A Beautiful Mind is told in such a way that
we are reminded that dramatic structure is about the order of events presented
to the audience -- because we learn that much of the first half of the story
is an hallucination! Clear and strong structure nonetheless.
Structural Analysis
Hook
Young math grad students at Princeton are challenged to use their
brains in the fight against the Soviet Union in the early Cold War.
Complication
John Nash is a social misfit obsessed with finding an original idea for
his thesis.
Call to Action
He gets his original idea, to prove Adam Smith wrong, and writes a
brilliant, orginal thesis.
Act One Plot Point
His genius gets him secret work as a code breaker for the Department
of Defense.
Midpoint Plot Point
As the secret work becomes more dangerous than he anticipated, Nash gets
more paranoid and erratic in behavior -- until he finally is institutionalized.
There we learn that the story above is his hallucination -- there is no
spy work for the Defense Dept! The characters we've seen are figments of his
imagination.
Act Two Plot Point
Back home, he stops taking meds and the hallucinations escalate until
his wife is about to leave him and he is about to be re-institutionalized
as soon as she signs the papers.
Climax and Resolution
Nash convinces his wife not to sign so he can "cure himself" and he
learns to live with his hallucinations. He goes on the win the Nobel Prize.
Notes
A Beautiful Mind shocks us with his midpoint twist because we experience
the hallucinations as real, just as Nash does. A nice touch.
MODULE 4: SCREENWRIGHT: the craft of screenwriting