2.Main Content
Love on Screen – romantic comedies and tragic love stories
When Harry Met Sally - a classic of the genre
Wed, 12 Nov 2003
In a previous article, I laid out the principles of a theory of genre which offers an interesting way into script analysis for both development teams and screenwriters. Using the genres of ‘Romantic Comedy’ and ‘Tragic Love Story’ I want to illustrate practically how genre is indeed a valuable theory.
Just to reiterate, genre theory is not about being ‘commercial’ (asking writers to compromise their voice and integrity), but rather is about considering the expectations of an audience, and considering why it is important, if not crucial, for new writers to acknowledge these.
The genres of Romantic Comedy and Tragic Love Story share two fundamental characteristics; in each there are two people that the audience must want to be together and there are obstacles to that union. Given this key similarity, these two genres are useful to compare as an illustration of the application of the theory.
In Romantic Comedy it is the present situation of the characters which is important. The obstacles to the union of our two main characters are situational and/or internal to the characters and are invested with humour. The audience doesn’t need a wealth of information about the characters’ histories; we come into a situation and we work it out - in fact part of the pleasure of this genre. Romantic Comedies are defined by the era in which they are set – I have lost count of the number of times that friends have said to me that their friend is 'just like Bridget'! Bridget Jones’ Diary is very much of our current time, and I wonder if this film would have been possible to conceive and make in the 1980’s? Equally, Sally in When Sally Met Harry makes a case for a career rather than a man, which seems rather dated now – however, this sentiment doesn’t detract from the enjoyment of the film now because it evokes an era that was in part defined by independent-but-sexy women.
In the Tragic Love Story it is the lovers who want to be together and this is a key and significant difference. The obstacles are that one or both of the protagonists are violating and disregarding the power structures in their lives by pursuing the union. Hence, the obstacles are much more serious and the consequences of this transgression may mean death. In fact, usually one or both of the protagonists will die. Therefore, we do need a wealth of information about the background of the characters in order to understand why the stakes are so high.
There aren’t very many modern tragedies as there is so little in our culture that is considered sacrosanct above that high concept of love. Cultural or religious barriers to a union can still be imagined in some (extreme) circumstances; but in order to deliver on the emotional range experienced by the audience in this kind of the story, the genre is mutating to compensate for modern times. For example the film, Lawless Heart – screened at the Regus London Film Festival this year - takes as one of its themes the idea of a gay man falling in love with a woman, in exploring transgression in love – (also examined in TV’s Bob And Rose, discussed last issue).
Otherwise, the recent Tragic Love Stories are set in the past so that the audience have an instant reference point and a way of understanding the severity of the obstacles to a union. For example, Titanic and more recently Moulin Rouge.
It is an understanding of genre that allows us to think about stories in this way and ask fundamental questions of the script that we are writing or working on. If the lovers know that they want each other from the outset and this is their goal, we are unlikely to be in a romantic comedy. If the lovers are not motivated by desire for each other but end up together, and we also understand that there are all sorts of other obstacles in their lives to the union, we are not dealing with a tragic love story. I have read several scripts which try to deliver a genre piece where the key component about the relationship between the lovers is at odds with the audience expectations.
Taking a fairly simple three act model of drama, the genre conventions of a Romantic comedy or a Tragic Love Story enable us to work out how the screenplay should be structured and what kind of information we need to tell our story in each of the main acts. Let’s see how easy it can be:
Act One of a romantic comedy needs to introduce the characters and the situation in which they are in; introduce the obstacles – or the conflicts; and bring it to a moment where (usually) the characters don’t get together but one or other of them now has a mission (i.e. the course of the story has been changed).
Act Two of the romantic comedy will put the would-be lovers into humorous situations where they keep missing the opportunity and misunderstandings abound and by the end of this act we get to an impasse where we know they are going to get together but we are not quite sure how…
Act Three of the romantic comedy will resolve the main love story – bringing our lovers together forever- and the fallout from this should tie up all the other loose ends which have bubbled beneath the surface.
On the other hand: Act One of a tragic love story must introduce the characters’ background to put their story in context. We have to understand the conflicts in the culture or the family situation to understand how high the stakes are in the story, and the first act will usually end when the protagonists decide to transgress, despite the danger.
Act Two of the tragic love story will have the lovers plotting their escape from the constraining situation, but something will happen to end the fantasy, bringing a new urgency.
Act Three of the tragedy will be a last-ditch desperate attempt to escape and it will go wrong. The forces against the characters will triumph, but it is not a happy ending for anyone and usually – over the dead body of one of the lovers - poses the question about whether it was worth it for the triumphant forces.
Before you rush to pen your critique, I remind you again that this theory is not trying to make a story conform to a set of conventions, but suggesting you might use that set of conventions to try to work out where a screenplay is failing to meet the audiences expectations of the genre. With this information you can decide whether to develop the idea according to the conventions, or whether to think about how to compensate the audience so they are not feeling that their expectations are cheated.
This is the second of a series of articles looking at specific screenplay genres, which was first published in ScriptWriter magazine.
Lucy Scher
Co- Director
The Script Factory
Copyright The Script Factory 2001