Film Courage: What is a midpoint reversal? Chapman University Professor (Dodge College) and Author Paul Joseph Gulino: A midpoint reversal that is you'll see and we're
talking classically constructed works but often what you see is this let's say
it's a dramatic piece you're using dramatic tension so them under the first
act is you have main character wants the the money that they're owed and the end
of the second act you're going to get some kind of resolution of that if if
you go with the idea that the they're going to get it in the end
the resolution of the movie and forget it the end of the second act is often
the point where it doesn't look like they're going to get it okay the
midpoint is usually the mirror opposite looks like they are going to get it it's
just a game of contrasts that the character tries different things and you
see possible glimpses of outcome now you get a lien on Toy Story this is a moment
when there a pizza planet and it looks like they're gonna get home because okay
we're gonna jump in this stroller and we're out of here
and that's the closest thing yet it looks like that could be it and then
though the movies gonna be over and then that's exactly the moment when it goes
the other way and he gets caught by Sid and they wind up in this horrible
torture chamber so dad that's that's an example but it's
a an opportunity to give us a glimpse of how that what the ending could be like
sometimes it's like if it's a tragedy it could be the high point you know in
classic drama like 19th century that would be the point where the first half
is character of doing stuff the second half of the play is stuff happening to
the character whatever they started doing starts coming back on them in a
tragedy it could be the high point is the high point you know the mid point is
the high point it's the place where in going back to Cuckoo's Nest it there
looks like he says I'm out of here in 98 days I've succeeded I know don't have to
go back to the prison and so it looks like he won okay that's his objective is
I don't want to work and I want to go back to prison and then he finds out no
yours here forever now you're not in prison anymore you're here forever and
that changes the dynamics so oh and Sunset Boulevard he he makes a
decision I'm leaving I'm leaving her he gets trapped in this life with this
woman at this mansion is he's totally dependent on her he finally makes a
decision I'm leaving I can't stand this anymore and he goes out and leaves this
mansion and he goes to a party with all his friends and he's having a good time
and what happens he gets a call and it's the woman that he was with has tried to
commit suicide now he's got to go back so he gets we get this moment where of a
possible outcome he's gonna he gets away and then it goes down it's a tragedy so
that's the high point and it travels down it's it's just mid points an
opportunity to use contrast in cinema contrast works we if the outcome is
positive it could be if the second act and the second act is negative it could
be positive vice-versa tragedy it works a different way some people use it as
when they have the idea of the second act being broken in two or back three
and four and then wait two and three is in the middle it could be a place where
tension changes and if you're observing sequences that's the point where you'll
have a break between two sequences but it's certainly a place when you're
developing a story to look for the possibilities of how the story could
plausibly end and then you're in your god you can make it not end there but
look at what the possibilities are you could also use it as a break point where
you can make a whole new movie this is a shop around the corner we're in the
midpoint I told you the story neither character knows
they're in love with the other they think they hate each other but they're
in love with somebody else and it's a midpoint one of them figures it out so
the first part of the story is people in a shop the second part of the story is
people in a shop two of them are in love and they don't know it okay
the next story we see that's two stories the next story we see is that same
situation but one of them does know now what happens and then finally the
ending is both know so it's a way okay you've got this premise how are you
gonna explore all the different ways that it could they could go and all the
scenes you could come get out of it the apartment Billy Wilder is just it's
worth looking at all his movies because he's a new hot it's a textbook of
screenwriting but the apartment is the the middle of the story it's again a
suicide attempt where this person is pursuing this woman
and is very upset because he finds out she's somebody else and then the second
half of that second act is about nurturing that woman back to health
after a suicide attempt so it it's a situation that we get a glimpse of his
life without her in the middle and then end of the second act we get a glimpse
of him with success without her and then the third act is the resolution is he
gets her but he doesn't have the job so it's three very contrasting moments but
again midpoint some people will say Act one then act to a and act to be divided
it that way and you have kind of a subtle change in the what the tension is
in the subject matter in the two halves second act so midpoint oh so midpoint
reversal it depends it could be depending on how you redefine it if it's
Toy Story the reversal is that he winds up at SIDS house that's right in the
middle of the story rather than it's a reversal from what his hope is
reversal of fortune that kind of thing so
you