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Have any of you ever heard of the term "MacGuffin"?
It's a term commonly used by Alfred Hitchcock and others to describe a plot device the existence of which is used to further the action, but which itself plays no active part.
So, for example, in Hitchcock's "North by Northwest" Cary Grant's character gets involved in a shadowy plot by being mistaken for a secret agent -- and he and the rest of the characters spend much of the rest of the film trying to find the person he was mistaken for. Except that the secret agent doesn't, and never did exist. So the secret agent is a MacGuffin -- entirely passive, but still crucial to the course of events.
Or in the James Bond film "From Russia with Love" James Bond goes on a mission to find a Soviet coding machine called a "Lektor". But apart from being a device to get Bond to Russia and to provide an excuse for plenty of action, it features little in the plot -- he could have been sent to Russia for any number of other reasons, or to recover something entirely different, and the plot would have been the same.
In J.K. Rowling's book and Chris Columbus's film "Harry Potter and the Philosopher's Stone", the Philosopher's Stone is a MacGuffin. All the characters are looking for it, but ultimately the only one who succeeds is the one who does not want to use it. Since it is retrieved before falls into the hands of the antagonist, it does not itself influence events; but the characters, in their pursuit of it, do.
Why do I ask? Well, I'm currently writing a treatment (plot summary) for a screenplay. I'm not sure how long it is going to be but at the moment I'm aiming for full feature length (an hour and a half).
I've got the characters.
I've got the setting.
I've got a number of scenes of dialogue, and a number of scenes of action that stem directly from the characters (the best sort of action, so they say).
What I don't have is a MacGuffin -- something to drive the characters from scene to scene. Something to occupy them while they learn about each other. I've got a few ideas but I'm not very happy with them because they are boring or cliched.
Essentially, it's a story about two sixth formers, set in a boarding school the night before term begins (so it is just them and the housemaster; partly for reasons of narrative simplicity, partly for reasons of budget). The plot structure is closer to a play than a film, really -- I'm aiming for unity of time (the action takes place over a single night, and there are no flashbacks), unity of place (most of it takes place in a boarding house study bedroom) and action (everything that happens is significant to the story -- i.e. few subplots).
Okay, I've taken an awfully long time to get to the point. And since I haven't given a proper plot summary I am basically asking you to invent all the peripheral details yourself. But in fact, after all that, I have just one question to ask.
- What events can *realistically* happen in a boarding school that would cause a boy to leave mysteriously at the end of a previous term, without explaining to his friends? (Both possible but also interesting)
So far, I've come up with the following possibilities:
- Suicide, or suicide attempt
- Drugs
- Theft
- An illicit affair (but these days it would have to be with a teacher, and I don't want to go there)
...all of which are rather boring. I'm trying to think of things that are outrageous and daring and wonderful and yet could actually happen. But I also don't want anything that would threaten the audience's suspension of disbelief. (I'm thinking of "If..." here. It's a film that starts out in the same genre, but it gets so bizarre and random and fantastic that by the end I feel it rather invalidates its own point. That's not to say it's not worth watching, though. Do watch it if you have the chance.)
I don't know if anything I said above makes sense, but whether it does or doesn't please feel free to post something in reply.
Congratulations on reaching the end of the post!
Deeej
P.S. Yes, one of the characters is gay, but that's not the main point of the story. The British public schoolboy genre is small enough as it is without restricting it even further, I'm afraid.
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MacGuffin
By: Deeej on Wed, 18 January 2006 15:41 |
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Re: MacGuffin
By: timmy on Wed, 18 January 2006 18:55 |
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Re: MacGuffin
By: Deeej on Wed, 18 January 2006 20:02 |
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Re: MacGuffin
By: Deeej on Wed, 18 January 2006 20:07 |
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Re: MacGuffin
By: timmy on Wed, 18 January 2006 21:25 |
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Re: MacGuffin
By: JFR on Thu, 19 January 2006 07:00 |
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Re: MacGuffin
By: Deeej on Thu, 19 January 2006 12:57 |
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Re: MacGuffin
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Re: MacGuffin
By: Deeej on Thu, 19 January 2006 21:53 |
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Re: MacGuffin
By: timmy on Fri, 20 January 2006 07:18 |
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Re: MacGuffin
By: Deeej on Fri, 20 January 2006 10:30 |
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Hmm .....
By: cossie on Fri, 20 January 2006 01:53 |
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Re: Hmm .....
By: Deeej on Fri, 20 January 2006 10:49 |
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Umm ... Hmm...
By: cossie on Sun, 22 January 2006 03:56 |
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... Hymn... Ham...
By: Deeej on Sun, 22 January 2006 12:59 |
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