Film 21 Grams: Temporal Structures

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21 Grams film revolves around three people, namely Paul Rivers, Christina Rivers, and Jack Jordan. Like a classical Hollywood film, 21 Grams emphasizes temporal order, duration and frequency (Hauge). According to Murphy, scenes are arranged in an interrupted manner with flashbacks. For the most part, events occur at a natural pace and setting, with no stunts or camera speeds.  Temporal frequency has been applied occasionally, for example, when children chase after a bird as their father talks on phone, the opening intimate scene is repeated in the 98th minute, and the closing scene of the movie replays an earlier scene of Paul in the ICU. The film has a screen time of 124 minutes, covering a story time of several months. 

In the opening scene Paul is smoking furiously and pensively. There is disordered temporal order or flashback, for example when Jack, who runs a church, recollects his previous incarceration. Murphy claims that time warp or flashbacks are not justified because human motive is to progress forward. Paul is in homecare and expects to die, and so he continues smoking, faints and is rushed to hospital. The viewer would guess that Paul will die because of the way he is thinking while in the ICU.

The storyline occasionally breaks the sequence, and skips time, for example, a light-hearted argument between father and daughters at the restaurant is followed by a women’s discussion, and then Jack giving sombre advice to a wayward church member. In the accident, details are left to the viewer’s inference. 21 Grams has a non-linear storyline divided into stages setup, turning point, change of plan, point of no-return, major setback, climax, resolution, and aftermath. In the setup, the main characters’ identity and personality are described without giving away too much. Jack Jordan is a reformed ex-convict and drug user who has become religious. Paul and Mary Rivers are childless and yet Paul is about to die of a heart illness. 

The second stage is the turning point which gives opportunity for characters to act (Hauge). Mary had aborted Paul’s child but now wants to be inseminated with his sperms because he is dying. Jack returns to jail and attempts suicide. According to Hauge, heroes join the action with enthusiasm and underrating of the situation. They then attempt to control events but commit misjudgements that result in an escalation into new plots. Paul gets a new heart from Christina’s husband, nobody expects him to start looking for his benefactor. When Mary confesses about her abortion she expects Paul’s forgiveness, but instead he leaves her and starts going after Christina. At this point the plot becomes unpredictable with unforeseen situations. According to Murphy, there has to be a change of plans. In 21 Grams, Mary has to device a way of retaining her Paul, Christina has to find a way of coping with drug and alcohol abuse. Meanwhile, Jack is bent on atonement for his killing Christina’s husband, and despite their agreement to keep it secret, he confesses, claiming that he is doing the will of God. In prison, Jack goes into depression and attempts suicide and reverts to drugs. During this stage, characters are driven into a desire to control events, but they lack the means to do so (Murphy). The viewer feels as if they are part of the plot, with more knowledge or solutions than the characters. Christina should pull herself together and move on. Jack should find a way to forgive himself and not seek vengeance against Paul. The events in 21 Grams seem insurmountable, and a private detective gives Paul a gun to kill Jack with. Antagonism is as common as betrayals and counter plans. At some point the main characters meet with small measures of success, but mostly the adversary has the upper hand. In the film, Paul dies of a heart attack, thus saving Jack from the crime of homicide.

At the point of no return stage, which is at halfway down the movie, the characters must do something to tie them to the mission and bring them closer to a resolution (Hauge). Paul and Christina are now dating in a motel. They cannot abandon their mission now, but must prepare for the adversary in Paul. A major setback happens to upset the mission. In the film, Jack busts in on the lovers, and in the ensuing struggle, Paul suffers a heart attack and has to be rushed to hospital. At this point the viewer sympathizes with Jack whose plans are trashed and he needs a novel plan, as quickly as possible, and with minimal assistance. This is the setting for a final struggle (Hauge). In stage five and dying minutes of a film, a climax and final, epic struggle occurs, often with wins and losses (Hauge). Jack fights Paul and wins indecisively, Paul shoots himself, and Christina beats down Jack viciously.

Murphy observes that a film concludes with a resolution which can be either conclusive or inconclusive. A conclusive ending leaves the viewer with a sense of relief for a mission accomplished as often happens with romantic films, and an inconclusive ending leaves the hero with unresolved issues and viewers guessing, excited, and desperate. In 21 Grams, a devastated Jack and Christina remain enemies but he returns to his wife. Paul dies even with a new heart but Christina carries his baby and is still taking drugs.

Film Crash: Multi-plot Structure

Crash is a film that aims to highlight racial differences and tensions in Los Angeles. The characters are from diverse races and socializations. The film is divided into the three traditional three parts, the beginning, the middle and the end, with several parallel multi-plots that make the whole narrative complex. The storyline is not threaded in a coherent manner as each subplot is broken into several segments along the storyline. Subplots include, the troubled life of the rich and Black Thayers, the prejudiced LA police, the two Black carjackers who target Whites, and the mistrusting Asian shopkeeper, Farhad, in conflict with the Latino locksmith, Daniel. The film has a short temporal duration of the story time, with a plot time of 115 minutes.

At the outset the personalities of Crash establish racial biases, except for Waters who is neutral and Hansen who sympathizes with minorities. The opening scene has Waters and Ria exchange racially-inclined insults with Kim Lee because of an accident. The next scene flashes back to Farhad and his daughter Dorri argue in Arabic to the chagrin of the gun dealer who angrily calls Farhad “Osama” and refuses to serve him. 

Opportunities for the various plots are established early. For example, Anthony and Peter, two Black carjackers are always complaining about racism but who target only White victims. They pounce on a White couple, Jean and Rick Cabot, who wonder why it is “always a Black gangster” committing a crime. Later, Jean complains that Rick hired another colored person, Daniel Ruiz, to change the door locks. A White undercover agent has killed a Black undercover agent, and a Black couple Cameron and Christine Thayer are tailed and briefly arrested by white cops. Officer Ryan fondles Christine indecently while making racial remarks, Cameron remains calm, and Christine is angry.

Daniel arrives home to an empty bed and a scared daughter, Lara (Ashlyn Sanchez). Meanwhile, the carjackers in the stolen car accidentally hit a Korean bystander, who they damp at a hospital. The garage declines to buy the stolen car because it has blood stains. Officer Hansen requests Lt. Dixon another partner because Ryan is a racist. In the meantime Ryan goes to Shaniqua, to request a urinary test but ends up calling the doctor unqualified, Black woman, and ungrateful for his father’s kindness to Blacks.

Daniel and Farhad misunderstand each other about fixing a door lock and hurl racial insults at each other. Meanwhile, Waters is interrupted from intimacy by his mother’s phone call, and his partner is angry, arguing that is a racial attitude. When Farhad’s shop is burglarized and painted with graffiti, he blames Daniel and promises vengeance. Anthony and Peter continue with racial talk, as Waters visits his drug-addicted mother. The house is messy with spoilt foodstuff and drugs. He takes her inside, rests her in bed, and discards the food before leaving with his White mate. At Cameron’s workplace, Christine apologizes for her earlier behavior during arrest, but Cameron just walks away from her. In a pinch or dramatic episode, Christine is involved in an accident and by coincidence, the same molester officer comes to her rescue. Meanwhile Cameron discovers a stash of money in the dead agent’s car but he is compelled to subdue the evidence in the interests of racial harmony, where the officer excuses Black people’s crimes as driven by lack of opportunity. 

There is drama and climax when Anthony and Peter attempt to steal Cameron’s car, but hesitate when they discover that he is a fellow Black. Cameron fights back and ends up being pursued by police. Hansen saves Cameron from shooting by other officers, while he shields Anthony from arrest because he hates the White police. More drama unfolds when Daniel arrives home, is accosted by Farhad, who shoots him, right in front of the wife. Waters arrives home to find his mother in a state again. Meanwhile at the station’s locker room Hansen and colleagues are tense about the earlier incident with Cameron. At her house, Jean is talking on phone and misses her step at the stairs.  

The film concludes with many unresolved goals. In an irony of fate, Peter hitchhikes in Hansen’s car but ends up being killed over a mistaken intent by the officer, who proceeds to destroy the evidence by dumping him off the road and torching his car. As it turns out, Peter is Water’s missing brother and all Waters recovers is Peter’s statuette at the scene of death.  Anthony returns to steal Choi’s van, but at the garage, they discover that it was carrying trafficked Cambodians. Anthony decides to releases them at Chinatown, while Choi asks his wife to urgently cash a check from the human traffickers. Fahard is devastated by Lara’s shooting and decides to dispose of his gun. Jean makes peace with her maid Maria who took her to hospital, Hansen torches his car, and Cameron forgives his wife. The film employ’s repetition technique when they do a closing scene of a car accident, just as they started. 

Film I’m Not There: Non-causal structure

The film I’m Not There is an example of a non-causal structure, and deviates widely from traditional Hollywood three part structure. The film tells the biographic story of Bob Dylan. Different persons play the part of Dylan at different stages of his life, personified as a hopeful and energetic young musician boy, Woody Guthrie, then as a dynamic, successful, yet drug addicted musician, Mr. Quinn, and as the iconic musician, Jack Rollins who faces many family life during his musical journey. The poetic Arthur is in court giving cryptic answers to questions asked by his interrogators. The movie deviates from Hollywood tradition, and uses non-traditional and unconventional narrative style.

The 11 year old boy pretending to be the real Woody Guthrie hops onto a train only to join two old men. He befriends and cheers them with stories, but is thrown out of the train by some goons and rescued by a white family. He soon escapes after reports of the real Woody reach the family. 

The non-causal structure has a looping structure in which the traditional beginning, middle and end structure is re-arranged (Murphy). A crafty use of flash forwards and flashbacks makes non-causal structure possible. I’m Not There is a complex weave of abrupt past, current and future episodes, which have no pinches or linkage. For example, in early episodes, the story moves from Arthur in court, to Jack singing, to Woody escaping from hosts, a house party scene, and back to Jack in the studio. The storyline is non-linear and without parallel episodes, yet the many characters portraying one person make it a multi plot structure. Arthur Rimbaud, for example, appears briefly in several episodes answering questions incoherently to his interrogators. Billy McCarty is an outlaw living in a rural community as an upright citizen, but eventually gets arrested, and again escapes by train in the concluding scene. 

In non-causal structure, the threads of the story are not connected in a logical or linear sequence. This film is interwoven with plots, and the plots are split into episodes that are often flashed forward and backward. The events in a key thread do not lead to the next thread, as happens in the film. In ordinarily structure, the main character has a goal and performs actions towards achieving that goal, while the other characters have to fit into the actions, either as protagonists or antagonists (Caldwell). The goals are not clear in I’m Not There and so the audience is not glued to the hero’s cause. In fact, there is no true hero in this film, and the goal is simply one, to achieve musical fame, as stated by Woody to his first host family. This goal is achieved by Robby who overcomes the public misgivings about his change from folk music to a contemporary pop genre. The goal is however lost again even before the concluding part of the film.

The many characters enable the script writer to make abrupt and significant transitions from one plot to another. There are generally no antagonists in the film and the characters struggle with their own internal issues. 

Time is elastic in a storyline, and it can be stretched or condensed to fit the story. This film covers a period between the 1930s and 1970s or 1990s when you include the interviews covered in the film. The producer cleverly uses color to portray periods, thus “distant past” is in black and white, the sixties in faded color, and the present in clear color. Most plots lack a drama and climax, except for a few episodes such as the fight in the studio, the fight in a train wagon, and Woody playing guitar for his first and second hosts. 

The film employs a non linear storyline, which requires connecting threads to complete the story. Episodes need to be put together to make a complete story. For example, Jack Rollins story is told by real persons like Alice and Carla in interviews, who flashback to the early 1960s when Jack becomes a protest folk music star. When he switches to contemporary pop, his fans are disgusted, and after a series of missteps such as getting drunk during an award ceremony, Jack goes underground only to re-emerge as a born again Christian, pastor and gospel musician.

In the film, the threads are not easy to connect, especially interlink between characters of Dylan. Robby Clark for example, acts Jack in a successful movie, “Grain of Sand”. His marriage is rocky because of his cheating on his wife and attitude that women are inferior artists. He eventually breaks up their marriage and loses custody of the children. 

The conclusion of the film has no true dramatic episodes and ends with the same sombre mood as the beginning and sad outcome.  Jude Quinn collapses in the studio and his colleagues realize he might never be able to perform again. He later dies in a motorcycle accident. Robby has lost custody of the children and only takes them out on visitation rights. Old Billy escapes in the same train wagon Woody left his guitar, which Billy has found. Father John aka Jack Rollins closes the film with a soulful tune on his harmonica, presumably to a church crowd. The viewer is left feeling sorry for the main characters. 

Works Cited

21 Grams. Hollywood: Alejandro Gonzalez Inarritu, 2003. Film.

Crash. Hollywood: Paul Haggis, 2004. Film.

Ebert, Roger. “21 Grams Movie Review & Film Summary (2003) | Roger Ebert”. Rogerebert.com. N.p., 2003. Web. 16 Apr. 2016.

Hauge, Michael. “The Five Key Turning Points Of All Successful Movie Scripts”. Movieoutline.com. N.p., 2013. Web. 16 Apr. 2016.

I’m Not There. Quebec: Todd Hayne, 2007. Film.

Murphy, J. J. Me and You And Memento And Fargo. New York: Continuum, 2007. Print.