The 3-Act Paradigm at Work: North by Northwest

written by Ernest Lehman


North by Northwest is classic Hitchcock, a witty thriller full of suspense and strong visual storytelling. In fact, Act III, the last 20 min. of the film, is a model for heightened suspense in a story told primarily through action and images.

Structural Analysis

  1. Hook (4-5 min.)
    • Ad man Roger Thornhill is in a business lunch and gestures for a phone just as someone named George Capland is being paged. Thornhill is mistaken for Capland and led away under gunpoint by two thugs.
  2. Complication (8-10 min.)
    • Thornhill meets Townsend, who thinks he is a spy named Capland.
  3. Call to Action (12-6 min.)
    • Thornhill won't cooperate - so they try to kill him by forcing liquor into him and putting him behind the wheel of a car. But Thornhill survives, although nobody believes his story, and he is arrested for drunken driving.
  4. Act One Plot Point (36 min.)
    • Thornhill learns that Townsend is a diplomat who will be addressing the U.N. (25 min.). When he goes to find him, however, a different person answers the page (the real Townsend) - and one of the thugs kills Townsend, leaving Thornhill with the body. He escapes but is the prime suspect in the murder.
  5. Midpoint Plot Point (58 min.)
    • Trying to prove his innocence, Thornhill takes a train to Chicago, where "Capland" is supposed to have gone to. On the train he meets the beautiful Eve, who makes a move on him. But Eve is Van Damm's mistress, which the audience but not Thornhill learns.
  6. Act Two Plot Point (108 min.)
    • Thornhill finally learns that Capland doesn't exist (92-7 min.), that U.S. intelligence planted him to cover a real agent close to Townsend - who is Eve herself. But Thornhill has learned of the connection between Eve and Van Damm because Eve set him up in a phony meeting with Capland (a long visual sequence, 65-73 min.). Thornhill has put Eve in great danger. Moreover, they have fallen in love. But now Eve must leave the country with Van Damm (108 min.), to which Thornhill responds, "I won't let her go through with it."
  7. Climax and Resolution (113-133 min.)
    • In one of the most powerful and suspenseful sequences ever, largely told visually, Thornhill tracks down Eve at the Van Damm mansion, learns that her true identity has been revealed and she will be thrown off the private airplane leaving the country, manages to get word to her - and together they escape and end up in the famous chase scene at Mt. Rushmore. They get out of it, marry, and live happily ever after.

    Notes

    North by Northwest does many things very well:
    • Big Sequences: most movies have one or more "big sequences," a powerful, gripping series of scenes where the story is told primarily visually. Act III is one sequence here (113-133 min.) and so is the set-up meeting with Capland in the boonies (65-73 min.), with the famous plane-chase scene. Look for ways to put big, visual sequences into your story.
    • Foreshadowing, payoff: give everything in your story a purpose. Here, at the auction, Van Damm buys a small statue - it ends up being the vehicle for smuggling secrets. Eve makes a note of Thornhill's personal match books; later this is the vehicle by which he sends her a note. Chekhov once said that if you introduce a gun in act one it has to go off in act three. The details you select should be selected for a purpose; find ways to make use of them (the objects in your story) later.
    • Dialogue: Much of Thornhill's character is revealed through his dialogue and wry sense of humor. Individualize your characters by giving them different personalities and let dialogue, the way they speak, reflect these personalities.
    • Audience knowledge: suspense can be created when we know more than a character does. We learn that Eve is Van Damm's mistress before Thornhill does, and this adds to the tension we feel as he flirts with her.
    • Get out quickly: when the story is over, it is over. Eve is dangling off Mt. Rushmore - but the bad guys are dead, the story is over. A quick cut from Mt. Rushmore to a train ends the story quickly; it would have been anti-climactic to go step-by-step through Thornhill pulling her to safety, to dialogue with the U.S. intelligence people, and so on.


    MODULE 4: SCREENWRIGHT: the craft of screenwriting

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