WHITE LOTUS FLIPS THE POINT OF VIEW

 

WHITE LOTUS 206 has so much we can talk about. Wow wow wow. 

For today, let's talk about Point of View. There's such a big POV shift in the Ethan and Harper and Cameron and Daphne story. In the first 5 episodes, we get to see the world through each of their points of view, but the central character is clearly Harper. She's the one whose fears and neuroses are on full display from the start, and she's the one driving the conflict. (You could definitely say Cameron and Daphne are drivers, too, especially Cameron. But really do they ever seem like subjects of their own? No; they're antagonists in the Ethan and Harper story, much as Quentin is in Tanya's.) (Oh God, poor Tanya.)

With the Cameron and Ethan party, we begin to a shift. We start to see the world through Ethan's eyes as well as Harper's. She's calling him and he doesn't answer. Meanwhile he's curled up in his bathroom while Cameron is having sex with two prostitutes. 

But even so, Harper is still the one driving the story, doubting Ethan, and then in this episode asking the really hard questions.  But with that—and specifically the moment in which Harper goes with Cameron to get drinks—the balance radically shifts to Ethan, and his growing fear that Harper cheated on him with Cameron. It goes so deep into his head, in fact, that we even see him imagining Harper and Cameron having sex when Ethan comes to the door. (In a sense that moment parallels Harper's wild fantasy/experience of all the men stalking her.)

We haven't lost Harper's point of view entirely; Mike White regularly cuts away to her considering Ethan as he grows more and more paranoid, but the focus is really on Ethan and the fact that he doesn't know what happened. And neither do we, a position that makes us identify with him all the more (even as he is clearly losing his shit and not at all recognizing this is the position he has just put Harper in).    

I'm not sure when the last time was that I saw a show do anything like this. But I think it illuminates how we can play with an omniscient point of view, as you often use with an ensemble show. Withhold something significant that someone has done in an omniscient show and we can generate a lot of audience interest and surprise, precisely because we've taught them to expect they'll be told everything.

And yet doing so doesn't feel like it breaks the rules of the show, I think because White doesn't fully shut Harper's POV out, and because the hypothetical of her with Cameron has been set up multiple times (even if it seems mostly preposterous). (Cameron is so awful.) 

Your mileage may vary on all this, but for me the real takeaway is to consider the POV of my piece and consider what sorts of expectations that seems to build in viewers. The more I understand what I'm teaching them, the more I can later fuck with them.  

TOMORROW: I really want to go on to 207 but there's so much here! So I'm going to spend one more day on 206, and then do the finale.  (And then I may go back and do a few more odds and ends on the series. There's so much here!)

WHITE LOTUS EXCELS AT USING OTHER STORIES TO TELL ITS STORY

By the time we get to WHITE LOTUS 205, Mike White has given us a couple different examples of one of my favorite screenwriting techniques: Reference to Other Stories. 

When you refer to another story in your story—and as White shows, this can be done in a lot of different ways—you give the audience a new context for what they're seeing. It's actually a technique that probably shouldn't work, because it's very clearly an "The Author Of This Show Will Now Overtly Direct You To Think About What You're Seeing In One Certain Way" move. 

But rather than take away from a viewing experience, referencing other work can add another layer. It can make the work we're watching seem better or more important—the references allow the new work to "draft" off the reputation or ideas of the prior work. Also, when you reference I don't know, Terry Gilliam's BRAZIL (what a random reference to come into my head) in your movie, you're in a sense presenting yourself as a conversation partner with it, i.e. as something of similar insight and value.

And I think when the technique works, it does so first because it's done in ways that are organic to the story, that bury to some extent the author's hand, and second because in fact it is trying to be a conversation partner with that work. 

And it's inviting we the audience into that conversation, which is fun for us (and also makes us feel smart). So for instance early in the season (in a scene I can no longer fine, argh) someone—either Tanya or Harper (I think Tanya)—is reading Kate Chopin's The Awakening, which is very much one of those novels that every English major read in college and kind of blew us away. (White loves to use the books that people are reading as glimpses into what's going on within them. And because people so often are reading at resorts on vacation, it feels completely motivated.)

But then on top of that in 204 after Harper believes that maybe Ethan has had an affair and succumbed to Cameron's horrible bro-y world, we get that scene where she walks out to the edge of a pier and stares out at the water. The Awakening ends *spoiler spoiler spoiler* with the main character Edna Pontellier walking out into the sea and drowning herself as an act of liberation from the patriarchal world in which she finds herself. Harper just stares out at the water, but the reference seems really clear. 

White loves to use a literary reference to beg questions about both his characters' state of mind but their future. With Harper here, we're wondering whether she wants to kill herself? Or do something else to resist the techbro patriarchy she fears her husband is a part of? 

With Tanya the questions that come from literary references are much more about her fate. In 204 the mysterious Quentin invites Tanya to tell him everything that she's going through. His reaction afterwards is "You're like the heroine of your own Italian opera." To which she responds: "Does that mean I'm doomed?" Cue flashing lights.

Then in 205 Quentin actually takes her to an Italian opera, Puccini's Madame Butterfly, in which the lead discovers that her husband is cheating on her—which Tanya suspects as well—and then kills herself. 

Obviously our main focus in all of this is on Tanya and what's going to happen to her. But there's also the question of Quentin. Who is this dude? And why does he seem to fucking with Tanya like this? After the opera he shares how it's not love but beauty that has been his Achilles' heel. When Tanya replies that she lives for beauty, he replies. "I know you do. I'd also die for beauty. Wouldn't you?" Like, what?

But here, too, I think White offers some subtle direction for our thinking by way of other literary references.  205 also features a bizarre and hilarious church sequence, in which Guiseppe ends up sitting with Mia in the pew of an abandoned chapel looking penitent because he can't manage to perform for her. This sequence has no connections to the Tanya/Quentin storyline, but simply by virtue of adding Christianity—another set of stories—to the overall psychological soup of the show, White primes us to consider Quentin more broadly. Maybe this guy isn't just some awful dude. Maybe he's the Devil.

Which also begs the question, What the hell is White Lotus?

(I'm still two episodes from the finale myself, and very much looking forward to seeing where this goes!)

Looking at your own work, are their literary or pop references that might add layers of meaning or mystery to your text? Or if you're getting notes that people don't quite see where you're going or what you're getting at, maybe a reference to another text can help provide some greater focus or clarity. 

 

WHITE LOTUS JAMS THE RULE OF THREE

If there's a principle in storytelling that is pretty sacrosanct, it's the Rule of Three. Whether you're talking about jokes or an important dramatic development over the course of an episode (or season), you want to try and hit it three times. The first time is the set up, which lays out the idea. The second time offers a new wrinkle or development (which could be as simple as just repeating the beat in a new context). And the third is the payoff, the resolution that fills you with delight/wonder/horror.

Once you know this idea, you'll see variations of it everywhere. Feature screenwriting is often conceived in three acts. Film previews often have three sections. The five paragraph essay format we were all taught to use as kids involved three arguments in favor of our thesis. It's somehow satisfying deep in our animal brains. 

In WHITE LOTUS 204, Mike White gives us a fantastic take on the rule of threes. Three times Harper asks Ethan what happened the previous night with Cameron: the first when she first gets back from being with Daphne and knows nothing. The second, after they get back from the club and she's found a used condom package in their room—new wrinkle! And the final time before they go to bed, at which point Ethan tries to sidetrack the whole thing by changing the topic to Cameron trying to work them. And it resolves with Harper, who knows this is bullshit, leaving the condom package in view in the bathroom. In other words, Ethan, ya blew it. 

It's a great version of the Rule of Three to study, because it builds so naturally. Each time that Ethan lies, the tension builds, our attention more and more focused on what is Harper going to do. And the choice she makes is unexpected; we're thinking she's going to confront him, but no, she just leaves the condom and goes to bed. 

It's wonderful to see a character do something you don't expect. But it's also a genius move for a serialized story. How do you keep people obsessed with where you're going? Delay giving them the catharsis that you've taught them to want. 

I once took improv lessons. I was pretty bad, but one thing I learned is that if you say something once and it makes no sense (because you're bad), instead of being embarrassed, try saying it again. In a sense you teach the audience what to do with it, teach them it's a joke. And then you may find you're golden. (Or you may just be bad.)

In your scripts, are there places where people are saying This seems unmotivated or doesn't land?  It could be that you need to cut it. But if you think it's important, see what happens if you pepper that idea in a couple times more. 

WHITE LOTUS MAKES THE MOST OF A DREAM SEQUENCE

About halfway through WHITE LOTUS 203, Daphne leaves Harper for a minute to get money. As she waits Harper notices some men looking at her. She tries to walk away but everywhere she goes there are just more men. 

Here's a video clip of it: 

From Harper's point of view all of those men are visible right from the start, but we're close enough on her that we only discover them slowly, which captures much more viscerally the experience that she's going through. 

Did that moment really happen? Or is it meant to be a metaphor for how Harper feels? The show seems generally very grounded in reality, but that's such a weird scene, it's hard to know. The fact that it is such a specific and clear movie reference only adds to the confusion.

But also to its significance: Slowly we've learned how awkward Harper can be around anything sexual. Earlier in this episode she made a real effort to try with Ethan, but it still felt awkward and forced. This moment is pretty much of the pinnacle of that discomfort, a bird's eye view into what it feels like to be Harper when she's confronted with sexual attraction. 

Most writers would probably question themselves for inserting a scene like that because WHITE LOTUS is not a show that does fantasy or dream sequences. But it fact it only adds to our understanding and appreciation of Harper. For me it definitely begs the question, Am I making room for the strange or unexpected in my own writing? Am I choosing the most interesting approach for each beat of my story?

WHITE LOTUS GIVES A MASTER CLASS IN MONOLOGUES

 

Monologue writing is deceptively hard. When character revelations don't happen through action and conflict, they tend to show the author's hand, which you never want to do. They also can very easily feel like we've hit pause on the actual story, which is rarely a positive experience for the audience. 

So to do them well, they have to feel absolutely organic to the character and the moment. And ideally they should emerge out of some kind of problem or conflict and be self-revelatory in some way.  

WHITE LOTUS 203 has four monologues, which makes for all that much more of a challenge. They could so easily have felt repetitive even if they were well crafted (and these are). In fact, all four of them have the same setting, the speaker and someone seated and having a meal. 

But every single one of them absolutely lands. And I think that comes down to the fact that in addition to being organic, they each serve a different purpose. Here they are, in order: 

1) Early on we've got Portia talking to Albie over breakfast. And after she sees Albie taking meaningless photos and her boss having breakfast with her husband, she launches into a monologue about her life. And it's absolutely organic to the moment and emerges out of the nightmare that is her job and and also her life.That line: "Is everything boring?" It's all right there, isn't it? 

It is in a sense your classic monologue, in that it's a speech given by a character which reveals what's going on within them.  

2) A little later while on his family's cringey Godfather tour, Albie delivers a monologue of his own about how the Godfather is loved by his father and grandfather because it celebrates the "salad days of the patriarchy". Once again, it absolutely emerges from the moment—his grandfather and father's praise for the Godfather—and also a conflict: he feels uncomfortable with them saying these things (and probably  more specifically saying them in front of Portia). 

And while it, too, seems like its purpose is to reveal character, in this case the monologue is much more self-conscious. Albie is not just speaking what he feels; he's speaking out in front of Portia, who he definitely has a thing for. Consequently it's performative in a way that Portia's monologue was not. Actor Adam DiMarco even gives a tiny glance in Portia's direction when he's finished, indicating he's looking to see how he did. 

So here the purpose of the monologue is really to impress (and perhaps in Albie's mind to defend). It's still self-revelatory, of course, but not in the way that Albie intends.

3) Later in the episode we've got Daphne and Harper having a drink, and Daphne delivers this unexpectedly deep monologue about how lonely it would be to be a man. It has that fantastic end line: "They think they're out there doing something important but really they're just wandering alone."

And once again, the monologue emerges organically from the moment. Harper doesn't seem all that comfortable with being a woman, and in reacting to that discomfort Daphne offers this monologue as why she would never want to be a man. It is self-revelatory insofar as it shows a depth of reflection and a wisdom in Daphne that we haven't heretofore known was there. But really the monologue's purpose is to reveal something of what she's seen in Cameron and other men. The scene cuts from her final line right to Cameron and Ethan on jetskis, reveling in doing exactly the kind of nonsense stuff she was just talking about (right down to playing chicken with and then chasing each other). But then we cut to them seen from above and they're just going in circles. It's brilliant. 

I will say, this monologue doesn't really emerge from a conflict or problem within Daphne. It's observational. We even get a whole story about elephants in the middle. And yet it doesn't drag at all, and it definitely feels like her point of view rather than the author's. I think that's because it's so thoughtful and interesting, it holds us. The fact that it leads right in to the next scene also makes it feel that much more organic. 

4) Finally, we've got Cameron's monologue to Ethan about how everyone cheats and monogamy is just this bullshit bourgeois idea used to control the middle class. And you could say that it breaks all the rules: it's organic insofar as Cameron is reacting to the fact that Ethan hasn't cheated on Harper, but it's Cameron who brought the topic up. It doesn't emerge really from any sense of conflict within Cameron, though you could argue his response is his way of disagreeing with Ethan's monogamy, so there's conflict of a sort there. 

And while it is self-revelatory, it seems pretty clear that is not its purpose at all. This monologue is a seduction. Cameron is trying to break down Ethan's integrity, whether because he really does think it's bullshit or because he knows if he succeeds then he's got leverage on Ethan. (The fact that earlier in this episode Cameron pitched his company to Ethan, exactly as Harper warned, definitely suggests that everything he's doing here is about working his way into Ethan's money.) 

Really, Cameron's monologue has the most in common with Albie's. They're both trying to sell something. But Cameron is a lot better at it. 

WHITE LOTUS 203 is a great episode to watch if you've got a monologue to write. There's so much there to learn from. 

 

WHITE LOTUS LEANS INTO THE UNCOMFORTABLE

I think as a writer one of the more challenging things to learn is to make your characters uncomfortable. There's a pretty simple reason why it's difficult: we don't like to be uncomfortable ourselves. And so within us there are these taboo things that we would never say or do. Like we'd never start asking friends we're just meeting or haven't seen for twenty years about their sex lives, or pry into why they don't have children. Or we wouldn't keep asking our kids or friends what they could have done to make their wife want to divorce them. 

But conflict is the engine that makes a good story run. And discomfort is a fantastic form of conflict. Because it can be really hard for people to address directly. Think of Cameron and Daphne with Harper: they keep saying and doing things that are clearly crossing the line with her—particularly Cameron. In 201 he's taking off his pants in front of her; in 202 he's grabbing her underwater and saying she thinks he's a materialistic pig. And of course she does (and he is); but saying that out of the blue is just not something that people do. 

These kind of moments keep putting Harper in the position of having to choose what to do. And part of what makes them so rich is that every choice she can make will really only lead to more conflict and discomfort. Go along and be trapped having to deal with Cameron and Daphne make more uncomfortable moves; or call them out and deal both with the fact that you're still stuck on this vacation with them and her husband's potential frustration with her for doing so. 

Bert's refusal to just let the topic of Dominic's infidelity go functions similarly. And not only does Bert keep bringing it up in really unexpected ways, he's willing to do so bringing up other generally taboo topics, specifically rape. That scene is fascinating, actually, in that he keeps saying the word "rape." And it turns out that alone is uncomfortable. He's not even talking about a real situation, just this horrendous Greek myth. But it doesn't matter. The idea and the word are enough to make everything very uncomfortable. 

Although it's interesting, in Bert's case it's a bit of an open field as to whom he is actually making uncomfortable. Dominic certainly doesn't like it, but unlike Harper he also keeps saying so, pushing back.

From a writing perspective, I think the deeper intended victim is Albie, the family "peacemaker." Each time Bert brings his father's infidelity up and attacks his wife, it challenges Albie's capacity to stay in that role. How long will he accept this kind of treatment of his mom, and also his father's serial infidelity? Bert seems designed to keep poking away at his "good guy" vibe until he completely loses it. That's part of the joy of using discomfort as a form of conflict; it creates a sense of slow build. It becomes a means of creating anticipation.

The tried and true line of screenwriting is that you want to chase your main character up a tree and then throw rocks at them. That can be hard to do; as writers we can care so much about our main characters that we instinctively try to protect them. But part of Mike White's genius is that he clearly asks, What is the thing that these characters would find the most uncomfortable?, and then forces them into exactly that.

In our own scripts we might ask ourselves that question: What is the thing my protagonist would find the hardest to deal with? And am I currently forcing them to deal with that? Or is there more that I could do? 

 

WHITE LOTUS KILLS IT WITH A MIRROR

 

There's one other scene from 201 that has to be mentioned, and it's the moment where Cameron changes his swim trunks in front of Harper. Of all the characters in that opening episode, Cameron is the most ambiguous. Harper tells us what she thinks he wants—to hit up her husband. But we honestly have no idea what that dude is about. 

And that moment in Harper's room only underlines that fact. Cameron never looks her way or gives any signal that he's intending something—though how could he not be? And then the moment is over. 

What's incredible about the scene, obviously, is the fact that Mike White has Harper standing in front of a mirror. On the surface it's a smart way of allowing us to see her reactions as this crazy moment is unfolding. Aubrey Plaza is tremendous here, looking shocked and uncomfortable, but in an ambiguous way. Is she turned on? Is she pissed off or freaked out? It's left completely unclear. 

But the mirror also conveys a sense of internal split within Harper. Just as  Cameron pulls down his pants, we watch two Harpers—the her in the mirror that is reacting, and the real her, who has her back to us. The moment has literally split her in two. 

The fact that the real her has her back to us is telling, too. It suggests that even though we're seeing exactly how she's reacting, still there's a part of her that is locked away from us, that she's not showing. 

If you're ever thinking about showing the divide within a character, this is a great scene to look to for reference. 

WHITE LOTUS KNOWS HOW TO USE AN UNCONSCIOUS ASSUMPTION

The second season of WHITE LOTUS ended yesterday, to much acclaim. And for the next couple weeks I'm going through the series episode by episode, calling out some of the great scriptwriting things that it does. 

WHITE LOTUS 201, "Ciao," is a gem on many levels. Most importantly, it does a tremendous job of laying out the characters and relationships on the show. And for me what's particularly impressive are the scenes that don't seem like they're about anything: it's Harper and Will, Cameron and Daphne sipping cocktails after they arrive, or Portia and Albie at the pool. Every single line in those moments is revelatory of who those characters are: what they want, what they think, what they hate, what they don't see.

To take the latter: How does it begin? With Albie overhearing that Portia is upset and asking if she's okay. Right there that's Albie in a nutshell in the pilot--trying to take care of people. 

Portia, who we know wants to get laid, reassures him and then engages him in further conversation about his "cute grandpa." In the moment, maybe we're thinking she and Albie are going to hook up; certainly they're both trapped in bullshit from the Gen Xers around them, and they're both Americans. 

But the fact that she mentions the gGandpa also could be setting up that she's going to hook up with him. It seems so unlikely we probably don't even notice it in the moment, which would make it that much more delightful if it happens. 

(Note: I haven't seen the season yet.)

Then they do the standard "Where are you from"s, and Mike White's dialogue is just exquisite. Upon hearing that Portia is from San Francisco, Albie says "I love San Francisco, it's beautiful," which is the stereotypical thing Angelenos say when they meet someone from San Francisco, and where the meaning is usually a kind of patronizing affirmation, like I feel like I should say good things about your city to make you feel good, because it's not Los Angeles and obviously you must feel bad about that. (And she responds very true to that: "Yeah. Yeah.") 

Albie's delivery doesn't indicate that at first, but he immediately follows by trying to assert he actually knows what he's talking about, he spent a lot of time there, only to then cringe when he has to say that he went to Stanford—another sort of signal of the way he thinks. "Don't be so ashamed," she says, amused. "I'm not," he says, but clearly he is embarrassed, and when she says "I went to Chico State," he eagerly responds "Cool, cool," which it most definitely is not next to Stanford. "Yeah, cool. Cool," she says back, again amused. 

The scene goes on a bit longer with him talking about what sounds like a pretty fancy job, which he again very clearly underplays: "I'm just an intern at this point, so..." And once again she's amused: "So you can go on vacation for a week and no one gives a shit." He thinks she's serious, and maybe we do, too. But what he's saying is insane. She knows all too well what a shit job being an intern is, and you don't get to spend a week in Sicily.

Why does he keep underplaying who he is and what he's doing, and trying to boost her up? It seems pretty clear, it's because he assumes her life is not as great as his, and he's a nice guy and so he doesn't want to make her feel bad. And he doesn't know he's doing it.

If you wanted to write on WHITE LOTUS, for me this is Rule #1: Give your characters assumptions that they speak and act out of, but don't know they're making.  It's such a classic move of the show. Albie assumes Portia's life is lame and so would be bummed out to hear about his—which is really quite a thing to assume when you think about it. Cameron and Daphne assume everyone thinks life is great, like they do.

The other thing that intrigues me about the Albie/Portia moment is that she reacts to Albie's unconscious putdowns and condescension with amusement. She knows what he's saying at each point more than he does, and she's not bothered by it, because she sees pretty clearly the state of her life. It's a great scene for Portia, actually, because based on what we've already seen, and what she said to her friend on the phone, we're set up to expect her to be self-pitying. But then she's not. She's more interesting than that. It's classic sleight of hand.