Split Story Structure

W

weltonfilment

Active member
I'm not sure quite how to describe the type of story structure I'm working on, but perhaps the best analogy would be to American Gangster. Spoiler warning for those who haven't seen the film.






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In American Gangster, Russel Crowe and Denzel Washington are on opposite sides of the law; Crowe is trying to catch Washington and Washington obviously does all he can to evade being discovered. The two, however, never meet until about 10 minutes before the film ends. We spend the majority of the time cutting between Crowe's and Washington's characters. There is a mutual antagonist (Josh Brolin) that ties the two loosely together, but each character also has their own inner personal battles and struggles with those close to them.

Despite the fact that these two stars never cross paths for virtually the whole film, the movie really worked on a lot of levels. It actually inspired me to find a solution to a story I've been writing that follows a similar format.

Can anybody else think of any more examples like American Gangster where the story is structured in this way? The movie should focus almost equally between the protagonist and the antagonist (or maybe there is no clear definition between protag and antag).
 
Snatch & Lock Stock & Two Smoking Barrels both used it to great effect.

It's a fairly common technique, there's a lot of movies that use it as a ticking clock device, but don't use it all the way through. Those two, I believe, only really use it towards the climax.

Super Troopers also used it during the scene where they were trying to bring the pot to the Governor's speech. Anytime you start following different characters and cutting between them, the set up basically is that they are going to run across each other at a specific moment. The tension comes up in the audience as to wondering exactly what moment that meeting will happen.

Oh, that reminds me, Magnolia, too.
 
I didn't read the first post cuz I haven't seen AG. But are you talking about the type of scripts that have separate ostensibly compartmentalized storylines that intersect at various points in the narrative and then usually meet at the end? Like "Hill Street Blues"?

If so, there isn't any universally accepted name for that type story that I know of...
 
I've seen it termed 'thread structure' in reference to films like "Pulp Fiction," which have multiple main characters, each with his or her own distinct plot-lines that are pretty much unrelated to one another. The characters may have roles in the other stories, but generally, they are very minor roles.

If there are multiple main characters, but only one major storyline, that is called an 'ensemble film.'


I would say that "American Gangster" is more of an ensemble film, though the two main characters have stronger perspectives than in most ensemble films. I wouldn't really say that it has thread structure, because there really is only one plot in the film. The two main characters spend a lot of time apart, but they end up the same place, and each is integral to the others' story.


"Crash" might be considered to have thread structure.
 
alejandro gonzalez inaritu and guillermo arriago do this in all 3 of the films they did together.

amores perros,
21 grams,
and
babel.

i would say they are more thread than american gangster but nonetheless a similiar narrative structure.

stephen gaghan's two critically acclaimed screenplays too. traffic and syriana.
 
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