Writing the short film 3th - Part 25. Cuốn sách này chủ yếu giúp tham khảo về phương pháp viết kịch bản, phim ảnh, video và các nhà làm phim video - những người đang phải đối mặt với sự cần thiết của việc viết một kịch bản tường thuật ngắn sao cho hay, mạch lạc, nội dung phim được truyền tải hết đến người xem. | 158 Writing the Short Film MOTIFS To talk more specifically about melodrama it is useful to look at eight motifs that characterize the genre. Those motifs are1 Main character and goal Antagonist Catalytic event Resolution Dramatic arc Narrative style Narrative shape Tone In order to illustrate how the motifs operate we will look at two case studies Antonia Bird s Priest 1995 and Mike Van Diem s Character 1994 . Priest The main character and his dramatic action or goal. The main character is a young priest new to a poor parish. His goal is to be the spiritual leader of the community. What he does not realize is that in a poor community life is practical and difficult. There is little room here for spirituality. The antagonist. The young priest is his own antagonist. He struggles with his issues as a man sexuality and gender. As a gay man he struggles not only with the issue of celibacy but also with anti-gay sentiment. The catalytic event. The young priest comes to this new community. The dramatic arc. The dramatic arc in a melodrama is always an interior journey. The young priest learns how to be a better priest by acknowledging that he is also a man. The resolution. The priest accepts himself and the community accepts him. The narrative style. This particular story has both a plot foreground story and a character layer background story . The background story gravitates around the issue of the priest as spiritual leader and of the man as a sexual being. The presence of another sexual priest in the same parish suggests sexuality is a problem for more than one Catholic priest in the Parish. The other priest however is heterosexual. That priest is also socially and politically active in the community whereas the main character is concerned with the The Melodrama 159 spiritual as opposed to the everyday life of his parishioners. Therein he differs from the other priest again. The plot relates to the incest revealed to the main character in the confessional. What is his
