ABSTRACT
This chapter examines conflict’s role in defining character-as-essence and as the screenplay’s foremost narrative engine. Instruction manuals by Syd Field, Robert McKee, and Blake Snyder suggest that conflict not only sculpts character, but is a necessary catalyst of self-actualization and revelations in the psyche. For the gurus, a character arc defined by conflict to produce essence discards “external” characteristics like race, gender, and sexuality—and therefore makes identity-centric stories structurally ineffective. Similarly, as the ultimate goal of screen conflict is resolution, narratives centered on institutionalized racism, coming out narratives, and widespread social antagonism are herded towards superficial redress without further exploration. Snyder’s interest in conflict adds an element of acceleration that places movement ahead of idle values like healing or desire, which are portrayed as static and flat next to the dynamism of linear progress. Expanded upon in Céline Sciamma’s Portrait of a Lady on Fire and Barry Jenkins’ Moonlight, spaces free of conflict prove more generative for queer/female/of color characters than opposition to a hostile force, and more transformative than conventional character-as-essence practices.
