A review by bookaholiz
Story: Substance, Structure, Style, and the Principles of Screenwriting by Robert McKee

5.0

“In short, a story well told gives you the very thing you cannot get from life: meaningful emotional experience. In life, experiences become meaningful with reflection in time. In art, they are meaningful now, at the instant they happen.”

“The gift of story is the opportunity to live lives beyond our own, to desire and struggle in a myriad of worlds and times, at all the various of our being.”

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This can be considered a textbook on screenwriting and in film studies as the author take you through all the basics while dissecting the anatomy of famous movies for examples. But more than that, it’s a criticism and a celebration of art, written beautifully. I’ve highlighted something almost every page. The author put words to all the time I felt something was not right or something was so good in a story yet couldn’t figure out why. Examples: Why didn't an adaptation work? Why did the movie's "life lesson" that should be meaningful turn pretentious? What makes a resolution to conflict unsatisfactory? And so on. Even though it’s a book on screenwriting, I think every writer of any medium could get something out of it.

More than art, stories are imitation of life, and authentic stories required their writers to bare their heart out on the paper. While celebrating the art of storytelling, Story felt like a celebration of the art of living as well. As we could not understand our own emotions and subconscious, we turn to art for therapy, whether as a creator or a spectator. Good art always deliver a momentarily release from the burden of life's unanswered riddles, and if they're really good, they might even provide a solution. Reading Story was therapeutic to me in that way because it helped bridge the gap between understanding of art and understanding of life.

However, as a textbook, it contains principles that may be rigid when applied to something as fluid as the art of storytelling. There are points the author made that might be debatable, as art is subjective and there are rules breakers that have proven that these principles are mere guidelines. Also, he might be standing from the point of view of a critic more than a writer, and a critic can be a miserable audience. There’s no doubt that spectacles and “cheap thrills” still work, and cliché is not always a bad thing. Not every movie go-er wants to come out feeling that their life have changed, sometimes it's just a pure need for entertainment. But that’s a thing with generations too, I supposed.

Nevertheless, it’s true that to make a movie memorable, it’s generally a story that matters. There are forgivable mistakes, but a clunky, poorly-handled script would surely be a turn-off, and no spectacles could save them, whether it be beautiful talented casts or tons of special effects. And as all the best rule breakers must’ve understood, you have to know the rules before breaking them.

Would recommend to all film lovers and aspiring writers everywhere.