ABSTRACT
Conflict is essential to drama but can be defined in different ways and take many different forms. Conflicts come fairly easily when film directors create a world of clear moral polarities; however, as they move away from mythic or heroic dramas, and develop stories about the human struggles of characters who could be their neighbors, the blunt “right vs. wrong” distinction becomes unsupportable. Film characters, like all human beings, only become fully alive when they have something meaningful to push against. The strategies characters employ reveal their specific human traits, and this is where a drama puts flesh on the bones of its storyline. Compelling drama is the art of shaping a story into a form that maximizes its audience’s involvement and emotional engagement. Throughout a film’s development, directors and actors discuss in great depth the objectives and motivations for every character in the film as they search to “raise the stakes.”
