Film was the new art—the first new art in human history.* But though the medium was new, human perception was unchanged. The necessary three-act structure required a stopping point between acts. The Russians called this the zero point. Here the hero has been thwarted and has run out of options and ideas. He, our representative, is baffled, and wonders, for us, what he can possibly do next to achieve his goal. He cannot, as Aristotle chides us, just “get the idea.” Something external must intercede (the magical helpers in fairy tales, Iago’s production of the handkerchief, the arrival in Miami
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