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Day 4: 3rd Act Climax
1. Please watch the scene and provide your insights into what makes this scene great from a writing perspective.
2. Read the other writers insights and make notes of how you will take a scene to an extreme..
3. Rethink your Climax scene using your new insights and rewrite the scene.
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11 Replies
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I chose the 3:10 to Yuma Climax — Running to the train and final gunfight! scene.
As the authority were transporting the prisoner to Yuma.The prisioner’s helpers were in wait for a ambush. The train arrived the shootpout begun and the conflict escalated with the released of the cattle .In the mist of the confusion they managed to kill the guard and release the prisioner.The guard’s teenaged son looked on in disbelief.The prisoner was handed a gun. The mission accomplished the team expected to leave ,but the prisioner’s facial expression of disgust turned to anger signaled a different outcome. He flipped and killed his helpers. During the silence of the aftermath the son comes over to his dad’s body and listened to his dad’s final words. Inspired and full of anger the soncreated a surprised stand off with the prisioner that ends in the prisoner’s escape on the train.
What I’m learning is first of all the scene structure scene arc ,situation ,conflict ,pay off and set up and the emotional roller coaster is key for writing all the scenes.The battle in the third act is the highest peak.There must be lots of action as well as twists and turns. I noticed the logic and importance of showng the facial expression to convey the character’s emotions that leads to immediate and often surprising actions. Adding any dialogue that comes out of the action can also be used be used to swing the emotional roller coaster ride ,or continue the action.
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I chose “A Few Good Men”
The third act climax in the case of this script is powerful compared to 310 To Yuma, because it was all dialogue. No guns blazing, just the bread crumbs for our mind to picture the most grotesque way a Colonel can order a hit on a weak soldier.
The scene starts off with the lawyer stuck in his thoughts. It seems that he is down and out, so much so that the colonel gets up and walks out. It seems that all hope is lost for the lawyer. Even his colleague mouths to him stop.
Out of nowhere it seems that the lawyer digs deep inside and tells the colonel to sit down. The dialogue at this moment is witty. The colonel tells the judge to have his lawyer address him as colonel. He even comments on the judges court room. This is returned by the judge reminding the colonel to address him as your honor.
This is setting up the court room as a place of order. From that point on it the power was transferred from the colonel back to the court room and the lawyer.
The scene ends with powerful dialogue setting up the Colonel to explain why he does what he does. This allows the audience to emphatize with the Colonel. He explains why it’s important for him to protect the wall, why the hot shot officers enjoy DC.
The scene is great all the way through until the iconic “you can’t handle the truth moment!”
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Viewing the 3rd Act Climax of A Few Good Men helped me see the value of putting the protagonist in a land-mine type situation, one fraught with grave, life-altering danger, if the protagonist is successful or fails as the ultimate conflict unfolds. My third Act Climax scene featured my protagonist faced with the danger of battling the antagonist to wrest control of the alien spacecraft as the ultimate goal. I added the possibility that success could mean she would be killed by the technology contained in the spacecraft which added an intriguing element to my story.
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This reply was modified 2 years ago by Rice Rice.
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This reply was modified 2 years ago by
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A Few Good Men
The battle in this scene is fought with words. Our hero, the lieutenant, at the top of the scene plays himself up as weak by not speaking a word (watching a second time, it becomes clear he is considering the effects of what he is about to do as well as mustering the courage) and the colonel takes the bait. His cockiness leads him to reveal critical information, mater-of-factly, calmly, certain of an easy victory. With the colonel seated well within his trap, the lieutenant strikes, using the colonel’s answers against him. Once the colonel recognizes he is cornered, he uses various techniques to get out – lashing out, looking for allies, criticizing his attacker, back-pedalling, turning his back on help, and ultimately confessing with a sense of righteousness and pride. The lieutenant is surprised at his own delivery of the critical blow, while the colonel has yet to realize the gravity of this move. The lieutenant moves swiftly to soften the blow, revealing humanity and selflessness – ensuring the colonel is taken care of and read his rights. We think this is the end of the battle, but the scene comes to a final climax when the colonel discovers his fate, lashing out with one final attempt to strike down his enemy, this time also physically. But our hero delivers the final blow, standing up for himself and putting the colonel firmly in his place.
A fantastic scene arc, with lots of rising and falling action, with an ultimate climax at the end. While well written, a huge part of the success of this scene is due to the delivery of the lines by the actors. Their use of silence, whispers, talking, and shouting is what allows the delivery of these lines to be so powerful.
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I choose 3:10 to Yuma
This scene was exciting and suspenseful to watch. The dialogue was minimal, and was mostly action. The arc of the prisoner feels like the point of the scene. He assisted his guard over his own gang. He killed them all. The guard’s son and the prisoner had a stand- off in which the son choose to spend to talk to his dad in the last moments. This scene also shows the relationship between the guard and the prisoner. The prisoner could’ve gotten away with, but he opted to avenge the guard’s death.
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I chose “A Few Good Men“
Scene Arc: Kaffee moves from a position of weakness and hopelessness to outwitting his opponent by poking at his arrogance and his anger.
Situation: If Kaffee can’t get Jessup (who knew Santiago was under medical restriction) to admit he ordered the Code Red which resulted in Santiago’s death, and then covered it up, his clients will go to prison for life for murder.
Conflict: a relatively inexperienced JAG attorney must get the military to admit they hazed and caused one of their “weak” Marine’s deaths despite a cover-up.
Moving the Story Forward: this is the climax of the entire movie, so it has to deliver explosive reveals.
Entertainment Value: this is a very tense scene.
Setups / Payoffs: this scene has to payoff all the earlier setups in the movie which hinted that this colonel quite literally ordered one of his men to be killed because they were “weak.”
How is this scene the ultimate expression of the conflict? By cross-examining Jessup with the rigor necessary to provoke an admission, it could cost Kaffee his own career. The military is more interested in maintaining decorum – even when it is wrong – than it is in learning the truth.
The escalation of the conflict? The final twist at the end of the scene: Jessup reveals, not only how difficult and thankless his job is to make sure the “wall gets guarded” (creating empathy for Jessup, and humanizing his disgust at Santiago’s weakness), but it also highlights Jessup’s arrogance that he gets to decide which things he does to protect that wall and society doesn’t want to know about it. That Kaffee was able to prod Jessup’s ego enough to get him to shout that he ordered the Code Red is the ultimate payoff.
Intriguing Dialogue: “You can’t handle the truth!” has to be one of the greatest movie quotes of all time.
The final payoffs: Kaffee not only gets his admission, and justice for his clients, but he also gets grudging respect from his friendly-adversary, the prosecutor.
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My own climax scene: I enjoyed the cat-and-mouse dialogue in “A Few Good Men.” While my final showdown is primarily an action scene, since my villain is a megalomaniac, I’m rethinking some of the back-and-forth taunting of the hero by the villain as they prepare to fight, especially before the hero reveals he has gained (tenuous) control of his own power.
What I learned doing this assignment? Making sure all your “setups” pay off at the end.
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The 3rd act climax of A Few Good Men is what writers should strive to emulate. At this point in the film, the defense team is at their lowest point, they are ready to throw in the towel and admit defeat.
Tom Cruises’ character has a dilemma and must quickly make a decision. He knows that if he pursues the line of questioning and it backfires, he will be dishonorably discharged from his position, but if he succeeds in getting the Colonel to admit he issued the code red, he will save the lives of two young men (even though they ultimately get dishonorable discharges for the role they played in Santiago’s murder. The writer keeps the uncertainty going until the end, when the Colonel finally admits that he ordered the code red.
The scene has a clear beginning, middle, and end, with powerful dialog that keeps the story moving forward. Not a single word is wasted, and it manages to evoke a bit of sympathy for the Colonel when he explains why he did what he did.
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Scene arc – a flow of back and forth and the display of power. Jessup starts in the superior position but over the course of the scene is ground under by the truth of his crime, leaving Kaffee the victor
situation – a military trial, code of ethics and conduct,
conflict – a lawyer with no combat experience dressing down a career colonel who has all the power.
moving the story forward – the reveal of the code red order is the twist that moves things further along. Our antagonist, chastened, pulls rank but the judge pulls rank on him, forcing Jessup to comply.
entertainment value – good dialogue (from Aaron Sorkin) and acting personalities bring the scene to life. Likely reading pages of the phone book would be entertaining with Cruise and Nicholson. Truly needed given the trope of courtroom scenes.
setups/payoffs – a mystery of what Jessup did is revealed. it’s hidden at first but the payoff, the truth, is the payoff sought after since the beginning of the story when Santiago was killed.
I learned that a scene, any scene, can crescendo from small beginnings to have an explosive climax with a reveal underpinning a satisfying payoff at the end where the antagonist meets justice and the protagonist survives to fight another day.
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Day 4: 3rd Act Climax
SETUP: Lt. Daniel Kaffee (Tom Cruise) has Col. Nathan R. Jessop (Jack Nicholson) on the stand. Throughout the movie, Kaffee has been preparing a defense for two Marines who are charged with killing a “weak” Marine. Kaffee learned that the men were ordered to give a “Code Red,” meaning an internal punishment that somehow went bad. With Jessup on the stand, Kaffee has one chance to get him to admit he gave the illegal order, but it could lose him his career!
My Insights into what makes the basic scene components of a 3<sup>rd</sup> Act Climax (A Few Good Men) great from a writing perspective are:
· The scene starts with the lawyer being calm, but nervous and canvasing the people in the court room. The witness was calm, unconcerned, and finished giving his testimony. This escalates slowly into a battle of wits, nerves, and truth telling ending in the arrest of the Colonel.
· The situation developed when the Colonel ordered a “Code Red” punishment to be conducted to one of his service men by two others of his servicemen, and it went terribly wrong, killing the man punished. The Colonel and his power threatens all and changes facts to cover the illegal action of the “Code Red”.
· The conflict was between lies and manipulation, of a powerful person controlling the lives of those he is in to develop, train and protect and the truth.
· This scene was needed to move the story past the conflict between the Colonel controlling the narrative of what happened versus the facts.
· This third climatic scene is so entertaining the audience is glued to every action and statement said. The famous line, “You can’t handle the truth.” Has been memorized and quoted often.
· The entry of the new evidence of the flight logs, and the countering testimonials of the two new witnesses set the Colonel up for failure by letting everyone, including the audience that the lawyer is pushing for the truth. The gentle questions that allow the Colonel to show his authority and power are used first. The fact that the Colonel’s men always obey his command. Logic dictated that the orders were given and the appropriate actions followed. This trapped the Colonel into finally stating that he most certainly ordered the “Code Red”, and therefore was arrested. The dialogue build was subtle enough to all out the audience to root for the lawyer until the confession was given.
The Third Act Climax of A Few
Good Men, show the ultimate climatic expression of the conflict between Good
and Hubris/A Powerful Person (beyond self-control, feels privileged), as
battled in a court room.The conflict is escalated by the
comparison of each’s physical and verbal actions. Lt. Daniel Kaffee, the
lawyer, is determined to bring out the truth, as demonstrated by the entry
of the flight logs and the new witnesses, and Colonel Nathan R. Jessop on
the witness stand who is determined to keep his actions hidden. The Twist
comes when the line of questioning traps the Colonel into answering the
question. His only true answer was that he did, which led to his arrest.
He felt so entitled to making his own decisions, that he felt that he was
justified in his actions. The case dismissed and he was arrested.The final payoff of the scene was
when Lt. Daniel Kaffee took command of the moment, after being called son.
He corrected the Colonel. He is a lawyer, ended the conflict and the moment
by dismissing him from further testimony, (The Colonel was now under
arrest.) This dialogue showed that Lt. Daniel Kaffee was indeed in control
of the truth in this current situation over the Colonel. Kaffee was going to
do the right thing even if it ended his career.-
This reply was modified 2 years ago by Susan Willard. Reason: Spell checked
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This reply was modified 2 years ago by
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This is an extraordinary scene with a major swing dramatically from what we construe as Lt. Kafee’s weakness against a condescending and entitled Col. Jessep – but the Lt. cleverly outwits the Jessep and baits him to admit his responsibility for calling a “code red” – thus sealing his arrest/fate. It is a great culmination of the entire movie and encapsulates the drama that we’ve experienced for the past two hours.
– I’ve discovered that my 3rd act climax in my project was more defined at the midpoint and thus weakened the final resolution – though the resolution is a reversal of the audience’s expectations.
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A Few Good Men – Climax
Set-up: Kaffee is trying to get his 2 Marines off a murder conviction. The military Code of Silence has prevented Kaffee from being able to defend his clients from a life sentence. It has also given Jessup the upper hand all through the proceedings. So, the only way to get to the truth is to have Col Jessup admit he ordered a Code Red on a weak Marine that died from the hazing. But, if it doesn’t work, he could be dishonorably discharged. Even his friend/partner shakes his head to warn him not to go down that road. He contemplates with great angst. But, after looking at his clients and seeing Jessups’ berating attitude towards him, Kaffee decides to go for broke. He confidently takes control and orders the Col. back to the witness stand. However, we see how nervous he really is by his shaking hand as he gets a drink of water to prepare for the high-risk game he’s about to play.
He begins by setting a trap for Jessup using his own words and giving Jessup the impression he was calling the airmen that would refute his testimony regarding the nonexistent flight from Guantanamo. This puts Jessup on notice that he would have to explain his previous testimony. Kaffee is also counting on his arrogance and pride to get him to admit that he ordered a Code Red on a substandard Marine.
By first challenging his own words that contradict his previous testimony, Jessup is put in an uneasy position of having to explain his changed testimony. Jessup’s pride gets the better of him as he goes into a tirade about the importance of his position to safeguard the country and how sometimes he has to make difficult decisions to save his men and protect his country. Jessup finally admits his order of Code Red, which he feels is totally justifiable. His belief in his own self-importance makes him think he is irreproachable and can now go back to his base. Instead, he is arrested and his clients’ murder charges are dropped.
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