“Social stage is the point to which the society of your hero has developed.” All societies evolve through distinct social stages and these influence the type of narrative seen within them. Each social stage becomes synonymous with a particular type of hero, a unique breed of opponent, special concerns and particular values that shape a plot. The significance of location design and placement is that it is indicative of character type and audience expectation.
Social stage can be used as an extended metaphor to examine humanity or to create a physical representation of how a person would deal with an internal problem eg. moral problems, as narratives generally have two antagonists –one internal (psychological) and one external (a person or problem).
Social stage is as much about relationships and making connections as it is about environment. Relationships powerfully shape the story and determine how a character will grow and develop. The family is a great power structure to explore and by emulating the hierarchy quality of a family into the society a story can provide a deeper connection between the protagonist and the society.
Raindance Film School teach that there are 4 key stages through which a civilisation would develop over time. (Obviously these can only be loosely applied and there are many exceptions to the stereotypes.)
1) Wilderness and super-hero:
Ø No buildings
Ø Hero travels alone or with a band of followers (this setting lends itself to religious narratives)
Ø Nature is vast and all-powerful
Ø The protagonist ascends to the role of ‘Superhero’ because they are the only ones capable of surviving (They are always male)
Ø ‘Barbarians’ are the antagonists and the main concern of the protagonist is to survive
Ø Ending: the superhero leaves his group at the foot of a mountain (metaphor for the main problem) and ascends alone where he receives ‘divine gift’ which he will then share
2) Village and the classic hero:
Ø A village is a small settlement – all the buildings look the same and are one storey. Often fences and buildings will be under construction or in disrepair symbolising the broken barrier between barbarianism and civilisation.
Ø There will be a simple social structure (young and developing) without hierarchy although one character will assume the voice of the whole village when talking to an outsider.
Ø The village is surrounded by wilderness and is exposed to the forces of nature and the villagers are prone to attack. Villagers mistrust anything to do with the wilderness or anyone who is different from them.
Ø The ‘Classic hero’ is almost exclusively male and either comes or is summoned from outside the village. Sometimes he is initially mistaken for the villain; however, he is their only hope for defeating the antagonist. The classic hero will have some useful talent that will save the fragile community that “cannot physically or morally handle themselves”.
Ø Although the village will change during the plot, the protagonist remains the same in character during the film.
Ø Warring between the protagonist and village characters in some cases reveals their wickedness and corruption. After the problem is dealt with the protagonist no longer has a place in the village society and leaves.
Westerns fit this structure but the example we have given below is ‘Sleepy Hollow’.
3) City and the average hero:
Ø This is a developed village which, upon meeting a physical boundary, must begin to grow vertically. The city is a place of “hierarchy, rank, privilege and vast differences in wealth and power.”
Ø The ‘Average hero’ is an everyman/woman –completely ordinary.
Ø The pursuit of the average hero is often a nesting instinct to build/protect his/her home or family. They are concerned with equality and justice and avoiding “the slavery of bureaucracy and government”.
4) Oppressive City and the anti-hero:
Ø A city grows so dense, so technological and bureaucratic that it becomes a place of enslavement. Often the intention of those in power is to create a utopian society which in reality isn’t realised or becomes corrupted.
Ø There is a large distinction between social classes –with large numbers of those who have little wealth or power and just a few with most of it.
Ø An ‘Anti-hero’ can have 2 distinct traits. (1) a person who will not be “beaten down by the oppressive city” and is therefore exiled/witnesses a crime and then holds the key to keeping someone in power. This results in this citizen being pursued, often until death. eg. Blade Runner. Or (2) a person who is beaten down – incompetent or unsocial and comes to realise that his/her society is flawed.
Ø The next development of society is for it to crumble, sometimes from its own corruption, other times from an uprising or rebellion –physically or through thought/awareness. Then this social stage completes its cyclical evolution and returns to a Wilderness state eg. Lord of the Flies.
The general trend is that as the social stage gets bigger the individual hero gets smaller (and often less powerful). Oppressed and futuristic often seem to be depicted hand in hand, often because people assume that our society of today is in the ‘City’ stage of development. However, by examining recent News and modern institutions it could be concluded that modern civilisation resembles many aspects of an ‘Oppressed City’ (although not to the extremes depicted in film.)
Below the example is ‘Nineteen Eighty-Four’.
We have decide that our narrative landscape is that of an ‘Oppressed City’ due to the dystopian features of our basic plot. We investigated the portrayal of cities further.
Conventions of portraying a cityscape in narrative:
Ø Mirror or distort aspects of a city to fit the narrative.
Ø Cities are organised vertically and power/wealth is often indicated through height and with extreme contrast. Eg. Penthouses and underground (subterranean) criminals. This creates narrative texture and these conventions lesson the need for explanation.
Ø Cities divided into compartments preventing organised congregation and isolating people from one another allowing for “negative values of intrigue, secrecy and injustice” to be contrasted with the protagonists ‘nesting’ goal. The effect is highly impersonal and chilling in its coldness and detachment.
Reference:
‘Raindance writers’ lab: write + sell the hot screenplay’ by Elliot Grove
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