and the ugly...

We see more and more backstory flooding film and television, sometimes taking up entire episodes of a series. Sometimes working ( the revered “Left Behind” episode from The Last Of Us). Sometimes not (“We Are The End Of The World”, one of The Walking Dead’s worst received episodes). Where good backstory strengthens plot and builds more visceral characters, a misunderstanding of backstory can muddle, if not drown out, the central storyline.

DEFINITION

Backstory, according to our friends at Oxford Languages is,

a history or background created for a fictional character in a film or television programme.

Backstory is not to be confused with side missions, such as “The Lost Sister” episode of Stranger Things, nor with narratives that employ nonlinear storytelling, such as Momento, Mulholland Drive, or Eternal Sunshine of the Spotless Mind. Lastly, it should be distinguished from narratives whose core storylines exist in flashbacks working toward real-time conclusions, such as Forrest Gump, True Detective (S1), or Citizen Kane.

AS A TOOL

Some writers are known to hash out novel-length notes on characters and worlds; some work from a few pages of cat-scratch notes. Regardless of method, backstory helps to form an understanding as to where the story comes from and why.

Think of backstory like roots, or questions that need answering for the core story to come to fruition: who the characters are, what shaped their perspectives and reality, and how their world has come to be. How much these answers bleed into the narrative, if at all, is up to the writers and creators themselves.

In The Notebook, for example, backstory simply forms a positioning of the forbidden love that is to come between mill-worker and socialite. While in Kill Bill, backstory serves as the driving engine, pushing The Bride on a path of vengeance that lasts the entirety of the trilogy.

What these examples have in common is that the status quo set by backstory is challenged in real-time to form a central question. Will Allie and Noah overcome societal norms and live happily ever after? Can The Bride successfully avenge those who destroyed her future? We must watch to find out.

THE TRENDS

Looking into film and television over the past century, we see that backstory is for the most part only alluded to from the 30s to the 90s and has gradually been in heavier use since the early 2000s. Backstory’s screen time has rocketed in the streaming era.

This begs the question as to what is being taught to screenwriters. It can be frustrating and even misleading for students to hear, ‘We need to understand the character!’ or ‘If I cannot relate to your hero, I cannot root for them!’

On one end, professors and mentors may emphasize backstory, demanding a screen translation of its ins and outs; on the other, they may advise incoming writers to avoid backstory altogether and tell linear narratives with one protagonist driving action toward a singular goal, thus to get a better grasp of story before diving into flashbacks and emerging storylines. What method is right or wrong is up for interpretation. However the use of backstory is interpreted, like any tool for the creator, it is designed to evoke emotion.

THE GOOD

THE GODFATHER (1972)

Backstory to Establish Character: In the opening minutes of The Godfather’s wedding sequence, there is a visual difference that separates Michael Corleone from everyone else in attendance: he is dressed in a military uniform, thus telling us he is a war veteran. This is all we need to understand he is an outsider to his criminal family. Is there a better setup to establish dynamic and convey that Michael is most unlikely to become the next Godfather? Would visualizing Michael’s wartime heroism or inserting his dealings with post-war trauma serve his character and circumstance better? We’d argue the contrary.

EUPHORIA (2019)

Backstory to Deepen Character: Via Rue’s mostly unreliable narration (she was not present for the backstory of ancillary characters which she narrates), each episode of Euphoria begins with the history of a selected character whom, save the pilot, we’ve already come across in the series.

The key structural move here is that the featured character of each introduction plays a pivotal role in the episodic storyline that follows and, as the series progresses, characters receive equal shares of humanization.

Gradually, their motives entangle and constrict one another, bringing us toward frustratingly tragic but inevitable conclusions. This unique approach to character examination goes against much that is taught in screenwriting academia. Contrarian kudos to Sam Levinson.

GAME OF THRONES (2011)

Backstory for World-Building: The Seven Kingdoms and so many moving parts. Game of Thrones works towards — for nearly the entirety of its first season — establishing various ties to the throne while alluding to how these ties will lead to dire ends. There are claims by blood right, bonds founded in battle, and bitter rivals that have been boiling for centuries.

But backstory in Game of Thrones also serves to establish mythology (The Mad King, Targaryens, and dragons), reputation (The Kingslayer), and, from the very beginning, most gracefully seed its biggest series reveal.

After all, how many times did we hear John Snow tell us, ‘I’m not a Stark’?

Using backstory to build worlds requires much groundwork and takes expertise. It can be studied in epic sci-fi and fantasies like Star Wars, Mad Max, The Witcher, and let’s not forget, The Happy Place.

HE GOT GAME (1998)

Backstory for Set-Up: In He Got Game, Jake, a convict, is pressured to influence his star athlete for a son, Jesus, to play basketball for the state’s college team. If successful, Jake will see his prison sentence reduced.

None of this needs explaining, it is shown through driving action: Jake is incarcerated and wants out. Jesus is a ball prodigy and faces his next step in life. The historical circumstances solely set the stage, and they do so flawlessly. The backstory remains unnoticed, as it should.

Although there is a flashback that airs the trauma Jake and his son share — he is serving for manslaughter for accidentally killing his wife, Jesus’s mother — Spike Lee does a phenomenal job of providing a groundwork that allows him to focus on his truer intentions for the film.

THE BIKE RIDERS (2023)

Backstory to Highlight Theme: In a monologue masterfully delivered by Michael Shannon’s Zipco, we come to understand his early years of solitude. He is not in the club for the booze or the parties (maybe for the bikes), he’s in it for the camaraderie — a welcome he never had.

His campfire speech humanizes the outlaw theme that the film centers on and somewhat deromanticizes the idea of the ‘biker club’. It should be noted that this is a tricky one to pull off without coming across too expositional (which it is). Where Shannon delivers, many have failed.

Another (film) example of backstory highlighting theme takes place in the 1991 crime adventure Thelma & Louise. Where in the convertible, racing along the hot desert, Louise reveals to Thelma that she too has fallen victim to sexual assault. Soon after, the wanted outlaw duo chooses their only true escape. This is a story about breaking free. No flashbacks necessary. . . When flashbacks are dumped on us anyway, that’s a question of taste.

THE QUESTIONABLE

GIRI/HAJI (2019)

Killing the Intrigue: Episode 1 of Giri/Haji has an incredible set-up and also some functional backstory, with the main character, a detective, covering up a crime to save his brother’s skin.

Traveling from Tokyo to London to investigate the murder of a Yakuza gangster, the detective is led to believe that that same brother, who he thought to be dead, is not only alive but somehow involved in the killing.

There is a stylish and unique scene toward the end of the pilot where a bar patron tells the detective the tale of a disgraced Yakuza assassin who saved the life of a British gangster. Though this breaks another rule many creators follow — never have characters sitting around gossiping about other characters — the scene uses anime to create an epic sort of mystery around the disgraced assassin, who the detective believes to be his brother.

It makes the viewer very intrigued as to what brought the detective’s brother to this point (the last time we saw him, via flashback, he was crying like a boy, desperate for help).

In the opening minutes of the second episode, a flashback montage shows viewers the brother’s killing prowess. We get a whole lot of answers, fast, and we debatably lose some intrigue. The mystery is deflated, and our man is no longer myth.

Giri/Haji is a show that holds stellar moments, genuine character development, and compelling twists. Regarding backstory, one cannot help but question if the creators would have been better off holding onto their mystery around the detective’s brother, as a mythical assassin, and leaving the viewers wanting to know more about him until the very end.

THE PENGUIN (2024)

Backstory in Overdrive: Another critically acclaimed series that is considered great by a vast majority of viewers and critics. Yet in its eight-episode first season, The Penguin spends a large amount of screen time on backstory.

The backstory does have an effect on the core storyline, rationalizing Sofia Falcone’s vengeance, deepening Penguin’s sinister means for success, and strengthening the ties between Victor and his neighborhood.

But do these scenes push the story forward? And without these large lapses of backstory, how much of a core storyline is there? Is The Penguin more or less compelling by straying from its real-time narrative? Its success suggests that backstory, when employed gracefully, is both satisfying and enjoyable for the audience.

… That’s not always the case.

THE UGLY

THE ACOLYTE (2024)

Backstory Speed-Bump: The first two episodes of The Acolyte are wildly intriguing. Estranged twins brought back together by an investigation, a common mentor, and different interpretations of the force, add in the fact that Jedis are falling victim to a string of serial murders and you’ve got the recipe for a uniquely compelling series within the Star Wars universe. These are the first two episodes…

The third episode makes a fatal mistake, taking us back in time to explain a large chunk of the twins’ backstory in an episode-long history dump that takes momentum from the central narrative.

Their origin story is compelling, but the problem resides in the fact that it is delivered with a density that pulls us away from the main narrative. What is more detrimental is this is done very early on in the series.

With episode 4 trying too hard to make a connection between the past and present, the narrative struggles to regain steam. The promise from the first two episodes is lost, and Acolyte falls from The Neilson Ratings top ten list (with reports claiming it is the least-watched Star Wars show in streaming). This goes to show that a backstory dump done too soon can interfere with viewer retention and damage the flow of a story.

If we saw these characters defined through their actions within the main narrative, with their backstories gradually earthing, Acolyte may have faced a more positive reception.

THE CONTRARY

There are classically-tuned storytellers who argue that any insertion of backstory reflects something lacking in your central narrative. In other words, if you need to explain backstory, you have a problem.

A term that comes to mind is ‘scared writing’, which refers to a writer’s lack of trust in the audience, or themselves, and often leads to over-explaining.

The questions are then: should audiences know character outside of the central narrative? Should the writer leave them wanting more, even after the series finale or final frame? What makes us trust a story?

Reactions to episodic backstory seem to especially vary, with opinions polarized across the spectrum. Some reviewers find them annoying and tedious, while others see them as neat examinations of character. With the ever-expanding norms of visual narrative, backstory is not so black and white.

But understanding its proper uses is essential. Then the story is built.

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