11

Main Intentions and Subintentions

It must be realized that the world and our lives are one continuous chain of causes and effects, disturbances and adjustments. There is no beginning and no end; in these interwoven nets of motives, intentions, goals, we find no absolutely undisturbed state of affairs, at least not for any length of time. Nor can we possibly achieve final and lasting adjustments.

We are born with continuous disturbances; others are forced upon us by other people. But the people who inflict this pain upon us must have had disturbances themselves in order to be moved to action, and these disturbances must have been caused by other people or things and so on. There is an uninterrupted chain starting in the distant past and leading up to the present day. Because of its limitation of space, the motion picture story cannot possibly render full justice to this entire chain of events. Whatever is to be told, must be told in about one and a half to three hours. Therefore we have to decide what to tell, where to begin, and where to end.

We answer this question by saying that we must limit ourselves to showing the outcome of one intention. This includes the exposition of the disturbance and the outcome of the intention, whether it be fulfillment or frustration. It is not possible to end the story before this outcome of the intention is shown, nor is it possible to have the intention attain the goal in the middle of the picture and then continue with another one.

This defines very strictly what the motion picture should tell. It is not advantageous for an ambitious writer to describe the entire life of a person — which generally consists of many intentions — except in cases where an entire life is devoted to one great intention.

Thus we derive the conception of the main intention. The main intention is the one out of many intentions about which the story proposes to tell.

The disturbance causing the main intention must be told, as well as the adjustment. The life of a human being will never attain complete adjustment, but can gain temporary adjustments for some intentions. We may never gain final adjustment for love, but we may have found a person who seemed to represent adjustment, even though we may find out later that she or he was the wrong person. We all have at least once succeeded in fulfilling one ambition, even though this success may be later destroyed by the misfortunes of life. It is the duty of the story to single out one disturbance, show the fate of the resulting intention, and end with final or temporary adjustment.

Thus the single main intention becomes the primary subject of our attention. This main intention may be opposed by a counterintention, but the counterintention can still be considered part of the main intention. It can even be opposed by several counterintentions; nevertheless, the main intention remains the backbone of the story. One main intention can be carried by several people; by astronauts in a spaceship. But even in this instance we do not tell about more than one main intention.

In rare cases a story may have two main intentions if they are contained in the same person. For instance, the hero desires the girl and victory over his enemies. While this is still possible, more main intentions destroy the motion picture story. The writer finds that such stories cannot be constructed, because they fall to pieces. Several main intentions are bound to run parallel or follow one after the other. Even though in this latter case, we have only one main intention at a time, the mistake is equally detrimental. Stories with such consecutive main intentions have the forward movement of a rabbit. This occurs frequently in episodic pictures unless they have one main intention connecting the episodes.

From the main intention we derive the conception of the subintention. The nature of the main intention is such that for its fulfillment we may need a number of small intentions.

Here is an example: A young man wants to make a career as a singer. His final ambition is to sing a great role at the Metropolitan Opera. It is impossible for him to achieve this main intention at once. Instead, he will have several subintentions: he may have to start as a singer in a nightclub. Then he may want to sing with a rock group. From this he may obtain enough money to take lessons from one of the great teachers. After that he is ready to sing in a concert hall with the hope of being heard by people who can give him a chance at the Metropolitan. He is given a small part in an opera. Thence he moves forward to the final goal: a great role at the Met!

This necessity for subintentions holds true for real life as well as for the movie script. Mountain climbers will cut up the main intention into various objectives. First they must reach a ledge here and then one further on; then they must scale a sheer wall and cross a ravine. And so on, until they have reached the peak.

But even a simple love story contains the principle of subdivision. The final objective is clear. But there are various subintentions — to attract the attention of the beloved one, to talk to her for the first time, to see her alone for the first time, to kiss her — and from then on the subintentions will depend upon the quality of the final goal.

Life is full of intentions. It is not always easy for the writer to discern between main intentions and subintentions. Strength is no criterion, because sometimes the main intention of a story is merely to plant a garden — which is not very powerful — and sometimes the subintention may be to slaughter a family. We must forget about size and power as standards by which to differentiate between main intention and subintention.

In order to recognize an intention as a subintention we must ask, Does it further the main intention? Every intention that does not further the main intention is an independent intention. It has to be discarded because the story cannot stand too many main intentions.

This is a very important discovery. The theatre is so limited in the material which it can use that it is not confronted with this problem to so great an extent. But the motion picture can represent so many different intentions that the writer is tempted to go off on all sides. Soon he will realize the damage done to his story. He will ask: Out of this maze of intentions, which shall I represent?

The answer is given through unity of purpose. The law of unity of purpose replaces the laws of unity of time and place in the theatre. After we have selected the main intention of the motion picture story, we can ask about all other intentions: Do they further the cause of the main intention? If they do, they are subintentions; if they do not, they are main intentions and must be discarded.

We must keep in mind that the main intention as well as the counter main intention may have subintentions. Each of these subintentions must either further the cause of the main intention or of the counter main intention. All the same rules apply to either of them. The subintentions are of constantly changing nature, while the main intention remains constant.

If we want to go to New York, this main intention remains the same, no matter what happens. But our subintention may have been to take the plane. The plane takes us from Los Angeles to Fort Worth, where a storm grounds the plane. Consequently a new subintention comes into effect: we want to take the train. We ride on the train until we arrive at a bridge which was destroyed by a flood. So we have to cross in a boat. Upon arrival on the other side, we take a car. Suddenly we discover that our enemy is lurking on the road. So we make a detour. Finally, we fulfill our main intention by arriving in New York. Among all these constant changes in subintentions, the law of unity of purpose remains in effect: they all further the main intention to get to New York.

Subintentions can lie within different people. For instance, a businessman wants to make money. The employees working for him represent subintentions, since their work furthers his plan. But the employee who goes on a weekend vacation fulfills no subintention from the boss’s point of view but a separate intention.

Like any intention, the subintention must have a cause and a goal. But the cause for the subintention is not a motive but a motivation. The cause is not pain, like the motive for the main intention, but it is the reason why this subintention will further the cause of the main intention. As such, the motivation is completely dependent upon the motive. This dependency results in two rules: the motivation exists only through the motive, and the motivation must have less strength than the motive.

The strength of the motivation cannot exceed the strength of the motive. With reference to the same example used on page 94, let us assume that a man met a woman at a party and flirted with her. After such short acquaintance, the pain caused through separation cannot be very strong; therefore the motive is weak. Consider these two possibilities: if the man is in Long Island and hears that the woman is in New York. He will go there because the motivation is even weaker than the motive. It does not require a very strong motivation to go from Long Island to New York. But if the man is in China and hears that the woman is in New York, he will not attempt the trip for a woman he hardly knows, because the strength of the subintention would exceed by far the strength of the main intention. The motive would have to be augmented: his love for the woman must be very strong.

The subintention sets an auxiliary goal. The auxiliary goal lies in the future. It may or not be attained.

If the subintention is characterized by the law of unity of purpose and if the motivation is characterized by the dependency upon the motive, the auxiliary goal is characterized by the law of the concentric direction.

The main intention has the desire to attain its goal in the shortest possible way. We can visualize the main intention as a straight line from motive to goal, because the shortest possible way is the straight line. If we want to go from New York to San Francisco, we will not go first to Miami, then to Chicago, then to New Orleans, then to Alaska and then to Los Angeles. We will take the straight line from New York to San Francisco. Consequently, the auxiliary goals desire to rest on the straight line between motive and main goal. This is not always possible because the difficulties may demand detours. The counterintentions may change the straight path of the subintention. But no matter how many detours, the auxiliary goal must lie always in the direction of the main goal.

It is not possible to go backward, or far off toward all sides, particularly not if it is unwarranted by the difficulties. A graphic description of this mistake would look like this:

It is obvious how harmful to the progress of the story such confused directions are. But the law of the concentric directions, represented graphically, looks like this:

There are football teams which pass the ball to all sides, but never seem to approach the goal. There are others which with a few calculated passes push right through. There are stories which reach out in all directions, but do not lead us anywhere. But there are other stories in which everything leads to a point. Stories with concentric direction are tense and powerful. Other stories without such focused direction are dissipated and tiresome. Besides, they waste so much time on their aberrations that they have little left for the main purpose.

The reader should not expect the auxiliary goals in a story to be very firm and concrete or obvious like the railroad stations along a route. They are of different strength and appearance; they may appear very rapidly and disappear again. One auxiliary goal itself may be subdivided into various other goals of much less importance and of even less definite appearance. The intention to meet somebody in a certain place sets an auxiliary goal, as does the intention to buy a new dress or to watch the performance of a play. One has said about Van Gogh’s paintings that there is not one dull square inch on his canvas. If you look at one square inch of his painting, you will find the same elements which make his entire picture interesting. The same applies for the motion picture story: each little section should contain the same elements of the future — intention and goal — which are desirable for the entire story.

The subintention which can be fulfilled or frustrated, must be fulfilled or frustrated. Any subintention must be led to a definite end. Many pictures violate this law. The error may be more or less grave according to the importance of the subintention. Let us assume a man says, “I am going to bed.” There is no apparent cause for the man’s intention to be frustrated. Therefore we conclude that he will attain his goal. But if a man declares that he is going to Singapore, and if we see him in the next scene walking in Times Square, we are confused. What happened to his subintention to go to Singapore? Why was it frustrated? When did he decide to go to New York?

Nowadays, such inconsistencies are frequently seen in motion pictures which have been badly cut for television showings. It is possible to eliminate a sequence, but not the preceding dialogue that prepares it.

In regard to the auxiliary goal we find other difficulties. At times something is revealed as an auxiliary goal. If this is the case, it exposes the need for a subintention and for a motivation. For instance, a lady in an evening dress in a swank restaurant, a worker in overalls standing in a factory, a man in a bathing suit in a pool, do not all represent auxiliary goals. But if a poorly dressed man goes into a luxurious restaurant, or if a man in overalls appears at a dress party, or the man in the bathing suit stands in Times Square, all these incidents reveal auxiliary goals which require motivation.

Failure to recognize these auxiliary goals and to give the respective motivations results in absurd situations. Sometimes a story may require a person to be in a certain place in order to meet another person or to witness something. If that person in that place does not represent a contradiction of information, we do not need any motivation. It is perfectly natural for the workman to see something happen in the factory. If our story requires that he see a happening in a nightclub, we need a strong motivation to get him there. Writers suffer from this demand: they must ask themselves, How can I get him there, or how can I make him meet her, or how can I make him see what happens there? It is obvious that the motivation must be in direct connection with the story line because, if it is not, the explanation would lead us too far astray from our story and would completely disrupt the forward movement, even though the motivation may be correct. It is not possible to explain that the man in overalls goes into chic restaurants because of a desire to live above his means, which was caused by an event in his childhood … and while he is there, he sees a girl steal something from a man. Such a motivation would be criminal in terms of economy. No, he goes there because he suspects his girl to be in that nightclub, or because he knows that somebody is to be robbed. In that case, the contradiction of information revealed by the overalls and the elegance of the nightclub becomes an excellent means of exposing the strength of the subintention.