The 3-Act Paradigm at Work: Jakob the Liar
written by Peter Kassovitz and Didier Decoin
I fell in love with the screenplay of Jakob the
Liar when I reviewed it for Creative Screenwriting magazine.
But something goes wrong in the film. The tone and style of the Jewish
parable never quite comes into proper focus, and I think much of the
problem lies with casting a star, Robin Williams, as the lead. The movie
isn't as strong as the script.
Structural Analysis
- Hook (0-1 min.)
- Jakob chases a sheet of newspaper caught by the wind through the
WWII ghetto where he resides, "where it all started with a single sheet
of newspaper."
- Complication (3-4 min.)
- A young girl escapes from a train headed for an extermination
camp and enters the ghetto. Jakob, chasing the newspaper, is reprimanded
for missing curfew.
- Call to Action (9 min.)
- Jakob finds the girl and brings her home with him, to hide her
there.
- Act One Plot Point (26 min.)
- While being reprimanded, Jakob heard a radio news broadcast. When
he shares it, people think he himself secretly owns a radio. He becomes
someone special in the ghetto.
- Midpoint Plot Point (62 min.)
- The Liquidator arrives at the ghetto. Soon the Jews will be
shipped to an extermination camp.
- Act Two Plot Point (89-93 min.)
- The Germans search for the radio. Jakob confesses to friend that
he never had one, and the girl overhears this. He has been lying to her
about hope for the future.
- Climax and Resolution (103-111 min.)
- The Germans torture Jakob but he doesn't give in. When he is led
before his people, there to admit he had lied about the radio, he just
laughs - and is shot. The Russians intercept the train and the people on
the way to extermination are saved.
Notes
Jakob the Liar would not have been produced were it not for the
backing of Robin Williams (the director told me this in a phone interview).
How ironic, then, that I put the blame for the film's relative failure (it
should be much more powerful than it is) on the casting of Williams as
Jakob. Still, it's a moving story, if inconsistent in its style.
MODULE 4: SCREENWRIGHT: the craft of screenwriting
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