Well, perhaps not every film. But certainly most.
Anyway, occasionally it’s useful to talk about movies in terms of their individual acts. But I’ve noticed that a lot of the time when I do this, people have no idea what I’m going on about. The concept of acts in a film is something I’ve always thought of as more or less self-explanatory, yet perhaps I’m mistaken with that. So here’s my understanding of what they’re all about, derived from personal speculation and various reviews I’ve read over the years.
A typical movie can be divided into three acts.
The first act: the premise. The overall premise is introduced to the viewer; the setting, the main character(s), their goals, the reason for their struggle, and so on. If the movie has a prologue, this is where it sits, but it’s not necessarily the entirety of the first act.
The second act: the journey. The whole narrative arc of continual conflict and resolution rises and falls while slowly escalating up to the ultimate crisis point, the apex of the journey. It’s at this highest point that the movie is led into the third act.
The third act: the resolution. The highest point having passed, the narrative begins to slow and everything that was established in the first act and explored in the second act is resolved or otherwise dealt with.
Now, these acts are only general guidelines – there’s usually not an exact moment in the film where the act transition occurs. It’s sufficient to say that one major event is part of one act, and the next major event is part of the next act. If you’re unsure of which act a particular event falls into, as a rule of thumb it’s usually the middle act.
So why do we even bother trying to compartmentalise a film into these acts? Well, breaking down a movie into these three acts allows us to then analyse how well each act works both individually and as part of the larger whole. An otherwise strong movie with a weak resolution will probably leave the viewer unsatisfied, feeling like their emotional investment in the prior events did not receive the closure they yearned for. Similarly, a weak middle act will likely leave the viewer thinking “that’s it?” by the time the credits roll, with no real sense of character or plot development. And a weak premise with a compelling journey and resolution will at best result in confusion as to what’s actually happening for most of the movie. At worst, the viewer will not empathise or relate with any of the characters and will not be intrigued by the setting or conflict.
So basically, each act is equally as important as the others.
The ideal three-act movie structure establishes a distinct setting with strong characters, a supportable conflict and a clear purpose for each faction or party. The journey is of satisfactory length – not too short as to feel unfulfilling and not too long as to lose your interest – and each main character experiences appropriate conflicts and struggles that develop their character up to the point where they are prepared for the third act to take place. The third act would then directly address the main conflict introduced in the first act, with the main characters each having their moment of glory or otherwise playing their role in the resolution. The resolution itself ties up most loose ends created by the second act, and throws in a few references or callbacks to earlier minor events for good measure.
So that’s arguably how a perfect three-act movie would be structured. But not all movies are of a three-act structure, and not all three-act structures are contained by a single movie. This brings me to the idea of trilogies.
A trilogy possesses the unique ability to envelop a three-act structure in larger (hence more epic) yet tidy format. The tidy part is important, because the three acts need to be sufficiently distinct yet seamless enough for the viewer to follow the whole narrative. Essentially, each act has a whole movie to itself – but more than that, each movie can contain another three-act substructure. So then you have this epic tale spanning three movies, while each movie retains the same coherency as a single three-act movie.
Trilogies can be very successful in this regard, but they can also easily fall over themselves if the narrative is weak in any of the acts.
The Lord of the Rings is a good example of a successful trilogy. You can clearly see that the first movie establishes the setting, conflict, and characters – the “fellowship” is formed, and Frodo sets out on his journey. The second movie details the journey, with many conflicts and partial resolutions along the way, and the third movie is where the physical destination is reached – Mordor – and where every other plot thread is concluded, such as Aragorn returning as king. It’s not a perfect three-act trilogy structure, because the individual films have less distinct acts than the larger trilogy, but the main three acts are solid so the trilogy as a whole works rather well.
Now imagine if you expanded the three-act trilogy structure into another trilogy, making nine films in total. This has never been done, to my knowledge, and it would be a monumental and very risky undertaking… But if it was done well, then we would have quite possibly the most epic saga in the history of film. Sure, there have been franchises with nine or more films, but not ones that hold together as a coherent narrative – they’re usually remakes or spin-offs or just an ongoing saga without any tangible three-act structure. Star Wars is probably the best bet for the moment – a new trilogy is set to be made, which with any luck will offer a better resolution to the saga than Episodes I-III did with the premise.
And now whenever you’re talking about a movie you didn’t like, you can discuss which act let the film down rather than just making a sweeping dismissal. And you’ll also just generally appear more informed about the movie-making business.
Observations 