When an american civil war Lieutenant develops friendship with Lakota indians, he has to stand against his army to preserve his new way of life. – Dance with Wolves
moviefreak81Samurai
When an american civil war Lieutenant develops friendship with Lakota indians, he has to stand against his army to preserve his new way of life. – Dance with Wolves
Share
The movie narrative carries a lot of ethnic, environmental, and psychological baggage — er, subtext, Strip it all away, and this, I suggest, seems to be the essence of the plot:
When a decorated Civil War officer finds himself posted alone to an abandoned frontier fort, he must win acceptance from the Native Americans to survive.
(25 words)
Only after he has been accepted and assimilated into the Lakota tribe, do circumstances (the inevitable encroachment of European “tribes”) create a dilemma that forces him to choose which tribe to fight for.? That is the unintended and ironical consequence of pursuing his original goal.??And a logline is about the protagonist’s original, intentional objective goal.?
The soldier achieves his original objective goal midway through the story.? And then come a necessary (but well foreshadowed) reversal, a plot twist.??I say “necessary” because (as Aristotle observed in his “Poetics”),? the heart beat? (systole/ diastole)? of drama entails peripeteia?, that is, a plot reversal .? If the protagonist achieves his objective goal by the midpoint (as is the case in “Dances with Wolves”), then his fortune must flip from better to worse.? Otherwise, the plot is finished: Fade to the Credit Scroll.
Thanks dpg, learning a lot with your comments. Your revision makes sense regarding protagonist’s original, intentional/objective goal. One thing that crossed my mind is that he must win their acceptance to survive, might be inaccurate story-wise (The might feel his life is in danger,.. but is he really?). However for the purpose of the logline, it entices the interest quite enough and doesn’t give much of the plot/the twist etc..
moviefreak81:
I want to thank you for posting for this film because it gave me the impetus to do some further brooding over the nature of the midpoint plot pivot.
But first , let me respond to? the issue you raised
>>he might feel his life is in danger,.. but is he really?
The protagonist, Lt. John Dunbar, certainly thinks he is. And the young Lakota warriors initially want to kill him. But cooler heads prevail among the tribal elders. Because he is an United States soldier, the elders fear if that they kill him outright, it will provoke a retaliation against the whole tribe.
But, Dunbar doesn?t know that. So he takes every measure he can to prepare for an attack. (And while he is well provisioned, eventually his supplies will run out ? then what will he do to survive?)
Maybe a better logline is:
(27 words)
Now then.
The standard description of the midpoint (among other things) is that it is the moment in the story where the protagonist achieves a ?false victory?. He thinks he?s solved his dramatic problem, has achieved is objective goal or is well on his way.
And then things fall apart. His fortunes are reversed.
Two examples:
?L.A. Confidential? ? at the midpoint of the story the primary protagonist, Sgt. Edmund Exley, thinks he has achieved his objective goal, has solved the case of the ?Nite Owl Massacre?.
And then he discovers he hasn?t.
?The Martian? ? at the midpoint of the story, astronaut Mark Watney has resourcefully accomplished all he can to survive on Mars until he?s rescued ?his objective goal.
And then the airlock is breached. He loses all his potatoes plants. Now, he may not live long enough for the rescue mission to arrive.
In both these films, in spite of the midpoint reversal, the objective goal remains the same.
But in ?Dances with Wolves?, that does not seem to be the case. By midpoint, Dunbar has solved his dramatic problem. He has achieved his objective goal of ending hostilities with the Lakota. He?s so successful he?s been able to ?go native?, to fully assimilate into the tribe.
Then his fortune flips.
Not as the result of a discovery (?L.A. Confidential?). Not because of an accident (?The Martian?).
[Nor, btw, because of some ?character flaw that he hasn?t owned up to and overcome. On the contrary, Dunbar seems to have resolved his dramatic need by the midpoint, to have found peace of mind with the Lakota.]
Rather, Dunbar?s fortune flip is a matter of irony, because of the historical context of the story (well foreshadowed), the inevitable, encroachment of hordes of European settlers. By irony I mean:
After an army officer makes peace and joins the Indian tribe he was supposed to fight, he must make war against his own people to save his adopted tribe.
(29 words)
Indeed, for me this is the story hook.??And maybe it work as a logline.
A logline framed around around the midpoint?
But?but? I know,? I know.
Two points for your consideration:
1] I have come to believe that the most important element in a logline is a strong story hook.
2] Karel Seger in? a YouTube video mentions in passing that it?s nice to include a midpoint beat. But, of course, that is rarely possible given the word limit constraints.
I suggest this is a case where it is not only possible ? but perhaps necessary because, once again, I think the ironical twist is the story hook.
And if it?s doesn?t qualify as a bona fide logline, well, it?s my candidate for a teaser.
Just bloviating, brainstorming here. No firm conclusions or definitive answers.
fwiw