Coens, Pekinah, & The Western

Okay, I have to get all of this Coen brothers stuff out of my system.

First, I recently stumbled across a Creative Screenwriting podcast interview with the Coen brothers conducted by Jeff Goldsmith. A few interesting things were said. The brothers don’t do outlines, they don’t do research (“We’re not big on that. We’re from the make-it-up school.”), nor do they ever have, with the exception of adaptations and remakes, a clue as to how their stories will end. In fact, one of the brothers said, “If the author doesn’t know, the audience couldn’t possibly know.” Goldsmith also asked them if they ever do character passes through the script to ensure that each character has a unique voice. One of them replied, “Oh no, no. We don’t do that. Whatever that would be. What a strange concept.”

Hehehe…

Yup, that’s everything you’d expect from the Coens. But what are newbies to think about such things? Are they to emulate the Coens and avoid research and outlines? No. Well, not yet. Consider the fact that these guys were born in the mid-50’s, they've studied the craft of filmmaking almost all their lives, and now they’re at a level of knowledge and craftsmanship, particularly the genres within which they are working and bending, that they don’t have to rely on the tools many of us turn to for every script we write. And despite the fact that they SAY they don’t do research, they are well-read. It wasn’t until they were halfway through O, Brother Where Art Thou? that they realized they were actually writing Homer’s Odyssey. They DID the research. They just didn’t REALIZE they did it.


With respect to outlines, I recall Neil Simon saying in his autobiography that he avoided outlines like the plague. He wanted to experience each play like the audience and not know how the story will end. Well, he frequently – dare I say, regularly – got himself into third act troubles where he wrote himself into a corner and couldn’t figure out the ending. The Coens likewise fell into the same trap with Miller’s Crossing. They lost themselves in the plot and had to put it aside. They wrote and filmed Barton Fink, returned to Miller’s Crossing with a clear head, and the rest is history. I’m not going to say it’s wrong. Personally, I think it’s better to figure out the story first in an outline and know how your story will end before you start writing the script so that it’s just a matter of figuring out the best way to get to the big ending and ensuring that every plot point and arc is setup properly so that the ending satisfies and the audience will walk out happy.

And consider this – every day, the brothers meet in an office and talk through each and every scene before they write it. The talk through all of the good and bad ideas, settle on something they like, and then put it to paper. They put more thought into each scene than some aspiring writers put into entire scripts.

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On a somewhat concurrent note, I’d like to share these links.

Here’s the No Country For Old Men screenplay.

Jim Emerson has a number of great articles about No Country For Old Men that are really worth your time. Consider his One Shot: They Wrote That piece. He talks about a moment in the film that he thought was a “privileged moment,” but it was in fact, a shot that was written in the screenplay. He writes, “But I just wanted to point this out, and that they wanted to be certain it was not just in the film, but even in the screenplay (which in other respects is somewhat different than the film itself). Writers often do that kind of thing, and the credit (or blame) for a shot or sequence will usually be attributed to the director, even if it was right there in the script. But it is the director who bears responsibility for realizing those images, and sequencing them, and presenting them so that they do what they need to do. The Coens, being their own writers, directors, producers and editors, pretty much understand what they're looking for. And they recognize what they've got when a miracle drops in their lap: the birds, and shadows of birds, over the highway in "Blood Simple"; the pelican plopping into the ocean at the end of "Barton Fink").”

I enjoyed Michael Sragow’s article in which he compared No Country For Old Men with Sam Peckinah films. “In the ‘Masculine Principle’ section of his landmark book ‘Peckinpah: The Western Films,’ Paul Seydor linked Mailer and Peckinpah as artists defined by their pursuit of extreme action, their rebellion against official culture and bureaucratized society, and their recognition that the quest for authentic manhood is absolute and never-ending. Their paradoxical linkage of fragility with appetite and strength -- so different from the cheap certainty of macho camp -- drove Peckinpah to create the most dynamic of all visual lexicons and Mailer to master a dazzling variety of rhetoric in both intimate and epic modes. They found their real security only when they fully practiced their art. That's when their genius cast a spell over other artists who would rarely share their styles or biases.”

Matt Zoller Seitz wrote a spectacular piece about this film in his Point Blank article. Matt has a tremendous ability to analyze films, which I really admire. Here’s a taste: “‘What you got ain't nothing new,’ a retired lawman says in No Country For Old Men, counseling a colleague who's so traumatized by a recent mass murder case that he's thinking of quitting his job. That's hard truth, and the fact that the sheriff, Ed Tom Bell (Tommy Lee Jones), is more introspective than some of his colleagues doesn't make it go down any easier. Bell's astonishment at the violence unleashed by his quarry, Anton Chigurh (Javier Bardem) -- an assassin tailing a Vietnam vet (Josh Brolin) who filched a briefcase full of drug money -- is so deep that it spurs Bell to reconsider his life, his job, the nature of morality, the mind of God, the shifting cultural character of the border country he calls home, and the profound ways in which the United States changed between World War II and the Reagan era. Bell is one of many characters forced by Chigurh's rampage to consider his place in the universe: who he really is; what he stands for; whether he believes what he believes and behaves as he does by choice, predisposition or predestination; whether evil exists and whether God, if there is one, cares one way or the other.”

And finally, A.O. Scott wrote a sweeping historical overview of the entire western genre. I thought it was great. “Looking back at those movies today, however, you notice that the rumors of their naïveté were greatly exaggerated. It has become fashionable to locate political and sexual subtexts beneath their plain-spoken surfaces, but the subtexts were there from the start. And so was an ideological framework far more supple and complex than a simple celebration of conquest and domination or of rugged, square-jawed manhood. The archetypal western hero is a complicated figure, and the world he inhabits is a place of flux and contradiction. At the end, the stranger rides off into the wilderness, since the civilization he has helped to save holds no permanent place for him. His departure is also a promise of return, both for the star who plays him — John Wayne, Randolph Scott, Clint Eastwood — and, more profoundly, for the archetype he embodies, an archetype much older than the movies. This solitary, self-sufficient, often morally ambiguous figure — a man of violence with a shadowy background and a haunted look in his eyes — can trace his literary parentage back to Leatherstocking, the peripatetic hero of James Fenimore Cooper’s novels of 18th-century frontier adventure.”

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As a bonus, here are some clips from No Country For Old Men.

I just love the dialogue.















So glad I got all of that out of my system. I feel better now.

-MM

On Being a Difficult Writer

I talked about this in my Write the Shots article. I hammered it home with my post on M. Night Shyamalan. And in private, I tell friends who are landing their first sales/assignments that more important than getting your vision onto the big screen is establishing a good working relationship with your producer while also delivering a jaw-droppingly sensational script. A good working relationship is, of course, important on every project, but especially so with your first few. And like clockwork, here's an email from a friend (the names and titles have been changed to protect the innocent):

So I was talking to my producer yesterday and she was telling me about her former classmate in the Film School at [BIG SCHOOL]. I guess this person is a wunderkind and was producing this script from some writer. I guess the script was really good and was on the verge of lining up a deal for financing and this thing was going to get made. But the writer was a real pain in the ass. Stubborn, opinionated, rude. So long story short, this wunderkind is now the co-producer on [MY SCRIPT]. I guess he read the script and loved it. He talked to [JOSEPHINA] (the other producer) and was complaining about what a pain in the ass the writer was. [JOSEPHINA] said I was "a joy to work with". He said he wished he could work with people that were easier to get along with. [JOSEPHINA] then asked him to be a co producer on [MY SCRIPT], and he agreed. He terminated the agreement with the other writer and is now MY co-producer. So in the span of 2 days, we've got somebody at [BIG STUDIO] on board championing our project, have [BIG STAR'S] production company scheduling a pitch, and God knows what else. And the other project is dead in the water.

Sawdust and Tinsel

Recently, I noticed two articles about the new Criterion Collection DVD of Bergman's 1953 Sawdust and Tinsel.

First, there was the review in Slant Magazine:

Ingmar Bergman and Federico Fellini were both attracted to the metaphoric image of the circus, though the meanings the clowns and trapeze artists held for the two art-house heavyweights could scarcely be more different. While Fellini in La Strada envisioned the circus as a gaudy yet all-embracing setting for the fundamental comedy of the human condition, Bergman in Sawdust and Tinsel saw it as a mocking version of the theater stage that would become his recurring motif, a place where, costumes and makeup notwithstanding, people and their emotions are at their most exposed. When American distributors released Sawdust and Tinsel under the title The Naked Night to suggest Euro bawdiness, they fortuitously hit the movie's theme: The ruthless stripping of the characters' dreams and illusions by Bergman's increasingly invasive camera.

But I really enjoyed the in-depth analysis at Not Coming to a Theater Near You. Leo Goldsmith mentioned that Bergman wrote the screenplay "in a burst of unusually profound misanthropy," which was rooted in guilt over his betrayal of his third wife, Gun Hagberg, as well as his new lover and star, Harriet Andersson, on the set of Summer with Monika, "dissatisfaction with their subsequent romance, and the humiliating withdrawal of an offer to work at the Royal Dramatic Theater." And thus, "Bergman set to work on synthesizing all of this guilt, betrayal, and dissatisfaction into the first major work of his career." Of the story, Goldsmith wrote:

There is no overtly triumphant note struck for art in Sawdust and Tinsel, but like nearly all Bergman films, the film is ultimately neither fatalistic nor dour. After all, the circus is a “world of misery, lice, disease,” but it is not the artificial and the manipulative world of Sjuberg’s melodramatic theater with its two-dimensional trees and false knives. Nor is the circus the spare, claustrophobic world of Agda’s shop, that space of ticking clocks, buttons to be sewn, and formal, mirthless children. Even though he desperately attempts to rejoin it, Albert knows that this “normal” life is empty and motionless. It lacks the vitality and perpetual movement of the circus caravan, which he recognizes as teeming with life even in the depths of his drunken, jealous, suicidal rage. In a pre-showtime drinking binge with Frost, Albert threatens to kill “five or six” people, including Frost, Alma, and himself, out of mercy—“It’s a pity people must live on this earth.” But soon he bursts into the open air, and the sound of music and performers rehearsing and singing open his eyes, however momentarily or drunkenly, to the sight of life around him. It is one of those fleeting moments in so many Bergman films – the al fresco lunch in Wild Strawberries, the picnic in The Seventh Seal – in which the intensity of self-scrutiny dims for a moment and some peace is afforded, free of the constrictions of the world or the order that the mind assigns to it. It’s a temporary rest, but not an illusion to rest upon, and soon Albert and Frost drunkenly begin to whip their colleagues into shape. For better or worse, they have a performance to prepare for and there is much work to do...

But essentially, this is the world of all of Bergman’s subsequent masterpieces, fully formed, if more savage on its surface. Like so many Bergman protagonists that follow them, Albert and Anne become ensnared in their illusory fantasies of self-betterment, traps that they have laid for themselves. And in sensing the inescapability of their positions, they finally see no alternative but the perpetual motion of the caravan. At the close of the film, it is morning again, the caravan must move on, and the performers must continue playing their roles as clowns, with no possibility for escape except for alcohol (Frost’s own vice) or death. And so, stuck together in hell, without recourse to vain illusions of betterment or wealth or success, the question that these characters face is one of vulnerability: How do we make ourselves vulnerable again in a world that may well – or perhaps will inevitably – hurt us? Propelled through this circle of desire and dissatisfaction, we are bound to betray others and ourselves, and we face humiliation and cruelty at every turn. Once wounded, how can we again make ourselves vulnerable by reaching out to others? And if we cannot, what other life is there available to us?

Strike - Over?

Nikki Finke is reporting that a deal may be in place between both sides:

"It's already done, basically," the insider describes. That's because of the weeks worth of groundwork by the Hollywood agents working the writers guild leadership on one side, and the studio and network moguls on the other. I was told not to expect an agreement this week. But my source thought it was possible that the strike could be settled before Christmas.

Thank God. I believe this may have had a lot to do with the new ground rules for negotiation, as reported by Steve Young, writer for the Late Night Show:

--Each side may bring one giant inflatable animal.

--No hot-dogging or show-boating.

--During the 15 minute break, there will be a musical performance by the National Labor Relations Board 's "Rappin' Mediator."

--The AMPTP must withdraw excessively unfavorable proposals if the WGA team chants "Hey hey, ho ho, corporate greed has got to go."

--Each negotiating team member must bring a covered dish.

--To determine the final internet residuals formula, the WGA will pick one of 26 silver briefcases held by models.

--The session will begin with an attempt to resolve a minor negotiating issue: the WGA wants to be able to sit at the table, while the AMPTP is demanding 100% of the chairs for themselves.

Variety's Survey on the Strike

Variety recent published its in-depth survey on the strike with some interesting results:

More than two-thirds of survey respondents stated the Writers Guild of America is representing its side of the battle more forcefully and more clearly than the studios under the Alliance of Motion Picture and Television Producers umbrella org. And more than two-thirds of respondents agreed that the scribes are being "more honest and forthright" than the majors in their discussion of the key issues, chiefly increased residuals for homevid sales and for digital distribution of movies and TV shows.

But while the writers may have broad industry support, survey respondents are mindful of the realpolitik of Hollywood. Survey found that 44% of respondents believe that the strike will be resolved "in favor of the companies," while 37% feel it will be settled in a way that is "mostly fair" to both sides, and only 20% feel it will be resolved in the favor of the writers. What's more, survey respondents predict dire consequences for the industry, particularly in the TV realm, if the strike continues past December.

To read the article, click here. To see the full survey, click here.

Diabolical Don G

Nigel Andrews has a new article in the Financial Times, called The Celluloid Sopranos, in which he writes about the tragic deaths that have historically followed filmed operas:

"It is like watching childbirth. Through a narrow channel (the movie projector beam), with struggle, exertion and sometimes pain, a living entity (the opera film) is forced out into the world. The first impression is of a bawling mouth and lots of noise. The first instinct, often, is to hold the creature upside down and smack it hard. But the end result can be a miracle: a living organism growing up straight, rich, true and complex. Though the infant mortality rate in filmed opera is high – famed fiascos include 1953’s Aida with Sophia Loren miming to Renata Tebaldi’s voice – we can think in compensation of Syberberg’s Parsifal, Losey’s Don Giovanni, Bergman’s The Magic Flute. Next week we have the UK release of Kenneth Branagh’s The Magic Flute: very different from Bergman’s, possibly a candidate for smacking, but with moments of giddy grandeur."


While I’m not an opera connoisseur, I must confess, I have a real thing for Don Giovanni. As a protagonist, he’s such a bad, bad boy. He’s un-sympathetic, un-empathetic – diabolical even! - he’s the Diabolical Don G! And HE is the protagonist! Not only that, the man has no character arc. He never changes his ways, nor even considers it. At the very end when Don G literally faces death, he refuses to repent and pays the penalty with his life. Then the rest of the cast sing gaily about how this is a moral tale where the wicked die just as they lived.

The other interesting thing about Don G is the construction of the cast design. The monstrously un-sympathetic Don is surrounded by very sympathetic supporting characters. You feel sorry for them and all the ways Don G wrongs them with reckless abandon for his own self indulgences. The play also goes to great pains to show you different sides to each character in order to give them depth, which really makes me happy. In the states, Don G's usually watered down and lightened up. In Europe, especially Italy, they give you the hardcore Don G, a Don so wicked that death is only too merciful.

I love it.

With respect to the article, there will never be much of a crossover into film. Opera was always meant to be experienced in person, although in this new age of high definition DVDs and TVs and glorious surround sound, people might be more inclined to watch DVDs of operas, but like me, they’ll only want to see filmed performances.

-MM

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See also:

Don Giovanni on Wikipedia

Here's the final scene of the opera from the film, Amadeus:

Screenwriting News links – 11/26/07

Hollywood's Giving Away Residuals:
Last month, HarperCollins, a division of News Corp., announced a partnership with Sharp Independent to develop movies based on HarperCollins books. Meanwhile, Random House Inc. has teamed up with Focus Features to co-produce two to three movies a year based on fiction and nonfiction from its dozen imprints… Random House and HarperCollins will get a cut of the box office sales, as well as revenue from DVDs, cable TV and other media. And the authors involved will get more say in choosing screenwriters, actors and directors.

Hollywood screenwriters, producers go back to bargaining table today
HOLLYWOOD — Akiva Goldsman never stopped writing. Not when his teachers, from grade school to grad school, said he wasn't very good. Not in his tough early years as a struggling screenwriter. But on Nov. 5, Goldsman — who went on to pen blockbuster movies such as “Cinderella Man,” “A Beautiful Mind,” “The Da Vinci Code” and “I, Robot” — quit writing. “I won't pick up my pen again until we have a fair deal,” the Oscar-winning Goldsman declared at a rally...

(I'll tell you what's a fair deal - Akiva never touching another Batman screenplay – THAT is a fair deal. Hehehe...)

Screenwriters of the World Unite:
In a show of support for the ongoing Writers Guild strike, 21,000 screenwriters worldwide are planning what's being described as an "international day of solidarity," with protests set for Australia, New Zealand, the United Kingdom, Ireland, Mexico, France and Canada Nov. 28. "For us it's a thing of admiration for our colleagues," said David Kavanagh, chief executive of the Irish Playwrights and Screenwriters Guild. "They're taking risks now that are going to benefit us later on."

Plus, Screenwriting Guru has been added to Wikipedia.

Gaddafi is a Screenwriter

Also in the world of screenwriting news, Muammar al-Gaddafi, the dictator of Libya, the man who once fashioned himself as “the Mao Zedong of the Middle East” is now a screenwriter:

“A series of impressionistic sketches he has written evoking his country as it was on the eve of invasion by Italy in September 1911 – placid, rustic, traditional – and then as it roused itself to fight to expel the foreigners, is to become the basis for a film costing at least $40m (£19.1m) which begins shooting in Libya next year. Aimed principally at a non-Arab audience, and entitled Dhulm – Years of Torment, it will tell the story of Libya's traumatic experience at the hands of Europe's Johnny-come-lately imperialists.”

The Power of Cinema’s Images

In the vein of our discussions on Cinematic Storytelling, Write the Shots, and the Art of Visual Storytelling, I’d like to give a great big shout-out to "Space" from Bulgaria who runs the blog, [ ] or Spacest.

He writes no words. He only posts images from films. And he lifts those images from both good and bad films, from artsy to mainstream to action to drama to anime, as well as films that range anywhere between visual excess and extreme minimalism. You'll also see a lot of foreign and domestic films, too. (Except he's in Bulgaria, so I guess foreign to him would be domestic to us.)

Anyway, I love it. The photos have a funny way of sneaking up on you. Try to forget the context of the story and just consider each image on its own terms. Hopefully, you’ll find, as I did, that it can be a very compelling and even inspirational experience. His blog is such a great testament to the stirring power of cinema's images.

In his bio, Mr. Space wrote:

“...we know that, behind every image revealed, there is another image more faithful to reality, and in back of that image there is another, and yet another behind the last one, and so on, up to the true image of that absolute, mysterious reality that no one will ever see...”

As a taste, here are his images from The Painted Veil.

I love what you do. Thanks.

-MM

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Change of Blog Format

Hey guys,

I'd like to get into the screenwriting news business. The strike has changed me, and I'd like to post up-to-date news articles about all things related to screenwriting while also continuing to provide in-depth analysis, script reviews, and commentary. This, of course, means multiple posts every day, but this is what I'd like to do. I'd like to share (and comment on) all of the articles I read. It'll all start on Monday.

-MM

Script Review – “The Happening”

An Inconvenient Plot

Okay, so, there were two guys playing golf. They both hit tee shots. One ball went one way, the other went the other way, and neither landed anywhere near the fairway.

They decided to split up and meet at the green.

The first guy found his ball buried in a field of Buttercups. He pulled out his 7-iron and started whacking away at the Buttercups to get his ball out (but having no luck).

Well, SUDDENLY, Mother Nature emerged from the ground and said to the man, “Excuse me. I created this beautiful field of Buttercups and now you’ve ruined them! You’ve no respect at all, and I’m going to punish you for this. Since these are Buttercups, your punishment is that you cannot have butter for one year.”

“What about my buddy?” he said. “Are you going to punish him, too?”

“But of course I am,” she replied.

The man looked at his buddy, laughed, and went back to whacking the Buttercups.

“What do you find so funny?” she asked.

“My buddy over there – he’s in the Pussywillows.”

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And that little joke, my friends, is better than 105 pages of M. Night Shyamalan’s latest drivel of hack screenwriting called The Happening.

But screw Shyamalan. Here’s a picture of Zooey Deschanel:

“Someday… you’ll be cool.”

THAT, Mr. M. Night, is exactly what you should be telling yourself.

It’s amazing how far this man has fallen. He was livin’ large following the global phenomenon that was The Sixth Sense. Newsweek put him on the cover and declared him to be “the next Spielberg.” Everyone heaped praise upon praise upon him. He believed every word, too. He told Esquire he knew the exact recipe for summer blockbusters.

By the way, The Sixth Sense wasn’t his first film. His first film was Wide Awake, which lost its funding in the middle of production. Then he banged out Praying With Anger, the story of an Indian-American who returned to his homeland, India, to go to college. No one saw it. Then he finished Wide Awake, which told the tale of a fifth grader who lost his grandfather and searched for God. Everyone hated it. Owen Gleiberman of Entertainment Weekly said, “Wide Awake has no higher power, no dramatic conflict, no characters, no scenes. It's a series of wispy anecdotal fragments Scotch-taped together by (the young boys) lispy-cute narration.” He gave it an “F.” That whole debacle was so humiliating to Shyamalan that he has since disowned the film.

He then took an assignment job writing the Stuart Little script, which actually got greenlit miraculously enough, and it was at this point, the story goes, that Shymalan really dug deep and came up with something big to wow the world and finally realize his dream of becoming a real, live, honest-to-goodness FILMMAKER. It took something like 7 drafts before he came up with the big twist at the end, and that story was, of course, The Sixth Sense. Disney bought the script for $1.25 million, which included director duties. Joe Roth pushed Bruce Willis into doing it, and the rest is cinema history.

Except history is now writing about Shyamalan's creative decline.

Oh, look. Someone morphed Shyamalan’s face onto Michael Jackson’s body. How funny.


Quickly, let's go through his decline:

Unbreakable was decent and had a plot that actually advanced (unlike The Sixth Sense, which was all smoke & mirrors until we got to the big revelation). While it had its inspired moments that were, indeed, worthy of repeat viewings, let’s face it, the ending was anti-climactic and less than satisfying.

Signs is on my personal list of worst endings ever. I mean, COME ON. The aliens die from being exposed to WATER? Are you kidding me? Why would they come here in the first place? The earth is predominantly COVERED in water. They didn’t notice that FROM OUTER SPACE? What? They had no windows in their big space ship? For God’s sake, they should’ve turned back by the time they got to the moon! I mean, these aliens are capable of SPACE TRAVEL but they don’t know how to create a damn waterproof suit? Pfft. Whatever. He’s slacking.

With respect to The Village, I believe everyone on the planet hates it. I haven’t spoken to everyone about it yet, still working on that, but I’m pretty sure they all hate it. Ebert called it “a colossal miscalculation, a movie based on a premise that cannot support it, a premise so transparent it would be laughable were the movie not so deadly solemn. It's a flimsy excuse for a plot, with characters who move below the one-dimensional and enter Flatland.” I got news for you, Ebert. His characters have always been one-dimensional, but we never noticed because we were so focused on the plot twist.

And then there's Lady in the Water, which deserves some special attention. Before Night could even get this project off the ground, he threw a gigantic, childish tantrum at Disney because Nina Jacobson had “concerns” about his script. Apparently, at a dinner in Philadelphia, she delivered a frank critique and told him that she and her boss, studio Chairman Dick Cook, didn't “get” the idea of his story. Shyamalan was “heartbroken.” Things only got worse when she lambasted a scene ridiculing a film critic and told Shyamalan that casting himself as a visionary writer out to change the world “bordered on self-serving.” Well, that was it for him. He left the studio in a giant fit. He got his script sold to Warner Brothers AND orchestrated to have a 278-page hardcover book, The Man Who Heard Voices: Or, How M. Night Shyamalan Risked His Career on a Fairy Tale (buy it now for the low, low price of $6.99!), written to stick it real good to Nina Jacobson and get released one day before the premiere of Lady in the Water.

The film was released and bombed and Shyamalan was quite literally torn limb from limb on the web. First, there was... oh, wait a sec...

Zooey, honey, please cover your ears.


First, there was Sir Lancelot from Aint it Cool News who wrote, “Lady In The Water is a diarrhea splat of storytelling so haphazard, ideas so undernourished, dialogue so banal, and characterization so criminally lifeless that if you'll be able to lift yourself out of your torpor you will be truly amazed. You will be truly amazed because here is a young filmmaker who has, in one fell swoop, transformed himself from a flawed and fortuitous studio darling into an irritating film school geek with no right to advancement. I can only assume the Warner Bros suits were so stunned by the celluloid catastrophe that developed in front of their eyes day by day that they forgot that it was their job to rein in this monstrous piece of self-indulgent crap.”

The critics had a thing or two to say, as well. Jim Emerson (subbing for Ebert at the time) wrote: “But any con man or storyteller must, at the very least, convey to us the sense that he buys his own con, and Shyamalan is too afraid to commit. The low star rating isn't just for pretension or ineptitude, its for hypocrisy and cowardice, too.” The New York Post called it, “An act of spectacular (if unwitting) self-immolation.” Here’s Cinematical: “Shyamalan tries here to take a storyteller's approach to telling what should be a visual tale, thus violating one of the chief tenets of filmmaking: Show, don't tell.” Entertainment Weekly: “Shyamalan's most alienating and self-absorbed project to date.” New York Observer: “Hollywood cannot pollute the ozone with anything more idiotic, contrived, amateurish or sub-mental than Lady in the Water.”

Say, has anyone noticed that Shyamalan’s creative deterioration is in direct proportion to his inflating ego? Just an observation.

Newsweek, which had once proclaimed Shyamalan as “the next Spielberg,” had to finally acknowledge the giant egg on its corporate face and wrote: “What remains to be seen, though, is how [Shyamalan] will react... ‘Will he be one of those guys who self-destructs,’ asks an Oscar-nominated producer, ‘or will he pick himself up and reinvent himself?’ The solution, most suggest, is for him to break out of his self-imposed cocoon. ‘The smaller you make your world, the less of an artist you can really be,’ says an indie exec. ‘Look at Stanley Kubrick. If you see 'Eyes Wide Shut,' it's clear he hadn't left the house in 20 years.’ Others think Shyamalan should take a break from writing screenplays. ‘He could direct some big, great script that a studio is trying to get to someone like Spielberg,’ says the agent. Interesting thought, but this time let's leave the real Spielberg out of it.”

Yes. Let’s.

Okay, Zooey, give me a smile.


Thanks. I love your smiles.

So now we’ve come full circle. It’s as if we’ve returned to the early days when Shyamalan was a nobody with two failures under his belt and he had to dig deep to come up with a story to wow people all over again. And we finally got to see what it would be. Last January, Boy Wonder came to Hollywood with his new script under his arm, which was called The Green Effect, the very draft I write about today. Every studio in Hollywood rejected it and sent him packing to Philadelphia.

And with good reason. It was, first of all, so poorly written, it was embarrassing. “We see,” “we hear,” in almost every action line. Obviously, WE SEE, M. Night, it’s a damn movie. That's the WHOLE POINT, isn't it - TO SEE? You’d think a five-year-old wrote this script. But let’s talk story. In his plot, (just like the photo at the top AND the stupid joke), Mother Nature has decided to throw a tantrum regarding mankind’s disrespect for the planet (and little things like Buttercups and Pussywillows), and the plants of the earth have begun releasing dangerous toxins into the air to kill the majority of humans. But not the animals. Just the humans. (She’s a smart one, that Ms. Nature. Or is it Mrs. Nature?) Anyway, there’s no place humans can go to hide. Because it’s all in the air. And thus, all we get in the script is about 70 pages of... people… running… from… air.

* MAJOR SPOILERS *

The biggest mistake in the script is that concept and message took precedence over characters. We’re given a weak protagonist in Elliot (played by Mark Wahlberg) who has this forced, contrived conflict with his wife, Alma (played by the lovely Zooey Deschanel). We were never given the real reason behind their conflict either. It’s just thrown in there without any thought at all. Plus, like many male leads in Shyamalan’s films, Elliot is passive, timid, and weak, although in the end, he does figure out the solution to the toxins-in-the-air problem. According to Elliot, the plants are like mood rings. When they don’t like the energies humans give off, they will now release toxins. Oh. That sucks. And in the climactic third act, Elliot and Alma, who have been separated and are trying to reunite, courageously choose to step out into the open air (??) and channel as much positive feelings for each other as they can – dare I say, love? - and then they just… live.

Whew.

I think what bothers me most about the script beyond the ridiculous ending and innumerable plot holes and weak characters, is that the concept itself was rooted in ego and designed to invoke praise for Shyamalan. “Oh wow, isn’t he an amazing filmmaker? He used no special effects and made us all afraid of AIR! Isn’t he incredible?”

No, because in screenwriting, CHARACTER will always be king.

Last March, Shyamalan returned with a revised script (re-titled The Happening) and 20th Century Fox signed up to distribute his film. Believe me, no revision can fix this inconvenient plot.

At least, don’t hold your breath.

The Writers Strike & The Great Big Elephant in the Room

I’ve been dying to write about the strike, but I haven’t had anything unique to say that hasn’t already been covered by so many other writers and bloggers like Phil Robinson’s 4-Minute History of the WGA, United Hollywood, and Nikki Finke. I liked the posts from John Rogers (“Moral issues aside -- fair residuals mean more working writers, more working writers mean more product, more product means more physical production jobs, media sales, corporate profits and shareholder value. That's what we're striking for.”); John August (“Pencils down means pencils down. I’m not writing any features or television until there’s a contract.”); Billy Mernit (“Beyond all the negotiations, the percentages and the politics, lies a simple mistake, a kind of a basic mis-evaluation. We've always, since the dawn of the industry, been belittled.”); and Craig Mazin (“I hate this strike, I hate the circumstances that led to it, I hate the missteps that occurred along the way, and I really hate to say ‘I told you so’ to all the people who said ‘Patric Verrone will keep us out of a strike!!!’ …but the strike is here. Back it all the way. And if the companies are serious about eliminating residuals (which is what much of their proposal would achieve), then back it to the death.”). On the fun side, there’s Diablo Cody, screenwriter of Juno, (“Even striking can be fun when someone's blasting ‘Sir Duke’ and donuts abound,” and “The best part of this afternoon was when Jeremy Piven drove off the lot and we all screamed ‘PIVS! PIVS!’ at him like lovestruck Beatlemaniacs.”). I also got a kick out Ze Frank’s video blogs. Check it out. He’s hilarious.

I want to touch upon something no one else has written about yet, not even in the media, I don't believe. This problem honestly has nothing at all to do with the writers nor with any of the things the writers are asking for, especially when it comes to residuals. What the writers want in terms of percentages is so miniscule and would have such an inconsequential impact on the business as a whole that it’s stunning the AMPTP would even debate the subject. Our contract was 20 years old. What did they expect? It’s not our fault we’re asking for a revised (and still very reasonable) percentage of residuals, which should include internet downloads. The simple fact is, the fight against the writers is symptomatic of bigger industry-wide issues. Whether we ultimately do or don’t get what we asked for, this still won't solve the problem of the great big elephant in the room.


BIG, BIG ELEPHANT

Unlike some of my colleagues, I’m actually sympathetic toward the studios and their difficulties with endlessly rising costs of production and distribution. The financial risk has never been more sky-high than it is today, and it is a fact that many studios are losing money. Did you guys hear about the recent report put together by Global Media Intelligence that was called, “Do Movies Make Money?” As reported in the NYT, “The study estimated that all such releases last year would yield a combined loss of $1.9 billion after collecting the revenue from an entire first cycle of sales to domestic theaters, foreign theaters, home video, pay television and every other source of income. Total sales for last year’s slate, the company figures, will ultimately be about $23.7 billion, down about 4.6 percent from 2004. Total costs, meanwhile, rose to $25.6 billion, up 13.2 percent.” Concurrently, the studios are “paying out shares worth $3 billion, while piling up an almost $2 billion loss on their new films.” Out of the $3 billion in shares, us lowly writers only got a mere $121.3 million in residuals. THAT'S NOTHING. Do you see how trivial all this arguing about residuals is?

The real problem with rising costs has nothing to do with writers, directors, or (most) actors but it has everything to do with this antiquated Hollywood film distribution system, which should’ve been demolished years ago. And I don't mean “restructured.” Or “re-organized.” I mean total annihilation. Gone. Poof. Out of work. You studio guys want to cut costs? Well, THERE is your big elephant. Fix that problem instead of punishing the writers. It’s absurd in this day of streaming videos and next day DVD arrivals from Netflix, that Hollywood should still live in the past and spend billions and billions every year to ship those heavy canisters of film reels to tens of thousands of theaters around the world, only to have it all shipped back to them a few weeks later when it’s over. In this day and age, it ought to be dirt cheap to get films into theaters. What costs billions should only cost nickels. That eliminates risk. But we've reached a point where the rest of the world has figured out all the things Hollywood could not and now more and more people stay at home to watch films because the quality of home theater systems is better than what you get in theaters. And no one kicks the back of your chair.

I’ve been thinking about this since the days when Lucas tried and failed to get theaters to install more digital projectors before he released Revenge of the Sith. There were articles and conferences and all this talk and NOTHING HAPPENED. Every business evolves. Yet Hollywood is unshakeable. And now the studios are quite literally paying the price for failing to embrace the digital revolution. It’s like this giant bloated cow that can’t move forward and actually chooses to waste mountains of money and manpower and expenses to stay propped up on this antiquated low-quality distribution system that’s been around since – what – the 1930s? If a director (like Spielberg) wants to film something on film – GREAT – but at least be willing to transfer the finished film onto some kind of digital platform to save costs on distribution.

As far as I'm concerned, the middle man should be cut, the studios should be dealing directly with theater chains, they should be shipping piracy-proof DVDs to theaters for next to nothing, digital projectors shouldn’t have to cost theaters one penny more than what regular projectors cost, and money can be transferred back to the studios at the point of sale. That’s not science fiction. That’s a practical business solution to rising costs. If I had the money, I'd start a new chain of theaters that would only project films digitally, refuse to talk to distributors, and deal directly with the studios and any other production company that has a good film to show. Fuck the system.


Check this out. Of the Global Media Intelligence report, Scott Macaulay recently wrote, “…what I'd be curious about is whether distribution revenues are separated out from profitability analysis. Typically, a studio's distribution arm will take a distribution fee that is calculated as a percentage of box-office receipts. They also take video and foreign sales fees. What remains -- after gross participation and distribution fees -- is what's credited back against the film's costs. And yes, many films never see the balance sheet tilt into the positive. I've seen many indie-film business plans that simply look at box-office numbers and never try to figure out how much money is left for the producer after P&A, the theaters' cut, and distribution fees...”

Are you kidding me?

Friends, the problem is not with the writers. It’s with an old industry that's long overdue for a complete overhaul top to bottom, front to back, and side to side, just as much as it needed it back in 1945 when (as Warner Brothers was reworking The Big Sleep) Raymond Chandler bitterly wrote, “I am not interested in why the Hollywood system exists or persists, nor in learning out of what bitter struggles for prestige it arose, nor in how much money it succeeds in making out of bad pictures. I am interested only in the fact that as a result of [the system] there is no such thing as an art of the screenplay, and there never will be as long as the system lasts, for it is the essence of this system that it seeks to exploit a talent without permitting it the right to be a talent. It cannot be done; you can only destroy the talent, which is exactly what happens - when there is any to destroy.”

-MM

Write the Shots!

Hey guys,

Despite everything, I managed to finish an article I had been working on for some time - because Mystery Man is a MACHINE! Hehehe…

Okay, let’s just clear the air of so much bad thinking about action lines. I don’t know how or why this happened, but a lot of newbies seem to think that a scene is comprised of 1) a Master Scene Heading (such as INT. MYSTERY MAN’S KITCHEN – NIGHT) and 2) they should just add some action lines to describe the room, the characters, write a bunch of dialogue, (and quite a few more action lines to describe even the slightest gestures of characters, which we call incidental actions), and 3) move on to the next scene and repeat this process for 120 pages.

Wrong.

How did they get so far away from the core principles of screenwriting? Were they mislead? I don’t know. Even by the very low standards described above, some newbies can’t even get that right and they fill their action lines with what we call unfilmmables – sentences in action lines that are not visual, such as backstories of characters, author’s intrusions, inner thoughts, questions to the reader, etc.

Now, what do we know about action lines? With Trottier’s Screenwriter's Bible, we know that we ARE meant to describe the setting, characters, or actions of those characters, but these sentences must be very lean and mean. We write only what we see on the screen and only the most essential elements using the most minimal words. We have to provide a framework of visuals that tell the story so the reader (and audience) can put two & two together and visualize what's happening on the screen. Action paragraphs should be 4 lines or fewer. You typically write one paragraph per beat of action, and they should be important actions. I loved what Trottier said about incidental actions: “If your character raises her cup of coffee to her lips, that’s not important enough to describe… unless there’s poison in the cup.”

Hehehe...

Always, always err on the side of brevity.

Now let’s take it to the next level. The only way you can truly excel at writing cinematic stories (on a par with or surpassing the pros) is to elevate your craft to a level where you can (without using camera angles) WRITE THE SHOTS.

Bwaaah! You’re SO wrong, Mystery Man! Yes, I can hear you balking already and screaming at your monitors that, dammit, man, you can’t describe the shots because it’s up to the director to decide how that scene will be filmed and thus, all you can do is just tell the story – what happens to what character and then move on to the next scene.

Wrong.

That’s completely and absurdly wrong.


This kind of hands-off thinking about filmmaking has harmed more screenplays, prevented more writers from getting sales, and generally lowered the quality of contemporary films. It’s not enough that we, as screenwriters, must have a god-like knowledge about the story we wrote and about the art of storytelling, characters, dialogue, and structure. Screenwriters are filmmakers, too, and we have to think like filmmakers and endeavor to render our stories CINEMATICALLY, which means that we should write the shots.

This does not, has not, and will not ever offend directors or anyone else. On the contrary, reading a truly visual, cinematic screenplay that really feels like a movie on paper INSPIRES readers, INSPIRES producers, INSPIRES executives, and yes, directors, too, and those are the scripts that GET SALES. I mean, come on. The way to get a director onboard is to get him/her excited about the story and the visuals. And your screenplay is essentially the first grouping of cinematic ideas, the first shot across the bow about how to render this particular story cinematically. It’s the springboard for what will be many future creative discussions about turning your script into a film.

Conflicts between screenwriters and directors have more to do with a screenwriter not thinking like a filmmaker (and wanting to tell instead of show) than it is about a director not recognizing how brilliant the dialogue is. Rules about not writing the shots so as to avoid offending directors are so absurd, because, like everything else in life, this business is about relationships. It's ALL about the relationships you build with people in the business. Period. If you walk into a room and say “this is the way it is and to hell with what you think - no one big or small can change one word or comma of my screenplay,” yeah, everyone will hate you. If, on the other hand, you walk into a room and you're capable of having a creative discourse and engaging people who have different ideas and calmly explaining how and why and what you were trying to accomplish with each moment of your screenplay, you’ll go far. Establishing good, working, creative relationships with people is, umm, a good thing for your career.

With some directors, that’s impossible, but that’s another article.

So let’s talk about writing the shots. I once had a brief conversation about this topic in e-mail with Jennifer van Sijll, a screenwriting professor, consultant, former professional reader for Universal, and author of Cinematic Storytelling. She wrote,

“I think a writer should avoid anything that takes readers out of the read. As soon as they start visualizing equipment rather than what's on the screen, they've broken from the story. Here is an example.

Joe scans the room. His eyes land on the glock. He stops. He trains his eye on the murder weapon, and puts a match to the curtains.

This is a pan, probably a push in to closeup, and a wideshot.

If you can write without mentioning camera angles, it's more engaging.”

Exactly. She also wrote a great article about this called Directing-the-Director. Here’s a portion in which she discusses a scene from Pulp Fiction. (People always remember Pulp Fiction for it’s great structure and dialogue, but many don’t realize that he also wrote the shots and practically edited each scene through the action lines.)


Cinematic Example: Editing - Pacing and Expanding Time

In the drug overdose scene, midpoint in the movie, Vincent (John Travolta) attempts to revive Mia (Uma Thurman) by stabbing Mia’s heart with a hypodermic needle filled with adrenalin. The scripted scene fills us with tension. We hold our breath hoping that Mia is going to make it.

The reason “we hold our breath” is because the script is written “already edited.” In this case it is edited to “milk the scene” and thereby pump up suspense.

So how does Tarantino do this?

Tarantino does this through overlapping action. He includes cuts to the needle, the red dot, and the faces of characters. These cuts lengthen the time needed for the real-time-event of the stabbing to occur. Although Vincent counts out three seconds on the dialogue track, it takes ¾ of a page for the moment to take place or 45 seconds of screen time. That means that we are holding our breath 15 times longer than Vincent’s three-second countdown suggests.

Through purposeful use of editing, the writer is guiding the reader’s emotional experience, and delivering a scene that can be imagined as a movie.

Writing in Shots

Tarantino accomplishes this by writing in shots. He doesn’t write in descriptive paragraphs like novelists. Each of his sentences implies a specific camera angle. “Implies” is the operative word here. Camera angles and lenses are not called out, but understood from his description.

The script’s pacing mimics what we will later see on screen. Paragraphing and sentence length suggest how long a shot will play on the screen. For example, a single one-sentence paragraph implies one shot. The implication is that it should play out longer on screen than would say, multiple shots implied in a four-line paragraph. The white space buys the single shot time. Adding an editorial aside like “Mia is fading fast. Nothing can save her now” is like saying “hold on the shot”. It again gains the shot more screen time.


Let’s take a look at how this is done in the actual script. This excerpt is taken from mid-scene.

The top line is from Tarantino’s script, where no camera information is given. The parentheticals in the line below are my interpretation of the shot that is implied.

Excerpt from Pulp Fiction

Vincent lifts the needle up above his head in a stabbing motion. He looks down on Mia.
(LOOSE CLOSE-UP VINCENT) (VINCENT POV – MIA)

Mia is fading fast. Soon nothing will help her.
(HOLD ON MIA.)

Vincent’s eyes narrow, ready to do this.
(TIGHT CLOSE-UP – VINCENT)

VINCENT
Count to three.

Lance on his knees right beside Vincent, does not know what to expect.
(WIDE SHOT – LANCE AND VINCENT)

LANCE
One.

RED DOT on Mia’s body.
(CLOSE ON RED DOT )

Needle poised ready to strike.
(CLOSE ON NEEDLE)

LANCE
Two.

Jody’s face is alive in anticipation.
(CLOSE-UP JODY)

NEEDLE in the air, poised like a rattler ready to strike.
(CLOSE ON NEEDLE)

LANCE (OS)
Three!

The needle leaves the frame, THRUSTING down hard.
(CLOSE ON NEEDLE)

Vincent brings the needle down hard, STABBING Mia in the chest.
(MEDIUM SHOT)

Mia’s head is JOLTED from the impact.
(CLOSE ON MIA’S HEAD)

The syringe plunger is pushed down, PUMPING the adrenalin out through the needle.
(CLOSE ON SYRINGE PUMPER)

Mia’s eyes POP WIDE OPEN and lets out a HELLISH cry of the banshee.
(CLOSE-UP ON MIA’S EYES)
She BOLTS UP in a sitting position, needle stuck in her chest---SCREAMING
(WIDE SHOT - MIA)

Summary

In this brief page, Tarantino has implied 15 camera angles. Despite his use of camera, the reader isn’t taken out of the read because the script never calls out specific camera positions or angles.

Had Tarantino described the camera angles with 15 descriptors like CLOSE-UP ON MIA’S EYES, it would have been an unbearable read.

Tarantino was able to slow down real time by cutting away to objects and multiple reaction shots of the characters. He used editing and the inherent elasticity of the medium to help dramatize a pivotal moment and up the suspense.

Pacing was further aided by how Tarantino suggested shot length through paragraphing.

I also want to share one more quote from Jennifer’s article:

“Writing cinematically is not the same as Directing-the-Director. Directing-the-director is when you write: “JOE’S POV WINDOW– LOW ANGLE,” instead of “Joe looks up at the window.” They mean the same thing. The first unnecessarily draws attention to camera information taking us completely out of the story. The second method implies it’s a POV shot and a low-angle, but it does not distract us with technical jargon. Similarly if a tracking shot is essential to a scene it’s better to say “Joe jogs alongside Susan” rather than “TRACKING SHOT – JOE AND SUSAN JOGGING which is considered directing-the-director.”

Exactly. I couldn’t agree more.

Consider the “write the shots” example I gave in my Billy Mernit script review. Remember how visual that was? Consider how Melissa Mathison brilliantly incorporated low angles from the creature’s POV in the opening sequence of her E.T. screenplay to make the trucks, the lights, and the keys, all so very scary and to establish the humans as the antagonistic force. Consider the L.A. Riverbed sequence in Chinatown where Gittes follows Mulwray. With Secondary Headings, Robert Towne starts with long shots, then cuts back and forth between Gittes and Mulwray. When the action gets intense, he goes to close-ups of Gittes. Consider the way Apocalypse Now and Barton Fink uses creative camera angles to disorient the audience in order to make a statement about the mental state of the protagonist. You can write that so long as you don't use camera angles. I could go on and on.

Did you know that the world’s first screenplay was written by a woman? Yes, Alice Guy-Blaché wrote “screen-plays” in order to organize her thoughts and all the ways she would experiment with sound and visual effects in the late 1800s. The whole point of her “screen-plays” was to write the shots. By the way, the first screenplay was for a short called The Cabbage Fairy/La Fée aux choux (France, 1896), which was a comic fantasy about babies that were born in cabbage patches. Guy-Blaché would go on to direct over 700 short films and establish one of the world’s first movie studios – Solax.

I don’t mean to say that you have to edit every scene and write every shot with every action line. Sometimes, you just need to write about the action, and yes, the director will figure out how to film it. But write the shots when it really counts. And now you can also take a deep breath and embrace and study all those old screenplays that are full of camera angles. The only thing that’s changed is the fact that we no longer write camera angles, but the principles of action lines have never changed in that we should think like filmmakers, we should render our stories cinematically, and we should write the shots.

-MM

The Completely Visual Screenplay

Hey guys,

Despite everything going on this week, I still found time to write a script review! I had been looking forward to this for some time, too, because an extraordinary thing happened. Our good friend, Bob Thielke, found himself so inspired by Jennifer van Sijll's book, Cinematic Storytelling, as well as my articles on Visual Storytelling that he wrote for himself, just as a creative exercise, a nearly dialogue-free screenplay just to practice the art of telling a story through visuals.

How cool is that?

It's called 99 Luft Balloons. It's already become a Top Ten Favorite on TriggerStreet. It's the story of Albert Schaff, a man trapped behind the Berlin Wall who desperately wants to get back to the woman he loves.

It felt so good to write this review and to just talk about some of the unexplored possibilities of visual storytelling. Every screenwriter ought to do this at least once in his/her career. I plan to do so. Even after writing the review, Bob and I have been spitballing visual ideas that could enhance his story. SO much fun! God, I love being a screenwriter.

Anyway, hope you enjoy it.

-MM

-----------------------------------------


The Art of Visual Storytelling

What a wonderful tour I've taken inside the creative mind of Bob Thielke. We've seen a priest give up his life for a rebellious sinner in a German concentration camp. We've seen a brilliant scientist betray his family to pursue the ultimate weapon of destruction only to regret it later in life. We've seen two brothers fight for their souls during the Spanish Civil War. And here we have the unforgettable image of a Russian clown attached to hundreds of balloons floating over a great wall along the closed borders of his country to be with the German woman (and daughter) he loves so very dearly. Baby, that's what good, compelling cinema is all about.

A number of things to say about this. I know this was meant to be a creative exercise, and it was originally intended to be a totally silent screenplay so that Bob could focus solely on visuals and telling his story through those visuals. I was surprised to see dialogue, and I guess I'm such a hardcore purist that I wanted to see you go ALL THE WAY, baby! Hehehe... That's quite all right. The dialogue was so minimal that it never detracted from the point of the exercise. Anyway, what makes the image of the brightly-colored clown with his colorful balloons floating over the grey barbed-wired concrete barriers amidst the dark and gloomy backdrop of an economically depressed Russia so memorable is BECAUSE the emphasis is on the visuals in the context of an emotionally-charged story. That's screenwriting at its core, is it not? And once you start thinking this way, you never go back, and your screenplays will be that much better for it.

In fact, I'd like to do this creative exercise myself just to keep my skills sharp. Creative writing exercises are good for the writer's soul. We never do them enough. Billy Wilder did "limbering up writing exercises" every morning of his life by imagining more and more original ways in which a young couple could meet for the first time.


I loved how Bob played with colors like a real artist. We had the gloomy walls of various buildings offset by Marta's bright flowers outside her windows, which is a statement about HER in this world, or at least how she stands out to Albert. The flowers almost bring a sense of new life, comfort, charm, and love in an old dying world. The inside of her bedroom was also colorful and beautiful, like a heavenly oasis. That's what it was to Albert. And then when the borders are closed we're not only robbed of color, but we also dive deep into the even darker gloominess of Russia, which forces us to visually long for Marta as much as Albert longs for her emotionally, until at the end, we, of course, return to the colorful oasis of Marta and her beautiful world. There was also the visual statement about the hospital system in Russia with the circular wards, as if to say that they're spinning their wheels and failing to move forward, and that is contrasted with the cold, imposing, monolithic-looking structures of the very structured Ministry of Labor and Meat Processing Factory. You have the images of Albert trying to stand out with his not well fitting suit amidst crowds of working class poor. The classical music was carefully chosen to complement the mood of the scenes, and I particularly enjoyed the idea of Bach's "Ode to Joy" on Katarina's birthday. There were other examples, but these stood out to me.

Okay, well, here are just a few minor suggestions for you, Bob:

- I know that, for a time, you were struggling to get this script to the 90 page mark, and you could feel that in places. All in all, I think this story would make for a superb short film. Essentially, once Albert goes through that checkpoint, we already know what will happen. We know the border will be closed. We know he'll be cut off from the girl he loves, and (because of the title) he'll probably cross the wall using balloons. Because of all that, I think this story would be more powerful as a short. Beyond that, though, I wondered if Albert might have been goal-less for too long after the border closed and before he got the idea about the balloons? Like, perhaps, he immediately tries to find ways to send messages over the wall to Marta? Or perhaps if Marta knows that Albert has a telescope, she could leave notes or visuals in her window to send messages to Albert? Do you know what I mean? And you could explore a visual motif with Marta's changing window decorations, the various objects, messages, etc?


- I also wonder about the kinds of visuals you could come up with to illustrate the growing frustration or longing in Albert? This makes me think of the famous drink shots of spilled coffee in Carol Reed's "Odd Man Out." A character is undergoing a crisis and sees moments from recent experiences in the bursting bubbles of spilt coffee. At least, I think it was coffee. This idea was used in another way with Jean-Luc Godard's "Two of Three Things I know About Her" in which the swirling foam of a coffee drink represent the conflict of the female protag. And there was, of course, Scorsese's brilliant use of the bubbling water to represent Travis Bickles' own boiling undercurrents, subjectivity, and psychosis in "Taxi Driver."


- You might want to consider, as I've said in other reviews, making a connection between the opening and closing shots. A general view of the city has been done so much that it's downright cliched now and it doesn't make much of a statement about the characters. I'd rather it open and close on Marta's flowers or balloons or anything else.


- I wonder if, at some point, Albert uses his telescope to see that Marta's flowers are withering in order to express her own sadness? Like you create a motif with the flowers. At first they're bright and beautiful, they wither, and in the end, they're bright again? I felt this way about the opening being outside a movie theater. I wonder if there's something else more symbolic that they can do together? They create something or build something or do something that is THEIR thing and you connect that opening thing with a closing thing?


- I wonder if there's a more compelling approach to the moment when the borders are closed? Like, you show Marta discovering that she's pregnant and she's off to tell Albert, and Albert's mother has died and he's off to tell Marta and they both discover that the wall's closed? Or something. I was considering other possibilities, and it might be worth exploring other possibly more compelling ways to punctuate that moment with as much emotion as possible?

- I also wonder if Vassily should reappear in Albert's life somewhere else later in the story? Perhaps Albert drills him for information about the wall, about how long this will last, about ways to get through, etc?


- I had another thought. What if... we are looking through Albert's telescope. It's Albert's POV. And we watch Marta do something, perhaps give birth, and there are overcast skies. It's about to rain, and something emotional happens with Marta and suddenly... the image grows blurrier and blurrier. But it's not because of the rain. We cut back to Albert's apartment and we realize the image grew blurry because of Albert's tears. Hehehe... Just a thought.

- I may have missed this, but at some point, I thought about ways you could designs motifs with numbers and making connections with his number at the Ministry of Labor and like, the buoyancy calculations?

- I wonder if the military guys should run through the streets to follow Albert as he floats through Berlin and there's some creative way he escapes being captured? You could also play with languages. Like say, it's difficult for Albert and Marta to communicate verbally, and while they're separated Albert studies German so that when they're together, he speaks flawlessly to her and it's even good enough to escape capture from soldiers who question them?

In any case, this is such a great exercise, something every screenwriter should do at least once, including myself. But, of course, you can't do this without having studied this first, like Jennifer van Sijll's book, "Cinematic Storytelling," and perhaps studying cinema like the books of David Bordwell (he has a new one out "Poetics in Cinema," which I plan to read). One can also find inspiration in art and other movies. And this exercise makes me wonder how you'll elevate your other scripts and, for example, find visual ways to communicate ideas about Oppie's inner conflicts.

Great job, man.

-MM

Cape Fear vs. Taxi Driver

Hey guys,

While I'm out for a few days, I'd like to share a new Movie Breakdown article from Miriam in which she compares Cape Fear with Taxi Driver.

Thanks so much, Miriam. Great job, as always.

-MM

------------------------------------------------------------


Cape Fear demands to be compared to Taxi Driver. For one thing, it again pairs Scorsese and DeNiro. This is not so remarkable. They made five films together before Cape Fear, including Taxi Driver. But Max Cady is like a more mature version of Travis Bickle, and in Cape Fear, Scorsese once again puts DeNiro's character alone in a room with a young girl in a sexually fraught situation. Just as Jody Foster's Iris was still immature and unaware of her sexuality, so was Travis similarly immature and mostly unaware of his. Max Cady has recognized and embraced his dark side. He has not only accepted it, he has wallowed in it. And Danielle (Juliette Lewis's character) is like a more mature Iris. She has awakened enough to her sexuality that she is eagerly exploring it: not only how it makes her feel, but how she can use it to manipulate.

Juliette Lewis was 18 when she worked on Cape Fear and she was nominated in the supporting actress category for her work. It was superb. There was no commentary track on the DVD I rented, but Scorsese, DeNiro, and Foster all discussed the difficulty of shooting the scene where Travis visits Iris in her room. She was only 12, and the two men tried as much as they could to protect her from the undertones of the scene.

They seemed not to have any such difficulties with Lewis, who gave as much to her scene with DeNiro as he did. Don't forget that it was shortly after this that she worked on both Kalifornia and Natural Born Killers. Both of her characters in these movies were very sexual in nature. Given her body of work, it's not surprising that when she was 18, and barely legal, she managed to pull off such a convincing sexual performance.

Another link between Cape Fear and Taxi Driver is the musical score. Taxi Driver was the last score Bernard Hermann composed before he died. And, rather than use another composer, Scorsese used Hermann's score for the original Cape Fear, released in 1962. Nothing could be more ominous than the original four-note brass motif.

Unlike what he did in Taxi Driver, Scorsese made a deliberate attempt to mimic Hitchcock in Cape Fear. Many of the shots are highly stylized. There are close-ups and shadows that evoke memories of Psycho, The Birds, Rear Window, and especially The Lodger.



So without further ado, here is the breakdown of Cape Fear as compared to Taxi Driver.

1. 2:14 – Opening credits. Normally I don't count these, but here they set the tone for the whole movie. There are images used that occur later. The music is introduced, and acts as a clue later because it is so easy to recognize. They begin as the Universal logo fades out. At the last second, it turns watery. This fades to real water, which reflects unrecognizable images because it is moving. The first thing we see clearly is the hawk coming in to snatch its prey. The hawk fades to another watery reflection of circular images in an unnatural orange color. A staring eye is superimposed, as if it's just below the water. The reflections change. They could be blocky, maybe a house. A horrified face is superimposed, then the shadow of a stranger that seems threatening. All these images are obvious homages to Hitchcock. The imitation of his style is unmistakable. The sequence ends as the water changes to blood-red over the image of a hanging drop. Scorsese's name appears over this compelling image and then the credits are over. They fade to a pair of eyes that fill the screen, watching. 0:02:14

2. 0:25 - The image is in negative, suffused with red. The red fades, the negative fades to positive, and color comes in. The camera pulls back to reveal Danny (Juliette Lewis). She talks to the camera. "My reminiscence," she says. Beginning a film with a voice-over, or something as obvious as a character talking directly to the camera is one of those rules that can only be broken by a really good story-teller. In this case, the fact that it's her reminiscence becomes significant later. It's part of the B-story. She talks about the houseboat and how the name of her favorite vacation spot is a mystery. The only thing she was ever afraid of was that the magic would end and real life would come crashing in. 0:02:39




3. 1:02 – We meet the antagonist first: Max Cady (Robert DeNiro). We start with the pictures on the wall of his jail cell. They are violent: a man in military uniform, a woman pierced by swords. In front of this appears the back of Cady. It is covered with a jailhouse tattoo of a cross. Hanging from the arms of the cross are two dishes, like scales. One says, "Truth," and one says, "Justice." He turns around to reveal more tattoos. The way he's exercising and the way he moves reminds me of Travis Bickle working out to get focused so he could kill all the bad guys. Like Travis, Cady is pushing himself beyond pain to raise his level of endurance. But when he turns around, we can see that unlike Travis, Cady is completely at home with himself. Gone are the self-doubts of the younger man. This is a man who has embraced his dark side. To complete the scene, he leaves his cell. He is being released. He walks around the floor, past other prisoners, and through a door made of bars. It closes in our faces, the first of many. 0:03:41

4. 0:16 – Match cut on a chain link door opening to let Cady out. He leaves his books behind. "I already read 'em," he says, without looking back. Cut to a long shot of the jail with a stormy sky behind it. Lightning flickers through the dark clouds as Cady walks straight towards us. It's a pretty obvious image. As Cady is released from jail, a storm approaches. He walks right into the camera so that the last thing we see is his nose and his burning gaze. 0:03:57

5. 0:34 - Here is a stately Southern home. Spanish moss hangs from the trees. Danny greets the maid, Graciella (Zully Montero) and accompanies her inside. She moves like a colt: all legs and hips. The sound for the next scene starts with Leigh talking over the end of this scene. Danny and Graciella go inside and close the door in our faces (again). 0:04:31

6. 0:44 – We are meeting the protagonist by first meeting the people close to him. Just as we can define our characters by how they relate to the various people around them, so can we get to know one by meeting his friends and family (and enemies). Danny comes into Leigh's work area and strikes a comely pose. In contrast to her daughter's bare arms and legs, Leigh (the ever-sultry Jessica Lange) wears a baggy, oversize shirt. She's looking for a motif that's about movement. Danny suggests an arrow. Based on other themes and elements in the movie, I have to say this is a phallic symbol, and probably also representative of a knife, and therefore rape. They laugh together, but Danny's attitude is that her mother's work is not important. After she leaves, Leigh tells the dog that they switched babies on her at the hospital. The jealousy and competition between these two is firmly established. 0:05:15

7. 0:17 – Now we get a glimpse of Sam Bowden (Nick Nolte). He's a lawyer, coming out of the courthouse with his suit and his briefcase and a client who is talking about stocks and bonds and hidden money. 0:05:32


8. 1:20 – Now we see them all together. But we're distracted from the scene because it's set in a theater. Sam, Leigh, and Danny are watching Problem Child. I've never seen it, but I would hazard a guess that the clip Scorsese picked is at or near the end of the third act. Cady walks in front of the screen, casting his silhouette upon it, and lights up a big, fat cigar. He stretches his arms over the chairs on either side of him, throws his head back, and puffs up smoke like a chimney. Then he laughs at the movie. He roars at the movie. He guffaws and chokes and snorts and puffs out more smoke and generally destroys the whole movie-going experience for anybody else in the vicinity. This includes the Bowden family: Sam, Leigh, and Danny. They leave. Cady checks as they go to make sure he's had an effect. 0:06:52

9. 1:04 – Sam buys his ladies ice-cream in a parlor. Danny tells Sam that he should have beat up that obnoxious guy in the movie. He should have punched his face. She's in love with violence. He mock-wrestles her while Leigh watches. She's excluded from their fun and she's not happy about it. Sam breaks away to pay, but the cashier tells him that somebody else already paid. He looks where she points and sees Cady outside in his red convertible, smoking his big, fat cigar. Sometimes a cigar is just a cigar, but Cady prefers ones that are extra thick and about six inches long. I don't think it's an accident. Sam hustles his girls inside, but when he looks again, Cady is gone. 0:07:56

10. 1:25 – Sam plays racquetball with Lori (Illeana Douglas), a cute younger woman. By their dialogue, they work together. By Sam's body language, he lusts after her. They finish their game and talk as they leave the court. She wants to know why nothing has happened between them and he tells her his wife doesn't even know she exists. Maybe nothing has happened in reality, but in Sam's mind at least, things have happened with Lori a lot. 0:09:21

11. 2:07 – OPPORTUNITY. Sam says good-bye to Lori and gets in his car. Cady grabs his keys and asks if Sam remembers him. Cady is in a position of power. He has the keys, he stands while Sam sits in his car, and he most definitely controls the conversation. He reminds Sam who he is and says they'll probably see a lot of each other, since he's living in town. Then he gives him back his keys and turns away, muttering, "You're gonna learn about loss." 0:11:28

12. 0:30 – Scene begins with a close-up of piano hammers on strings. This establishes that Danny has to do a reminiscence in the style of Look Homeward Angel for English and that she'll use their houseboat as the subject. It's short and simple, but explains why Scorsese chose the opening shot of Danny talking to the camera. The opening shot on the piano hammers and strings is repeated later in the movie for effect. 0:11:58

13. 1:05 – This is a more complex scene involving staged camera shots. Sam looms large in the foreground on one side of the screen while Leigh stands in the background on the other side. Then there's an angle in the mirror from behind Leigh. It's set up to show how they each have choreographed behavior and responses in their relationship. They don't like to stray outside the rules they have established for each other and for themselves. The topic is the houseboat. Danny brought it up, so Sam suggests it. Leigh vetoes it because she wanted to go earlier in the summer and he was too busy then. Now he wants to go to get away from Cady, but he doesn't want to tell her that. She's jealous of how close he is with Danny and opposes him on principle. To avoid an argument, he turns his attention to her body as she undresses and makes it obvious. Since he's now showing her attention, she is happy. 0:13:03

14. 0:45 – They make love. We see only Leigh's face. She is not aroused, but within the moment emotionally. Their hands entwine and she closes her eyes. The image fades to black and white and then to a negative shot, still on Leigh's face. It fades back to black and white. She opens her eyes and the color fades back in. Then the whole image fades to a bright yellow screen. 0:13:48

15. 0:49 – Leigh gets out of bed. Outside fireworks explode and light up the bedroom like colored lightning. Leigh sits at her vanity and looks at the triptych of her face. She touches her face with her fingertips. The image fades to a red screen. The red fades back to a close up of her lips as she caresses them with a pink lipstick (another phallic symbol). There is another fade to red. Leigh has lost the love of her daughter and no longer cares for her husband's love, so she has created a world for herself, where she creates her own love and affection. When the image fades back in from red, she has a cigarette and wanders to the window. The windows that line the bedroom have wooden shutters with slats: storm windows. Leigh opens the shutters and the fireworks play across her face. The POV switches to outside the window, looking through the slats, as her eyes widen with alarm. 0:14:37

16. 0:23 – Max Cady sits on the brick wall that lines their property: lounges on it really. He appears in silhouette with the fireworks behind him, his cigar smoke drifting up. Leigh moves to another window. We see another angle of Cady. She moves to a third window. We see a third angle. This one does not even remotely match what Leigh would see out the window. It's just to juxtapose the shots. Leigh wakes Sam and he hurries to look out the window, but there is no new angle of the wall. What does Sam see? Is Cady gone again? 0:15:00

17. 0:32 – Sam and Leigh throw on robes and hurry outside, but Cady is gone. As Sam searches the garden, Leigh touches her lips and realizes she has lipstick on. She wipes it off with her fingers. 0:15:32

18. 1:07 – Leigh and Sam have tea while he tells her what he knows about Max Cady. From what we learn later, he deliberately leaves a lot of stuff out, pretending that he's forgotten the case. The main focus of the scene is a power play between them when the dog gets up into her lap and Sam tells Leigh to make him get down. He can't control the dog, but she can, and he can control her. Leigh makes a nasty comment about his clientele, which hints that he hasn't exactly been an upstanding lawyer in the past. 0:16:39

19. 0:51 – In the morning, as Danny runs around getting ready for the day, Sam tells Leigh to keep her inside. They try to talk behind her back, but she knows something is up. As Sam leaves for work, Leigh asks, "What about a gun." With a grim look, he says, "We'd probably use it on each other." He turns away and adds, "Or Danny would." This is cryptic, because it could mean either that Danny would use it on them, her parents, or on herself. He leaves and Leigh closes the door in our faces. This is the third time this has happened. 0:17:30

20. 2:24 – This is the plot dump. After all the set-up with the tension between Leigh and Sam, their competition over Danny, and Cady's cryptic comments, we're ready to get some real facts on this story. It's a pretty static scene, but we've been primed to listen. Sam tells Tom Broadbent (Fred Thompson, the Republican candidate) about the Max Cady problem. Broadbent appears in two scenes: this one and the one in which we meet Sam for the first time. The function of his character seems to be a sounding board, much like Chiwetel Ejiofor's role in Inside Man. Tom recommends Lee Heller, a high-powered lawyer. Sam says he's applied for a restraining order and the hearing's in 10 days. This tells us that whatever is going to happen, it'll happen within the next 10 days. We find out the legal definition of trespassing. If you sit on somebody's back fence, it's not trespassing. Then we get the key piece of information. Sam does remember the case. He was Max Cady's public defender and he buried a sexual history report that showed the victim was promiscuous. This is the South, where things take a while to catch up. A report of promiscuity on a rape victim pretty much guarantees that the rapist will get off. Sam also tells Tom that Max Cady is illiterate. He couldn't possibly know about the report. But we've already seen the books in Cady's cell. We heard him tell the guard, "I already read 'em." Max Cady might have been illiterate then, but he's not now. 0:19:54

21. 0:43 – Back at home, Leigh tries to get Danny to sit on the porch with her. Danny has heard more than her parents intended and asks if the guy following her father is a flasher. Does she hope to get a glimpse of what he's showing? Leigh gets upset. The subtext is that she feels threatened by her daughter's budding sexuality. "Just don't go outside," she snaps at Danny. 0:20:37

22. 4:10 – As Sam walks down the street, Max Cady pulls up alongside him and keeps level with him until he stops. In a reversal of the first scene, Cady now sits in the car while Sam stands alongside. Yet Cady still controls the conversation. He points out some teenage girls and says how wonderful they are at that age. He complains that his own daughter doesn't know him, which is probably a good thing, based on the creepy things he said about these girls. Then he mentions that he learned to read during his 14 year stretch. As soon as he says this, Sam offers him money. Cady breaks it down to show that Sam is offering him $2/day for the time he lost in jail. The implication is that Cady himself will decide what is fair compensation for what Sam took away from him. 0:24:47

NOTE: I'm not sure where the first to second act turn is here. Normally it happens on a decisive action by the protagonist that moves the story forward. But Sam is a reactive character. He has plenty of depth and takes action, but it's always because of something that Cady has done. Cady may be the antagonist, but by story's end we have come to understand why he acts the way he does. We may not sympathize with him, but we can empathize. Based on the fact that this story is about how good and evil can both reside within one man, I'd say that this scene, number 22, is the first to second act turn. It echoes the Opportunity with the reversed positions of Cady in the car and Sam standing. It's a decisive action by Cady, who is not only the antagonist, but also something of a co-protagonist. I believe the plot points were set up in this movie to be taken in turns by Cady and Sam. The Opportunity happened to Sam, but it's Cady who moves the story forward into the second act.

23. 0:21 – Back at the office, Sam tries to get to work, but gets a call from Leigh. It's urgent. He reluctantly takes the call. 0:25:08

24. 1:19 – BAM! Sam's in the car, a look of shock on his face. At home, Leigh tells him through sobs how their dog cried and cried and then just ran down like an old clock. He was gone before the vet arrived. Danny sits on the sofa next to her with tears on her face. Sam's reaction is to gently chastise Leigh. He tells her she shouldn't have let him out. Leigh screams at him and claws at his face. She didn't let him out. Danny runs out and slams the door. I can't blame Leigh for going ballistic. Sam's first reaction should have been to offer sympathy. Obviously there's something very wrong in their relationship. 0:26:27

25. 2:40 – Lieutenant Elgart (Robert Mitchum, the original Max Cady) escorts Sam into a room with a glass window. In the room on the other side of the two-way mirror, two officers supervise Cady as he undresses. Elgart tells Sam it's in the bag. They'll get Cady for vagrancy because he can't pay his fine. But the officer brings them Cady's bankbook. He's got money. And Sam can't say how he got inside the house. He crept in like a ghost. On the other side of the window, Cady takes off his shirt and displays all his tattoos. He holds out his arms. His right arm shoots out in a fist. "Vengeance is mine," says the tat, along with the biblical reference. He shoots his left arm out. "My time is at hand." Under the word "truth" on his back is a bible. Under the word "justice," a sword. He turns around and removes his trousers. He's wearing jungle-print, banana-sling underwear: very sexy. And he's been working out like a madman, so he's in great shape. He straightens up and looks at Sam through the window. His expression asks, "Why are you picking on me? What did I do?" It also asks, "Don't you know I'm going to win?" 0:29:07

26. 2:02 – The town holds its Fourth of July parade. Sam takes his family. Through the floats, on the other side of the road, Sam sees Max Cady, watching him and his family. Cady is staring a Leigh. Sam pushes through the parade, shoving aside members of the marching band, and confronts Cady. Cady says in an undertone that Leigh is as hot as a firecracker. Sam pushes him down and Cady yells for the witnesses that his arm might be broken and demands to know why Sam pushed him for no reason. "What did I do to you?" They didn't hear what Cady said. It's a set-up to make Sam look bad. 0:31:09

27. 3:08 – Lori drinks in a bar. She tells her companion that she's getting over a married guy. The guy next to her is, who else? Max Cady. He tells her he just got out of jail, but says it was for a nuclear protest. She tells a joke about a guy who hacked his wife into 52 pieces. He says she's too small to hack into 52 pcs. He'd probably only get 40 out of her. They laugh and joke. She drinks and he has water. He tells her to stay sober because he's an animal. 0:34:17

28. 1:12 – This scene starts with a long overhead shot from the ceiling fan. It takes in the whole bed. Lori is on her stomach and Max crouches over her. He calls her Loretta. Who's Loretta? She's no longer with us. I hacked her into 52 pieces. Lori still thinks it's a joke. She's laughing hysterically and drunk off her ass. In an instant, he cuffs her and yanks her arm back to break her shoulder. Then he bits off a piece of her cheek and spits it across her bedroom. He tells her that the married guy she was seeing hurt him a lot worse than he's about to hurt her. "I got you now, bitch." She's not laughing any more. 0:35:29

29. 1:01 – Scene starts inside the piano on the hammers and strings. A hammer comes down on empty space and makes a hollow sound. The string is missing. Elgart calls. Sam tells Leigh that Cady raped another girl. Leigh thought it was battery, not rape. Too late, Sam remembers that he didn't want her to know all the details. Leigh asks how old she was. Danny comes down in the middle and hears Sam tell Leigh she was 16 years old. Danny asks 16 what? They ignore her. She mentions to nobody that her birthday is coming up. It must be her sixteenth birthday. 0:36:30

30. 2:47 – Sam goes to the hospital and finds out the victim is Lori. He realizes that Cady targeted her on purpose. Having worked in the prosecutor's office (Sam switched sides), she refuses to press charges because she knows her sexual history will get dragged through the mud. She doesn't care how many other girls Cady attacks. She's seen too many victims get crucified on the stand to go through it herself. It's interesting that she used the term "crucified." It reminds me of that cross on Cady's back. Truth. Justice. 0:39:17

31. 1:04 – Elgart tells Sam he can't handle this situation legally. In the old days, a man would stake out his goats to lure in the wolf. Sam asks if Elgart means he should use his family as bait. Should he blow off Cady's head? Elgart reminds him that he's a law officer and can't condone anything illegal. Sam's on his own. 0:40:21

32. 0:23 – Sam drives home, locks up the house, and closes the shutters. Danny is watching some scary movie on TV. The shots of Sam closing the shutters match the scene when Leigh opened them to see Cady sitting on the garden wall. 0:40:44

33. 1:18 – Sam hires a private investigator, Claude Kersek (the incomparable Joe Don Baker, who has a recognizable face, if not name). They discuss Cady's original case, which sent him to jail for 14 years. Kersek asks if Sam's daughter is 16. He says she's 15. But we know she has a birthday coming up. 0:42:02

34. 1:22 – Over dinner Leigh tells Danny that Sam hired Kersek. Sam says he feels relaxed already. They all laugh. The phone rings and they jump a mile. Danny even screams a little. It's Kersek with information on a man Cady killed in prison. He's watching Cady's apartment. Cady is inside, working out. Kersek says they couldn't place him at the scene, but they kept him inside another 7 years. Cady's lights go out. Kersek says he's on the move and signs off. Danny says, "I thought we were relaxed now." 0:43:24

35. 5:33 - Sam calls Lori from the phone in their bedroom and Leigh walks in on the conversation. He says good-bye, trying to make it look like he's talking to a colleague. Leigh goes ballistic. She screams at him and pummels his chest. Sam insists he didn't fuck Lori. She's just a kid. Apparently Sam did fuck somebody else once, which almost wrecked their marriage, so he thinks as long as he didn't touch Lori, that's okay. Leigh doesn't confront him, but we can tell she knows he's been fucking Lori in his mind. He tells Leigh that Cady is trying to split them apart. They have to be a team. He's trying to play her like he plays his clients and the jury and the defense attorneys. He's trying to co-opt her. She plays him with emotion, which is way more effective. Their fight is so loud that Danny shuts her bedroom door, turns up the TV, and calls a friend on the phone. Finally Sam thinks he's got Leigh convinced. 0:48:57

36. 0:11 – Sam ends up on the couch. 0:49:08

37. 1:59 – Kersek has trailed Cady to a diner. The waitress brings over a plate of food and tells Kersek that the gentleman in the corner (Cady) has sent it over. Cady has made Kersek. Kersek follows Cady outside and tries to threaten him, but Cady doesn't bite. He calls Kersek a busted-down cop, which really gets to Kersek. Cady is really good at pushing people's buttons. 0:51:07

38. 2:21 – Cady drives up to the house while Leigh is picking up the mail to deliver a dog collar to her. He says he found it. She explains that their dog passed away. Cady describes the dog, which tips Leigh and she tells him to get out. He tells her that both of them could have been happy if Sam hadn't betrayed them both. Just as he drives away, Danny comes out to check on her mom and Cady sees her. 0:53:28

39. 1:15 – Kersek tells Sam that Cady made him and suggests a "hospital job." It's basically the same thing that Elgart suggested, except without using his family as bait to give him an excuse to beat up Cady. Kersek will simply put two men on the job. Sam refuses. The law is his business and he wants to work within its limits. 0:54:43

40. 0:27 – Back at home, Sam finds Danny helping Leigh with dinner. Leigh whispers in his ear that "he was here today." 0:55:10

41. 2:19 – Cady calls Danny and pretends to be her drama teacher to establish an emotional bond. The scene starts on Danny, in her bedroom, and doesn't show Cady until the conversation has started. When we do see him, he is upside down. We get just enough time to see that he's hanging from a chin-up bar across his door and then the camera spins to that he's right side up in the shot. But his hair obeys gravity, making it look like it's standing out from his head, and his face is red from the blood rushing to his head. He looks completely demented. And DeNiro spread his signature grin across his face that sometimes looks charming and sometimes looks crazy. In this case, he managed to mix the two looks. He plays her some Aretha Franklin over the phone and talks about how her feelings are all mixed up and her body does things she's not familiar with. It's kind of disgusting, but Danny eats it up. Finally somebody is telling her things she's been feeling, but hasn't been able to explain to herself. He's the do-right man he tells her. 0:57:21

NOTE: In my opinion, this next scene is the midpoint of the movie. Sam, the ostensible protagonist, is nowhere to be seen, but in all other ways it functions as the midpoint. It's a blow to Sam that he is unaware of, it marks a drastic change in the direction of the story, and it spans the exact half-way point in terms of time. Scorsese could have worked with the writer to make this a more traditional midpoint, with Sam being involved in some way, but the whole story is about black being white, white being black, and shades of gray being shadows where people can hide. He emphasizes this by using negative shots at key points, and by fading color into black and white images to show that gray isn't really gray either.

Scene #42: The Seduction of Danny:
11:01
He precedes the scene with a shot of Danny walking down a long, deserted hall. It's like Alice going down the rabbit hole. I suppose you could make a case for it being vaginal, but to me it's more like getting into a tight spot. The previous night he told Danny the class would take place on the stage, which is in the basement. When she arrives, the stage is set for a production of Hansel and Gretel. Do you think Max is like the wicked witch? He offers her a joint, which is more appealing to somebody of her age than candy.

He asks her about the book she's reading for English, Look Homeward Angel, and tells her she can't escape her demons by leaving home. Then he asks if she's read any Henry Miller. She admits she's read Tropic of Cancer, sneaking it out of her parents' bedroom when they weren't looking. He tells her she should read Sexus, Plexus, and Nexus, the Rosy Crucifixion trilogy. He says Henry Miller described an erection as a piece of lead with wings.

Danny is enchanted. But she's wary. She realizes this is the man her parents are scared of and confronts him on this. He smiles and admits it. He's the big bad wolf. He's mixing metaphors of her childhood, which are familiar, with metaphors of adulthood, which she's eagerly anticipating. Then he reassures her. He didn't know anything about the dog. As far as he's concerned, her father is the evil one. Every man carries a circle of hell around his head like a halo. This is not just an interesting image. It reinforces the theme that good and evil can co-exist quite comfortably.

Then he gets to the essence of the conversation, and we see how both Scorsese and DeNiro have matured since Taxi Driver. When they put Travis in the room with Iris, they were hesitant to take things too far. The camera cut away from Jodie as soon as her blouse was off her shoulder. They put her hands out of the camera and used a sound effect for the zipper coming down. And they used a twelve year-old, who needed to be protected from the full range of what a man could do with his sexuality.

But by the time they made Cape Fear, they were no longer afraid to venture into darker realms, and they found a young actress who was not afraid to take that journey with them. Juliette Lewis captured perfectly the innocence wanting to become knowledge, the instinctual awareness of the lust directed at her, and the excitement of both mind and body.

Max steps close to Danny and asks if he can put his arm around her. She covers her face, giggles, and nods. She wants it and she's ashamed of wanting it. He caresses her face, runs his thumb across her lips, and then pushes it inside her mouth. She's shocked and he withdraws, then pushes it in farther. Fascinated, she sucks on it, her eyes holding his.

Then he cups her face and kisses her. She responds for along moment, and then is suddenly overcome with the enormity of what she is doing. She never knew she could feel these things.

She runs away crying. 1:08:30

43. 0:57 – Sam calls Kersek and tells him Cady came after Danny at school. He's changed his mind about the hospital job. How soon can Kersek arrange it? While Kersek talks to Sam, he mixes Jim Beam and Pepto Bismol into his coffee. 1:09:27

44. 1:46 – Sam finds Cady at a coffee shop and threatens him. It's pretty explicit. Cady tells him to look in the Bible between Esther and Psalms. 1:11:13

45. 2:03 – This is a weird scene, especially coming so closely after the Seduction of Danny. Sam visits Danny in her room and tries to find out what Cady did to her. She told Leigh, but didn't give the details. She's dressed for bed in a tank top and panties, and is lying on her side, which exaggerates the dip in her waist and curve up to her butt. It's pretty racy. She was scared before, but now she's gotten over that. When Sam asks her, she smiles and bats her eyes flirtatiously, refusing to tell him. He pounces on her, smothers her mouth with his hand, and shoves her against her headboard. He is way more rough with her than Cady ever was. Is he angry that he finds his own daughter attractive? Is he just afraid of her obviously budding sexuality? This scene looks more like a rape than the long scene with Cady, which was simply an expert seduction. Once again, white is black. He tries to recover himself by telling her to put some clothes on. She's not a kid any more. Oh really? 1:13:16

46. 3:56 – Cady turns the tables on the guys hired to do the hospital job on him. They get in some good whacks, which leave marks, but he basically beats them all to a pulp until they run away. He talks the whole time he beats them and quotes Silesius. I had to google more stuff for this breakdown than any other. Silesius was a seventeenth century German religious poet. Sam hides behind a dumpster to watch the beating and trembles in fear when Cady gets the best of them. Cady knows he's hiding and comes closer and closer to the dumpster, talking the whole time. He's great at mind games. Finally he leaves and Sam scurries away. 1:17:12

47. 1:32 – Sam finally calls to hire Lee Heller, the magical lawyer, but when Heller finds out who he is, he cuts off the conversation. Cady has already hired him, so it would be a conflict of interest. 1:18:44

48. 2:10 – In a courtroom scene, we find out that Cady taped Sam's "warning" before the beating. He has sustained enough injuries that it looks like he lost. Not only that, Lee Heller, the great lawyer who was once Sam's beacon of hope, is beginning disbarment proceedings against Sam. 1:20:54

49. 2:34 – Sam wants a gun. He's never held a gun, but he wants one. He tells Kersek he has to be out of town for the disbarment hearing. Kersek advises him that if Cady breaks into his house, Sam can legally kill him. 1:23:28

50. 2:24 – Leigh and Danny accompany Sam to the airport. Cady spins a tale of woe and pity for the girl behind the counter and she checks for him that Sam got on the plane. 1:25:52

51. 1:42 – There's no explanation of how Sam made it look as if he was on the plane when he wasn't, but he gets out of the car at home. Danny is pissed at him and taunts him about having to duck down below the windows. Kersek ties monofilament line to Danny's teddy bear, a nice reminder that not so long ago she was a little girl. The bear juxtaposes how Danny sees herself with how her parents see her. 1:27:34

52. 1:32 – They wait. Sam finally gets time to look in the bible and find out what's between Esther and Psalms. It's the book of Job. God took away everything he had to test his faith. 1:29:06

53. 0:47 – The night passes uneventfully. The next morning, Danny goes outside with the maid and finds a book under a planter on the porch. It's Sexus by Henry Miller. She sneaks it in under her shirt. 1:29:53

54. 1:01 – Sam confesses to Kersek that he's afraid of killing Cady. Kersek says the South evolved in fear. It has a fine tradition of savoring fear. 1:30:54

55. 0:34 – The second night they wait for Cady. Everybody is on edge and can't sleep. 1:31:28

56. 2:08 – This scene draws out the suspense. Danny sits in her room by her window, as if waiting for a lover. Sam and Leigh lie back-to-back on opposite edges of the bed, unable to sleep. Kersek sees the teddy move, but it's only a window blown loose in the gathering storm. 1:33:36

57. 0:35 – Sam wakes up and sees Cady leaning in the doorway of his bedroom, smoke drifting up from his big, fat cigar. The images fades to negative and back. Sam sits up, rubs his eyes, and Cady's gone. He wakes Leigh and tells her he knows how Cady poisoned the dog. He was already in the house. 1:34:11

58. 1:01 – Kersek creeps along the hall to discover the source of a noise. It's only Graciella, the maid, cleaning up in the kitchen. He greets her and makes himself a Jim Beam and pepto cocktail. The maid turns around and it's Cady in her clothes. Remember the missing piano wire? Cady strangles Kersek with it. Kersek manages to pull his gun, but Cady forces his hand to the side, and Kersek shoots himself in the head. Up in the bedroom, Sam and Leigh sit up in bed. As Kersek dies, Cady calls him a white-trash piece of shit. 1:35:12

59. 1:02 – Upstairs, Sam, Leigh, and Danny run around aimlessly. Sam and Leigh tell Danny to get back in her room. Leigh looks out the window (where she once saw Cady on the back wall silhouetted by the fireworks) and sees him running across the yard. 1:36:14

60. 1:11 – Sam finds Kersek on the kitchen floor. Leigh comes down with Danny right behind her. Danny averts her eyes from Kersek and sees Graciella, also dead. She screams. Sam goes to Kersek's body to take the piano wire from around his neck and slips in the blood. Then he picks up the gun. How stupid can you be? THEN he runs outside and fires off two rounds. How REALLY stupid can you be? Leigh drags him back inside and slams the door, which is another door slamming in our collective faces. 1:37:25

61. 0:39 – The family drives to Cape Fear. They pass roadside stands, a place selling honey, and a crude cross that asks, "Where will you spend eternity?" It looks like one of Cady's home-made tattoos. 1:38:04

62. 0:47 – While Leigh and Danny load the car with groceries, Sam calls Elgart. We don't hear Elgart's side of the conversation. Sam says he knows he shouldn't have fled the scene of a murder, nor should have Kersek's gun. He informs him of Force Majeur, a legal term that means all bets are off. They finish up and drive away. As the car pulls back onto the road, a crane shot goes under the car to show Cady clinging to the frame. Bernard Hermann's music from the opening credits comes up, striking fear into our hearts. The sky is ominous. 1:38:51

NOTE: Once again, the plot turns without Sam being aware of it. With the presence of Cady revealed under the car, we know we are heading to the final showdown, or third act.

63. 0:15 – We see the rippling water from the opening credits: the shimmering image we couldn't make out. Now it becomes clear. It's a road sign: "CAPE FEAR NEXT EXIT." The music swells. 1:39:06

64. 0:57 – Danny and Leigh unload groceries and take them aboard the small houseboat. Sam speaks to the dock owner. Unseen by all of them except a frightened black woman, Cady unbuckles himself from under the car. He's exhausted and covered with road dirt. Beneath the dirt, he wears a tight T-shirt in a small, gray camouflage pattern, and pants to match. He looks like a storm-cloud. He enters the men's room. 1:40:03

65. 0:14 – Cady greases up his hair and combs it with a mascara brush. As he leans close to inspect himself, a large crack in the mirror runs across his eye. These are all obvious images, but they work. 1:40:17

66. 0:09 – The dock owner starts an outboard motor as Cady hands him some money. The houseboat glides down the river and Cady watches it go. 1:40:26

67. 0:42 – Series of (carefully staged) shots. The houseboat drifts through picturesque scenery. The day wanes and sunset spreads across the sky like the blood on the Bowden's kitchen floor. Skeletal tree branches claw at the air as the houseboat drifts by. A storm creeps in and lightning flickers amongst the dark clouds. Sam throws the anchor. It cleaves the water with a deadly finality, trailing silvery bubbles. For good or ill, they have arrived. 1:41:08

68. 1:10 – Night. Shadows mimic people: haints. The houseboat nestles among the bushes alongside the bank. Inside, the Bowdens eat dinner and try to be nice to each other, but they're not much used to it. The storm arrives with a squall that rocks the boat. Sam assures Danny as he leaves, but he takes the gun with him. 1:42:18

69. 0:25 – Sam checks the anchor and stares into the rain-spattered water. The camera closes in on the water, much as it closed in on the Alka-Seltzer in Travis's glass in Taxi Driver. 1:42:43

70. 0:34 – Inside, Danny cries again over Graciella. Leigh calls Sam. He doesn't answer. Danny calls for him, her voice shrill with fear. He calls back that he can't hear them over the storm. 1:43:17

71. 0:08 – Sam walks back along the deck and Cady grabs him from the roof, his arms around Sam's throat. Sam's feet kick as Cady pulls him up. 1:43:25

72. 0:06 – Inside, Danny and Leigh do dishes as Sam's feet go past the window behind them. Way to build suspense. 1:43:31

73. 0:26 – On the roof, Cady strangles Sam until he passes out. He takes the gun, trusses him and dumps him on the deck, and then cuts the rope to the anchor. It's a great shot. It has a look of finality to it. 1:43:57

74. 1:36 – Cady jumps inside and says hello to the ladies, who aren't too pleased to see him. He flirts with Danny and she tries to flirt back. Now that Cady has killed her friend, Graciella, his image is tarnished in her eyes. He reminds her that she can't escape her demons by leaving home and asks if she brought Sexus. She says no, but she memorized the good parts for him. He says, "You know me pretty well, darlin'." She nods. He says, "You gonna get to know me a lot better." That breaks her. She screams, her face contorted in rage and fear (no wonder she was nominated for an Oscar), and throws some water heating on the stove in his face (this was established earlier, so it's not a deus ex machina). He barely flinches and asks her if she's offering him something hot. 1:45:33

75. 0:34 – This is the same scene, but there's a shift in both tone and camera angle, so I split it here. Cady lights a flare and lets it melt over his hand while he tells Danny how he spent 14 years in a 8x9 cell and worked to become more than human. The flare spits flame and wax in a horrible parody of ejaculation. 1:46:07

76. 0:43 – Another shift in both camera angle and tone. Cady throws the flare out the window and the cabin is filled with smoke. He tells Danny to wait in the hold and throws her inside, then locks the door. It's actually a tiny crawl space under the table. He asks Leigh is she's ready to be born again. "A few minutes alone with me and you'll be speaking in tongues." This actually foreshadows something we'll see in a few minutes. 1:46:50

77. 1:15 – Inside the hold, Danny lights matches to look around. She finds a can of lighter fluid and hides it in the waistband of her jeans. Meanwhile, Cady is seducing Leigh while Sam watches through the window. She pretends to enjoy it so she can search him under cover of caressing his body. She finds the gun in his pocket and pulls it out. 1:48:05

78. 2:41 – He snatches it back, drags her across the cabin, and handcuffs her to a rail. He opens the window and pulls Sam inside, then kicks him in the head. He yanks Danny out of the hold and throws her onto the kitchen table (this is a tiny space). Leigh appeals to Cady, reminding him how he told her they are alike. She emphasizes the jealousy she has for her daughter. Unfortunately, she's drawing a little from her own reality. Cady brings out a fresh cigar, savoring the moment. 1:50:46

79. 0:31 – As Cady lights his cigar, Danny pulls out her lighter fluid and, screaming with rage, squirts probably half the can on him. He goes up like a torch. His only option is to stumble outside and into the river. However, things are not great. Leigh is still handcuffed and Sam is out cold on the floor. 1:51:17

80. 0:35 – The houseboat is adrift in the storm-tossed river. The wheel spins until Sam comes to captain it. He stares out the window. Outside, the frayed end of the anchor rope flaps in the wind. Cady floats up from the bottom. His bloody hand shoots out of the water, flails, and grabs the frayed end of the rope. The boat heels in the storm. Waves pound the deck. Sam sees the cut rope and goes out to inspect it. 1:51:52

81. 1:14 – Cady takes control of Sam with the gun and brings him inside. He presides as the judge and says, "The people call Samuel Bowden." Then he takes him through how he covered up the sexual history of the victim. Sam tries to defend himself by reminding them that Cady is an animal. "You didn't see what he did to her." Cady beats him with the gun and forces the women to watch. 1:53:06

82. 1:49 – While the boat rides up on rocks and tears through trees, Cady forces Sam to quote the bar oath about how a lawyer shall zealously defend his client within the bounds of the law. Sam again tries to defend himself. Cady references Dante, talking about traitors in the ninth circle of hell. He tells Sam again, "I'll teach you about loss: loss of freedom, loss of humanity." 1:54:55


83. 1:25 – Cady turns on the women and tells them to take off their clothes. They're going to learn to live and die like animals. In their anger and fear, Danny becomes savage. Leigh becomes sultry. The boat slews around in a circle, throwing Cady off his feet. Sam grabs Leigh and Danny and throws them off the boat, then stops long enough to fasten one end of the cuffs around a pole. Just as he's about to jump in after them… 1:56:20

84. 0:24 - …Cady grabs his ankle. They wrestle while the boat hits a snag and everything spins. The camera does a complete 360. Sam falls over a railing into the water. 1:56:44

85. 0:33 – Cady grabs the gun, but can't see Sam. Sam creeps up on the floor and cuffs the other end of the handcuffs to Cady's ankle. Now he's moored to the boat: the sinking boat. Cady shoots and shoots, but the bullets go wild. The gun flies out of his hand and flies in a slo-mo arc in front of the window. 1:57:17

86. 3:25 – The boat hits an underwater rock and comes completely apart. It's a spectacular wreck. Now we can call it a deus ex machina. Cady and Sam struggle. Sam picks up a huge rock and finally becomes what Cady has tried to make him all along: a killer. But the river pulls them apart and drags Cady under. As he goes down, he speaks in tongues (something he promised he'd teach Leigh) and sings part of a hymn (something about bound for the promised land). Just before he sinks, he fixes Sam with a poisonous look of rage. 2:00:42

87. 0:52 – Sam crawls along the bank and stops to wash his bloody hands. He stares at them and jumps in fright. They are already clean. 2:01:34

88. 1:16 – Leigh and Danny find each other in the mud. Sam joins them. Danny's voice-over comes back in, wrapping up the story. If you hang onto the past, you die a little every day, and I'd rather live. Fade to the opening shot of her eyes, which fades to a negative of the same and freeze as it fades to red. 2:02:50



There are 88 scenes that average 1 minute and 24 seconds long. 82 of the scenes are less than 3 minutes in length. The longest, the Seduction of Danny, is 11 minutes long. 39 of the scenes are less than 1 minute long. Only 3 scenes are longer than 4 minutes.

The movie is full of phallic symbols, both in a benign context and in a violent context (like the flare). There is an electric jealousy between the mother and daughter, which hints that there might an Electra complex simmering there somewhere (Electra is the female counterpart of Oedipus). In the beginning Danny does seem drawn to her father, and much of his behavior towards her is seductive. Their wrestling in the ice-cream shop seems innocent until the scene is immediately juxtaposed with the scene of Sam finishing up a game of racquetball with a woman he has sexual feelings for. He touches Lori in almost the same way he touched his daughter. Later, there is a scene where he smothers her with his hand and holds her down with his body, while she is nearly naked in her own bed. He's symbolically raping her. When compared with Cady's somewhat gentle seduction, what Sam does seems much more violent.

Scorsese plays with the violence in the two men, both Sam and Cady. They are opposites of each other who embody many of the same qualities. Sometimes Cady seems gentle, but then we see him bite off Lori's cheek and spit it across the room. And Sam is supposed to be the ever-suffering victim, but he is possessed of an explosive anger. He doesn't even care when the dog dies, or for his wife's grief. To him, it's just another excuse to rip Max Cady's balls off.

In Taxi Driver, Scorsese showed us a man who wanted to do good, but couldn't help being bad. In Cape Fear, that same man has matured into somebody who still believes he is good, but has embraced his evil side in order to do good in the world. Even though he sees Leigh and Danny for who they are, rather than as status symbols (like Sam does), he is still willing to use them and hurt them in his quest for revenge against Sam.

The sexuality that simmers beneath the surface in Taxi Driver has come boiling to the surface in Cape Fear. The ending of Cape Fear is not as bloody as the bullet-riddled ending of Taxi Driver, but in some ways it is more violent. And it changes the life and perception of one young girl forever.