Noah

Drawing by Nick Verrelli

The conceit for this article came after walking out of the theater with Kaitlyn. We had just finished watching Spiderman: Across the Spiderverse. I, having started the day not knowing it was Part 1 of 2, was brutally disappointed by the ending. How could they just leave it on a cliffhanger like that?!¹ And now I need to wait five more years² to see how this ends?!³ Kaitlyn tried to soothe my dissatisfaction, but it was no use… I was already whining about “the good old days” (prehistory).

“Imagine if a wandering shaman storyteller came to your village, right? And you all sat around the bonfire and he told you the most beautiful, engaging, moving story you had ever heard. And halfway through, in the middle of the action, he packed up his bag and said he would return in twenty-four moons to finish it. You and the other villagers would beat him to death! If you were to do this in ancient amphitheaters, you would be stoned to death!”

Or would you?

Of course, we have no records of such a thing happening. But we do have discussions on the art of drama, dating back nearly 2,400 years. And theatre is exactly like film in literally every way, so… This is perfect! This led me to my copy of Aristotle’s Poetics. Highlighted and handed down to me from my father, it was exactly what I was looking for: A dead Greek guy to tell me if I was right or wrong.

Poetics is the oldest and (some would claim) most fundamental study of the art of drama. Written in the fourth century B.C.⁴ by the ancient Greek philosopher Aristotle, it discusses the history, art, and process of theater. Spoken through the lens of Ancient Greek theatre, Aristotle analyzes what makes plots good, bad, compelling, or just straight incomprehensible. His treatise on the art is regarded as fundamental because Ancient Greek theatre is, in essence, the beginning of the Western dramatic lineage. As Ferguson remarks in his introductory essay of my copy, “He [Aristotle] got in on the ground floor.” (Pg. 1)

Most historians agree that Poetics was a series of lecture notes. Anyone who has taught or given a presentation knows how scant and fractured those can be. Poetics isn’t meant to be a strict series of rules on how to write a story or create a drama (though many later Renaissance readers took it as such). Ferguson reminds us, “The Poetics is much more like a cookbook than it is a textbook in elementary engineering.” (Pg. 3) On top of this, Poetics is incomplete. It’s part of a larger text (now lost) that discusses light poetry, Tragedy, and Comedy (As a side note, I would have loved to read what Aristotle had to say about comedic theatre). All we have to work with are his general points on playwriting, the dramatic art, and the analysis of Tragedy — Aristotle’s personal favourite kind of play. You will see plenty of references to Tragedy in specific through the selected quotes, though you should take it as a general reference to the art of drama. Many points laid out are repeated for the art of Epic poetry.

After a quick reading (as the text of Poetics is extremely short) and seeing remarkable similarities to modern screenwriting tips and contemporary film criticism, I thought it would be interesting to see how it holds up in modern times. Good thing I have after-hours access to the Time Travel Facility. Let’s bring Aristotle to 2024 and ask the eternal question: kino or bino?

NOTE: It goes without saying that we cannot really deduce anything about what Aristotle or any historical figure beyond the last 75 years would really think of modernity. I know you’ve all seen the posts I’m referring to. This article aims to be nothing more than a fun comparison of an ancient text on an ancient theatre to my own thoughts on modern cinema and its critics. For all I know, Aristotle would’ve loved nothing more than to chomp down on buttery popcorn, slurp Diet Sprite, and watch Free Guy (2021, Dir. Shawn Levy). As for myself, I love reading about our distant but all-too-human ancestors. Reading vulgar Roman graffiti, angry letters between feudal castles, upset customer reviews on Sumerian bronze… the more we change, the more we stay the same.

That’s enough talk though. Hop in the Accent, Ari, we are going to the Cineplex!

Art as Imitation

“Epic poetry and Tragedy, Comedy also and Dithyrambic poetry, and the music of the flute and of the lyre in most of their forms, are all in their general conception modes of imitation.” (Chapter I)

To begin, let's get a grasp on what art is for Aristotle. Put simply: All forms of art, from drama to music to painting, are ‘imitations’. This can most clearly be seen in art such as painting and sculpture in which the artist uses stone or paints to imitate something we physically see or can imagine. Imitation does not necessarily imply realism, since abstract and artistic forms can imitate subtle emotion, states, qualities of human conscious experience.

“Poets, like painters, musicians, and dancers, Aristotle says, all ‘imitate action’ in their various ways. By ‘action’ he means, not physical activity, but a movement-of-spirit, and by ‘imitation’ he means, not superficial copying, but the representation of the countless forms which the life of the human spirit may take, in the media of the arts: musical sound, paint, word, or gesture.” (Ferguson, Pg. 4)

It is a bit hard to conceptualize this ‘movement-of-spirit’ that is imitated. I personally think of it in the way an emotionally charged song can make you feel sad or heroic, even in the absence of lyrics. The song imitates the heroic or sorrowful ‘spirit’ in the swooping orchestra or pitiful piano. Aristotle says so much:

“...for even dancing imitates character, emotion, and action, by rhythmical movements.” (Chapter I)

Okay, so if art is imitation, why do we ‘do’ art? Why do we enjoy viewing and creating art? Aristotle says the reason is simple: Because it's built into our code, that we as humans are pre-programmed with two instincts. The first being a love for imitation, and the second being a love for harmony and rhythm:

“Poetry in the general seems to have sprung from two causes, each of them lying deep in our nature. First, the instinct of imitation is implanted in man from childhood, one difference between him and other animals being that he is the most imitative of living creatures, and through imitation learns his earliest lessons; and no less universal is the pleasure felt in things imitated. We have evidence of this in the facts of experience. Objects which in themselves we view with pain, we delight to contemplate when reproduced with minute fidelity: such as the forms of the most ignoble animals and of dead bodies. The cause of this again is that to learn gives the liveliest pleasure, not only to philosophers but to men in general; whose capacity, however, of learning is more limited. Thus the reason why men enjoy seeing a likeness is that in contemplating it they find themselves learning or inferring, and saying perhaps, ‘Ah, that is he.’” (Chapter IV)

We are social creatures. We learn through imitation. It’s how we can do… anything. It’s how we went from goo goo gaga baby to a functional, reasoning, and integrated adult. Our movement, language, culture, mannerisms, all spring from imitation. Because of this, we enjoy learning. Elevation of our knowledge through recognition is key to the Aristotelian pleasure in art. It is also why we find strange artistic enjoyment in things otherwise grotesque to us. Aristotle above mentions corpses and deformed animals. In real life these leave us disgusted and repulsed, but our pleasure in seeing them ‘within’ art is pleasure of recognition mixed with the safety of mere representation. Our boy, Brad Troemel, says it well: “...for a fleeting moment, visual art can mirror reality and show it back to us with a clarity like nothing else...”

Rhythm and harmony, the second instinct we hold, refers to a more general aesthetic enjoyment of the countless forms of art. Aristotle doesn’t speak much on why we enjoy harmony and rhythm, only that humans do.

“The Plot, then, is the first principle, and, as it were, the soul of a tragedy: Character holds the second place. A similar fact is seen in painting. The most beautiful colors, laid on confusedly, will not give as much pleasure as the chalk outline of a portrait. Thus Tragedy is the imitation of an action, and of the agents mainly with a view to the action.” (Chapter IV)

A scathing critique of abstract art from nearly two and a half millennia ago… Wow… Joking aside, I don’t think Aristotle would have hated contemporary, abstract art. He recognizes that colours in themselves can be beautiful. Arrangements of colour can be aesthetically pleasing and provoking in their own right:

“For if you happen not to have seen the original, the pleasure will be due not to the imitation as such, but to the execution, the coloring, or some such other cause.” (Chapter IV)

But missing the imitation — that subtle, barely conscious “aha!” of seeing something real represented in an artistic form — it is a lesser, baser pleasure. I, too, would take a napkin pencil sketch over a Jackson Pollock.⁵

Singularity of Action and Unity of Plot

“Unity of plot does not, as some persons think, consist in the unity of the hero. For infinitely various are the incidents in one man’s life which cannot be reduced to unity; and so, too, there are many actions of one man out of which we cannot make one action. Hence the error, as it appears, of all poets who have composed a Heracleid, a Theseid, or other poems of the kind. They imagine that as Heracles was one man, the story of Heracles must also be a unity. But Homer, as in all else he is of surpassing merit, here too—whether from art or natural genius—seems to have happily discerned the truth. In composing the Odyssey he did not include all the adventures of Odysseus—such as his wound on Parnassus, or his feigned madness at the mustering of the host—incidents between which there was no necessary or probable connection: but he made the Odyssey, and likewise the Iliad, to center round an action that in our sense of the word is one.” (Chapter VIII)

This is the first half of Chapter VIII. I include it in its entirety because I believe it fully represents the main thesis of Poetics. A plot is made good through its single ‘action’. The critical error of bad poets, playwrights, screenwriters, and authors is focusing on anything but that singular plot unity — whether that be characters, historical events, etc. When we sit down to write a plot, we are confronted with a near infinite source of events to pull from. Of course, we could write a Spider-Man movie that is full of scenes of Peter making dinner, taking a piss, scrolling on Instagram. But this isn’t a plot. It’s just a series of scenes with no uniting action. Aristotle cites Homer (a personal poetic hero of his) as an example of this. Homer had the whole mythos of the Odysseus⁶ to draw on for the Odyssey, yet only selected key events that connected to each other and centered on the key action: Odysseus’ journey home. To include anything else would dilute and confuse the plot.

The second half of the chapter is as follows:

“As, therefore, in the other imitative arts, the imitation is one when the object imitated is one, so the plot, being an imitation of an action, must imitate one action and that a whole, the structural union of the parts being such that, if any one of them is displaced or removed, the whole will be disjointed and disturbed. For a thing whose presence or absence makes no visible difference is not an organic part of the whole.” (Chapter VIII)

The structure of a plot should not contain anything that can be removed without a difference on the whole. A very erudite way to state what anyone who has seen a TV show in the past decade knows: CUT FILLER EPISODES. If it doesn’t affect the plot or mean anything to the plot, DROP IT. Your show, movie, book should be constructed such that any piece, if removed, disrupts the entire thing. This doesn’t mean it needs to be all action, action, action. Anyone who has seen a Ghibli film knows that downtime, contemplative slowness, can be essential for the story. What would Ghibli movies be without those moments of quiet between set pieces?

You know who I do need to call out here… One Piece heads… I’m sorry… But you would give Aristotle a heart attack if you told him how many episodes/chapters there are (and still going). That, or he would die on the spot from laughter.

Is it realistic, though?

“As in the structure of the plot, so too in the portraiture of character, the poet should always aim either at the necessary or the probable. Thus a person of a given character should speak or act in a given way, by the rule either of necessity or of probability, just as this event should follow that by necessary or probable sequence. It is therefore evident that the unravelling of the plot, no less than the complication, must arise out of the plot itself, it must not be brought about by the Deus ex Machina—as in the Medea, or in the Return of the Greeks in the Iliad. The Deus ex Machina should be employed only for events external to the drama—for antecedent or subsequent events, which lie beyond the range of human knowledge, and which require to be reported or foretold; for to the gods we ascribe the power of seeing all things. Within the action there must be nothing irrational. If the irrational cannot be excluded, it should be outside the scope of the tragedy.” (Chapter XV)

This is a common criticism of bad films heard today: “Things just happen.” “Nothing makes any sense.” “Nobody acts like a real person would.” “Things just happen and then it is over.” “It doesn’t matter because [RANDOM EVENT] happens at the end and fixes it all.”

How many times have you screamed, “Why are you splitting up?!” at your TV while characters do the most irrational and stupid thing possible in a horror movie?

When people act irrationally, we realize. It breaks immersion. Hard. Same goes for impossible or irrational sequences of events. The Deux ex Machina, the god who comes in and fixes everything, ruins a plot. Why? Because the events don’t follow what is probable or necessary. Things ‘just happen’ because the writer deemed it so to shove the story along.

This doesn’t mean that the poet should stray away from things that are unrealistic, fictitious, or impossible. Only that if you are going to write unrealistic things, the movement of the plot should still follow what is probable from that fictitious starting point. Similarly if you are going to have an inconsistent character, they should be consistently inconsistent.

This was a major criticism I heard and spoke of myself regarding the new Star Wars trilogy. In each of the new movies, the Force was able to do something completely new that just happened to conveniently get the characters out of trouble. In the original trilogy, the Force was mysterious and vague, but had general properties like telekinesis, precognition, heightened reflexes, connection to other creatures. In the new movies, people are teleporting items across the galaxy, swapping spaces, having psychic skype calls. A new problem arises and a new Force power appears to solve it. Lazy.

Summed up in a sentence:

“Accordingly, the poet should prefer probable impossibilities to improbable possibilities.” (Chapter XXIV)

Plot Holes and Inconsistency

“In constructing the plot and working it out with the proper diction, the poet should place the scene, as far as possible, before his eyes. In this way, seeing everything with the utmost vividness, as if he were a spectator of the action, he will discover what is in keeping with it, and be most unlikely to overlook inconsistencies. The need of such a rule is shown by the fault found in Carcinus. Amphiaraus was on his way from the temple. This fact escaped the observation of one who did not see the situation. On the stage, however, the piece failed, the audience being offended at the oversight.” (Chapter XVII)

This entry serves as practical writing tips for the aspiring poet: Place the world vividly in your mind, act things out, see all the action before you. Aristotle notes what happens when we forget to do this — we get plot holes.⁷ The playwright Carcinus makes a fatal error. One of the characters, Amphiaraus, exits a temple that he was never shown or told to have entered. Ermh, plot hole! WatchMojo Top Ten Plot Holes in Ancient Greek Theatre!

We remember from the last section, events in a plot must follow from probability and necessity. If your character just shows up places, teleporting around, you don’t have a proper plot.

In an age of CinemaSins and Nostalgia Critic, it can be easy to forget that not every nitpick is a valid criticism, at least not of the writers:

“Within the art of poetry itself there are two kinds of faults—those which touch its essence, and those which are accidental. If a poet has chosen to imitate something, through want of capacity, the errors inherent in the poetry. But if the failure is due to a wrong choice—if he has represented a horse as throwing out both his off legs at once, or introduced technical inaccuracies in medicine, for example, or in any other art—the error is not essential to the poetry. These are the points of view from which we should consider and answer the objections raised by the critics.” (Chapter XXV)

He continues later in the same chapter:

“Again, does the error touch the essentials of the poetic art, or some accident of it? For example, not to know that a hind has no horns is a less serious matter than to paint it inartistically.” (Chapter XXV)

To Aristotle, the critics pointing out trivial mistakes in the play (or movie, in our case) is not a fault of the poetic art. To be fair, it's different today in the information age. Not knowing how exactly a horse runs or what an elephant looks like is not as excusable as it might’ve once been. Though I believe the point still stands: Trivial mistakes in film, though fun to pick out, are not cinematic sins. The error of Carcinus remains a fault of the poet; the sequence of events do not follow each other. The whole of the dramatic art is the selection, arrangement, and unification of scenes.

However, even the irrational and inconsistent can be masked by extremely competent writing:

“Take even the irrational incidents in the Odyssey, where Odysseus is left upon the shore of Ithaca. How intolerable even these might have been would be apparent if an inferior poet were to treat the subject. As it is, the absurdity is veiled by the poetic charm with which the poet invests it.” (Chapter XXIV)

Aristotle’s love of Homer shines through again. (I haven’t read any Homer. Refer to Liam or Nick on if this guy deserves the hype.)⁸

Some absurdities only slip by in writing and cannot exist on stage or on screen:

“The irrational, on which the wonderful depends for its chief effects, has wider scope in Epic poetry, because there the person acting is not seen. Thus, the pursuit of Hector would be ludicrous if placed upon the stage—the Greeks standing still and not joining in the pursuit, and Achilles waving them back. But in the Epic poem the absurdity passes unnoticed.” (Chapter XXIV)

Epic poetry was normally read by a single actor, while other genres had multiple actors and sets. Since you aren’t seeing the action before your very eyes, you allow for more leniency in your suspension of disbelief. Avid readers know this all too well. In recent memory, I think of Alia from Dune. A two-year-old running around stabbing people and talking like an adult is frankly absurd and would have been impossible to seriously portray on the big screen. Villeneuve didn’t even bother to try. Even just the psychic fetus scenes were humourous enough. It's a shame too, because Alia was one of my favourite parts of the book.

At any point in converting a written text to a visual medium, it should be considered if it is even possible to adapt. And if it is, what are you losing in making it so?

Magnitude and Length

“Again, a beautiful object, whether it be a living organism or any whole composed of parts, must not only have an orderly arrangement of parts, but must also be of a certain magnitude; for beauty depends on magnitude and order. Hence a very small animal organism cannot be beautiful; for the view of it is confused, the object being seen in an almost imperceptible moment of time. Nor, again, can one of vast size be beautiful; for as the eye cannot take it all in at once, the unity and sense of the whole is lost for the spectator; as for instance if there were one a thousand miles long. As, therefore, in the case of animate bodies and organisms a certain magnitude is necessary, and a magnitude which may be easily embraced in one view; so in the plot, a certain length is necessary, and a length which can be easily embraced by the memory.” (Chapter VII)

During one’s first reading, it might seem a bit strange to hear Aristotle say that small and large things carry less beauty. Maybe it is just me, but I get what he is cooking here. Looking down at an ant doesn’t feel the same as viewing it through a magnifying glass or in a zoomed-in picture. Similarly, we are always standing on the planet, but the magnificence of Earth is only visible when we can view it all at once in a picture taken from space. In both cases the beauty is apparent when things are brought into a human magnitude. The same is for any art — including plays, movies, shows. You could make a movie that is a millisecond long. You could also make a movie that is 10,000,000,000 hours long. Neither of these will be as artistic as one with appropriate length.

So then, what is the appropriate length? Aristotle suggests a length that is “easily embraced by memory.” Couldn’t agree more. When movies are split into two or three parts, when TV seasons end on plot-inconclusive cliffhangers, you are forcing your audience to wait. To eventually forget. The majestic unified plot is shattered across time, diluted like “wine with too much water”.

“Of all plots and actions the epeisodic are the worst. I call a plot “epeisodic” in which the episodes or acts succeed one another without probable or necessary sequence. Bad poets compose such pieces by their own fault, good poets, to please the players; for, as they write show pieces for competition, they stretch the plot beyond its capacity and are often forced to break the natural continuity.” (Chapter IX)

The poets of today are no longer stretching plots to win competitions, but producers and screenwriters are stretching plots for profit. Nothing breaks the heart more than a great show that should have ended four seasons earlier. Nothing is stupider than a movie trilogy that should have been a single film. The Hobbit should have been one or two movies. The Boys should have been three seasons — it even could have been one. At least Arcane, which I remember for its own infuriating cliffhanger, has the decency to stop after the second season.

Women

“In respect of character, there are four things to be aimed at. First, and most important, it must be good. [...] This rule is relative to each class. Even a woman may be good, and also a slave; though the woman may be said to be an inferior being, and the slave quite worthless. The second thing to aim at is propriety. There is a type of manly valor, but valor in a woman, or unscrupulous cleverness, is inappropriate.” (Chapter XV)⁹

- Least sexist Greek man

Not only are women ‘worthless’ as moral characters, but clever and valorous women are inappropriate in drama. Yes, we’ve all heard the Petersonian complaints over and over. It’s upsetting, boring, and unfortunately nothing new.

I’ve even had a friend tell me that “Woke Hollywood keeps shoving manly women down our throats.”

Unfortunately, I think Aristotle would be in his camp.

Spectacle

“The Spectacle has, indeed, an emotional attraction of its own, but, of all the parts, it is the least artistic, and connected least with the art of poetry. For the power of Tragedy, we may be sure, is felt even apart from representation and actors. Besides, the production of spectacular effects depends more on the art of the stage machinist than on that of the poet.” (Chapter IV)

‘Spectacle’ referred to here is everything on stage. In ancient times, it would be costumes, masks, sets. For us it’s all that, and the extra effects that film gives us: CGI, editing tricks, camera movement and angles, green screens. Aristotle says all this is disconnected from the writer’s art. The feeling and power of the story should be felt regardless of the actors and effects used. It’s also noted that the spectacular effects aren’t the work of the writer, who should only focus on making a proper and coherent plot.

“Fear and pity may be aroused by spectacular means; but they may also result from the inner structure of the piece, which is the better way, and indicates a superior poet. For the plot ought to be so constructed that, even without the aid of the eye, he who hears the tale told will thrill with horror and melt to pity at what takes place. This is the impression we should receive from hearing the story of the Oedipus. But to produce this effect by the mere spectacle is a less artistic method, and dependent on extraneous aids.” (Chapter XIV)

Fear and pity, the chief emotions of the Tragic play, are said to be aroused both by the plot and by spectacle. The writing is key, though. The drama should be constructed that even just by reading it, you are moved to fear, pity, anger, joy. You can use extra aids, but a master of the art doesn’t need them. Personally when I think of fear aroused by spectacle, I think of the much maligned jump scare. Paranormal Activities and Five Nights at Freddy’s are not known as artistic pinnacles of the thriller/horror genre, even if they instill us with dread and fear. What we do remember and discuss in high esteem are the ‘slow-burn thrillers’ that ‘don’t even show anything but make your skin crawl’. Aristotle agrees, spectacle is cheap and easy. Superior poets don’t use it as a crutch.

“The element of the irrational, and, similarly, depravity of character, are justly censured when there is no inner necessity for introducing them. Such is the irrational element in the introduction of Aegeus by Euripides and the badness of Menelaus in the Orestes.” (Chapter XXV)

Perhaps not surprisingly, Aristotle would not have enjoyed the senseless gore present in much of modern horror. Displaying evil for evil’s sake and violence just for shock is not the purpose of the arts. One should not remove them, merely ‘censure’ the acts (allude to or obscure them off screen). If your story depends on gore, shock, and brutality, it is weak and cannot stand on its own. Again, using spectacle as a crutch.

Though in defense of Freddy, Chica, and co, I don’t think fans of horror games and movies place high importance on the ‘beauty of plot’. Scott Cawthon wasn’t attempting to create a poetic experience, but an interactive one where you are a participant. Sometimes it's just fun to spike your own adrenaline in a safe environment.¹⁰

End Credits

All in all, Poetics provides unique and compelling insight into the art of storytelling. Keep your story unified and consistent. Keep the parts and episodes at an appropriate length. If you can remove a part without it affecting the rest of the story, do it. Write a screenplay so good that it doesn’t even need to be put on the screen to move you. The major issues with a play or movie begin far before costumes, sets, CGI, and effects. A good plot is a work of art in itself; it shines on its own merit.

My own speculation here, but I don’t think we live in a unique age of slop media. Every year in Ancient Greece, dozens of plays were put on during the Dionysa festivals, many of which feature the same gods, demigods, heroes, and stories seen countless times before. When Aristotle warns us that simply writing Heracleid or Theseid doesn’t guarantee a good plot, I’d bet he’s thinking of all the shitters he sat through . For every Sophocles’ Oedipus Rex, there are a hundred more that didn’t survive because they stunk. But they didn't have to! We humans are, by nature, imitative. We are all born to make art! And good art at that!

If any of this interests you, I’d highly recommend to give Poetics a read. You can crush it in a lazy afternoon (as I did). Though outdated in places, it speaks to a deep part in all of us — the part that knows a movie, book, or play is bad, even when we can’t seem to express why. Though we may never have an exact science of art and human condition, I admire all attempts to explain it.

But this leaves one question still unanswered before we head back to the Time Travel Facility.

So? Did Aristotle like our trip to the Cineplex?

Well, I don’t know. I haven’t had a chance to ask. He’s still in the washroom marveling at the automatic flushing urinals.

With the summer heat now upon us, It’s always a good reminder to — Stay frosty, Noah

Sources for this article: I read Butcher’s translation of Poetics with an introductory essay by Francis Ferguson. This is the source of all the quotations. I read Whalley’s translation of Poetics, who turns out to have been a professor at Queen’s! Cha Gheill! The added commentary there helped me to understand some of the chewier parts. I also read Oedipus Rex, since it is referenced quite often as Aristotle’s favourite tragedy. Pretty good stuff.