In pure series it’s not impossible. In Dragnet or Starsky and Hutch time stands still and the characters never age; each week they are reborn as before to fight a new mission once again. Stubbornly two-dimensional, they exist outside time and space, bound to their hamster wheel.

The film lionizes the rejection of narrative but, in a notable irony, places Brad Pitt at its centre. Neatly contradicting its own thesis,

Exposition is awkward to present because it rarely occurs in real life. Exposition, after all, is telling and drama is showing

In doing so, it changed entirely the way the world heard stories about itself.

Storytelling, then, can be seen as a codification of the method by which we learn – expressed in a three-act shape.

If scenes are microcosms of dramatic structure, then scene turning points correspond to the moment of crisis in both act and story. Like any crisis point, they demand of the protagonist a choice. The answer to the question posed by that choice – ‘What are they going to do?’ – will form the set-up for the next scene.

The assimilation of knowledge is in the very cells of drama – a character’s flaw is merely knowledge not yet learned.

The Kuleshov Effect

by overcoming the external obstacle, the protagonist can be healed inside.