Dramatistic Pentad

As a medium, film is tremendously influential in teaching American filmgoers about the world around them. Often an American’s first trip aboard comes courtesy of a film. For example, before we’ve set foot in Paris, we’ve likely already experienced the city in a movie. Burke’s Dramatistic Pentad offers us a useful tool for deciphering the motivations film scenes, including those of Americans overseas. Below you will find scenes from several films. You will use the Dramatistic Pentad to identify specific rhetorical elements in three of those scenes. Additionally, you will analyze how a specific ratio functions in all three scenes.

Directions:

1. Choose three scenes from below.
2. Using the Dramatistic Pentad, identify what you believe to be each of the five elements (agent, agency, etc.) for each of the three scenes (or “artifacts”)—see model below.
3. Choose one "ratio" to examine all three scenes—for example, scene-agent or act-purpose.
4. In one page, examine how your chosen ratio functions in each of the three scenes. For example, what is revealed by examining the scenes through this specific ratio? Are there similarities? What are the differences? You might also consider how this particular ratio informs us versus another.
   

Example:
Commercial: “Start the Day 'Write'” from Kellogg’s
Artifact Description: A boy sluggishly wakes up for school. After a bowl of Kellogg’s Frosted Flakes, he is more animated. Later, at school, the boy enthusiastically answers his teacher’s questions thanks to the boost he got from the cereal.

The Dramatistic Pentad:
1. Act: A boy’s morning sluggishness is only helped by eating a bowl of Frosted Flakes cereal.
2. Agency: With the goal to pep up her sleepy son, the boy’s mother purposefully serves him a sugary breakfast cereal.
3. Agent: The boy’s mother, who is motivated to wake her son up.
4. Scene: Split between his home and his classroom.
5. Purpose: The boy’s mother, needing an efficient means to ready her sleepy son for school, feeds him a bowl of sugary cereal.

***

Choose three scenes from the following for your analysis:

"The Mouth of Truth" from Roman Holiday (1953)

"I'm Sally Bowles" from Cabaret (1972)

"The Slaughtered Lamb" from An American Werewolf in London (1981)

"Is this the Bus to Cartagena?" from Romancing the Stone (1984)

"So, I'm the Crude, Dumb, Vulgar American ..." from Before Sunrise (1995)
"I Don't Know Why People Say This Country is Civilized" from The Talented Mr. Ripley (1999)

"Are You Married?" from The Quiet American (2002)

"Suntory Time!" from Lost in Translation (2003)
"Dancing Queen" from Mamma Mia! (2008)

"He Got You a Suitcase?" from Leap Year (2010)

"Actually, Paris is the Most Beautiful in the Rain" from Midnight in Paris (2010)
"Is There Anything You Don't Know?" from Call Me By Your Name (2017)
"What Are You Doing?" from Midsommar (2019)

Required:

• MLA Style, plus works cited page

Submission Window: Thu 3.17 - Tue 3.22 (via Canvas)