Save the Cat Goes to the Movies (23 page)

Catalyst:
Meet Jack Dawson (Leonardo DiCaprio), playing poker for tickets to
Titanic.
Since the A story is the love story, this game will directly affect both Kate and Leonardo. Leo wins passage for himself
and
a buddy — a “Save the Cat!” beat.

Debate:
“Will Kate go through with her loveless marriage?” is dependent on “Will Leo get on board before
Titanic
leaves?”

Break into Two:
Just as
Titanic
departs, Leo and friend leap onboard. Checking out the great liner, Leo stands at the bow watching dolphins and, James Cameron-like, proclaims: “I’m the king of the world!” But the true Break into Two comes when, after a stultifying dinner with her mother (Frances Fisher) and Billy, Kate runs to the back of the ship to commit
le suicide.
At Minute 41, Leo stops her, saying, “I’m involved now.” When Kate slips, Leo saves her and is accused of rape by the sailors who find them. But his heroics get him a dinner invitation the next night.

B Story:
I’ve wrestled with this one, which would make for a nice classroom discussion, but I feel that the B story is …
The Titanic!
If the A story is the “love story” between Kate and Leo, the thing that prods that forward, and in fact forces the theme of the movie (read ahead if you want to know now) is the ship hitting an iceberg and sinking. I could also be talked into calling the diamond the B story. But that feels more like a C story, as it really is the final mystery we need to solve.

Fun and Games:
The fun here, the “promise of the premise,” is two young people in love on the most amazing ship in the world. We see every inch of the vessel in the course of this movie. As they run from stem to stern, the two fall in love. We watch Kate discover Leo’s talent for painting and for bringing out her hidden side. As they fight the prejudice of society that abhors first class/low class love, we are rooting for them.

Theme Stated:
At the dinner, Leo says “Make each day count.” Even Molly Brown (the Unsinkable Kathy Bates) is impressed.

Midpoint:
After being tempted by Billy’s offers of a diamond necklace and a life of ease, Kate goes with her heart and picks Leo. He paints her portrait, and like any two American kids, they make love in the backseat of the car we saw loaded onto the ship at the movie’s beginning. Following this “false victory,” we get an
immediate “raising of the stakes” and an epic “complication”:
Titanic
strikes an iceberg, in part because the lookouts were watching Kate and Leo. (Nice touch, James!) A and B stories cross as the oncoming disaster puts the theme to the test.

Bad Guys Close In:
A “ticking clock” is introduced when the captain of
Titanic
asks: “How long have we got?” The ever-encroaching “bad guys” now include freezing water as the ship begins to sink. There are more complications when Kate and Leo return to warn Billy about the pending disaster, and Leo is accused of stealing the diamond. Kate’s not sure what to believe, but the look in Leo’s eyes as he’s hauled to the brig convinces her he’s innocent. What will she do? This is a nice “three-hander” as Billy, in his way, loves Kate, too.

All Is Lost:
Passengers gather on deck as fear spreads, but no one knows of the real danger — except the ship’s designer whom Kate has befriended. He confesses: “All this will be at the bottom of the Atlantic.” Kate is pressured to stay with Billy, but realizes Leo is in danger below deck. In a breathtaking rescue, Kate courts the “whiff of death” and saves her true love from a half-submerged cell.

Dark Night of the Soul:
As women and children head for the lifeboats, Billy and Leo put Kate onboard one too, along with her mother. Kate wears the coat Leo gave her — the diamond in its pocket. Briefly toying with a last chance to go back to her comfortable old life with her Mother and fiancé, Kate knows she must take a risk to be with the man she really wants: Leo.

Break into Three:
A and B stories cross as Kate jumps back on the sinking
Titanic
to be with Leo and prove that one day with him counts more than all the days of a bleak future. She and Leo will now fight to survive together. After eluding Billy, and watching the chaotic mass of humanity struggle, they brace themselves for the
ship’s sinking. They’re at the very place where they first met when
Titanic
upends and plummets into the icy sea.

Finale:
Coming up to the surface, the two find debris and Leo puts Kate on a makeshift raft while he dangles in the freezing water. He makes her promise to live, then dies just as all romantic characters should! Finally rescued, Kate is pulled up to safety and asked her name. In a great moment of Synthesis, she says: Rose Dawson. She is a fusion of her true love and herself.

Finale Image:
Back once again in the present, the mystery is solved, and her story verified, when Gloria drops the long lost diamond into the ocean. She then dies in her sleep surrounded by the images of a life transformed — thanks to epic love.

The buzz surrounding this Oscar
^®
-nominated movie started early and often veered into the salacious, but after viewing director Ang Lee’s cowboy love story, audiences realized that it had much more to offer. For despite its controversial subject, it’s about the special world all lovers share.

Based on Annie Proulx’s short story, and adapted by Western writer/icon Larry McMurtry
(Lonesome Dove)
and Diana Ossana, the film is the very definition of the “Give me the same thing, only different!” rule; it shows that putting a new twist on a cliché setup adds new meaning. And as an example of “Forbidden Love,” it proves the movie’s premise: Expectation is often what causes problems in the first place.

The story, which begins in 1963 and spans 20 years, is about two men who, while working in the high mountains of Wyoming, fall in love. Because of the society they live in, their guilt, and the need to be “men” in the tradition of the Old West, their relationship is doomed from the start. Despite the shared memory of their time together, they can’t overcome the obstacle of what this bond represents to their families and friends. Their secret life unravels amid anger and recrimination, but the BL rule holds true: Each man’s life changed for having known the other.

BL Type: Forbidden Love

BL Cousins:
Lolita, Guess Who’s Coming to Dinner, Romeo & Juliet, Harold and Maude, The Blue Lagoon, An Officer and a Gentleman, Dirty Dancing, Beauty and the Beast, Benny & Joon, Venus

BROKEBACK MOUNTAIN

Screenplay by
Larry McMurtry
and
Diana Ossana
Based on the short story by
Annie Proulx

Opening Image:
Car headlights on a prairie highway at dawn. 1963. Signal, Wyoming. One Marlboro Man is dropped off by an 18-wheeler. Another arrives by pickup truck. Both wait for the trail boss. What would be called a “meet cute” in a typical love story now involves two lonesome cowboys eyeing each other.

Set-Up:
Sheep rancher Joe Aguirre (Randy Quaid) needs to send two cowboys up to Brokeback Mountain. Their mission: Outwit the forest service by illegally grazing the herd. In a bar before the two take off for their mission, Ennis Del Mar (Heath Ledger) and Jack Twist (Jake Gyllenhaal) get to know each other. Each has a tale of woe about his past. Heath is from “ranch people” and doesn’t talk much; his shyness is caused mainly by the pain of his childhood, which we’ll learn more about later. Jake, for his part, “can’t please my old man” and joined up with the rodeo.

Catalyst:
At Minute 9, they are taken up into the hills to begin their stint watching the sheep, breaking the law, and being secretive.

Theme Stated:
At Minute 12, Jake says to Heath: “Aguirre got no right making us do something against the rules.” He is referring to his new boss’s orders, but Jake is letting Heath — and us — know the theme: It’s about keeping a secret vs. being true to oneself.

Debate:
Can the two men do the job? One is to sleep with the sheep to ward off coyotes; the other will watch the campsite. Slowly the two men start to bond, and Heath starts to talk. He’s getting married soon, turns out. Jake dreams of hitting the rodeo to meet girls and make money. Essentially, they are both “orphans.” There is also an odd tension between them. When a bear spooks Heath’s horse as he brings supplies, the two fight, then find a solution by
hunting together. Duty to Randy says they should stick to the plan of sleeping apart. They do until …

Break into Two:
…at Minute 25, they decide to stay in camp together. Later that evening, the cold compels them to sleep in the same tent. And then in the middle of the night, we hear the sounds of sex. The next morning the two seem unaffected by what happened. Whether they admit it or not, they have crossed into a new world. As if a bad omen, Heath finds a sheep killed by a coyote. When the men finally talk, they agree: “This is a one-shot thing we got going on here, it’s nobody’s business but ours.” But by Minute 32, they kiss again; it’s something more.

Fun and Games:
The two cowboys have fun together, enjoying their stay on Brokeback Mountain. At this stage, their relationship is “the promise of the premise.” When Randy drops by unobserved and sees them wrestling playfully, he chooses not to intercede — but their business is not theirs alone anymore. When the season comes to an end, the two fight, but what about? Maybe leaving this place makes them realize they will have to face what happened in the “real world.” At Minute 42, they drive away from each other.

B Story:
After both men leave Brokeback Mountain, they try to resume their old lives, and now we follow twin B stories. Heath marries Alma (Michelle Williams). And though Jake will wrestle with his feelings for other men while out on the rodeo circuit, he eventually meets and marries Lureen (Anne Hathaway), whose father is a wealthy farm implement salesman. We continue to explore what “keeping secrets vs. being true to oneself” means in these B stories. During this period, Jake goes back to Randy to see if he can work for him again and hopefully see Heath. Randy tells him in few words that he knows about the relationship. Because of it, Jake is not welcome on Brokeback Mountain anymore.

Midpoint:
Heath gets a postcard from Jake asking if he wants to meet again. “You bet,” Heath says. Reunited, they hug and kiss — observed by Michelle. This is a back-to-back “false victory”/“raising of stakes” one-two punch. The Forbidden Love “complication” is: other people. The two men go to a motel. Next day, Heath returns to Michelle, who remains silent.

Bad Guys Close In:
Under the guise of “two old buddies going fishing three times a year,” Heath and Jake try to maintain their relationship and lead a double life. Internal conflict continues to build, as do incidents of anger by both men, who occasionally lash out at friends and family. During an argument, Heath recalls how his father once showed him the body of a man who was killed for being gay: “My daddy made sure my brother and me seen it.” On the domestic front, Heath finally divorces Michelle, who won’t mention that she knows his secret until later. Heath moves into a dingy trailer, keeping to himself — even resisting attempts by his now 19-year-old daughter, Alma Jr. (Kate Mara), a “Booster Rocket” character — who wants to involve him in her life. For his part, Jake cruises for male substitutes in Mexico. Meeting for the last time, Heath and Jake both admit that “We could have had a good life and all we got was Brokeback Mountain.”

All Is Lost:
News comes that Jake is dead. When Heath calls Ann to learn the details, we see his imagined (or is it?) take on what happened: Jake didn’t die in an auto accident, he was beaten to death by hate-mongers, like the incident in Heath’s past.

Dark Night of the Soul:
Jake’s death leaves Heath with no hope of returning to Brokeback Mountain. How can he go on without the promise of love?

Break into Three:
Heath visits Jake’s parents. A and B stories cross as the “secret” Heath and Jake have lived is confronted.

Finale:
Heath learns Jake wanted to bring another man up to Brokeback Mountain, but it never happened. He is allowed to visit Jake’s room, and finds Jake’s work shirt. Jake’s Mom gives it to him. She knows that he and Jake had a special relationship.

Final Image:
Heath keeps Jake’s shirt together with his own in the closet of his trailer, a perfect Synthesis. And there is a last moment of hope when he accepts an invitation to his daughter’s wedding. Perhaps he can still find love with his family? But the BL rule holds true: Heath’s life changed for having loved another.

Why is this scene in
Fargo
? Because it’s that moment where the detective, in this case Frances McDormand, takes a “dark turn” when she meets an old friend at the Radisson.