As a long-time fan of Robert McKee’s book Story and having attended one of his weekend seminars, I’ve admired his analysis of the film Ordinary People, feeling as though he’s one of the few to identify and articulate the roles of the central and subplot – but admittedly always felt something wasn’t quite right with regards to his reading of the inciting incident. After re-reading the passages lately and re-watching the film, I think I’ve found where my issues reside, and the resulting piece is an attempt to provide some more profound understanding.
“The INCITING INCIDENT radically upsets the balance of forces in the protagonist’s life.” — Robert McKee, from his book Story (New York, NY: HarperCollins) p. 189
The Inciting Incident Of Ordinary People Is Up For Debate. Here’s Why.
Every story has to start somewhere. We’re onlookers, peering into the lives of individuals who have complete lives and stories before we happen upon them—and it’s only a matter of time before something happens to drive the story forward. As any author should know, there’s a reason we choose to start a story where we do, and it’s almost always on the cusp of something happening, as McKee states, that radically upsets the balance of forces in the protagonist’s life.
Some liken that event, the story’s inciting incident, to the moment we go from the frying pan into the fire. This is often readily apparent to the audience because of the shift in focus to rising complications (the recent Dawn of the Planet of the Apes is a good example, wherein one of the simians, Ash, is shot by a human, upsetting the balance between species who struggle to deal with the consequences for the remainder of the film).
But there are some films in which the incident is deliberately misleading, such as A Beautiful Mind, which is completely misinterpreted, or Ordinary People, which is unassuming and subtle to the extent that it’s often misidentified.
As the film opens, we’re introduced to Conrad Jarrett singing in a high school choir; his behavior suggests that all is not right with a blank stare straight ahead between quick glances at the lyrics before suddenly awakening sweaty from a nightmare with bursts of short breaths. Meanwhile, Conrad’s parents, Beth and Calvin, enjoy a night out watching a play that cleverly hints at the central plot’s problem via dialogue on stage:
Husband (re: coffee): “Two lumps?”
Wife: “No, one.”
Husband: “So I don’t know everything about you. I don’t know who your favorite movie stars are, and I can’t remember the name of your favorite perfume. I’ve racked my brain and I can’t remember.”
Wife: “It’s funny. It’s ‘My Sin’.”
Husband: “But I do know for the last twenty-four years, I’ve never been out of love with you.”
These scenes, accompanied by the montage of tranquil scenes set to Pachelbel’s Canon in D major, provide the calm before the storm that takes its time building up before unleashing its devastating effects. But as McKee notes, we’re actually in between storms, both literally and metaphorically, as the events to the story’s subplot have taken place before the start of the film:
“ORDINARY PEOPLE carries a central plot and a subplot that are often mistaken for each other because of their unconventional design. Conrad is the protagonist of the film’s subplot with an Inciting Incident that takes the life of his older brother during a storm at sea.” Ibid., p. 204.
McKee does an excellent job delineating the subplot from the central plot. While some may decry the subplot’s inciting incident before the movie, it is fully realized in the present tense as part of Conrad’s nightmares via a flashback. Though we’re not given the full details of what happened, its placement gives us all the context and the precipice to jolt Conrad into taking action (seeing Dr. Berger).
“The central plot is driven by Conrad’s father, Calvin. Although seemingly passive, he is by definition the protagonist: the empathetic character with the will and capacity to pursue desire to the end of the line.” Ibid., p. 204.
Sounds good to me. So, where does McKee place the inciting incident for the central plot?
“Beth puts a plate of French toast under her son’s face. He refuses to eat. She snatches the plate away, marches to the sink, and scrapes his breakfast down a garbage disposal, muttering: ‘You can’t keep French toast.’
Director Robert Redford’s camera cuts to the father as the man’s life crashes. Calvin instantly senses that the hatred is back with a vengeance. Behind it hides something fearful. This chilling event grips the audience with dread as it reacts, thinking: ‘Look what she just did to her child! He’s just home from the hospital and she’s doing this number on him.” Ibid., p. 205.
This is where I feel McKee goes slightly amiss, taking liberties by stating Beth “hates” Conrad and that Calvin instantly senses it. He then applies a posteriori knowledge to these early events, prescribing it to the audience’s reception when, in actuality, the audience isn’t yet aware Conrad has made a suicide attempt, nor are they privy to his return from the hospital.
The characters are obviously very well aware of their backstories; thus, how they act/react to one another gives us, the audience, a sense of what lies beneath their somewhat “ordinary” appearances. Likewise, Calvin’s reaction to Beth’s trashing the French toast is incredulity and shock – not the subjective reading of one’s world crashing McKee offers. Still, it does provide an impetus for the audience to further clues into the issues bubbling under the surface.
When Conrad bemoans later that Beth hates him, Calvin defends her, and Beth herself adamantly denies the perception by screaming, “Mothers don’t hate their sons!” during a confrontation on the golf course. McKee takes further liberties, going so far as to say she wanted only one child and has always hated Conrad and that he’s always felt it.
Whether or not McKee derived some of this from reading the novel the film is based on, I’m not sure, as I haven’t read it myself, but nowhere in the movie are these assumptions even remotely inferred. Instead, they seem more like speculations on the backstory to justify the importance of Beth’s trashing the French toast and giving the event more gravitas than it deserved.
While it’s clear Beth doesn’t love Conrad in the same manner she loved her firstborn, Bucky, the absence of love doesn’t necessarily equate to the hate that McKee invokes in his analysis. The fact is, Calvin, as he later admits to Dr. Berger in his own private therapy session, knew something was wrong before Conrad’s suicide attempt—he just couldn’t, or didn’t want to, put his finger on it.
Only through the exploration of Conrad’s storyline and Calvin’s bearing witness to it can Calvin better understand where the problem truly resides as he tries to keep his family from further turmoil. As he alludes to Bucky’s death in the climactic speech, “We would have been alright if there hadn’t been any mess.“
Does that mean McKee misinterprets the central plot’s inciting incident? No, not necessarily. A story’s analysis isn’t based on audience reception; instead, it’s done once all the empirical data/evidence is reviewed (e.g., the film) – but at the same time, neither should it be based on liberties taken from a subjective reading/interpretation that makes assumptions and draws conclusions.
Could McKee’s rationale have been better postulated?
Yes, by an objective approach to events on the screen – and surprisingly, McKee offers a remedy for this early on in his discussion without actually applying it. As McKee states, an inciting incident occasionally requires two steps: a setup and a payoff.
Fortunately, this one-two punch can be seen objectively in both Ordinary People‘s inciting incident and climax (or, as McKee states, “obligatory scene,” the event the audience expects to happen before the story can finish as a direct result of the inciting incident itself).
By using the French toast scene as a payoff to the preceding scene’s set-up, we get an immediate answer to the question it poses. Otherwise, the Toast Down the Drain lacks the gravitas it needs to propel the story forward because it’s merely an act without context, and that’s exactly what the set-up does (provides context).
The Inciting Incident Set Up:
Upon returning home from the play sequence, which hints at this family’s “ordinary lives,” Calvin climbs the staircase and notices something amiss.
Conrad’s awake in his bedroom with the light on after waking from his nightmare. As we’ll later find out, Conrad has recently returned home from a stint at the hospital after a suicide attempt. Though this backstory is not readily apparent to us, the audience, the light being on has enough significance to Calvin to warrant his concern and force action (he checks on Conor). This setup of shot-POV-reaction gives us insight into Calvin as we sense his concern in what otherwise may seem a relatively innocuous scene.
Simply put, it’s there for a reason.
However, the bedroom light is not the only thing that catches Calvin’s attention.
Beth walked right by Conrad’s door without so much as a glance. The reasons for this are unknown to the audience, just as we’re unsure of Calvin’s concern—all of which stem from the backstory.
Perplexed, Calvin’s more of a deliberation type rather than one who takes action. As such, he’s left to ponder his thoughts, but his reaction is enough to clue the audience to the waters, which are not relatively as calm as he perceived them.
The scene alerts the audience to the possibility of conflict. The sequencing of shots and reaction shots tells us something’s not right. The trashing of the French toast in the following scene is a dramatic event that validates Calvin’s suspicion that everything is incorrect. But rather than “the man’s life crashes,” as McKee suggested, Calvin reacts incredulously—much like a man who doesn’t quite understand the problem yet but has just witnessed its symptoms manifest into problematic behaviors.
The central plot climax—the obligatory scene connected to the inciting incident—is the final confrontation between Beth and Calvin.
This scene provides Calvin with a moment of truth. It shouldn’t be surprising that it occurs when the central and subplots intersect with the three principles. This is where the resolution to Conrad’s subplot occurs, but it happens so that it harkens back to the inciting incident setup.
(HINT: follow Calvin’s eyes as he deliberates in both scenes. It’s also worth mentioning that each payoff happens in the exact location: the kitchen, the inciting incident during the sunlit morning, and the emotional climax during the dark hours of the night).
Conrad’s subplot effectively ends when he’s able to give his mother a hug.
The action provides a successful end to Conrad’s plight, but…
As Calvin views it, Beth’s reaction answers the question that her earlier action of passing by Conrad’s door and subsequent trashing of his French toast provoked.
Beth turns her head, unable to bear what happened, revealing her truth.
Calvin’s ultimate realization mirrors the downward, contemplative glance from when Beth walked by Conrad’s door—except this time, he knows where this is going. The subsequent scene is the emotional climax of the central plot.
By using McKee’s suggested approach of a set-up/pay-off for the inciting incident, we’re given a more robust, objective reading of events: the set-up poses the question to the audience (via Calvin’s perspective), and the pay-off answers it—still in a very subtle way—without a need to prescribe all sorts of subjective readings that aren’t part of the actual story.
5 Responses
So the issue is not that McKee was wrong about his choice of an inciting incident; it’s that he chose it for the wrong reasons (stuff that wasn’t shown on screen). Did I get that right?
Short answer, yes, though I think the scene he references really needs the preceding one to give it context (and that’s what he was attempting to do by taking a lot of liberties with his subjective reading.)
That can be hard for some people to do when analyzing a film/script, but really we have to draw conclusions based on what’s seen and said, not “implied” or “inferred” unless there’s concrete evidence otherwise.
Ultimately it works better using his own approach of having a set up and pay off because the scene prior gives the following scene more context.
There is some debate as to whether the Inciting Incident for Conrad’s subplot is his decision to visit Dr. Berger, but really what provokes that are the nightmares of his brother’s drowning (which come to full explanation at the subplot’s climax in the Dr.’s office when the entire flashback is finally revealed.)
Couldn’t have said it better myself. I’m probably in the camp of people that say Conrad’s inciting incident would be the nightmare. An inciting incident is something that happens to the character in question. A decision to visit the doctor is a choice, not an event.
Right – it’s a decision but what precipitates and drives it? There’s an entire sequence where we see a detached Conrad aloof amongst his peers, eating alone on the bleachers, etc. But it’s the nightmare and his visceral reaction to it that clue us into the problem. All the other stuff in between are just symptoms dramatized.