The absence of any central conflict in Before Midnight

The second limited panning of the characters' legs focuses on Céline and Jesse as they are walking toward the island's center to spend one intimate night of rekindled romance, without the twins, in a hotel room. [Last paragraph from last post on Before Midnight.]

Before I elaborate further on the possible implications of the limited vertical panning, I would like to address a meaningful absence in the movie. According to Raul Ruiz, cinema in general, but particularly American cinema, has developed throughout the 20th century "an all-encompassing narrative and dramatic theory known as central conflict theory" (2005, 9). Whereas forty years ago, adds Ruiz, chiefly mainstream American industry subscribed to the theory, "now it is the law in the most important centers of film industry in the world" (9). 

Central conflict theory is pretty much self-explanatory: at the center of the film lies a tension nodule that drives the organization of the plot, theme, montage, and even has an impact on the film's aesthetic constitution. Ruiz explains, "To say that a story can only take place if its is connected to a central conflict forces us to eliminate all stories which do not include confrontation and to leave aside all those events which require only indifference or detached curiosity, like a landscape, a distant storm, or dinner with friends..." (11).    

The brief panning of the walking legs symbolizes Before Midnight's denial of the central conflict theory as the principal cinematic structure. How to interpret shots or scenes like the two I mentioned above in their own right and particularly in connection to the rest of the film? The implications of shots whose purpose remains ambiguous or unclear can be many, but what they posit with some cogency is the denial of an otherwise ubiquitous filmic structural theory. What central conflict theory undermines is the possibility to stage, thematize and think contingency and its value both in filmmaking and outside of it. Not only can cinema come into being unhinged from such a principle of non-contingency, but it can also signify and even entertain while undoing central conflict theory. The purpose and signification of a film must not necessitate a unified and coherent totality in which every piece plays a readily recognizable part for the whole. 

The brief vertical panning shots exemplify the proposition of multiple conflicts that never cohere around a single theme. In Before Midnight, for instance, numerous are the points of contention, and equally many are those of possible resolution, points that don't necessarily materialize. A circular dynamic ensues. The film's decision to negate central conflict theory permits aesthetic choices that assertively undo the mechanics of such a theory. The multiplicity of conflicts also invites the viewer to confront multiple decisions concerning the characters less as stable and complete constructions, but as troubled, continuously shifting selves who awaken in the audience pleasure at times, outright displeasure at other, and sometimes both simultaneously.   

In a movie in which central conflict theory is denied, the parts (i.e., shots, scenes, and sequences) of the film present a dual function that can be mutually supplementary but also irresolvably conflicting. Parts at once index a purpose and value onto themselves, and direct the attention toward the assertion or denial of a tightly threaded whole. 

[More to follow.]