tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-51599792011-04-21T13:53:41.656-07:00My opinionated blog about the art and craft of writing great movies. Because movies don't have to stink.Marthahttp://www.blogger.com/profile/10283915599607284613noreply@blogger.comBlogger311100tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5159979.post-1121952895985754072005-07-21T06:34:00.000-07:002005-07-21T06:38:54.873-07:00

CREATING CHARACTERS: A (polite) BLOG DIALOGUEFormer studio exec and story consultant Marisa D'Vari has written a new book about creating characters for screenplays. I happen to like her past work quite a bit, and while I've not read the new book, it seems to support Henry James' belief that "character is action"--and so the better you know your character, the more action, i.e., plot, you have

Marthahttp://www.blogger.com/profile/10283915599607284613noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5159979.post-1121464700648230992005-07-15T14:58:00.000-07:002005-07-15T15:16:43.566-07:00

RIP, Ernest Lehman: a brief appreciationBetter late than never. You young folks who have not ever seen Lehman's North by Northwest or Sweet Smell of Success, turn off all your electronic implements RIGHT NOW and rent them. And watch them. And learn, learn, learn. Lehman created a figure of classic evil in the character of J.J. Hunsecker, premiere gossip columnist, dark power, and ruiner of lives

Marthahttp://www.blogger.com/profile/10283915599607284613noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5159979.post-1120332231968899742005-07-02T12:19:00.000-07:002005-07-02T12:44:50.176-07:00

First, apologies for the lack of blogging. That pesky real life intervened. I have two books coming out this summer, neither of them about screenwriting. But if you have a fat dog or cat, you might be interested. "In Good Company", in my humble opinion, suffered from not such great marketing when it was released. It is true that one of the things the movie is about is "Oh my god, Topher Grace

Marthahttp://www.blogger.com/profile/10283915599607284613noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5159979.post-1112415862216951132005-04-01T20:24:00.000-08:002005-04-01T20:26:48.366-08:00

And now, a word or 12 from Preston Sturges on screenwriting: : "1. A pretty girl is better than an ugly one.2. A leg is better than an arm.3. A bedroom is better than a living room.4. An arrival is better than a departure.5. A birth is better than a death.6. A chase is better than a chat.7. A dog is better than a landscape.8. A kitten is better than a dog.9. A baby is better than a kitten.10. A

Marthahttp://www.blogger.com/profile/10283915599607284613noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5159979.post-1111544985390008612005-03-22T18:25:00.000-08:002005-03-25T04:24:30.806-08:00

First off, I am honored now to be among the august company of some witty Hoboken-based bloggers. And now, a gratuitous New Jersey reference.Watching Garden State put me in a wild state of longing...for other, better movies.There are lots of things that Garden State does well: genius casting, from shifty-eyed Peter Sarsgaard to the quietly volcanic Ian Holm. Gorgeous, David Hockney

Marthahttp://www.blogger.com/profile/10283915599607284613noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5159979.post-1110588146483324932005-03-11T16:39:00.000-08:002005-03-11T16:42:26.486-08:00

Deadwood creator David Milch doesn't write a word of his scripts....he talks out all the dialogue, which is then transcribed.Yes, kings and show runners can do these things. But his method is no madness: it leads directly back into the oral tradition. Try it when you can't stand another moment at the keyboard. Turn on a tape recorder (or your recording device of choice), and let the characters

Marthahttp://www.blogger.com/profile/10283915599607284613noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5159979.post-1082474758338962052004-04-20T08:25:00.000-07:002004-04-20T08:41:55.106-07:00

Lesson 25: Steal from a Master, Even If He Has Never Written a Screenplay in his life: A.J. Liebling, Between Meals It should be blindingly obvious that before your screenplay becomes a movie, it is a piece of writing. It should be, but it isn't. Far too often, I've read screenplays that were dense with ideas, or snappy with dialogue, or rich with character, or awe-inspiring with

Marthahttp://www.blogger.com/profile/10283915599607284613noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5159979.post-1082202083094750802004-04-17T04:41:00.000-07:002004-04-17T04:45:37.013-07:00

Lesson 24: If You Are Going to Comment on Your Story, Make Sure Your Story Is Interesting in the First Place: American Splendor American Splendor is a movie about Harvey Pekar, a file clerk in Cleveland, and accidental star by way of David Letterman, who makes comic books about his "ordinary" life. It is also a movie about making a movie about Harvey Pekar, who appears as himself in the movie,

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Lesson 23: What To Do When You're Stuck Cary Tennis is a wonderful advice columnist on Salon.com. Here he gives some of the best advice ever about what to do when you've got writer's block. Because it involves coffee, I am especially fond of it.

Marthahttp://www.blogger.com/profile/10283915599607284613noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5159979.post-1075831416176726762004-02-03T10:03:00.000-08:002004-02-03T10:11:14.123-08:00

Lesson 22: Sometimes a cigar...is a bombshell: Quiz Show In the opening sequence of the movie Quiz Show we watch young, brash lawyer Richard Goodwin circle round a spanky new car while a wary salesman lists the features, AND tries to figure out whether this guy can really afford the car. We find out a lot in this scene--that Goodwin's graduated from Harvard, but he's working for the government

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Lesson 21: The Swimmer squeezes time In The Swimmer, the 1968 adaptation of John Cheever's short story, Burt Lancaster plays Ned, a handsome, virile middle-aged charmer who intends to swim home--via the pools in his wealthy suburban neighborhood. It is a lovely, Indian summer day, but there are clouds on the horizon, and the hours seem to speed by. This is the essence of a ticking clock.

Marthahttp://www.blogger.com/profile/10283915599607284613noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5159979.post-1067283482252367462003-10-27T11:38:00.000-08:002003-10-27T11:39:39.890-08:00

Lesson 20: From Frank Pierson Movies are more than a commodity. Movies are to our civilization what dreams and ideals are to individual lives: they express the mystery and help define the nature of who we are and what we are becoming. .... Go and make a cinema and TV that express our history and our ideas, and that foster respect for a civilization in real danger of self destruction. Be

Marthahttp://www.blogger.com/profile/10283915599607284613noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5159979.post-1061570284496732152003-08-22T09:38:00.000-07:002003-08-22T09:38:42.030-07:00

Lesson 19: Paths of Glory brings Death to Smoochy Well, not quite yet. Just a note that I'll be keeping this site up, but importing the content...and updating...on LiveJournal. Pretty darn soon. Lessons to come on Death to Smoochy and Paths of Glory. They're not really so different, honest.

Marthahttp://www.blogger.com/profile/10283915599607284613noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5159979.post-1059361294375741542003-07-27T20:01:00.000-07:002003-07-27T20:01:57.736-07:00

Lesson 18: The Smoking Fishbowl It’s a cliché of storytelling that if you put a gun in your story in the first act, it had darned well better go off by your third act. Writer Stephen King joked that whenever he got lost in a story HE was writing, he just have one of his characters pull out a gun and make something happen. But let’s say you’re not writing a story or a script that is, well,

Marthahttp://www.blogger.com/profile/10283915599607284613noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5159979.post-1059145195685432422003-07-25T07:59:00.000-07:002003-07-25T08:01:52.613-07:00

Lesson 17: Tone In French filmmaker Catherine Breillat’s film ROMANCE, a young female teacher who lives with a male model suddenly confronts a sex drought. The model tells the teacher that he’s just not interested in sex anymore. Sorry. Nothing personal. He just always loses interest after three months. Love him or leave him. The female teacher tells us—and tells us—and tells us—that she

Marthahttp://www.blogger.com/profile/10283915599607284613noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5159979.post-949530712003-05-27T12:31:00.000-07:002003-05-27T12:31:13.590-07:00

Lesson 15: Relish the Unexpected In the classic thriller Three Days of the Condor, Robert Redford plays a CIA employee who reads books for a living, siphoning out the plots of thrillers and comparing them to actual CIA activities. When Redford gets too close to the truth, his entire office is murdered, and he goes on the run. Along the way, he kidnaps a woman, played by Faye Dunaway, who

Marthahttp://www.blogger.com/profile/10283915599607284613noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5159979.post-938771222003-05-06T11:36:00.000-07:002003-05-06T11:36:00.076-07:00

Lesson 14: Embrace the Ordinary, Then Blow It Up Yesterday was a pretty typical day: my husband and I were in desperate need of socks. So I took our laundry down to our condo’s laundry room—only to find the two washers crammed with somebody else’s laundry. The dryers: ditto. Because I was a reasonable woman, I let a couple of hours pass until I dumped out the laundry—careful not to let

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Lesson 13: Perform Time and Motion Studies This is a writing 202 exercise. Take an existing piece of your screenplay where there is some action and some dialogue going on. Let's say your two lead characters, Romeo and Juliet, are checking out library books while they argue about whether they should tell their respective families that they are dating. And there's no line at the library.

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Lesson 12: Watch the Explainometer I'm a fan, medium-sized, of the tv show Smallville. It's a what-if show. Meaning, it asks the question: what if Superman were an adolescent right now? The result is a fairly dark, Buffy-tinged show about being a teenager with powers that both awe our young Clark Kent and...well, piss him off. And, of course, he is, as many normal teens are, convinced

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Lesson 11: Go There: Knowing Your Territory God is in the details, and so is your screenplay. Screenplays occur in definite physical places: Los Angeles in the 1950s, Atlanta during the Civil War, Hollywood in the 1960s and 1970s. Make sure that you know so much about a place and a time, you’ve forgotten half of it. In the best movies, your authority doesn’t register consciously with

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Lesson 10: Breaking the Log Jam Are you stuck? In a rut? Being crushed by a gigantic writers’ block? Maybe you know more than you think you do. Consider asking your characters for help. Consider having one of your characters ask another character for help. Set up a little interview between two of your characters. It could look something like this. ROMEO: Just what do you think could

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Lesson 9: change the pace How fast do your characters or your scenes move? Do you have "insert high speed chase here" installed as a macro on your screenwriting software?' Or, conversely, are you fond of long, slow, leisurely conversations? If you don't know, notice what kind of films you're drawn to. Are you in love with quick-cut action films? Fond of chick flickus talkusalotus? You

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Lesson 8: accept the gift: little writers have big ears. There’s a line from Gertrude Stein: messages are being sent all the time. She wasn’t wrong or paranoid. All around us, people are speaking. And that means they are speaking story into the air. If you are in the beginning stages of writing your screenplay…or if you know that you want to write a screenplay, but do not yet know what

Marthahttp://www.blogger.com/profile/10283915599607284613noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5159979.post-920973672003-04-06T10:45:00.000-07:002003-04-06T10:49:07.000-07:00

Lesson 7 Everything I ever learned about character I learned from Hannibal Lecter In the movie Silence of the Lambs, FBI agent in training Clarice Starling is on the edge of discovering just what makes her quarry, Buffalo Bill, tick. But she’s stuck. She knows that if she can just figure out one last piece of the puzzle, she can catch him. So once again, she turns to serial killer—and

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Lesson 6: Rules: The rule of three We’ve all seen the movie trailer with the big action hero who…drum roll, please, “BREAKS ALL THE RULES.” Which is one of those little paradoxes, because, of course, the big action hero has CREATE one big rule for himself: he breaks all the rules. Good movies are a lot of things: in William Goldman’s word, they are architecture. They are characters we

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Lesson 5: Just Because It Happened, Doesn't Make It Interesting This is the first part of what will probably be a multiple part essay on ‘true stories,” and the traps beginning screenwriters fall into telling them. Here’s the first rule of true story telling: Just because it happened, doesn’t make it interesting. Your cat dying is not interesting. Sad, yes. Heartbreaking..to you, maybe. To

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Adaptation: Lesson 4: Embrace Your Inner Weirdo Charlie Kaufman’s script Adaptation is an adaptation, of a demented sort, of reporter Susan Orlean’s nonfiction book The Orchid Thief. Kaufman reportedly had huge trouble transforming Orlean’s book into a screenplay…so he decided to make the trouble he was having one of the subjects of the screenplay, as well as one of its themes. Susan Orlean,

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Who Am I This Time?? Lesson 3: Be A Hero...Interestingly One of my favorite teachers in the whole world, screenwriter Venable Herndon, used to say that in the first few drafts of any screenplay, everybody in the script would just POP with life...except the hero. You'd know less about her, like her less, feel less invested in her character than, say, Johnny the Shoeshine boy who has two lines.

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Laurel Canyon: Lesson 2/Found in Translation Current release Laurel Canyon, written and directed by Lisa Cholodenko, stars Frances McDormand as a 40ish record producer, an unregenerate hippie, dealing with her son, Christian Bale, an uptight psychiatry resident. Though he lives with a lovely woman, Bale finds himself attracted to a fellow resident, played by the delicious Natasha McElhone, an

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Okay, this is not a lecture on Will Smith's abs, but a first in a series of "what the movies can teach you about writing movies" lessons. Please enjoy. Love Serenade: Lesson 1 Some movies are packed to the gills with people, sounds, light, music, experiences….and somehow leave you empty. “Love Serenade,” a black romantic comedy from Australia, features only four main characters, a handful of

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WELCOME TO MY BLOG Jeff and I could NOT take our eyes off "All American Girl" last night. Jeff because he has a crush on Ginger Spice, and me because I felt like I had been locked in the biggest, meanest high school in the world. ("Oh, I hope I'm not pregnant again!" blurted a young woman. Us, too, chica.) It's not the end of Western civilization, it's not the end of a good storytelling on

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