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of reading, wrote that “much of the novel’s alleged
power is embedded in the line, that compulsory
author-directed movement from the beginning of a
sentence to its period, from the top of the page to the
bottom, from the first page to the last.” Many authors
have challenged the power of the line—David Foster
Wallace’s footnotes draw readers up and down the
page, trying to change the mechanism of their atten-
tion; Alejandro Zambra’s novel Multiple Choice breaks
up flow by using the structure of a standardized test—
but in Coover’s mind, freedom from the “tyranny of
the line” would only be possible with hypertext, a new
form to match its content. As a storytelling technique,
it never took off.
Authorities on form remind us that, even in 2019,
stories have three parts (a beginning, a middle, and an
end), and screenplays have three acts (the setup, the
conflict, and the resolution). “Story is about eternal,
universal forms,” Robert McKee writes at the start of
Story, his famous guru-guide. Other how-to books like
Save the Cat! give a by-the-minute pattern for screen-
writing, using the broad template of the hero’s journey
narrative. And development executives tell writers to
give characters agency and show their influence in the
outcome of the plot—all of this in order to make nar-
rative tantalizing to viewers.
Interactive television leads to a total rethink of these
concepts. Stories can be more individualized, while still
existing against the backdrop of a communal artistic
experience. When Engelbrecht traipsed across Phoenix
to gauge responses to Bandersnatch, which ended up
with two Emmy Award nominations, she witnessed
endearing scenes of group television consumption
on sofas. Though one might think of interactive TV as
more of an individual activity, Engelbrecht observed
“people watching together, connecting over these
moments.” We’re talking in a small conference room
within a maze of glass-walled space at Netflix’s office
in Los Gatos, California. Around the corner is a cafete-
ria called Guess Who’s Coming to Dinner. Engelbrecht,
who has red hair and wears a T-shirt with a maneki-
neko Grumpy Cat on it, sits cross-legged in a swiveling
chair, intermittently shoeless. “You’d see one person
give the side-eye to someone else when they made a
certain choice. One woman threw the remote at her
fiancé and was like, ‘You choose.’ ”
Nonlinear TV can “guide you through to the things
you’re more inclined toward, so it does feel like a story
made for you,” Engelbrecht says. Explicit interactivity
could conceivably sway toward implicit interactivity,
where the film watches the user—with eye tracking,
emotion detection, knowledge of viewing history—and
customizes the show to a precise degree. Engelbrecht
isn’t going there, though. “The video perfectly con-
structed for you?” she says, when I pose the possibility.
“It sounds like a Black Mirror episode.”
Weil, the Netflix executive, believes audiences relish
control. “People like the ability to choose, to affect the
story,” he says. Naturally, some of the filmmakers he and
Engelbrecht talk to reject that idea. “They’re like, ‘No, I
make all the choices’—the idea of, I’m an auteur, that’s
what being a filmmaker is,” he says. Engelbrecht sees
interactivity as a versatile framework, like the devel-
opment of seemingly subtle, yet aesthetically and expe-
rientially crucial, cinematic techniques. Orson Welles,
for instance, decided to put ceilings on film sets. “It
feels like such an obvious thing, but until he did it, sets
would always be open air,” she says. Ceilings allowed
for low-angle shots, heightening a sense of reality.
After seeing willingness—and sometimes “pure
glee”—from those who engaged with Netflix’s nonlin-
ear programs, Engelbrecht believes the style will per-
meate all genres of storytelling, from romance (which
doctor should she smooch?) to horror (don’t go down
that hallway!) to teen, action, reality, and documen-
tary. The next experiment is an interactive series finale
for Tina Fey’s Netflix comedy Unbreakable Kimmy
Schmidt, which is currently in postproduction. When
the punch lines land, “they’re so powerful, but then
you have the added benefit of, you’re participating in
the joke,” Engelbrecht says. “You’re part of the story.” At
the same time, participation complicates how comedy
is written. The foundational questions of timing change
when writers know that the action will be interrupted
by a user wielding a remote.
By making entertainment subject to our own desires,
interactive TV and film offers us a more pliable, maybe
even more meaningful, viewing experience. On the
other hand, it can be thought of as an abdication of
responsibility, transmitting possibly undesired auton-
omy to the viewer. Were the 19th-century novel The
Portrait of a Lady presented in interactive form, we
might be tempted to intervene in Isabel Archer’s pro-
cess of “affronting her destiny.” Perhaps we are glad not
to have this power of interference.
As they uproot the assumptions of conventional nar-
rative, Engelbrecht and her team often find themselves
grappling with a final question: How does it end? Say
a viewer makes a series of narratively untenable
choices that lead to an impasse—a failed ending, it’s
sometimes called. In these cases, where the program
must take you back to an earlier fork, “should we kill
the main character?” Engelbrecht asks. “It’s like a
videogame in that sense, the conceit of which is: No
problem, start over.” But TV and film aren’t video-
games. They have endings. In Bandersnatch, viewers
languishing in Stefan’s universe with no idea of how far
they are from the closing credits may tire of the exer-
cise. Other times, they may wish to stay in the world as
long as they can, enacting the “unfathomable work”
done by the writer in “The Garden of Forking Paths,”
whose choices create a multiverse. As Engelbrecht
describes the conundrum, her next remark seems
inevitable: What, exactly, is an ending?