I have an experiment I'd like you to try. Feedback is at your discretion. I want you to take the Epic Laws and put them in front of you while you watch some of your most and least favorite films. See how many hits you get.
Film is substantially oral literature. Any written literature that transitions to film has to be rewritten, except for records of oral traditions like fairy tales. Find a filmed version of War and Peace online somewhere, watch it, and then read the book. You will see how Tolstoy's text had to be simplified so as not to overwhelm moviegoers. Even Sergei Bondarchuk's classic four-film version is much simpler than Tolstoy's book. Simplifications often reduce the work to the dimensions of oral literature.
I was watching Judgment at Nuremberg, which Youtube maintains free with ads to encourage viewership. It is based on an actual trial involving 16 defendants; this is cut down to four, which most of us in the west can handle because we are used to four suits in cards, etc. But while there are four principal characters, there are three contrasting viewpoints: Janning's, Rolfe's, and Haywood's. This is the epic Law of Three, the one that turns up the most in both oral literature and film.
Burt Lancaster's work as Janning blew me away and I went on a search for his other roles. He played 87 characters in his 87 films in 45 years. He started in noir films and made 14 westerns, but he also buckled his swash several times and made three films where he was dubbed in Italian. He never made a sequel, but his movies started trends like violent westerns, disaster movies, and apocalyptic body count films.
And the epic laws turn up in almost every one of his films.
In particular, Devil's Disciple with Kirk Douglas illustrates the laws. First, the George Bernard Shaw play was rewritten, adding about ten minutes of action to give Burt a bigger role. This happens in oral literature, and sometimes the addition spins off a new cycle of literature dedicated to the character in that role.
Second, in those ten minutes, Rev. Anthony Anderson reinvents his own personality. From a holy fool, he becomes a militant rebel. This is an internal cascading contrast, and it always contrasts with Kirk Douglas' character, a black sheep who backs into rebellion.
Third, there are Law of Three events. It takes three incidents to make Anderson rebel: the death of an innocent man; the arrest of Richard Dudgeon in a case of mistaken identity; and the fact that the British wanted to arrest Anderson for giving the innocent man a Christian burial.
As a rebel, Anderson makes three attempts to blow up British munitions. One British officer has to be put out of the way in the first attempt; two soldiers in the second attempt; and a squad in the third. This is also Olrik's Law of Ascents.
In Run Silent Run Deep, Lieutenant Bledsoe the XO shuts down P.O. Kohler three times for questioning Captain Richardson's orders. Actually, the second time Kohler doesn't get a chance to say anything, he just shows himself in the doorway and Bledsoe says "shut up".
Oral literature also illustrates behavioral norms. In Run Silent, the norms of military behavior shape the action, especially Bledsoe refusing to criticize the captain to the men or explain orders -- or tolerate their objections to Richardson's orders.
In Scalphunters, which I discussed before, Lancaster acts out an anti-racism message instead of stating it in the script. This whole film is an example that oral literature uses action, not description or discussion, to get to its denouement.
Actually, many of Lancaster's films have a message; it is stated in the script only once, in Control: "There is no shelter from The Bomb, even in a shelter;" His war films are all anti-war films, except possibly Run Silent, and even then Lancaster gets to point out that "captain's discretion" gets people killed.
It was a thrill watching those films and I watched a lot of them twice. The first run was to get through the plot and find the pivotal points; the second was to watch the man work. He was GOOD. He was good from the very first film he put in the can, Desert Fury, which you can see on Internet Archive. It was the second role he ever played in his life and he held his own in scenes with Mary Astor, of Maltese Falcon fame. I wrote 20 pages (single-spaced) on how good an actor Burt Lancaster was. Let me know if you're interested.
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