Art of Dramatic Writing is one of the most important books in Screenwriting. Even though it is popularly known for writing drama in a play. It is written by Lajos Egri, who has structurally explained various elements of drama and the correlation between them. However, in this blog, I am going to explore only three concepts from the book with respect to one film – Tumbbad written by Mitesh Shah, Adesh Prasad, Rahi Anil Barve, and Anand Gandhi. Tumbbad is one of the markers in contemporary cinema that reshaped the popular understanding of genre - horror.
The concepts picked from the books are -
(a) Premise;
(b) The bone structure; and
(c) Static Conflict.
(a) Premise
In this book, the premise refers to what we otherwise call a theme. Hence, we shall refer theme as a premise in the entirety of this analysis. The premise is a guiding tool for the writer. If we investigate Tumbbad, the premise should be – Losing control over greed leads to self-destruction.
Once the premise is set, the writer can begin writing their story. Now, while writing we often tend to steer away from our exact thought. It is not a bad thing, but losing control of the story leads to expansions and event creations which may not be necessary for the narrative. However, this could be avoided if the writer is set to achieve the premise. They can always go back to their premise which acts as torch bearer. How? See, it can be broken into three parts – a character with no control over his greed (Losing control over greed...), a dramatic conflict (…leads to…), and the end of the character (…self-destruction).
The story of Tumbbad precisely follows this path of the premise. The protagonist is Vinayak, whose story begins as a kid. At an early stage, we begin to see greed in him. A scene when his grandmother begins to lure him for treasure makes him forget the spell, “so ja verna Hastar aa jayega”. This almost leads to his death.
The whole story is highly dependent on the premise which is set by the writer. Tumbbad excels beautifully in this aspect because, in each sequence of the film, one can point out the premise layered under the ongoing conflict. The protagonist’s friend Raghav too has the same quality as the protagonist himself, greed. Raghav is a money lender who is awaiting an opium permit. He wants it badly because it will make him richer. Now greed may be a quality that all of us have, so how can one say Raghav’s greed is uncontrollable? If you look closely at the montage where Vinayak is bringing the gold coins to Raghav, there is the first sign of Raghav’s greed. He advises Vinayak to bring all the gold at once, but Vinayak does it, he is unable to pay for it; and succumbs to debt.
In the later parts of the story, Vinayak’s son displays the same velocity of greed. He suggests the protagonist steal the whole pouch of Hastar, rather than picking at it. As the story of Tumbbad progresses through three different generations, it does not fail to remind us of the premise through and through. This only happens because the writers truly believe in the premise. Lajos Egri tells us that a lot of stories fail even after they have constructed a premise and followed it. Why? The reason for this is a lack of conviction. The writers must have conviction in the premise that they choose. A premise can say ‘the act of sharing leads to more wealth’. Does it though? Audiences may have faced situations in life where they have lost wealth because of sharing. However, the premise is not picked by any of those people. If the writer who picks this premise, chooses a side and tells the story with absolute conviction, then people will enjoy the story and when done with precision, even remember it.
Tumbbad falls in the latter. The writers tell the story with conviction, and it does make the viewer believe that losing control over greed does in fact lead to self-destruction.
(b) The Bone Structure
This concept is dedicated to the structure of a character. The book believes that the character is a combination of three dimensions, physiology, sociology, and psychology. How a character behaves, reacts, and counteracts a conflict in a story is simply a result of the three dimensions.
The story of Tumbbad has a strong requirement for the protagonist to be physically athletic because of the plot. We will slowly get to the why of it. When we begin the story with a young protagonist, he is projected as a thin and meek boy. When the grandmother awakens and drags him to her room in chains, we see him struggling to defend himself. Before this action, he was willing to find out where the treasure is hidden but upon looking at the disfigured body and size of his grandmother, he retreats.
This contrasts with the scene where he returns to the same house as a fully grown adult. He has a good build and posture, and a face gleaming with confidence. The thin-scared boy who feared the disfigured grandmother is no more there. He seems more prepared to defend himself as an adult. Even when he meets his grandmother who is even more disfigured than the last time he saw her, his reaction is a loud laughter. Confidence! When the story finally reveals the source of the gold and what Vinayak goes through to collect it, it establishes that his fitness must be to the level of an athlete. Hence, as mentioned in the beginning, it is the requirement of the plot.
Sociology, on the other hand, dwells in the environment in which the protagonist grows up. Vinayak grew up in a small house in the middle of nowhere. His household has a mother who serves the king believing one day she and her children will claim the castle and the treasure hidden in it. Apart from the mother, there is a little brother who later dies in an accident, and finally, there is a disfigured grandmother who is cursed to live forever with an eternal hunger for food. The curse exists, hence, Vinayak is sure that the treasure exists too. This is where the seed of greed begins to germinate.
The sociological build of the protagonist’s childhood shapes him into an adult who is still as curious to find out the treasure as he was in his childhood. Now, the seed has its roots going deep into Vinayak's consciousness, thus shaping the third and last dimension, psychology.
Lajos Egri states that psychology is the result of the first two dimensions. In Tumbbad the psychology of the protagonist can be analyzed in two parts. The first is a strong result of his sociology and the second, is because of his physiology.
Part I - Vinayak grows up to be a greedy person. He spends all his money on expensive materials; gramophone, bike, gold-plated razor, gold-plated lighter, cigars, expensive clothes. We also see him spending enormously on dancers in luxury cottages. The germ of this tree was planted in his childhood. The desire for treasure in his childhood is fulfilled. We saw him raised by a mother who served the king. As an adult, he acquires wealth equivalent to that of a king. He purchases a servant who resembles accurately to his mother and sends offerings to the residents of Tumbbad Whatever he lacked as a child can now be bought in multiple quantities.
Part II - In this part, we see a worn-out and aged Vinayak. He is slowly succumbing to depression, and because of this, he started abusing drugs. As we discussed before, the protagonist must maintain fitness to the level of an athlete to continue feeding his greed. Now, he has lost his physical fitness and can barely climb up/down the rope. His physiological state is directly affecting his mental state. The insecurity of losing access to the treasure extends to his son. The protagonist has now begun training his young boy to climb the rope who resembles a young Vinayak, thin and meek.
This shows how the three dimensions shape Vinayak throughout different stages of his life in the narrative.
(c) Conflict – Static
A conflict is only caused when an action is taken. An action leads to consequences and counteractions. However, if the character remains static, there will be no progress in the story. In Tumbbad, Vinayak’s actions are a perfect example of a rising conflict where his active actions push the story forward along with a clear-cut premise and his three-dimensional characteristics.
However, let's dive more into the understanding of a Static Conflict. The character of Raghav best explains this concept. In the story, Raghav starts off as a money lender who soon goes into debt. His subplot has another character, a British officer. Raghav’s desire is to become richer with the opium license which can only happen if he pays his officer friend a bribe amount.
This is the setup of his subplot. The British officer visits him in every scene with the hope that Raghav pays up the amount. We know that Raghav is in debt but he does not take any action, at any point in time, to clear it out or save enough money for the opium license. We see him trying to extract the knowledge of the hidden treasure of the protagonist. Even then, it does not change the course of the plot. In scenes with the protagonist, he starts off as hopeful and ends in hope. These scenes are followed up by scenes between Raghav and the British Officer, but they too begin and end the same way. It seems the only purpose it serves is to keep reminding the audience of the existence of this subplot. The result of this is that we begin to feel a lag in the pace which is compensated with montages of Vinayak’s growth, also serving as a contrast to Raghav’s situation.
Lajos Egri says that this static behavior takes place when the character lacks the driving force to take action. Raghav finally takes action when he is about to lose the opium license deal. This becomes the driving force of Raghav to create the next conflict in the protagonist’s life as well as in the narrative. Raghav fools the protagonist and attempts to steal the treasure. The conflict finally resolves when he finds out the source of the treasure before his death. The action of stealing Vinayak’s treasure fulfills more than just one purpose. First, it gives birth to betrayal in Raghav, second, it evolves Vinayak into a killer. Once again it calls back to the premise by highlighting the greed of both the characters.
The Conclusion
The three concepts explained in this analysis are the most unique concepts that stayed with me, especially the concept of premise. The stories that succeed in executing their premise are the ones that leave a mark in our memory. Apart from Tumbbad, movies like 3 Idiots, Lage Raho Munna Bhai, Taare Zameen Par, etc. have premises that are timeless. Even though Tumbbad captures one of the seven deadly sins – greed, it also touches upon the rest of the sins. The curse of eternal hunger, gluttony; the curse of eternal sleep, sloth; the protagonist’s desire for women, lust; the anger of gods which causes eternal rain on the city of Tumbbad, wrath. The remaining concepts of the Art of Dramatic Writing could be further explored with different films or even just with Tumbbad.
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