Story, Plot and Theme

            At the class on Saturday, our professor said that Christians’ lack of moral imagination is a big problem in Christian ethics. The first step toward developing this kind of imagination is to describe situations accurately. Sometimes this involves a re-description. Movies describe situations in the context of stories. How shall we evaluate them? Let’s take a look at 21 Grams.

            The story revolves around three principal characters. Jack Jordan is an ex-con. In the two years since he left prison he has plunged into a practice of fundamental Christianity. One day he runs over Michael Peck and Peck’s two young daughters, then drives away from the scene of the accident. All three die. Christina Peck is the widow and bereft mother. At the hospital she agrees to donate her husband’s heart. Paul Rivers is the recipient of Michael Peck’s heart.

            Other key characters are Mary Rivers, Paul’s wife, and Mary Ann Jordan, Jack’s wife. Paul and Mary are in a loveless marriage. Before the transplant, she maneuvers Paul into contributing his sperm so that she can have his baby if he dies. Mary Ann coaxes Jack to put the accident behind him. She washes the blood off the grill of his truck.

            These details outline the story line that sets the plot in motion. What will keep it moving until the characters reach their final crises? Let’s examine the difference between story and plot. Quoting Lillian Hellman, Robert K. Johnston writes: “Story is what the characters want to do and plot is what the writer wants the characters to do.” He adds, “Plot is the way the movie constructs and conveys the unfolding of action over time” (146). He points out that a movie’s theme drives its plot forward and gives it focus. The theme is the movie’s emotional heart. A filmmaker will come to a standstill if he or she is not clear about the movie’s theme (201-203).

            John Truby provides another view of theme. He calls it the moral argument of a story. Addressing the reader as a budding screenwriter, he says, “The theme is your moral vision, your view of how people should act in the world” (15). From this perspective, the theme of 21 Grams is the idea that life goes on. This is what Christina’s father tells her in an attempt to console her at the funeral of her family. In another scene, Mary Ann Jordan tells Jack, who believes that to be true to God he has to turn himself in, “Life has to go on, with or without God.” Somehow this tagline doesn’t satisfy as the movie’s emotional heart.

            Our professor warned us that 21 Grams was edited non-chronologically, so I was prepared for its randomized jumble of scenes. About a third of the way through, I began to wonder why the filmmaker had constructed the movie in this way. I went back to Truby and discovered his concept of the designing principle: “The designing principle is what organizes the story as a whole. It is the internal logic of the story, what makes the parts hang together organically…. You find the designing principle by teasing it out of the simple one-line premise you have before you” (25-26).

Following examples he gives, I come up with this formulation, not quite a theme:

            Premise. A man whose transplanted heart is failing finds love before he dies and helps the donor’s wife and the man who accidentally killed the donor to find peace.

            Designing principle. Intense emotional experiences cause mental confusion. Illustrate the three principals’ confusion by presenting scenes non-chronologically. Include repetition.

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