Does a flashback have to be from a character's point of view or no?

[harmonica44]

I'm rewriting a feature script and tightening it up in my spare time. I want the opening to start out in the middle of the suspense. Kind of like Skyfall for example. In that movie, Bond is right in the middle of a chase sequence, without introduction as to why the chase is happening. It just starts out in pursuit.

I want to do something like that. In my script a cop is in pursuit of men who are in the process of moving a kidnap victim of theirs, but were found out and were intervened.

The readers will not know why the woman was kidnapped though, or what the villain's plan was until later. I am trying to figure out when is the best time, story wise, to show the flashback. Later at the start of the second act, the woman reveals what she knows about herself as to why they might have picked her for their plan.

I don't know if I can show the flashback then. In the flashback the villains discuss their plans and what they are going to do, and have a disagreement. They argue while the woman is kidnapped but she is blindfolded and her ears are covered, so she cannot hear or see them. So is right to put the flashback, since she could not hear what they are saying, and it would not exactly be from her point of view therefore?

The villains are introduced near the end of the second act. I could put the flashback their then. They talk about what went wrong, and then it flashes back to their disagreement, as the hostage is in the same place as them.

But this will leave the audience hanging a long time as to what is going on. I cannot introduce the villains before because since the cops are on to them, they agreed not to talk until a certain date, cause that's when they need to execute their plan B, and have to meet up. If I show a villain before that, he will have to be alone with no other villain's to talk to, about the flashbacks, and I will have to show them happen, just as they are alone.

But I kind of feel the flashbacks work better as characters are discussing what happened with one another, rather them having them while one of them is alone. I wouldn't know who should have the flashbacks either, cause since the villains cannot be allowed to make contact with one another, which villain should have it, since they are all equal in it together that is.

So I can save it for when they finally meet to go over plan B, but the audience will be left hanging as to what the hell happened and why in the opening until then.

Or I could write it so that the flashback is from no particular characters point of view, and just have it be a flashback for the story, and not from them. Or will that not work?

Thanks.

 

[harmonica44]

What I mean is, is that not from a particular person's point of view only. Like take the movie No Way Out (1987), for example.

In the first scene, Kevin Costner is being interrogated by mysterious government men. Then it flashes back to six months ago, as the subtitle read, if I remember correct. It seems like it is Costner's flashback, but you also get scenes without him in that have plot and characters, which Costner is not aware of, nor could be. So what do you call a flashback, when the flashback showes multiple perspectives from different characters, and each character is not aware of the other's perspectives and plots?

That's what I mean by the stories point of view, itself. And how do I make the script reader understand that it is a multiple character perspective flashback intentionally, and not just of the main character? I hope I am making sense.