Scan barcode
A review by tiggum
Story: Substance, Structure, Style, and the Principles of Screenwriting by Robert McKee
1.0
Holy shit, where to even start with this? It's bad in so many ways. The author comes across as a pompous, arrogant, narcissist who knows practically nothing and is even worse at communicating it. How is this guy so highly regarded? I feel dumber for having read this.
The actual content of this book, what little of it there is, is the most basic advice on writing mixed with the author's opinions on what makes a good movie (by which he clearly means what he personally likes, not what will make a popular or successful film), illustrations that actually make the text harder to understand, arbitrary classifications invented by the author, bizarre analogies, and endless examples of half-remembered films. How do you call yourself an expert on script writing and think the famous line is from Star Wars is "Go with the Force, go with the Force"?
McKee doesn't understand what words mean, he doesn't know what irony is, he doesn't understand metaphors, and he doesn't fact check anything. I mean, how difficult would it have been to get hold of a copy of Star Wars and see if you got the line right? Or maybe ask someone who speaks Chinese if it's true that the word for "crisis" is a combination of "danger" and "opportunity"? (It isn't)
All you'll learn from this book is which movies McKee likes, and I'll save you the time; it's Kramer vs. Kramer, Chinatown and Casablanca. There are pages and pages of transcripts and (bad, surface-level) analysis of films, and you'd think an expert on the medium could manage to find fresh examples each time, but in fact those three movies come up so often you'll feel like you've seen them just by reading this.
Oh, and he hates modern film and the modern world in general. Or rather, his warped idea of what the modern world is. "The art of story is in decay" he says; "contemporary "auteurs" cannot tell story with the power of the previous generation"; "more and more ours has become an age of moral and ethical cynicism, relativism, and subjectivism"; "the family disintegrates and sexual antagonisms rise". Children these days "[tyrannise their] parents", and whereas in the good old days families "[dressed] for dinner at a certain hour", now they "[feed] from an open refrigerator".
But it's not just film and the modern world he doesn't understand, it's everything: emotions; sex; cars; comics; families; music. If he talks about something you can guarantee he's going to say something bizarre about it. It's like he's an alien or a robot trying (very badly) to blend in with humanity. And at this point I've just got to quote some of the weird stuff he wrote.
'Love relationships are political. An old Gypsy expression goes: "He who confesses first loses." The first person to say "I love you" has lost because the other, upon hearing it, immediately smiles a knowing smile, realizing that he's the one loved, so he now controls the relationship.' - p 182.
The understanding of how we create the audience's emotional experience begins with the realization that there are only two emotions-pleasure and pain. - p 243.
You escape into your car, snap on the radio, and get in the proper lane according to the music. If classical, you hug the right; if pop, down the middle of the road; if rock, head left. - p 290.
It's just like sex. Masters of the bedroom arts pace their love-making. They begin by taking each other to a state of delicious tension short of-and we use the same word in both cases-climax, then tell a joke and shift positions before building each other to an even higher tension short of climax; then have a sandwich, watch TV, and gather energy to then reach greater and greater intensity, making love in cycles of rising tension until they finally climax simultaneously and the earth moves and they see colors. - p 291.
They saturate the screen with lush photography and lavish production values, then tie images together with a voice droning on the soundtrack, turning the cinema into what was once known as Classic Comic Books. Many of us were first exposed to the works of major writers by reading Classic Comics, novels in cartoon images with captions that told the story. That's fine for children, but it's not cinema. - p 344.
Murder Mysteries are like board games, cool entertainments for the mind. -p 351.
Jesus Christ, can you imagine paying to hear this guy's opinions on anything? I'm really glad I managed to find a free copy of this book, because I'd feel robbed if I'd paid as much as 5 cents for it.
The actual content of this book, what little of it there is, is the most basic advice on writing mixed with the author's opinions on what makes a good movie (by which he clearly means what he personally likes, not what will make a popular or successful film), illustrations that actually make the text harder to understand, arbitrary classifications invented by the author, bizarre analogies, and endless examples of half-remembered films. How do you call yourself an expert on script writing and think the famous line is from Star Wars is "Go with the Force, go with the Force"?
McKee doesn't understand what words mean, he doesn't know what irony is, he doesn't understand metaphors, and he doesn't fact check anything. I mean, how difficult would it have been to get hold of a copy of Star Wars and see if you got the line right? Or maybe ask someone who speaks Chinese if it's true that the word for "crisis" is a combination of "danger" and "opportunity"? (It isn't)
All you'll learn from this book is which movies McKee likes, and I'll save you the time; it's Kramer vs. Kramer, Chinatown and Casablanca. There are pages and pages of transcripts and (bad, surface-level) analysis of films, and you'd think an expert on the medium could manage to find fresh examples each time, but in fact those three movies come up so often you'll feel like you've seen them just by reading this.
Oh, and he hates modern film and the modern world in general. Or rather, his warped idea of what the modern world is. "The art of story is in decay" he says; "contemporary "auteurs" cannot tell story with the power of the previous generation"; "more and more ours has become an age of moral and ethical cynicism, relativism, and subjectivism"; "the family disintegrates and sexual antagonisms rise". Children these days "[tyrannise their] parents", and whereas in the good old days families "[dressed] for dinner at a certain hour", now they "[feed] from an open refrigerator".
But it's not just film and the modern world he doesn't understand, it's everything: emotions; sex; cars; comics; families; music. If he talks about something you can guarantee he's going to say something bizarre about it. It's like he's an alien or a robot trying (very badly) to blend in with humanity. And at this point I've just got to quote some of the weird stuff he wrote.
'Love relationships are political. An old Gypsy expression goes: "He who confesses first loses." The first person to say "I love you" has lost because the other, upon hearing it, immediately smiles a knowing smile, realizing that he's the one loved, so he now controls the relationship.' - p 182.
The understanding of how we create the audience's emotional experience begins with the realization that there are only two emotions-pleasure and pain. - p 243.
You escape into your car, snap on the radio, and get in the proper lane according to the music. If classical, you hug the right; if pop, down the middle of the road; if rock, head left. - p 290.
It's just like sex. Masters of the bedroom arts pace their love-making. They begin by taking each other to a state of delicious tension short of-and we use the same word in both cases-climax, then tell a joke and shift positions before building each other to an even higher tension short of climax; then have a sandwich, watch TV, and gather energy to then reach greater and greater intensity, making love in cycles of rising tension until they finally climax simultaneously and the earth moves and they see colors. - p 291.
They saturate the screen with lush photography and lavish production values, then tie images together with a voice droning on the soundtrack, turning the cinema into what was once known as Classic Comic Books. Many of us were first exposed to the works of major writers by reading Classic Comics, novels in cartoon images with captions that told the story. That's fine for children, but it's not cinema. - p 344.
Murder Mysteries are like board games, cool entertainments for the mind. -p 351.
Jesus Christ, can you imagine paying to hear this guy's opinions on anything? I'm really glad I managed to find a free copy of this book, because I'd feel robbed if I'd paid as much as 5 cents for it.