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Expository Conflict


Ta-metru_defender

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Essays, Not Rants! 181: Expository Conflict

 

Othello really hits the ground running. The first time we see the titular character in Shakespeare’s play he’s on trial in a war room. Now, it’s important to note that this is his introduction, this is when we learn who he is.

 

The easiest way to clue the audience in would be to just give us an infodump. Have people go “This is Othello, the Moor, who’s a general, and married to Desdemona, a senator’s daughter” in some fashion. No, it’s certainly not the most elegant way to disperse information, but, well, it works.

 

Thing is, exposition is boring. Really boring. No one wants a huge lecture in their story, especially if it comes right at the top. Which presents a unique problem for Shakespeare in Othello, how can he bring the audience up to speed on an unusual situation without boring the audience five minutes into his play? Simple: He turns exposition into conflict.

 

Conflict occurs when there’s disagreement. They can argue, they can fight, they can spend all day undermining each other. Conflict is also usually quite interesting. Two people going “as you know, such-and-such is whatever” is boring; an argument over whether such-and-such is whatever, however, keeps the audience interested. Now there’s tension over the exposition: Is it true? Who’s right? What’s gonna happen when one of ‘em is proven wrong?

 

And that’s what the first act of Othello is. He’s put on an informal trial and forced to prove he is who he is. We don’t hear the story of how Desdemona fell in love with him just out of the blue, rather their story is the explanation and evidence for his elopement. It doesn’t feel forced or out of place, and it’s interesting. Othello’s reputation is on the line and we want to see what happens next.

 

Exposition has to be interesting. Having it happen in conflict raises the tension and makes us pay attention. Compare two characters getting to know each other over coffee versus an interrogation. This is something that Lost does very well. Not only are all the characters strangers (and thus all serve as audience surrogates as they learn things about each other), but the mystery island setting has everyone tense and suspicious of one another. Secret agendas, angles, and hidden pasts make getting to know the characters exciting by itself.

 

It’s helped along in earlier season by flashbacks which further flesh out the characters. Once again, these flashbacks, which are basically just exposition, are made interesting through conflict. Charlie’s Dad doesn’t tell him he’s irresponsible, we see Charlie being irresponsible and butting heads against people close to him which in turn affects how we see him in the present. There’s also an arc to the flashbacks which helps invest us in the proceedings.

 

This is, of course, something that Fantastic Four did fantastically wrong. So much of the movie felt like pure exposition with no conflict to push things along. Reed meets a pre-evil Doom and the two simply, well, coexist. There’s no clash of worldview or rivalry of genius, they’re just there. I’m not asking for a Shakespearean trial; a competition for Sue’s affections would be insulting, but at the very least would be more interesting that what was essentially a series of “I’m smart,” “So am I,” “Cool, let’s science,” “Yes, let’s science.”

 

Stories have to introduce their audience to a new world. Could be a world inhabited by friends who work at a brewery or where a Moor in an interracial marriage is on a Venetian war council; could also be a world where a kid is able to create an inter-dimensional teleporter. No matter what there's gonna be something the audience doesn't know and will have to learn (seriously, if you're doing an adaptation of Little Red Riding Hood you're still gonna have to tell us why she's going to her grandmother's). Exposition happens. It always happens. The trick is to make it work, and not bore us with it. So let's keep Othello on trial.

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Or you can throw exposition out the window and let the audience pick up on the story behind the story as the story goes on. 

 

Works at least half the time. 

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Or you can throw exposition out the window and let the audience pick up on the story behind the story as the story goes on. 

 

Works at least half the time. 

That too.

 

But even then, there's still some level of exposition. Star Wars had it with Luke arguing with his aunt and uncle, or 3PO and R2 not getting along. Only thing I can think of off the top of my head right now (and a large measure of wine) is Fury Road, but even then we had Max's quick monologue and Furiosa's introduction; which were quick but still serve as exposition of a small sort.

 

The opening scene of MI:5 is one too; it does little for the plot at large but tells us that Ethan and Benji are a good time (and that Ethan is a heckuva baddonkey).

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Have you read The Man in the High Castle from Philip K. Dick? One thing that impressed me about the novel is the almost complete lack of narrative-halting exposition. Rather than blatantly explaining the rules of his parallel universe, Dick simply writes the characters going through their daily lives, and throughout the novel we get larger and larger pieces of the universe. It was a fantastic book.

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tbh, one of my favourite uses of this has to be The World's End (easily one of my favourite films), in which virtually everything we learn about the characters apart from the initial montage (which is enjoyable in its own right) comes in the form of conflict, often as arguments and fights between characters that explain exactly what the negative side of gary's history with everyone is (a particular scene in a smokehouse stands out as a fantastic example of this, as does the confrontation near the end)

 

Ramona Flowers

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