwork for Mike and encounters the door that Randall leaves on the ground floor, and as a consequence, meets Boo. This leads to Sulley ruining Mike’s date with his girlfriend and accidental exposure of the escaped human child to the general public, thus putting the company at risk. Sulley and Mike then spend most of this act trying (and failing) to return Boo to her door, all the while being antagonised by Randall and the difficulties of concealing Boo’s identity. This continues up until the second plot point wherein Mike and Sulley are banished, and it seems like they are going to fail their objective.



Fig. 5: At the end of the three-act structure’s second act, the scene where Mike and Sulley are banished to the human world fits with the concept of the second plot point wherein the protagonists believe that their endeavours are hopeless (2001).



The third act comes when the final conflicts come into play with both Randall and Waternoose, and a resolution is reached. After Randall and Waternoose’s scheme is unveiled, the plot becomes high in tension Randall is defeated by Mike, Sulley, and Boo, and the three of them expose Waternoose, prompting his arrest and the company falling into Sulley’s hands after they return Boo to her door. Later, the energy crisis is solved when the laughter of human children is used as a replacement to screams, and Mike pieces together Boo’s door so Sulley can reunite with her.

The film, then, could be broken down further to fit the five-act structure. The first and second acts, the exposition and rising action respectively, are similar to the three-act structure’s first two acts as they establish the world and its characters, initiate the inciting incident, and the conflict begins. The climax could also fit with the third act of the three-act structure, as the highest point of tension in the film could be said to be the scene in which Waternoose is pursuing Sulley and Boo through the corridors and attempting to break down the door as Sulley tries to send Boo home moments before they and Mike expose Waternoose’s plans.


Fig. 6: The five-act structure would likely see the film’s most high-stakes and high-tension scene being that when Waternoose pursues Sulley and Boo and attacks them both, before promptly having his plan of keeping the company afloat no matter the sacrifice exposed (2001). 

The fourth act or falling action then follows on from this and is the immediate relief of the previous scene. Mike’s Manager and head of the Child Detection Agency Roz alerts them that Waternoose has been arrested and lets Mike and Sulley send Boo off in peace. They then leave the factory to see the commotion outside, and Mike plants the idea of laughter as a substitute for screams in Sulley’s head. 

Therefore, the fifth act, or dénouement, is the final set of scenes which illustrate Sulley working as the company’s new chairman with the idea from the previous scene now fully operational as the factory’s main and only way of generating energy; as a result, it has solved the energy crisis. It also encompasses the scene where Mike reveals that he pieced Boo’s door back together and encourages Sulley to put in the final piece so they can see each other again. 


Fig. 7: The dénouement sees the changes taking place in the factory; Sulley is now its chairman in place of Waternoose, and the energy is sourced from laughter rather than fear (2001).



As for ending types, Monsters, Inc. fits that of the typical ‘partial ending’ structure. This is because while all of the plot threads are eventually resolved by the end of the film, there is still the opportunity for a continuation of the story by other means involving opening of potential new plot threads – life goes on for the characters, and all of the issues opened up at the beginning of the film are concluded. The final scene wherein Sulley opens Boo’s door and sees her again is the final plot thread concluded as they meet again, but it also holds potential for future adventures or storylines to arise.



Fig. 8: Sulley is reunited with Boo in the closing scene of the film, simultaneously giving it a partial ending and resolving the final plot thread of Sulley wishing to see her again (2001).

When looking at different plot types, it becomes clear that Monsters, Inc. is a film with an arch plot, since the story ends with the main characters having faced and resolved multiple external conflicts as well as being changed and experienced growth. 

To conclude, it could be said that Monsters, Inc. is a film that, theoretically, could work well when broken into both the three and five-act structures. However, it is notable that the fourth and fifth acts of the five-act structure make up a marginal portion of the film in comparison to the first three acts, whereas when considering the film through the lens of the three-act structure, there is a slightly more even split between acts (loosely, when accounting for the fact that the second act is indeed double the length of the first and third in accordance with Field’s proposal). At the very least, it could be considered almost definite that Monsters, Inc. suits the ‘arch plot’ and ‘partial ending’ facets of structure.



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