There’s a rule of thumb about screenwriting that I’ve been told on more than one occasion, and it’s that scenes are supposed to accomplish two things simultaneously. They have to 1) move the plot along, while also 2) deeping our emotional understanding of the characters. To be simplistic about it, the relative success or failure of a scene can be traced back to how well the writer is managing to do this without being caught. The best stories will always appear to take their foot off the gas, because competent writing is aware that wandering has a function and that any real meaning won’t be able to read an exit sign.
Which is why I don’t think there’s anything more accomplished and more enjoyable than a party scene — and this part is crucial — where nothing much goes wrong. Often, party scenes are utilized as a means of getting a bunch of people who shouldn’t be in the same room, in the same room. Those kinds of parties are how people discover cheaters, how heirlooms get smashed, teenagers get caught, and how Carrie runs into Big. Those parties are climactic.
Parties where nothing in particular happens are usually interstitial to the climactic scenes and rather than pressure cook, they allow the story to percolate. We don’t follow any particular character or timeline; rather, we wander and overhear conversations, there are musical interludes, people get a little drunk and talk about money or marriage or work. The plot proper has not been abandoned, it’s just allowing itself to breathe.
Because isn’t it true of life that meaning comes through most starkly in moments when we don’t think we’re being watched? How often have you been listening to someone describe an interaction they had with a cashier and realized, through their own retelling, that they have a bad relationship with their father? It’s the Eureka principle: the trivial and the distracted is also a vehicle for the profound. The director who has mastered this is far and away Robert Altman with his signature overlapping dialogue. Other standouts are the parties in Postcards from the Edge, and the cocktail party scene in Ordinary People. Honorable mention goes to Whit Stillman, but I find that his movies are mostly only about people saying boring things in nice rooms so I’m not sure they count.
This week is a pretty major one astrologically, and it’s all in the tune of Gemini. The sun moves into Gemini on Monday and is followed by a double-whammy Venus ingress into Gemini / a full moon in Sagittarius on Wednesday. In the big finale, Jupiter will move from Taurus to Gemini on Saturday the 25th. Gemini is a livelier, more surface-level energy than we’ve become used to after a month of Everything Being in Taurus. The level of Gemini happens eye-to-eye and mouth-to-ear, in a raised eyebrow or a wink across a living room. It’s light, exciting, fast, flirty, and as this frequency picks up and everything becomes less grounded and more social we might begin to feel unmoored, maybe even slightly frustrated. It’s easy to mistake the chit chat of Gemini for idle gossip, but the plot continues even and especially while we’re talking about nothing at the cocktail party.
A quick reminder that I am currently open for consultations, and if you subscribe to this Substack you can take 20% off with the code HST20. Link to book is here.
NOTES FOR THE WEEK:
Monday, May 20
Indecision is afflicted, ironically, by a sense of certainty. Flirtation gives way to suspicion without the ability to act on either impulse. The best way forward would be to pause and watch the passing animals, or traffic, and see if anything triggers a response. Don’t act on it now (because nothing will come of it), but write it down and save it for later.
Tuesday, May 21
On one hand, it’s mean spirited but it’s true. On the other, it’s incredibly generous and beautiful and it’s lying. Hunches need evidence, and you have both in the form of multiple different hunches from different perspectives and one authority figure. That, it turns out, is enough for a case.
Wednesday, May 22
Opportunities for true profundity and insight. Not physically comfortable — not at all, actually; stomach issues, even — but intellectually stimulating and climactic.
Thursday, May 23
Full Moon in Sagittarius. My clown teacher (hi Zach) used to tell my class this beautiful anecdote that I won’t attempt to fully re-tell here because I’m sure I’ll butcher it, but the message was approximately this: once you’ve discovered something good onstage, it doesn’t make sense to spend time worrying about what to ‘do’ with it or whether or not the spark of that thing will come back. The best you can do is let it go and trust that it will. And if it doesn’t, something else is coming.
Friday, May 24
Scattered instincts being held up by the universe’s desire for us to remain realistic and remember our past failures. The day we almost made that old mistake again, but didn’t.
Saturday, May 25
Jupiter moves into Gemini. A shift that affirms we’re out of the planning stages and can now begin theorizing. Even less faith in our institutions than we thought possible.
Sunday, May 26
An opportunity isn’t worth all that much if you weren’t prepared for it when it came along. It’s frustrating, but you know it isn’t time yet. Slow and steady etc; enjoy the balmy breeze of everyone running past you at full tilt.