The 3-Act Paradigm at Work: Powwow Highway

written by Janet Heaney and Jean Stawarz


Powwow Highway is a comic buddy-road story that pairs an AIM activist with a charming Native American who is gathering medicine to become a warrior. In many ways it's a classic western with role-reversal between cowboys and Indians.

Structural Analysis

  1. Hook (0, 3-5 min.)
    • Visual hook, juxtaposing warrior with run-down scenes from a reservation. Filbert, a Cheyenne, buys a dump of a car to be his war pony for his search for medicine in preparing to become a warrior.
  2. Complication (8-9 min.)
    • The sister of an A.I.M. activist, Buddy, is arrested in Santa Fe on set-up drug charges in order to remove political activists from the reservation during an important vote about mining rights.
  3. Call to Action (12, 15-6 min.)
    • Filbert visits his aunt to learn about the old ways and is joked with. He agrees to drive Buddy to Santa Fe to rescue his sister, Bonnie.
  4. Act One Plot Point (27-30 min.)
    • Filbert turns off freeway to Santa Fe for detour to Sweet Butte in black hills, a sacred place. He is visited by a coyote and receives his first token.
  5. Midpoint Plot Point (57, 65 min.)
    • Filbert tells a tribal story and defends the relevance of the old stories to a skeptical Buddy. Later Filbert swerves the car to save a spider from Buddy's panic, breaking Buddy's pistol in the process. Santa Fe is in the distance: they will save Bonnie not with guns but with tribal magic.
  6. Act Two Plot Point (65-7 min.)
    • It's a Christmas holiday, and Bonnie can't be bailed out, even though her friend Rabbit arrives with money. Filbert and Buddy arrive soon thereafter and learn she can't be bailed out. What to do now?
  7. Climax and Resolution (75-85 min.)
    • Filbert breaks Bonnie out of jail and they become fugitives, racing to the state line with police in pursuit. Cattle are released to stop the police. The old car loses its brakes and crashes. It seems Filbert may have died in the crash but he appears, saying, "My pony threw me!" They all walk off into the night.

Notes

Powwow Highway has a very long second act, filled with commentary and comedy about White-Indian relations and spiritual quests. The midpoint is not as evident and clear as in many movies -- indeed, there can be some argument about what the midpoint is. I believe it is Filbert's strengthening conviction in the power of the "old ways," as noted above.


MODULE 4: SCREENWRIGHT: the craft of screenwriting

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