Aristotle van Dine

Two sets of rules/unities for potential film and video structures: Van Dine and Aristotle!

Van Dine’s Rules

1) viewer must have equal opportunity with the detective for solving the mystery.
2) no willful tricks will be played on the viewer, unless a trick played by the culprit on the detective.
3) there must be no love interest.
4) the detective must not be the culprit.
5) the culprit’s identity must not be established by accident or coincidence.
6) an active detective must be present.
7) there must be a corpse.
8) no supernatural elements are allowed (no seances).
9) there must not be more than one detective.
10) the culprit must figure prominently in the story.
11) the culprit must not be a servant.
12) there must not be more than one culprit.
13) no secret societies/mafia.
14) a repeat of 8.
15) truth of problem must be apparent to the reader.
16) no long passages of descriptive or atmospheric effect.
17) culprit must not be a professional criminal.
18) no accidents or suicides.
19) culprit’s motives must be personal.
20) no obvious devices: coded letters, mistaken identity, etc.

And…

The Three Classical Unities:

1. The unity of action: a play should have one main action that it follows, with no or few subplots.
2. The unity of place: a play should cover a single physical space and should not attempt to compress geography, nor should the stage represent more than one place.
3. The unity of time: the action in a play should take place over no more than 24 hours.

Scene

Beginning in a small lifeless town in the barren Patagonia, the local denizens honour tradition by repeating the same limited number of gestures: the loitering at the back of the pharmacy, the sprawl on the bench in the square. The citizens travel along their invisible tracks all day, all the while passively observing the travels of others. Everyone notices a change of tracks, or a late arrival. A modest old car drives down the main street. It stops in front of the post office. A man gets out of the car and tries the door of the building. It is locked. He is early, or late, or the clerk is out for lunch. He drinks an espresso and a small glass of mineral water outside a cafe. Some old local faces stare. He watches the chess players in the square across the way. He is back at the post office; it is open. The clerk greets him:

“Ah, my dear Mr Sand. How are you this fine afternoon?”
“The zenith of bliss, Sanchez. The siesta ran a bit long today, eh?”
“I am sorry about the time. My witchdoctor prescribes rest.”
“Ah yes, how’s the gut?”
“It goes in and out like the tide. I was expecting you yesterday.”
“I was delayed in Chubut.”
“It happens to the best of men.”
“I make no such claim. Any mail this month?”
“Indeed. I put it aside as I was expecting you.”
“As you always do.”
“Here is your usual: another love letter from your 3rd wife’s solicitor”
“2nd.”
“I thought you were… well, I guess you should know… er, your electricity bill for $10,000…”
“You know you say that every time.”
“It amuses you, no?”
“Not really.”
“Ah, now you joke with me! Some bureaucratic-looking envelopes… no doubt associated with your romantic occupation.”
“The usual reports, thanks…”
“Before you resign yourself to thinking this month is the same as all months, I save the best for last: a letter from America!”
“That is a surprise. But I don’t know anyone in America… It’s addressed to my job… it’s not as personal as all that…”
“I am guilty of spicing the soup.”
“You, Sanchez?”
“I confess.”
“Save it for your padre. He needs the business.”
“Not in these parts.”
“Well, keep up the good work, Sanchez.”
“Before you go, Mr Sand, I was wondering about that letter of yours, from America. Did you notice the stamp?”
“It is an image of a lighthouse. An attentive touch, I’ll admit.”
“It is true, but I was looking at the date stamp. It was mailed only five days ago, from New York.”
“That is very efficient service, Sanchez. You must have been off that day.”
“My contribution notwithstanding, that is unusually speedy.”
“You should choose a hobby that doesn’t involve gin.”
“I like chess.”
“It is a good game.”
“It is.”
“Be seeing you, Sanchez.”
“Ah, before you go, Mr Sand… Perhaps I could indulge upon your philatelic philanthropy.”
“You want the stamp?”
“My collection would be so enriched with such an exotic specimen.”
“Will it now, indeed.”
“Many happy revolutions, Mr Sand.”

©Michael Mills 2007

Listology

THE PHYSICISTS
a play by Friedrich Durrenmatt

21 Points to THE PHYSICISTS

1. I don’t start out with a thesis but with a story.

2. If you start out with a story you must think it to its conclusion.

3. A story has been thought to its conclusion when it has taken its worst possible turn.

4. The worst possible turn is not feasible. It occurs by accident.

5. The art of the playwright consists in employing, to the most effective degree possible, accident within the action.

6. The carriers of a dramatic action are human beings.

7. Accident in a dramatic action consists in when and where who happens to meet whom.

8. The more human beings proceed by plan the more effectively they may be hit by accident.

9. Human beings proceeding by plan wish to reach a specific goal. They are most severely hit by accident when through it
they reach the opposite of their goal: the very thing they feared, they sought to avoid (i.e. Oedipus).

10. Such a story, though it is grotesque, is not absurd (contrary to meaning).

11. It is paradoxical.

12. Playwrights, no less than logicians, are unable to avoid the paradoxical.

13. Physicists, no less than logicians, are unable to avoid the paradoxical.

14. A drama about physicists must be paradoxical.

15. It cannot have as its goal the content of physics, but its effect.

16. The contents of physics is the concern of physicists, its effect the concern of all men.

17. What concerns everyone can only be solved by everyone.

18. Each attempt of an individual to solve for himself what is the concern of everyone is doomed to fail.

19. Within the paradoxical appears reality.

20. He who confronts the paradoxical exposes himself to reality.

21. Drama can dupe the spectator into exposing himself to reality, but cannot compel him to withstand it or even master it.

The Erotic Dream Machine (to crib Anthony Fragola and Roch Smith)

The Art House by Michael Mills
Scene: a large L-shaped living room/main space of a house. Only one section of the L-shape has light: from an unseen window at the end of the long narrow passage. The action however takes place in the darkened section.

Action: Two nude women (late-20s, one a short-haired redhead) engage in a playful dialogue about classic screen sirens like Rita Hayworth and Joan Crawford. The scene cuts back and forth between each woman as they exchange lines with a combination of close-ups, medium shots and long shots. Each cut reveals a change in props: one image has one of the women holding up a large black placard with the words “USA Film” and a US Navy insignia on it, for instance. In the long shots, new items are added to the room, like an empty glided picture frame on an easel with a pink feather boa or dyed peacock feathers with it. Other items are draped in luxurious cloth. There is a general sense of clutter, like a tormented artist’s studio (really, a mental studio).

The dialogue is interrupted by the opening of a door along the shadowed wall near the women. Six Japanese photographers enter with identical medium-format cameras. They immediately take one photograph of the women in unison. A short, hyperactive Japanese woman in large sunglasses announces they are ready to do the shoot.

The two women are now dressed in stockings and garters and, incongruously, colourful men’s briefs. They turn and shake their bottoms at the photographers. The words “__” are emblazoned across the back of the briefs.

©Michael Mills 2007

The stone remains the stone, the beluga remains the beluga.

Welcome to Beloga! On behalf of Raymond and Ruben, I invite you to read and write in the spirit of ACTIVE participation.

Michael Mills