Let’ say for the sake of argument that a screenplay has four acts, not three as all those screenwriting books claim. Why then is Act Three so hard to write? For that matter, why is Act Three so hard to watch?
When I watch a film on DVD, I often find myself hitting the pause button around the hour mark…right when Act III begins. I think there are a couple reasons for this. One is that the fun and games of Act II are winding down. Playtime is over. Another is that Act III is typically where things get worse for the hero, and that’s no fun. Typical screenplay structure demands things get worse (the stakes raised) to lead us to the Death Moment in which the hero seems to have lost everything.
The reason for the Death Moment is that we need to knock the hero down in order to have the satisfying resurrection at the film’s climax. This is all pretty basic stuff. Resurrections are satisfying, but they require the hero to be knocked down a peg or two…or ten. The difficulty I have with Act III peg-knocking is that it’s often done in a convenient, pro-forma manner. Far too often the hero makes a flawed, illogical decision that leads to his downfall. The writer may also resort to some orchestrated convenience to put the hero in the dog house. I’ve watched a lot of movies and find such machinations tedious, and I can’t help but wonder if the larger audience feels the same way.
Of course, audiences are very forgiving. They don’t scrutinize plotting the way a writer does. If there is some surface-level entertainment value (laughs, action, romance), the audience will typically forgive convenient plotting, if they notice it at all. Consider the “Wizard of Oz,” and it’s third act side-trip to obtain the witch’s broom. Have you ever considered why the Great and Powerful Oz wants the broom? Does it serve some larger purpose? Did he just want to get rid of this pesky girl and her side-kicks? Why send her on this errand and imperil their lives? No answer is given and we are swept up in the story and go along for the adventurous ride, but if you stop and think about it, that Oz is a real asshole.
On the most basic level a story has to last a certain length of time. In the case of a feature film it’s 90-120 minutes. If the makers of “Oz” were running short on time, they could have sent Dorothy and company on a couple more side trips. Maybe Oz wants Glenda’s tiara, or the heads of twelve flying monkeys. Any number of tangential adventures could have been set up…all connected to Dorothy’s larger goal of getting home. In some respect, Act III can be expanded or contracted like an accordion, based on the length of the other acts. Novels and other long-form stories can have an almost endless string of tangential adventures in Act III.
In the ballet world, the third act often has nothing to do with the rest of the story. It’s called a Divertissement which I’m assuming means “diversion” in French. Here the lead characters may stop and watch a ballet-within-a-ballet as dancers entertain them. It’s as though ballet-makers threw up their hands and said “Listen, I really don’t have any plot here, so we’ll just suck up some time with some eye-candy.” So out come the jugglers and acrobats and peasant dancers.
Some films seem equally off-handed about the Third Act. A director may orchestrate a big car chase or stunt that serves no real plot purpose. These can be entertaining in the moment, but are quickly forgettable as they really don’t impact the main plot. If you can excise the scene and still tell the story, then it’s probably just padding. I would like to find some sort of formula that helps me design third acts that are as integral to the overall story as the first or second acts. Wish me luck.