Script Analysis: ‘1917’ — Part 3: Characters

Read the script for the award-winning war drama and analyze all week.

Reading scripts. Absolutely critical to learn the craft of screenwriting. The focus of this bi-weekly series is a deep structural and thematic analysis of each script we read. Our daily schedule:

Monday: Scene-By-Scene Breakdown
Tuesday: Plot
Wednesday: Characters
Thursday: Themes
Friday: Dialogue
Saturday: Takeaways

Today: Characters.

Characters are the players in our stories. They participate in scenes, move the plot forward through action and dialogue, influence each other, evolve and change. Each has their own distinct backstory, personality, world view, and voice. When a writer does their best, digging deep into their characters, tapping into their souls, the players in our stories magically lift up off the printed page and come to life in a reader’s imagination.

But there’s this: In a screenplay, characters exist for a reason. Hence my principle: Character = Function. Writers can shade and shape a story’s character in limitless ways. But if you dig down deep enough, you can find each character’s narrative function, and that can become a lens through which you develop the players in your stories.

Same thing with script and movie analysis: Look at each character and think about why they exist and what their function is.

Today we discuss the characters in the script for 1917. You may download a PDF of the script — free and legal — here.

A list of the key players:

Lance Corporal Blake

Lance Corporal Schofield

General Erinmore

Lieutenant Leslie

German Pilot

Captain Smith

German Sniper

Lauri

Orphaned Baby

Private Muller

Captain Ivins

Colonel Mackenzie

Lieutenant Joseph Blake

Written by Sam Mendes, Krysty Wilson-Cairns.

Plot Summary: April 6th, 1917. As a regiment assembles to wage war deep in enemy territory, two soldiers are assigned to race against time and deliver a message that will stop 1,600 men from walking straight into a deadly trap.

Writing Exercise: Think about each character. What’s their function? And see if you can use character archetypes to help in your analysis.

Major kudos to Alexis Howell-Jones for doing this week’s scene-by-scene breakdown.

To download a PDF of the breakdown for 1917, go here.

For Part 1, to read the Scene-By-Scene Breakdown discussion, go here.

For Part 2, to read the Plot discussion, go here.

To access over 70 analyses of previous movie scripts we have read and discussed at Go Into The Story, go here.

I hope to see you in the RESPONSE section about this week’s script: 1917.