The 3-Act Paradigm at Work: Five Easy Pieces

written by Carole Eastman and Bob Rafelson


Five Easy Pieces is primarily a dark character study. As such, many of its effects are subtle and more low key than many movies being made today.

Structural Analysis

  1. Hook (7 min.)
    • A slow build, revealing that Bobby/Robert, an oil field worker (and, we learn later, concert pianist) is unhappy with is country-fan girl friend.
  2. Complication (18 min.)
    • Bobby revisits his classical piano training in a comic way, caught in a traffic jam behiind a truck carrying an old piano. He hops aboard and starts playing, missing his ride to the oil fields.
  3. Call to Action (23-4 min.)
    • Learning his girl is pregnant, Bobby fights with his best friend in the fields and quits his job.
  4. Act One Plot Point (32-3 min.)
    • Visiting his sister, Bobby learns his father is very ill -- it's time to visit home. He takes his girl but leaves her in a motel.
  5. Midpoint Plot Point (54 min.)
    • His father is so ill he doesn't recognize him. They can't settle their past differences.
  6. Act Two Plot Point (84-9 min.)
    • Bobby seduces a married woman at his home and falls for her - but she finally rejects him. He apologizes to his father for the life he's been living, even though the father probably can't hear him. He cries.
  7. Climax and Resolution (92-6 min.)
    • At a gas station, Bobby gives his girlfriend his wallet to buy something in the convenience store. He goes to the john. He comes out and hops a truck, leaving her behind, heading alone into an uncertain future.

Notes

Comic scenes keep this from getting as bleak as it could be. In a classic scene, Bobby tries to order something not on the menu ("no substitutions") in a cafe. In another, a hitchhiker has a monologue about how everything is crap.

Five Easy Pieces starts slowly but builds into a gripping character study, although this approach might be harder to sell today than it was thirty years ago.


MODULE 4: SCREENWRIGHT: the craft of screenwriting

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