This analysis of 'Seraphim Falls' (2007) will consider how the screenplay’s five plot points create the story’s deep structure. These discrete story points include the 'Inciting Incident' in Act 1, 'Turning Points 1 and 2' in Act 2, and the 'Crisis Decision' and 'Climax' in Act 3. Spoiler alert: this structural analysis will reveal crucial plot moments; you may prefer to read this after viewing the film.
This movie’s back story is as follows: 3 years earlier, not long after the end of the US Civil War, Major Gideon’s (Pierce Brosnan) Union cavalry unit was still seeking Confederate officers to stand trial. They came to the home of former Confederate Colonel Carver (Liam Neeson), and Gideon orders his men to search and empty the house. One of the soldiers sets fire to all the plantation's buildings, which Gideon allows, believing the house to be empty. Carver’s wife and infant son, however, are still up in the upper nursery, and they die in the fire. Carver swears vengeance against Gideon.
Any Hollywood movie’s ‘Inciting Incident’, which occurs usually in the first 1/2 hour, challenges the hero to respond to a new development or opportunity. To achieve that response, the hero must internally expand, irrevocably changing his life. The hero is then thrown into a series of escalating accommodations on his journey to understand and solve the Inciting Incident’s original problem.
This movie’s Inciting Incident occurs when Carver is pursuing Gideon through a winter forest, 3 years later. Carver shoots and wounds Gideon, who is forced to run. He escapes by crossing a freezing river. He later excruciatingly digs out the bullet and staunches the wound with a fire-heated tool.
Turning Point 1. Gideon arrives at a homestead where he stays overnight. He buys a horse from the homesteader, but the man’s son steals Gideon’s purse of gold. We see Gideon’s honor, his principles, that he's a good man. He tries to give the homesteader’s son advice.
A movie’s Midpoint usually provides the story with a coherence and symmetry that the audience feels unconsciously, and for this reason is important structurally. This film’s Midpoint sees Gideon arrive at a waterhole in the desert, watched over by an old Indian shaman, who demands Gideon’s horse as payment for using the waterhole. Gideon obliges the man. Later, Carver comes to the same hole, the same shaman is there. The shaman gives the horse to Carver, along with some native wisdom. Presumably this symbolizes restoring cosmic balance by taking from one and giving to the other.
Turning Point 2. Gideon has killed 3 of Carver’s hired killers, who are helping him hunt down his enemy. Gideon is in the desert, horseless, being pursued. Hiding inside a dead horse’s carcass, he springs out and kills the last of Carver’s hired men. He challenges Carver to just let it go, to give it up. He takes Carver’s horse and rides off.
Act 3’s Crisis Decision occurs on the border of the badlands, where the heat of the sun beats down like an anvil. Gideon comes upon a traveling tonic seller in a wood-paneled wagon. Gideon decides it’s time to stop running, to make a stand against this man who won’t stop. He trades with the driver of the wagon, Mme. Louise (Angelica Huston), the horse for a single bullet.
The Climax is the confrontation between the two men. Gideon’s resourcefulness and talent with a gun and bowie knife have stood him in good stead. However, up to now he has resisted killing Carver, out of guilt over his part in what happened to the man's family. The fight goes back and forth. Gideon gains the upper hand, but then turns the gun on himself and wraps Carver’s hand on the pistol's grip. He tells him to go ahead, and have done with it. Carver can’t do it, and breaks down, weeping. The two stand up, stagger, and walk together a ways, supporting each other. Then they part and slowly go off in separate directions.
The story’s reversal (to a new stasis) sees both men survive, with Carver having purged his hate and desire for revenge, and Gideon having perhaps purged his guilt, and atoned for the horrific act of violence that occurred under his command.
