Dear diary,
The title of this entry is the phrase “basic plot” with the first letter of each of those words transposed. This was initially a genuine mistake that I made, and I decided to keep it.
I’m realizing two things about myself, as I write these recent entries — I mean the ones that have tended to become little nonsense tales:
- I can’t stand to talk about troubled times, so I escape into art;
- I have a love-hate relationship with plot.
The other day, someone in our local Movie Club’s group discussion remarked that the director Paul Thomas Anderson is “not a plot guy”. Maybe that’s why I like him so much. Same with David Lynch, my paragon.
Tho I’ve always felt allured by plot, it has seemed a cheap attraction, a shallow thrill: like a sugar rush, rather than substantial intellectual nourishment. But as I’ve grown so comfortable with all the other elements of writing (and I mean absolutely ALL of them — for nobody in the world is a better writer than me: and that’s a fact), I’ve begun to develop a fondness even for the runt of the literary litter. All of its kindred, especially style, are so robust, I need not bother tending to them too closely anymore; thus I have more energy to waste on their malformed sibling.
So this morning I woke up and saw that the world had grown worse, as usual; therefore, as usual, I have only one desire: to ostrich away. So I thot to myself: Why not search online for the most basic plots — perhaps some website out there has gone to the trouble of copy-pasting Aristotle’s dusty old doctrines onto the screen, for us all to enjoy...
OFFICER DUKE: “Ugh! God... Get that away from me before I throw up.”
OFFICER HOLMES: “I’m gonna photocopy it and post it all over the place for everyone to enjoy.”
[—dialogue from the 2013 film WRONG COPS]
...or, better yet, maybe some Teacher of Screenplay Writing has posted an entry on his or her website detailing the best simple movie plots to re-use; so I can just manipulate those things to make my next entry. That was my thot. But alas there was nothing to be found. For apparently nobody even knows who Aristotle is anymore; and all his books have been burned. Plus all the movies have melted within their cans, and no one ever bothered to synopsize them.
So I’m left to fall back on my own natural talent. I’ll have to create my own narrative from scratch, & devise a plot of my own ex nihilo.
Now, because I’m timid and unadventurous, I like to keep my ideas very simple & to work only with subject matter that I know about: things I’ve experienced in reality; I prefer to remain on familiar ground. I like my artistic creations to have the feeling of being bounded by barriers, whose borders are signified by ropes of red velvet. And readers should think of these boundary lines as having been drawn by the Hand of Science, so no one should try to wander outside of the mental space that they demarcate. But I never put up barbed wire as a secondary bound outside of the ropes, because (to let you in on a dirty secret) I sorta like it when people wander away.
But, as I said, I only copy what I know. So I like to start all my stories in a green field, which I steal from Adam and Eve. Not their former garden — that’s paradise: that’s basically a pleasure dome, guarded by cherubs with flaming swords and a perimeter of barbed wire. No, when I say “green field”, I mean the expanse outside of that garden: the rolling plain where Cain slew Abel — that’s where I like to set my scene.
So all I wanna do in this plot that I’m gonna start writing here is let spin a simple cycle: I wanna have pairs of characters enter the stage & stand on the grass & bring forth children who eventually produce the next generation of characters. And this process shall repeat a few times; then I’ll end the thing.
Pasic Bastoral
Alright, so the scene is a green field, far from Eden. Here comes Bryan (my alter ego) entering from the “deus ex machina” device, which is like a swing on a pulley with nice frills. Once safely onstage, Bryan leans and loafs at his ease observing a spear of summer grass.
Now climbing up from the audience onto the stage is Eve from Genesis.
“How are you doing today?” sez Bryan to Eve. “You look strikingly familiar. Are you, by any chance, the offspring of Mrs. Evilman; or perhaps that firstborn’s sister? Or have you & I worked together someplace in the past? What’s your name? And which country do you come from; & who are your gods? Also: what is your profession — by which I mean: what do you do for a living (for I assume that you’re employed by some corporation, since it is forbidden to live off the land)?”
“I was born here of parents born here from parents the same, and their parents the same,” answers Eve and yawns.
Then Bryan begins to orate about their surroundings, delivering his opinions on everything. And, somewhere along the line, he ends up offending Eve. So they fight. Not physically but verbally — I guess I should have said: They argue.
This major blowout ends with Eve declaring, “I gotta get away from you. When we first met, I thot that maybe we could chat a little, at least until a better player enters the stage; but now I see that we cannot even be acquaintances — you’re worse than God! — I need some fresh air. Where is the exit?”
“We’re in a green field,” sez Bryan. “There’s neither exit nor fresher air available elsewhere on the earth.”
“So we’re stuck together, and there’s no hope of a better life?”
“Not without offending the theater’s management,” Bryan explains.
“Fine,” sez Eve. “Then shall we procreate before time runs out?”
“Sure,” sez Bryan.
So they have a child by accident, and they name him Rehoboam.
[2]
Rehoboam finds a career as a fighter of evil. He vows to end all evil, even if it means engaging in perpetual, preemptive warfare which is indistinguishable from the very terror he’s attempting to quash.
Now from stage right enters Diana & starts to argue with Rehoboam.
After moving in together, they bear a child in their apartment, and the thing is a Monster — they suspect that it is the spawn of the Devil — so they name the kid Prince Avenant, and cast it out into the field.
A few months after giving birth, Diana expires. The cause of death is listed as “moon poisoning”.
Her son, the Monster, Prince Avenant, now meets his mother’s mate, King Rehoboam, in the green & pleasant field. He tears the man to shreds with his claws & teeth, & drinks his blood & overcomes him. Thus the Monster conquers the Hero.
[3]
Now the Queen of Sheba steps onstage looking for Diana, for she was her mistress. And she asks the Monster:
“Is Diana sleeping?”
“I’m so sorry: Madame overdosed on moonlight,” explains Avenant. “Yet, how about me? Do you think I could serve as your new lover?”
The Queen scrutinizes the Monster. “You’re not my type,” she sez.
So, in an attempt to gain class mobility, the Monster steals all the royal riches he can find: He reasons that, once he enters the upper strata, he might impress the Queen by becoming her social equal. But he does not know that all these riches belong to her — he just bashes down the door of the nearest castle and robs its treasury. So when he returns to the Queen, he’s all festooned in bright jewels and golden chains, and he’s wearing a crown.
“Now am I your type?” smiles the Monster.
“...but you have propelled me from riches to rags,” cries the Queen of Sheba, as she tosses herself off a cliff.
[4]
So the Monster, Prince Avenant, sits down on the cliff’s edge and watches his true love freefall for nine whole days. Then on the tenth day there appears a puff of smoke at the bottom of the abyss, and he knows that she is safe. So he picks himself up by his bootstraps, dusts off his mane, and decides to whistle for a Quest.
“Traditionally, after the death of his dearly beloved, the hero of a tale must leave the safety of his home and go in search of a dangerous Quest,” pronounces Avanant in a monologue; “however, instead of going to seek out a dangerous Quest, I’ll make the dangerous Quest come & seek me.”
So he blows a charming melody into his panpipe; & this summons a Quest to come crawling up out of the turf, in the form of a Snake Woman.
Now, because Avenant is a sufferer of Ophidiophobia (which means an abnormal fear of serpents), the sight of this Snake Woman makes him gasp & drop his panpipe. So, in panic, he immediately grabs the dog-whistle from among the thick gold chains on his neck and blows another delightful melody. This causes a Cat Woman, played by Mrs. Evilman in her burglar suit, to pace onstage leisurely.
Thus it comes to pass that the Monster, Prince Avenant, along with the Serpentine Empress and her intended nemesis Cat Woman, perform what is basically a live re-enactment of Jules and Jim, the 1962 film directed and written by François Truffaut, except with the females taking the place of the males, and the role of Catherine played by Avenant the Monster. (It’s not as bad as you’d think — they actually do a pretty good job.)
[5]
Then, at the end of their stage-play remake, when the trio is at the outdoor cafe, the Monster asks the Serpentine Empress to get into his horse-drawn sedan, saying he has a serious proposal to make to her; yet, instead of following the original ending, they completely change it. This enrages all of the hardcore fans in the audience: Anyone who held Truffaut’s version to be essentially a tragedy sees this altered stage production as too comedic; on the other hand, those who consider the original to be mostly a comedy picture find this new twist tastelessly tragic:
Avenant crouches down and points with one claw into the distance, while placing his free claw on the shoulder of Mrs. Evilman the Cat Burglar; and he asks her to fix her gaze on the crooked road ahead, where lies a damaged bridge that is failing to vault a burning lake of fire. Prince Avenant the Monster beats his chest and shouts:
“Come with me, Snake Woman, into our horse-drawn sedan. Let us drive together, straight off yon broken bridge, so that we fall into the lake of fire and meet Second Death!”
But instead of doing so and thus killing himself and the Serpentine Empress, the horses that are pulling their sedan all reveal at the opportune moment (right before they reach the brink of the bridge) that they truly have wings like their famous ancestor Pegasus; thus they lift off the ground and ascend up into the heavens, instead of cascading into the Fire Lake; and they park their sedan on the moon, where they meet the mortal soul of deceased Diana, and she takes the vacant place in their ménage à trois.
So the Cat Burglar is left holding an urn with no ashes to fill it with; for her friends will endure a long time, as constellations in heaven, before they burn out.
[6]
But then Jeanne Moreau emerges out of the shadows & steps forth from stage left, seeming disoriented; & she addresses Mrs. Evilman as follows:
“Excuse me, I think I might have amnesia; for someone ran off with my role. Here’s all I remember: One moment I’m playing a damsel named Catherine; then some Prince comes & sweeps me off my feet. Lifts me right up into the sky. — But then he dropped me off over there; that’s why I staggered forward to meet you.”
The logical conclusion is that Jeanne Moreau and Mrs. Evilman fall deeply in love at first sight, and they go purchase that house where Annie Hayworth is living when Melanie Daniels pays her a visit in Hitchcock’s The Birds (1963). — Now, that movie depicts Melanie as spending one single night with Annie, but, every time I watch it, I always wish that those women would forsake their stupid passion for Mitch Brenner and instead just move in with each other and share a simple life in that small town. However, that didn’t happen; so I commanded the birds to attack that story. But, luckily, this present story is MINE, not Hitchcock’s. Therefore Jeanne and Mrs. Evilman buy that house in Bodega Bay, & take over those starring roles, & bring forth a daughter named Lilith. And they all live happily ever after.
No comments:
Post a Comment