moviemagicmaven

CREATING CHARACTERS: A (polite) BLOG DIALOGUE

Former 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 available to you.

Bill Wallo, of BlogCritics.org, does a very interesting jobof talking about what works and what doesn't work for him in the book. The comments beneath the review are what blogs can do best--extend the dialogue. Check it all out.

RIP, Ernest Lehman: a brief appreciation

Better 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 from jazz musicians to presidents. Hunsecker surfaced first in a short story, and then in a movie starring Burt Lancaster, who sniffs the night air of Manhattan like the predator he is and says, "I love this dirty town."

The movie is full of dialogue like that, not to mention the blossoming of Tony Curtis as a Serious Actor, playing desperate publicist Sidney Falco, whom, Lancaster dubs, "a cookie full of arsenic." Lehman's script suggests that the cookies from the "cookie cutter 50s" were filled with something other than sugar, and yet its makes you revel, just a little, in the brutal primeval forest of Manhattan night clubs.

There is so much more here to appreciate. Imagine a writer who could do this AND adapt both The Sound of Music AND Who's Afraid of Virginia Woolf? Listen to more about him here. NPR : Recalling the Art of Screenwriter Ernest Lehman

And salute a writer who, when writing North by Northwest, climbed halfway up Mt. Rushmore...because he wrote it into a scene. And then came down...because he didn't want to die before he finished the script.

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 is my boss. And he's half my age. And...he's sleeping with my daughter!"

That's the plot. But what matters as much in this movie is...the tone. Which is bittersweet, and, mostly, generous to the characters. Generous the way screwball comedies could be, or Billy Wilder's films in their kinder moments (think parts of "The Apartment," or "Some Like It Hot.")

Which is to say, this is a poignant, funny movie about downsizing with an improbably happy ending. And writer director Paul Weitz, who is third generation Hollywood royalty, knows how to pull it off, because he knows how to control the tone. Which means it can't get too slapstick, or sexy, or just plain mean. And it can be sentimental, in very limited doses.

So, when you're re-reading your screenplay, ask yourself: what kind of tone does my movie have? It doesn't have to be reduced to a single word to be effective. But the more ambitious the subject, the more consistent the tone.

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 kiss is better than a baby.
11. A pratfall is better than anything. "

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 cinematography. There's a dreamy, anachronistic feel to the movie that makes you want to fall in love with it (the music helps tons), and the style and the tone are so strong, it's easy to get sucked in.

But don't get sucked in, because this is a cutesy poo movie made by a gifted man who deliberately chose to leave the genuine darkness of his story on the cutting room floor--or literally, offscreen.

Here's where the movie breaks down: Zach Braff, who wrote, directed, and starred in the movie, plays a 20something actor who has managed to hack out a Hollywood acting career successful enough so that people in his hometown recognize him as "that retarded quarterback," a role he played well enough that his sweetheart, Natalie Portman, thought he was actually retarded. (One does have to wonder when and if the mental health activists are going to go off on Mr. Braff.)

Talk about backhanded and insenstive compliments. "Gee, you're so talented, you can play a retarded person, when you're not retarded!" Braff shrugs this off, explaining that he's been on heavy antidepressants FOR NINE YEARS, prescribed by his controlling father, played by Ian Holm. The resulting numbness makes him ideal to play spacy or retarded people.

If this were a Tim Burton movie, this might fly. But for all of its dreamy feel, this is a movie that wants to be about real people experiencing real things. So several questions arise:

1)How the hell, if he hasn't seen or even talked to his father, does Zach Braff manage to renew his med prescriptions?

2)Why, when Braff is allegedly a 25-year-old adult, did he keep RENEWING the prescriptions, when he clearly loathes his father and believes the drugs weren't necessary?

3) Where can I get that health plan?

4) Is Braff actually saying that acting is such a lame-ass profession that you can be deeply medicated and almost without affect--and still become famous enough to become recognized in your home town?

5)Finally, when Braff decides to stop taking his meds, he experiences virtually NO side effects other than a freaky spin the bottle montage. What drug could this possibly be?

The answer is, Zach Braff, who used to make music videos, decided to allow the major tones of his movie--lyrical, sweet, child-like, to override what the characters are actually saying and doing. And he's a talented enough filmmaker to pull it off...sometimes.

Think about it: This is the sweetest movie about a guy who robs graves (including the grave of his best friend's mother), a woman who compulsively kills her pets, a psychiatrist who probably let his paralyzed wife drown, and a bellboy who works as a pseudo-pimp and fence you'll ever see. In a particuarly strange way, Zach Braff the filmmaker is much like his character in the film: he's dissassociated from the reality around him, and he used, not drugs, but music video tricks to get there.

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 speak out loud to you, with NO PLAN. You might be surprised.

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 structure. But. They just didn't read well. Without the screenwriter to explain the screenplay's intention, the screenplay was flat. Some screenwriters are lucky enough to find a collaborator willing to translate their work. Some screenwriters direct their own work, and therefore can allow themselves to write in a secret code known only to them. But most screenplays go out naked into the world, and they must immediately make the connection with the reader, or die trying. And if they are not naked in an entertaining way, well....

Here's the deal: make your descriptions and transitions as fun to read as possible. There are lots of ways to up the fun quotient---screenwriter Shane Black (LETHAL WEAPON ad infinitum) was notorious for directly addressing the reader. In one screenplay, he cut to a sex scene--then refused to describe what happened, because his mom reads his screenplays. William Goldman loves to write in superlatives--the Biggest F-ing Explosion in the World, etc. (That's the kind of thing you need to do sparingly, unless your screenplay is about a special effects master.)

One of the best ways to pep up your screenplay style is to steal from a master journalist. Tom Wolfe was, and is, a master at setting a scene, and, most importantly, creating a conspiracy between himself and the reader. That is: providing the reader with a piece of information that will eventually pay off in a spectacular way--the literary equivalent of the bomb under the bed. Look at your screenplay and see where you might create that sense of intimacy with your reader. For a genius example of this with Tom Wolfe, read the first chapter of his The Right Stuff.

Farther back in the day, lived (and how he lived) was the New Yorker magazine's late great A.J. Liebling, fat man, boxer, and lover of Paris. About an abnormally thin boxer, Liebling wrote: "His torso was so narrow that his heart had standing room only." About a compliment he received from a woman long ago, Liebling remembered: "{It} is wrapped around my ego like a bullet-proof vest riveted with diamonds..."

Ah. Lovely. There are probably simpler ways to say both things, but probably not better. Now, you wouldn't use this style if, say, you were writing an episode of Law and Order. But in most cases, it applies. Isn't it nice to be memorable? And isn't it great when you make it to unforgettable?