Story vs. Storytelling

I was recently asked to come up with a list of the Top Ten things I look for in a movie. My #1 and #2 items were Story and Storytelling. This, of course, led to the question, “Aren’t those the same thing?”

No. They are not.

Story is plot, and storytelling is script, and no, plot and script aren’t the same thing, either.

Story is what is being told, but storytelling is the way that it is told. An example I use for this is the film The Diving Bell and the Butterfly. For those of you who haven’t seen this film – the story is about a man who is paralyzed by a stroke. He can only communicate through the blinking of his eye, and by blinking his eye, he writes his autobiography.

That is the story. The storytelling comes from the fact that first quarter of the movie is told from the man’s point of view. The screen is hazy and fixed; when the man blinks or closes his eyes, the screen goes dark. Many of the opening scenes involve doctors and nurses peering out of the camera at the audience. This unusual and innovative way of presenting the information gets the audience emotionally involved with the inner life of the main character. He is disoriented and confused, just like the audience.

The choice to tell the story this way shows the strength of the storytelling.

As a filmmaker is it important not only to think about the story, but also the storytelling. How are you going to engage your audience and get them hooked into your story? Great filmmakers have a distinctive style and way of telling a story. Even if the filmmaker is doing a remake of another film, the storytelling style is so distinctive that the film will be interesting.