Conflict for Screenwriters: Person vs. Situation — Inside Llewyn Davis

Conflict for Screenwriters: Person vs. Situation — Case Study: Inside Llewyn Davis

Introduction 

Conflict is necessary to any good scene.

Understandably, in a world undergoing fascist collapse, “conflict” isn’t the prettiest word in the dictionary, but hear me out. 

A better way to think about this, perhaps, is that for nearly any scene, there will be two conflicting parties, each with its own agenda. 

(Of course there are exceptions to this heuristic, but they are vanishingly few. A Mexican standoff, or “a Freedom standoff,” as those in the fatherland might know it, is a situation where three or more parties achieve a stalemate–with disastrous consequences to everyone should one person succeed. By definition, of course, this is more than two conflicting parties.)

There needs to be something that a conflict is over. Something that a struggle is about. In essence, what we’re after now is stakes. There has to be a reason that someone will win or lose something. 

Whatever is competing against the protagonist of the scene will almost always enter with the upper hand–or soon gain it. Then it’s a contest to see who ultimately comes out on top. The rest of the scene is simply watching this situation play out.

Nevertheless, an entertaining scene will of course need to have enough back-and-forth to keep things interesting–otherwise, you might as well be bringing a thermonuclear weapon to a knife fight.

And, just like a cat watching tennis, we are entertained by watching this ball metaphorically get shot back and forth across the court. 

Situations With More Than Two People — Conflict for Screenwriters

Now two conflicting parties, of course, does not mean that we have to have only two people. Far from it. There are often cases where tables full of people are arguing, but for all intents and purposes, there will be forces that align with one side or the other.

An excellent example of this is Festen (The Celebration, 1998), where many scenes involve Christian and the small band of people who believe his claims versus the forty other party guests who, knowing no better, side with his father.

Another situation would be our previous example of the apartment scene in Pulp Fiction. There are obviously five people in the scene: Marvin, Flock of Seagulls, Brett, Jules, and Vincent. Obviously have Jules and Vincent on one side of the conflict and the three unfortunate boys on the other side.

So conflict is better thought of as, perhaps, a tug-of-war. Make it Squid Game style if you want to raise the stakes: imagine teams that could be one person per side or multiple people per side on each side of the pit. Both are trying to pull each other into the pit, and by the end of the scene, one person has to end in the pit.

Raising the Stakes

Conflict is simple. 

Now the thing is, all narrative scenes have some sort of conflict. If they don’t, you basically end up with Andy Warhol eating Burger King. Just remember: narrative cinema is not mukbang. Yet. 

What’s tricky about conflict is to raise the stakes. 

That means that we need to position the different conflicting parties in such a way that we can get the maximum entertainment out of the struggle they’re experiencing in a given scene. 

This obviously doesn’t mean that everything in the scene needs to be life-or-death stakes, but it does mean that at least one party–but usually both–needs to be engaged with the situation. An exception would be a situation where the other party’s boredom or indifference is in fact the source of the conflict.

The key point for us, then, is to figure out how we need to position parties in the scene to create the most compelling mini-arc of conflict possible. 

Without further ado, let’s look at three examples and explain how the conflict in each scene works: 

Example 2: Person vs. Situation 

A person vs. situation scene can again be a pure action scene where we don’t learn a lot about a character. Take for example the subway chase in The French Connection. All we really learn about Popeye Doyle has relatively little concern for other people’s property. 

(Then again, the man dresses like Santa Claus to beat the shit out of people and uses his badge to pick up inappropriately young cyclists, so this isn’t exactly a revelation.)

Rather, the core of this sort of scene is a situation where we have a character who is against an impersonal force. A gatekeeper, if you will. Someone has something, but won’t give it to your character. 

Consider the voiceover in Fear and Loathing in Las Vegas where Duke’s VO dissects the interplay between the gay concierge and the buzzcut rural sheriff. What we’re looking for is a situation where our protagonist is the sheriff who’s being toyed with “just because.” 

Here’s a good example from Inside Llewyn Davis (2013): 

1. Introduction: Grossman asks Llewyn to play something from his album. 
2. Inciting Incident: they walk on to the club floor. Llewyn sits down and tunes his guitar.
3. Llewyn looks at Grossman. Grossman simply stares back. Llewyn begins singing, staring at the ground.
4. The camera dollies in to Grossman, who watches intently. 
5. Llewyn looks up to make eye contact. He sees Grossman is interested. More confident, he keeps the eye contact.
6. Llewyn stops the guitar, singing the final lines a capella as a flourish. He maintains eye contact with Grossman.
7. Grossman keeps staring at Llewyn, perhaps moved but not smiling.
8. Grossman tells Llewyn “I don’t see a lot of money here.” 

This short scene packs a huge punch. It’s subtle enough to make it more difficult to tease out the individual beats than the previous example from Silence of the Lambs. 

Nevertheless, it brings across at least three major points of the film. These are the lessons in conflict for screenwriters.

First, it demonstrates Llewyn doing what Llewyn does best: being a folk singer. Part of the joke here is that he’s actually remarkably talented (credit to Oscar Isaac, who actually performed these songs). Unlike a lot of Coen brothers films that feature incompetent people in serious situations, Llewyn Davis is almost the reverse: a competent person in an incompetent situation. 

Essentially, as we see from the outcome, Llewyn might be good at what he does, but raw talent isn’t going to get you anywhere in this world. Particularly a world where the market is aligned with what you’re offering. Essentially, this is a potential big break for Llewyn. This guy is a major promoter who can change his life with just a “yes.” 

It’s not like Llewyn shits the bed. The reverse, rather. He plays well. He is nervous as he starts but gains confidence and finishes with a flourish. He gets enough from Grossman to sense that Grossman appreciates it–which we’re led to believe he does, despite the outcome. 

In essence, this shows the theme: “Talent gets you nowhere if you can’t live in the real world.” Llewyn is doing everything he knows how to do and doing it well. It’s the world that’s geared against him; how Llewyn chooses to deal with this is the journey of the wider film. This scene is a potent microcosm of just that problem. 

Second, on that point, Grossman is, metaphorically, not just one man. Grossman is the embodiment of the wider world. Grossman is every person who won’t give Llewyn a break. Llewyn’s talent might open doors–remember, he’s really good–but it won’t get him very far in a world where no one makes money off of folk music. 

We’re seeing the entire problem distilled into one character. This is specifically why the Grossman scene comes at the middle: he’s traveled all the way from New York to Chicago, cat in hand, for just this opportunity. He does his best, but the world simply isn’t ready to appreciate him. This gives the audience a direct sense of Llewyn’s struggle in a way that we haven’t seen before–basically, up until now, it has been mostly dealing with the minor petty struggles of his life slumming around Greenwich Village. 

Third, note how many of the beats here are based on the actors’ facial expressions and unspoken cues. We see Grossman trying to stay stony-faced yet demonstrably being engaged. When Llewyn tests eye contact with Grossman, Grossman doesn’t shift his eyes. We see that they have developed a connection. This basically all seems positive. It makes sense that Llewyn would continue the eye contact and end with a flourish. Grossman had the upper hand throughout, but Llewyn–or so he and we believe–gains it throughout the second half of the scene.

Remember, film is a visual medium. Scenes of conflict, particularly, benefit from visual and social cues to show us who has the upper hand. Think about what the conflict is: in this case, Llewyn’s talent vs. how little the world cares about such his skills. Think about how you can map this conflict in a microcosm, e.g. Llewyn playing his ass off and the world shrugging because his skills won’t make the world money. 

Here’s the lesson in conflict for screenwriters

Make no mistake that we’re led to believe this is going well–and, in some sense, it is. Then the figurative (not literal) punch in the face. Even with a surface read, this seems disappointing. However when viewed through the lens of theme, it’s heartbreaking.