A good story

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Schuster: I was returning across the border from Poland. In the rear-

view mirror I see a green car pull out and start following me. It passes and then a sign on the roof flashes: "Zoll. Follow me," Turns off the autobahn and into a big warehouse and clang the doors shut and two green uniformed customs officers run at the car with guns yelling “Get out, hands up!” I thought, “Shall I run straight at them and try to drive through the doors?” But I get out and think I can use my German skills to talk my way out of this. They look inside the car shouting "Haben Sie Ziggaretten!" all the time. One says, “Nothing here.” Then they check my passport. And the senior one says, "I thought you were Polish. You are a Schuster? I also am a Schuster. Maybe we are related.”

 

Brandt: What a coincidence. You were related?

 

Schuster: There are hundreds of Schusters living on the border of Germany and Poland. Actually I distorted the story. His name wasn’t Schuster. His supervisor’s name was Schuster.

 

Brandt: Why did you say it was?

 

Schuster: Doesn’t make for such a good story.

 

Brandt: I wonder how many news events and urban legends are merely stories that have been distorted like that?

 

Schuster: It could be called editing.

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Beginning, middle, end

Aristotle outlines his theory of storytelling.

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Aristotle: A story has three parts. A beginning, a middle and an end.

Theophrastus: Give us an example.

Aristotle: There were some frogs living in a pond. They wished for a leader. So the god threw a log into their pond. SPLASH! The frogs were terrified. Gradually, they lost their fear and climbed onto the log. It didn’t move, they began to despise it. They asked the god for a stronger leader. A stork came. The stork began to eat the frogs. They regretted their dissatisfaction.

Theophrastus: Where is the beginning? Where is the middle? Where is the end?

Aristotle: Simple. Reducing the story to its elements, we have: Beginning: frogs bored in pond. Middle: frogs despise log. End: frogs eaten by stork.

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Magic squares

Kambei tries to get Kikuchiyo to tell the story of the seven samurai.
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Kikuchiyo: Well there was a village, a mountain village, and the villagers were very poor and couldn’t grow much food, and they were frightened…
Kambei: Too much detail. Give me a plot summary in nine words.

Kikuchiyo: Nine words? Nine? Impossible.

Kambei: BME. Three words for the beginning, three words for the middle and three words for the end.

Kikuchiyo: I still say it’s impossible.

Kambei: Think of a magic square. A word square. A grid three squares by three squares. Put one word in each square.

Kikuchiyo: Three by three, I still don’t see…

Kambei: Top three squares, beginning: Bandits attack village. Middle three squares, middle section: Villagers hire samurai. Bottom three squares, ending: Samurai kill bandits.

Kikuchiyo: Ah.

Kambei: Try. Tell me the story of the seven samurai in nine words.

Kikuchiyo: Bandits attack village. Villagers hire samurai. Samurai kill bandits.

Kambei: That’s the skeleton, the structure, the framework. After that, you can hang meat on the bones.
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Storytelling by mobile phone?

As he was going up the Damascus elevator, Benoit has a revelation.

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Benoit (talking to himself, looking up at the advertisement): Nokia N82: Storytelling rediscovered. Well, well.

Man wearing Dubai hat: Excuse me.

Benoit: Sorry.

Man wearing Dubai hat: Shukran.

Benoit (continuing to voiceover himself): Story telling was an oral tradition once. People told stories. Then we had drama, then we had movies, now we have telephones telling a story. Who do they tell the story to? Other telephones? Will humans soon be out of the loop?

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Kamishibai remix

Atsuko borrows some techniques of kamishibai for an audition.

Oliver: Why is she moving back and forth?

Ned: Well, first she speaks one part and then she speaks the other.

Oliver: She’s telling a story?

Ned: Through dialogue, yes.

Oliver: And pictures too.

Ned: It almost looks like she has done a remix, putting together a ventriloquist act with kamishibai.

Oliver: Kamishibai?

Ned: A story told using pictures and a frame.

Oliver: Refreshing change from the gravity of Gore, but she could use a little coaching on voices and maybe a couple more pictures.

Atsuko's performance here >

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Old stories

Brown Eyes: What did you say your job was?

Freckles: I do voices. For animation films.

Brown Eyes: I thought they used famous stars for that.

Freckles: You implying I’m not famous?

Brown Eyes: Well…

Freckles: Don’t worry. I don’t get big acting roles. I mean, look at me. But I can do voices, from squeaky 10 year olds to grumpy 60 year olds. ACDC.

Brown Eyes: Where did you learn that?

Freckles: I used to tell my kids stories at bedtime, you know, and they’d say, “Tell us the story of Red Riding Hood” or some other, and I’d get a little tired telling the same stories so I’d try inventing new voices.

Brown Eyes: And I bet the kids said don’t change the story?

Freckles: You’re right, they didn’t like my using new voices. They’d say tell it the proper way. Liked tradition, didn’t like experiments. So I’d change the voices little by little so they wouldn’t notice.

Brown Eyes: Conservative creatures, kids. Mine were the same. I didn’t do voices but I retold the stories with different endings. And the kids would say, “That’s not how it ends. Do it again properly.”
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Character building

So, he was an artist. What art?

He built. Buildings. His designs were not predictable.

Artists face many dilemmas. For example, they must decide between giving a patron what they want and creating something that is truthful but maybe not complimentary or easily understood.

And you never quite knew what he would say. He knew many people. And they all remember him differently.

So, you are saying he had a mystery? Or that he had several identities?

Both. He was many things to many people, and some thought he was mysterious because of this.

So you want to tell this man's story through other people's memories of him?

Something like that. I think he was several people inside one skin.

Then you have the ingredients. You have a protagonist, who lived a useful life, while balancing tensions, within himself, and outside himself, in his dealings with others. You have his creations, which are the backdrop. You have monologues, the stories others tell of him. You have dialogue, between you and others.

I am in this story?

You can be in the background directing, you can do voiceover narrating history or events, you can be an interviewer, you can even be a monologist. You, too, can have several identities. But I must ask you, what was this man to you?

He was related. He was an uncle.

Then you have involvement. You are driven. The problem is not how to get close, but rather when to pull back.
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Learning grammar

I want to learn the grammar of film-making.

People sometimes come and ask that.

But I really want to learn.

Good.

And I want to learn from you.

It has been a long time since I taught that.

You don’t forget a lifelong craft.

No, but one tires. I used to work all day and into the night. Now, I need to nap most days.

You are busy?

Not busy. But if we do this, if I teach you, and if you have a film to make, you must have a story to tell.

I have a story.

Is it a story you are bursting to tell? One that irritates like eczema so you must scratch at it constantly?

It is a story of a person. Someone who lived a useful life.

That is a good start.

He had many sides.

So, we are talking about a person. And it seems he is no longer with us. You want to create an obituary, a mausoleum, a remembrance. Beyond existing, what did he do? What did he leave behind?

He was an artist.
,,,

Monologists

There is narrative too. When dialogue becomes monologue.

Ah, monologists. They can be great storytellers. Or they can be conversation killers.

I know what you mean. We all know people like that. A good conversation is not just cut and thrust, weave and duck, then run away.

True. At some point talk between people must be punctuated, pithily, with a spiffy story.

Just so. And that means taking the floor, picking up the ball and running with it for a bit.

But again, telling a story, telling it well, is an art. Those who drone on holding the fort, taking the high ground, defending their position, digging their trenches...

Some rather combative terms coming up here. You think that monologists see conversation as an arena to be defended, ramparts that have to be reinforced, castles that have to be built, wagons that have to be circled?

All that defensive conversational territory grabbing, it stifles dialogue.

It may not be conscious with some people. Some are not good at speaking spontaneously, not nimble in their thinking, so they protect themselves with a long rehearsed story.

Exactly, So to keep the ball rolling you have to fight your way in, storm their walls. Maybe even launch a big story of your own.

The Sun Tzu approach to conversation? Dialogue as war?
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Iceberg Posting

You've had a really interesting career, moved around a lot, just how many countries have you been posted to?

Dunno. Started in Egypt, Libya, then Borneo. That was where I was sent back to Edwardsville to pick up five toolkits for electricians.

Ten countries?

I had the option of going where they put me or putting up with six months on an iceberg, after which I could go to Japan.

You took Japan.

And the iceberg posting turned out OK. There was an aircraft runway, a trailer park...

How big was the iceberg?

Five miles by seven miles.

Where was it?

It'd been floating around the Arctic for several years.

And how many countries have you been to do you think?

Well, after Japan, there was Korea...

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