The writer Dimosthenis Papamarkos delivered a masterclass within the framework of the 64th Thessaloniki Film Festival's tribute to Storytelling on Tuesday, November 7th, at Pavlos Zannas theater, titled “Around the Fire, in Front of the Lights”. The main protagonists of the Festival's Storytelling tribute are the "storytellers" of both the small and the big screen, as well as the process through which stories unfold, are told, and become a collective asset in the worlds of cinema and television.
The event was prefaced by Panos Iosifelis, screenwriter and professor of screenwriting at the School of Film of the Aristotle University of Thessaloniki. "The Thessaloniki Film Festival is delighted to welcome Dimosthenis Papamarkos. This is an author who has served different styles and narrative conventions. He has written Gkiak, which I expect most of you have read, as he was awarded for it by the Academy of Athens. I have the sense that he is amongst the most qualified to deliver today's masterclass on the various narrative conventions," he said, giving the floor to the author.
Dimosthenis Papamarkos initially provided the definition of storytelling. "In the Greek language, the word is derived from the Greek verb 'to narrate,' which means to guide from a point, to precede, literally to go ahead. A second interpretation: to clarify, to speak, or to narrate.
According to Herodotus, storytelling is that which has been said. A storyteller is the one who leads, showing the way, a kind of cartographer, so to speak. This definition links storytelling to instruction, a piece of information that directs us, which makes the storyteller arguably the oldest profession as it is practically linked to the survival of the community. Therefore, the primary function of storytelling had practical value; what people experienced that day was transformed into an experience necessary for their survival. Thus, storytelling has a social and communal function; societies are formed and survive through storytelling. The concepts of society and storytelling do not exist independently from each other. Storytelling constitutes a discourse, always directed at someone, and therefore it requires people. We live in narratives, not abstractly but literally," he said, citing street signs as an example.
"Every human being is both a storyteller and a listener.The banality of storytelling makes us think it is a simple matter, but that is what makes it difficult when it comes to more complex kinds of storytelling (see literature, cinema or theatre). The social function remains because we need community: in the void, there is no storytelling, in the void, speech is meaningless," he stressed. This is where the kind of storytelling we are concerned with begins, the construction of a way of understanding the world that moves beyond literal interpretation. "It is our imagination that fills the gaps in the science of any synchronicity. What I like to call: 'where things get out of hand.' Where someone more imaginative comes along and thinks they can add their own perspective to reality. In storytelling there is of course the very fundamental part of enjoyment. The world is often literally unbearable, which makes comforting storytelling necessary. It offers hope that things will improve and that life is worth fighting for. This is indirectly linked to survival because it gives us vision. If we deprive the experience of human life of what we call the spiritual part, life becomes a mechanical operation. And as conscious beings, if we describe this sterile mechanical operation with our consciousness, we are led to resignation and depression," he noted.
"I think we don't comfort ourselves consciously. The way I operate, at least, I don't aim to be comforting when I'm writing a story. Perhaps it's fulfilling an instinctual need. There is another way: namely, narrative that is structured to lead in a particular direction, the so-called strategic storytelling, such as religious texts, for example. Specifically, the Funeral Service holds narrative power but also a consoling purpose: to provide hope for the afterlife," remarked.
In response to a question posed by the audience as to what constitutes a "good" narrative, he replied the following: "If we ask 1,000 people, we will hear 1,000 different opinions. It's very difficult to define what the rules of good storytelling are. Perhaps it is easier to say what is not good storytelling than what is. But you grasp it when you encounter it. Good storytelling has to engage you emotionally, otherwise you are creating an informational construct without narrative power. A good storyteller has a target, he has not forgotten that he has at least one recipient. A good narrative always leaves the door open for us to understand the mental sequence and comprehend the world that the creator builds, the so-called 'world-building'," he mentioned. "Gathering around the fire and telling stories still exists to a certain extent. Maybe not in the absolute literal sense. But cinema is also a kind of gathering around the fire. In this era, instead of using flame we use the lights of the projector, and instead of painting on the cave walls we have film. We gather where the light falls."
Then he answered a question about what storytelling serves, an internal need of the narrator or the audience. "For me, good narratives do both. The storyteller is moved by an internal need, but this story doesn't exclude those around them. Both functions are met. Narratives that have audience satisfaction as their starting point for creation often fail because the interactive relationship is not sincere. To communicate you must be honest and candid, just like in a dialogue," he pointed out. "The audience never knows what they want to see. If we did a poll and asked what film they want to see, we would end up with a chaotic headache that would make no sense. Keeping in mind that we are being watched and read is good, but we shouldn't be driven by the need to satisfy the audience. It's important that the storyteller knows what they want to say. If you're going to talk just to talk, you'd better do something else."
On the medium of storytelling, he explained, "Choosing the medium means knowing the mediums that are available and knowing how they work. In practice, I am limited to the media I feel I can manipulate better, or at the very least to the one I have been given the opportunity to use. Theater, for example, is something I am just now learning of its inner workings. Literature is much more familiar to me. Training in each medium never ends. It requires respect from the person setting out to make something from scratch. Over the years you gain experience in the method. I, for example, know that in order to write, I need to be healthy, well rested and not have a sore back. I've figured that much out over time."
On the mediums in which you don't have complete control over the storytelling (screenplay writing for cinema in collaboration with the director), he commented, "It's important to understand the specifics of the medium. I have been lucky because I have always had a 'jones' to make cinema and I was given the opportunity to do so with a filmmaker I admired, Yannis Economides. Initially, the transition from literature to screenwriting was chaotic. In effect, I started from scratch. I had to start thinking with images. In film, you create a convention in which you imply something that is implied in prose. You also have to take into account the responsibility of practical realization, of production, which in prose you don't concern yourself with. It was an interesting exercise and a challenge for me. A successful screenplay serves the director and the film, even if it's not good in literary terms. It must convey the director's world in a simple and comprehensive manner. A second element exists as well, that of developing chemistry with the director. It is important not only to not dislike each other, but to agree ideologically and philosophically, and your worlds to move parallel or at least intersect, surely not to clash with each other.”
On teaching the technique of storytelling, he said that we can all tell stories, just not all of us equally well. He used the example of athletic qualifications, saying that everyone can train but not everyone can become an Olympic athlete "Good storytellers instinctively understand the rules of storytelling, which we have spent years trying to define. They are elusive; whenever we approach them, they move away. Throughout the years they evolve and change the way we perceive and interpret the world. In every era, a person paves the way, or rather finds a new way to translate their era." He also pointed out there is certainly utility in teaching. However, if you are not good, you will just become a satisfactory, mediocre storyteller. You will not captivate your audience. A storyteller needs to work on themselves, and that aspect is not taught. If you're lazy and can't write on your own, you probably never will. There must be a need. Coercion will never work," He also added that we are talking about the Western way of storytelling, which is of a certain structure and ultimately satisfies certain expectations. It is a way of storytelling that refers to cultures with common references, because in the East our rules do not apply.
He went on to say that in his understanding, our experiences are not scattered at all, they are shared: "Our experiences largely coincide when we refer to specific societies. Today, more than ever, the experience of the world has become homogeneous. The everyday life of an American is now familiar to us, and cinema and technology have played a major role in this. Today we are more connected than ever before, and that creates a challenge when you're searching for ways to avoid becoming commonplace." As for the characters he creates, he said he never creates anything that is foreign to him "The characters I create are familiar to me. For me, something foreign would be impossible for me. When you are called upon to construct a character, you have to know them inside and out. You have to know what kind of coffee they drink. If they don't like coffee, you should know their second favorite drink. You need to know how they interpret the world. The cliché that says you write what you know is indeed true. It's more honest that way. How else will you serve the art?"
Regarding A.I. he stated that he was against it. "It is not artificial intelligence, but deep learning machines, which discern patterns and try to reproduce them in a way that mimics humans. I'd like to see what kind of novella an original A.I. would write. It's quite possible that it would define the arts differently than we do. But now with A.I. we are creating nothing more than a collage we expect will satisfy us." He talked about how sometimes the very experimentation with the form of storytelling becomes an end in itself and the meaning is lost "We have to think of the storyteller as a builder. If he is constantly working with his materials he will not succeed in building a thing. If you just experiment with the materials you don't build. But you do become a good craftsman, which has different value."
Finally, when asked if he listened to stories as a child, he answered in the affirmative "I have been exposed to oral storytelling since I was a child. I didn't read my first books; they were read to me. Storytelling never stops. Growing up, we may snub it, but stories continue to be told and always will be. The oral DNA remains. New media has given another avenue to it (social media like TikTok), the practice of short oral narratives."
