Left Field Cinema

Structure is often considered to be of vital importance to the process of creating a narrative. Structure has been meticulously examined and explored in relation to drama for thousands of years. Famously the process began with Aristotle’s Poetics, the oldest surviving analysis of dramatic principles and effectively the birth place of critical theory in relation to literature and theatre, critical theory which would eventually be applied to cinema. Much later in the 19th Centaury came German novelist and theorist Gustav Freytag who divided dramatic structure into five parts: exposition (information relevant to the understanding of the story), rising action (the introduction of conflicts), climax (a turning point for the protagonist), falling action (the end or reversal of conflicts) and denouement (the conclusion for the protagonist for better or for worse). He applied this division to both comedies and tragedies; this was then further simplified into the three-act structure which in basic terms comprises of set-up (act one), confrontation (act two) and resolution (act three). This structure is or can be applied to the vast majority of modern feature films and Freytag’s five parts can be seen in most films released today and years previously in a variety of forms; films from all decades of this and the last century and from all nations across the world. Much has been written about the three-act structure, some theorists have criticised it for a variety of reasons, being too ridged for example, others maintain that the three-act structure was designed to be retroactively applied to works of the past like the Greek and Shakespearian Tragedies. Some theorists and practitioners have gone the other way and constructed detailed rules pertaining to the three-act structure; apportioning the acts for example (the second act should always be the longest etc). But although three-acts is incontrovertibly the most popular, it is not the only dramatic structure available, there is a one-act structure, a four and a five-act structure and the focus of this article - a two-act structure.

Actor turned writer-director Mia Hansen- Løve’s sophomore feature film Father of My Children (2009) is one such two-act film and it follows this structure to the letter. Two-act films are often described as “films of two halves”; often marked by a dark or light turn from one half to the next which will be ushered in by the climatic event of the first act. The turn can be distinctive as in the case of Stanley Kubrick’s Full Metal Jacket (1987) and Apichatpong Weerasethakul’s Tropical Malady (2004) where the locations, characters, themes and time zone can change from one half to the next; or it can be subtler and mark a switch in focus in the second half from one character to another but still residing in a close temporal and geographical proximity to the first half. The first act of Father of My Children focuses on the un-sung hero of the movie business – the producer. Inspired here by real-life film producer Humbert Balsan (Hansen- Løve’s mentor). His on-screen equivalent, Grégoire Canvel (Louis-Do de Lecquesaing) runs an independent film production company, Moon films. The company is in trouble, its debts have taken it to breaking point, Canvel has been investing in art-house films that have very poor prospects finacially and as a result the company is nearing bankruptcy. Canvel, like the real-life Balsan, consistently gambled the company’s funds on financially unviable filmmakers in the name of art. Balsan produced works by a diverse set of directors not just from France but from around the world, including Hungarian auteur Bela Tarr. Tarr is also represented in Father of My Children in the form of fictional Swedish director Stig Jansen (Magne Brekkle) who Canvel describes as a “visionary”. As with Tarr, it is unlikely that Stig’s films will make a huge profit, if any profit at all. Filmmaking is a risky enterprise in any country and even with France’s renowned government subsidies; filmmakers are constantly forced to take financial risks to make their films happen. I generally dislike and avoid fiction films about filmmaking, they’re often narcissistic and bizarrely inaccurate (as if the writers and directors are unable to hold a mirror to themselves and instead paint a picture of how the industry should be rather than how it actually is. Why is it that TV News Reports in films so rarely appear as they do in real life? One would think this is one subject that filmmakers could get right.). However, the subject matter is not completely devoid of success, George Huang’s Swimming With Sharks (1994), a relentless story of a Hollywood production assistant who is a victim of systematic abuse at the hands of his superior; Robert Altman’s The Player (1992) in which a Studio Executive is blackmailed by a scriptwriter and somehow doesn’t come across as wish-fulfilment. Neither of these examples are in anyway realistic films, but neither film can be described as wholly about filmmaking either, with only small alterations to the script both could be transposed from filmmaking to banking for example. Father of My Children is very realistic and boasts understated naturalistic performances from most of its cast including three very impressive performances from young actors Alice de Lencquesaing, Manelle Driss and Alice Gutier, who play Canvel’s three daughters (Alice de Lencquesaing being Louis-Do de Lecquesaing’s real-life daughter). But like Swimming With Sharks and The Player, Father of My Children is not wholly about the world of filmmaking. The first half follows Canvel constantly making phone calls to his various associates, having meetings and trying to overcome obstacles in the way of his completing the variety of films on his books; but the concentration is on the mounting pressure on Canvel rather than how Canvel goes about doing his work (once again Canvel’s occupation could be altered to another high stress job and the change would only have a limited effect on the finished film). He loses his driving licence when he’s caught speeding and he honestly didn’t realise that he was out of points he’s that busy. He makes business calls whilst trying to fulfil holiday obligations to his family and is eventually caught and chastised by his wife Sylvia (Chiara Caselli) for not giving enough time to her and their children while they’re vacationing. As the first act continues the realities of independent film productions are exposed through a series of background images in very effective ways, the bustling production office is a pitch perfect recreation of such an environment (unpolished and shambolic, rather than the slickness we’re used to from Hollywood films set in such locations), the way production staff talk to each other or talk about the “key creative’s” like directors and writers is completely accurate and the process is as refreshingly unglamorous as it is in reality. Hansen- Løve’s sober, but not uninteresting visuals, give the film a mature grounding in reality, she is not prepared to indulge in the visual quirkiness that so many of her countrymen embrace (the film has been compared to the work of Eric Rohmer in style - but thankfully not in substance). Only the occasionally tone-breaking music choice gives into the temptation to ruffle the straight-and-narrow style of the film, the up-beat opening credits music not adequately preparing the audience for the harrowing experience they’re about to endure.

WARNING: The remainder of this article reveals a key plot point at the films midpoint.

The climax of the first act marks the switch in direction in act two, up till now the film has almost completely focused on Canvel and his struggle to keep his film production company alive, at almost exactly the halfway through the film and with Hansen-Løve’s economic and un-instructive style bolstering the shock factor - Canvel shoot himself in the head. His suicide is sudden and described as “a moment of madness” by one colleague, an accurate description, although his debts were mounting and his company was almost certainly going bust, he still had his family, three daughters and a wife who needed him and with his track record for producing challenging cinema he could have started again a fresh in a few-years time. His decision to end his life is a mystery, but it’s not one Hansen-Løve decides to focus on, instead she moves the attention away from Canvel and onto the family he left behind. Hansen- Løve described the theme of the film as: “time doesn’t stop.” Life goes on. The two act structure informs this; in essence the first half is the film, the second half is what happens after the end credits roll. What happens afterwards, how does everyone else continue after what has happened. If Father of My Children had followed a three-act structure then Canvel’s death would have still, in all likelihood, marked the end of act one, but it would have taken place significantly earlier in the film (the runtime of the film is 110 minutes and Canvel kills himself approximately 55 minutes into the film, in a three-act structure this event would most likely have occurred between 10-20 minutes into the film and would be in effect the inciting incident of the film which kicks off the rising action of the second act). Here the event serves to divide the narrative rather than kick-start it; in the second act, the direction and the individual scenes loosen up, each of the three daughters get moments of reflection and a late scene where the city blacks out and what remains of Canvel’s family play in the dark with candles is like a delayed funeral procession. But Hansen- Løve gives the most screen time to the eldest daughter Clémence who with limited screen time effortlessly endears herself to us, she finds out that she has a brother who is fully grown from Canvel’s previous relationship and engages in a romance with an aspiring filmmaker who Canvel was going to mentor. Meanwhile Canvel’s widow Sylvia attempts to salvage what’s left of Moon Films and finish the work that Canvel started. The second half is a collage of snatched moments and half scenes sometimes very loosely connected, as Hansen-Løve describes, “time doesn’t stop” and it most certainly doesn’t for what remains of Canvel’s family. So many of the plot strands do not amount to anything in the same way that life can’t always be neatly rounded into a perfect two-hour narrative. So many of the key events are not shown to us, we never see Clémence meet her brother or consummate her romance; it soon becomes apparent that Sylvia’s attempt to save the company or at least complete Canvel’s open projects is a futile gesture which will never entirely succeed. The rootless nature of the second act and the decision to use a two-act structure has the very transient effect of delaying the impact of the film until after the film has concluded; it’s not till later, perhaps the next day, perhaps the next week, that its power becomes clear. If Hansen-Løve had followed a three-act structure then the film would not have been as memorable nor as thought provoking, it would have been a standard treatise on grief and remorse, instead it is a mature, grounded, realistic and deeply effecting portrayal of life continuing after death. The two-act structure subtlety abstracts the film from conventionality and ensures that the narrative will continually confound our expectations. By not conforming to the standard three-act structure we can never entirely predict events or character development. Instead we are forced to watch as time fails to stop, and life goes on.

M.Dawson