Cinema’s “Blood in the Mouth Syndrome”

Hey guys,

Let me share Number 72 from my post on 100 Movie Clichés:

72) Dead for Sure, No Doubt About It
In a movie, the absolute proof of the death of a character is when blood drips slowly from the corner of the mouth. This is in too many movies to document. An interesting variation was the dripping of liquid metal from the evil mutants mouth in X-Men 2. As a physician, I can tell you that blood coming from the mouth after a fight is either, 1) a sign of a communication of the esophagus with a major blood vessel, which would be fatal, or 2) a cut.

No, I was not a doctor. That’s from a collection of reader-submitted movie clichés found on Ebert’s Little Movie Glossary. And now I’d like to share something that amused me recently in the “Answer Fella” (AF) column from the May, 2009, issue of Esquire:

It seems that in every movie, to show a person is dying they have him bleed from his mouth, even if it’s an arm wound. What kind of wound really causes someone to bleed in the mouth?

AF, who bleeds heavily from the mouth and dies a little bit every time he visits his dentist, posed your question to Dr. Armand Dorian, ER doc, professor of emergency medicine at UCLA, and – most crucially – a technical medical advisor for the TV shows ER and Grey’s Anatomy.

“Bleeding from the mouth happens most often when you have any trauma to your lungs. If you have a significant wound that has something to do with your lungs or your gastrointestinal lining, from your mouth all the way down through your esophagus to your stomach, you’ll actually end up spitting up or vomiting blood.”

But from an arm wound?

“Say the guy got hit in his arm or got his arm chopped off and he’s spitting up blood – what happens is you create a huge amount of pressure inside your chest, kind of like a retching cough, [which] can cause microtears in your mucosal lining, which can actually bleed.”

Come on, doc: Give it to AF straight.

“It’s just an easy place to put blood because the actor can keep it in his mouth and spit it out. And it looks good on camera because they get to show the guy’s face – which is what the actor wants.”

Exactly! Got that? Thought you might like to know.

See also: 100 Movie Clichés, Movie Clichés, Movie Mistakes, Ebert’s Little Movie Glossary, MythBusters, and How Stuff Works.

Now wait just a damn minute, MM. You have an article about Cinema’s “Blood in Mouth Syndrome,” and yet you have a picture of Zooey Deschanel at the top? What’s up with that?

She is also in the May online edition of Esquire. And I love her.

Hehehe…

-MM

Ultimate Writer’s Workspace Giveaway

Hey guys,

This bit of news comes straight from the desk of my editor. I am SO going to participate. Hey, they don’t know who I am! Hehehe…

Hope you're well,

-MM

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

SCRIPT MAGAZINE LAUNCHES THE ULTIMATE WRITER’S WORKSPACE GIVEAWAY

The screenwriter’s foremost source for news and information offers readers over $8,500 in prizes.

In its May/June 2009 issue, Script magazine, the premier magazine for screenwriters, announced its Ultimate Writer’s Workspace Giveaway. The contest is designed to outfit one up-and-coming screenwriter with everything required to create a box-office hit-making haven. Entrants, who are at least 18 years of age and live in the continental U.S., must write a short scene -- three pages max, in any genre, with at least two and not more than eight characters -- that explains why they deserve the Ultimate Writer’s Workspace. Submissions will be accepted until midnight EST of May 31, 2009 and judged on overall creativity, along with adherence to technical requirements such as proper formatting.

Script surveyed pro and aspiring writers to amass over $8,500 in essential items. Prizes include the recently released Final Draft version 8, a robotic massage chair from Human Touch, a gorgeous leather messenger bag from Saddleback Leather company, Keurig’s Platinum Single-Cup coffee brewing system, a Writers Store gift pack, workshops with Robert McKee and the Gotham Writers’ Workshop, a Fujitsu ScanSnap scanner, a collection of more than 20 books, 15 years of Script magazine back issues, and much, much more. One talented writer will be awarded the entire package in one of the most complete and functional giveaways available to aspiring screenwriters.

For 15 years, Script magazine has been the premier magazine for screenwriters, covering both the craft and business of screenwriting. Many of our articles are written by working screenwriters with films currently in theaters. Interviews with screenwriters, agents, managers, entertainment attorneys and filmmakers bring readers the complete story on writing for film. Read by agents, professional writers, aspiring writers, and industry professionals, Script’s mission is to celebrate the writer. Script magazine and its assets, including the Scriptwriters Showcase, ScriptXpert and Take A Meeting, are a part of Final Draft, Inc., producers of Final Draft software.

For more information regarding rules, regulations, and entry forms please visit www.scriptmag.com/giveaway.

Script Review – Fahrenheit 451

Burn, baby, burn!

So I did a lot of flying around the last few weeks, and I had the chance to read Ray Bradbury’s Fahrenheit 451, which was phenomenal. I loved it! When I’m involved in a big project, as I was last month, I’m riddled with ADD. It’s a struggle to focus on anything other than the project, but F451 held my attention from beginning to end, an amazing feat. It’s actually quite short, about 173 pages. One could easily get through it in one sitting (or a long flight). Then I watched the 1966 film adaptation by Francois Truffaut, which I’ll cover in a bit. You can also see the film instantly on Netflix. After that, I sat down to read Frank Darabont’s September, 2005, screenplay adaptation.

A FIERY BOOK ON BOOK-BURNING

There are many aspects about the book that I loved. In fact, it evoked a wide range of screenwriting thoughts.

You can get a summary of the story here.

First, I loved Ray Bradbury’s style. Wherever the story took him, he always capitalized on the heightened emotions of the moment, which is what we do, too. Consider these opening paragraphs:

It was a pleasure to burn.

It was a special pleasure to see things eaten, to see things blackened and changed. With the brass nozzle in his fists, with this great python spitting its venomous kerosene upon the world, the blood pounded in his head, and his hands were the hands of some amazing conductor playing all the symphonies of blazing and burning to bring down the tatters and charcoal ruins of history. With his symbolic helmet numbered 451 on his stolid head, and his eyes all orange flame with the thought of what came next, he flicked the igniter and the house jumped up in a gorging fire that burned the evening sky red and yellow and black. He strode in a swarm of fireflies. He wanted above all, like the old joke, to shove a marshmallow on a stick in the furnace, while the flapping pigeon-winged books died on the porch and lawn of the house. While the books went up in sparkling whirls and blew away on a wind turned dark with burning.

Montag grinned the fierce grin of all men singed and driven back by flame.

He knew that when he returned to the firehouse, he might wink at himself, a minstrel man, burnt corked, in the mirror. Later, going to sleep, he would feel the fiery smile still gripped by his face muscles, in the dark. It never went away, that smile, it never ever went away, as long as he remembered.


Here’s another aspect I loved – the protagonist. Did Bradbury tell his story from the perspective of a sad, sympathetic victim who had all of his (or her) books burnt by the firemen? No. Bradbury gave us Guy Montag, a man who on the surface is very unsympathetic in his actions because he’s one of the bad guys! He’s a fireman who burns books!

But by giving us Montag, Bradbury cuts deeper into the heart. While Montag puts on a strong façade with his concentrated vigor about his job and seemingly unwavering belief in what he does, Bradbury carefully charts his inner turmoil and feelings of despair and need for something more out of life. That is the great power and glory of literature, and that is what’s at the heart of F451, the loss without books, the lack of creativity, imagination, free thinking, intellectual satisfaction, a sense of higher purpose and meaning to life.

This is also the very reason F451 would be a difficult book to adapt for the big screen because what makes the book so powerful is the inner turmoil of Montag which cannot so easily be seen on the surface.

So let me ask a question – is Guy Montag empathetic or sympathetic? Do I feel sorry for the fireman who burns books? Nope. At least, not until I understand him and his little world and the feelings he’s feelings. Only then can I appreciate the point of Bradbury’s tale, and root for Montag’s transformation. But that’s the essence of a transformational arc, isn’t it? One must be unsympathetic to a large degree before one can transform, am I wrong? Let me ask another question: is Guy Montag “like me?” No, not at all. Have I ever been in his shoes? Nope. I can’t say I’ve ever burned books or been part of an evil force like the firemen. But can I put myself in his shoes and understand his feelings? Yes. THAT is the power of great writing.


Another aspect I loved – elements of visual storytelling. In the opening, Montag walks home, encounters little Clarisse, a neighbor and teenager, who challenges his thinking about life, about burning books, and asks him the all-important question, “Are you happy?” Montag goes home, which is dark and dreary, to find his wife nearly-dead after taking too many pills. The medics revive her. As she’s resting peacefully, Montag looks out his window and sees Clarisse’s home. I loved the visual contrast between his home and hers:

Laughter blew across the moon-colored lawn from the house of Clarisse and her father and mother and the uncle who smiled so quietly and so earnestly. Above all, their laughter was relaxed and hearty and not forced in any way, coming from the house that was so brightly lit this late at night while all the other houses were kept to themselves in the darkness. Montag heard voices talking, talking, talking, giving, talking, weaving, reweaving their hypnotic web.


Another visual aspect that cannot go un-mentioned is what saves Montag toward the end. When he falls under the spell of books, when Captain Beatty catches him, when all hell breaks loose, when Montag finds himself on the run, the whole city looking for him, and the mechanical hounds are hot on his trail, what saves Montag? Water. The river. The antithesis of fire. Montag’s visual baptism of renewal.

Another aspect I loved – the subtext in the dialogue. Bradbury didn’t write heaping volumes, but careful consideration went into the few scenes he gave us. There were quiet moments of subtext, more specifically, denial about the emptiness they’re feeling, like the conversation Montag had with his wife, Mildred, the morning after her near-death experience from taking too many pills.

She watched his lips casually. “What about last night?”

“Don’t you remember?”

“What? Did we have a wild party or something? Feel like I’ve a hangover. God, I’m hungry. Who was here?”

“A few people,” he said.

Their lives were a lie. He was feeding the lie. She was ingesting the lie and embracing status quo. And when, toward the end of part one, Montag sought to address their emptiness by reading books, Bradbury gives us a scene between Montag and Mildred of heart-wrenching high drama where Montag tries to convince her to go on this journey with him to read books and figure out for themselves if they’re evil.

Mildred backed away as if she were suddenly confronted by a pack of mice that had come up out of the floor. He could hear her breathing rapidly and her face was paled out and her eyes were fastened wide. She said his name over, twice, three times. Then, moaning, she ran forward, seized a book, and ran toward the kitchen incinerator.

He caught her, shrieking. He held her and she tried to fight away from him, scratching.

“No, Millie, no! Wait! Stop it, will you? You don’t know… stop it!” He slapped her face, grabbed her again and shook her.

She said his name and began to cry.

“Millie!” he said. “Listen. Give me a second, will you? We can’t do anything. We can’t burn these. I want to look at them, at least look at them once. Then if what the Captain says is true, we’ll burn them together. You must help me.” He looked down into her face and took hold of her chin and held her firmly. He was looking not only at her, but for himself and what he must do, in her face. “Whether we like this or not, we’re in it. I’ve never asked for much from you in all these years, but I ask it now, I plead for it. We’ve got to start somewhere here, figuring out why we’re in such a mess, you and the medicine nights, and the car, and me and my work. We’re heading right for the cliff, Millie. God, I don’t want to go over…”


Three other aspects of the book that I must praise:

1) You had a great and powerful antagonist in Captain Beatty. Let me hearken back to the words of Hitchcock, a story is only as good as its villain, and Beatty is one of the best. He was not simply a man of power, a man who could burn you out and send you to jail, but he was also an intellectual force to be reckoned with on the topic of book-burning, which Montag was ill-equipped to debate. Beatty had seen a few books in his time and read a few and could so easily quote the books he condemned so fervently as leader of the firemen. There was also in Captain Beatty the subtle, yet fascinating, element of self-destruction that was evident in so many other book-lovers. The quotations from books was a clue to his own need for books. Interestingly, a few years after F451 was released, there was a theatrical play, and Bradbury wrote a new scene where Captain Beatty invites Montag to his house and he shows him walls of books.

2) High tension. This single factor alone kept me glued to the book and one cannot over-emphasize the value of great tension in a story. Montag was doing something illegal. You had the nearness of the powerful antagonist, and the immediate, constant threat of being caught. Their very lives were at stake. Their very souls were at stake. You can’t raise the stakes higher than that.

3) Quality treatment of exposition. Do you remember the section in the Raiders Story Conference in which we talked about exposition? Indy was in Cairo with his friend. We're at a scene that we know will be full of exposition, that is, the Staff of Ra was too long for the Germans and they’re digging in the wrong place. So the question was, "what are we going to do to make the scene interesting so the audience doesn’t fall asleep?" And the idea was presented that this exposition could be done over dinner that’s been poisoned. Remember that? I’ve said this repeatedly: great exposition is always spoon-fed to the audience in the context of something else. Well, I couldn’t help but notice that this is exactly what Bradbury did in his book. Brilliantly, in fact. In a scene in which Beatty explains why they burn books, Bradbury feeds the exposition in the context of Montag at home, pretending to be sick in bed but in reality spending the day reading books. He has Captain Beatty visit Montag at home under the pretense of the concerned Captain for his sick fireman but in reality suspicious that Montag is reading books. Montag keeps a book hidden under his pillow, which Mildred finds in front of Beatty and almost reveals as the Captain explains why they burn books. Like the way The Raiders scene kept us on the edge of our seats, this scene was likewise as tense because everything was so close to being taken away from them as we get the exposition fed to us. I loved it!


THE 1966 FILM

To be polite, Francois Truffaut’s 1966 F451 adaptation, his first in English and in color, has not aged well. At times, the film is unintentionally hilarious. The set designs are quite amusing. Ultimately, Truffaut was weak in so many areas that were the strengths of the book – he had lack of tension, poor exposition, no subtext, light drama, weak antagonist, and worst of all, Montag’s inner turmoil was poorly expressed in the film. You never got that sense that he was struggling. Thus, his transformation to read books felt so sudden as to be just a plot device because it didn’t feel rooted in his character.

Clarisse, Montag’s neighbor, was transformed into a middle-aged women and played by Julie Christie, who also played his wife. Truffaut tried to turn Clarisse into a love triangle, as if this quirky, bookish, intellectual women is the one Montag truly loves and needs compared to the beautiful yet empty wife. This didn’t really work for me. Very little in the film worked for me, actually, with the exception of the ending, and there were two aspects I truly loved:

1) At the end as in the book, Montag finds himself in the woods with a group of people who wander around reciting books in order to remember them until the time comes that the ban is lifted. What Truffaut did was bring back a lot of characters from earlier in the story into this group of wandering book people, particularly Clarisse and the apple-eating man who was the first burn victim. In the book, Clarisse goes missing, perhaps dead under mysterious circumstances. Bradbury was said to have been pleased with this change.

2) I didn’t think that people wandering in the woods reciting books would play well as an ending, but, especially during the final shot of the film, I must confess – Truffaut made that moment very touching.


THE FUTURE FILM & DARABONT’S 2005 SCRIPT

This film has been in the works for many years, and you can get a breakdown of its long history here. Mel Gibson was involved for years to play Montag and then to be director. Scripts were written by Ray Bradbury, Tony Puryear, and Terry Hayes.

We even have some concept art available (above and below). That fire truck looks like a salamander, doesn’t it? I love it!


Let me just say that this is easily the best script I’ve read so far this year. The handling of the story is right down the line everything I would’ve done had I landed this assignment. It’s everything I would want to see in an adaptation of the book. Every strength in the book that I listed at the beginning of the article is evident in the script:

– The emphasis on the inner turmoil of Montag. Here, the filmmakers trust the face and take the time to show us Montag’s feelings.

– The powerful antagonist. In fact, Captain Beatty’s role is so juicy, it has the potential to give a lucky actor an Oscar nomination. Consider the fact that he’s the leader, the force pushing the fireman, while also being a secret lover of books, and one who wishes for his own self destruction. Imagine conveying those subtleties in the dialogue.

– The thick tension. The stakes are as high as humanly possible. Lives are at risk. In fact, the scenes I shared from the book, the ones with subtext and high drama, are in the script. Not only that, I want to mention that the tense scene of exposition in Montag’s bedroom in which Captain Beatty explains why they burn books is also in the script. However, the scene brilliantly moves from the Bedroom to the Parlor (with the three walls of huge TV screens) to be given the most visual treatment imaginable alongside Beatty’s monologue.


– The setups and payoffs were carefully constructed, such as the mechanical hound, who appears in the opening burn sequence in the film, sniffs out Montag’s hidden book in the middle of Act Two, and plays a big role during the chase sequence in the Act Two climax. You have to establish how scary the mechanical hound is first before you can deliver an effectively tense chase sequence. There was also the crucial self destructiveness of the book-lovers which leads to the death of Captain Beatty as well as the destruction of the city.

– True to form, the script opens with a big bang, a big Hollywood treatment of firemen responding to an alarm and burning out another citizen who has been harboring books. But as I mentioned many times before, my “Big Bang Theory” of screenwriting says that any film that opens with a big bang must close with an even bigger bang. There’s no question this script lives up to its promise of a big ending.

– Like Truffaut’s adaptation, many key characters are seen again when Montag joins the book-reciting wanderers in the woods.

– The dialogue’s fun. Here are some words from the opening sequence on the Salamander as they go to burn someone out.

CAPTAIN BEATTY: Good for you, Montag!
MONTAG: What, sir?
CAPTAIN BEATTY: That grin! The fierce grin of all men singed and driven back by flame!
MONTAG: I love it, sir!
CAPTAIN BEATTY: I know you do, son.

– It’s a very high energy script. Just feel the vigor in this passage:

Captain Beatty sees the husband and wife in custody. His attention goes to the children, staring at the flames with tear-streaked faces. He crouches, gentle:

CAPTAIN BEATTY
Here’s a good lesson for you
children. You’ll remember this.
(brushes little girl’s cheek)
Be good citizens.

THE FIREMEN

turn to the house. Montag takes lead position, fires a flamethrower blast through the front door.

INT. HOUSE – NIGHT

There’s an awesome beat as the kerosene fumes ignite, the very air itself catching fire… followed by a stunning SERIES OF BOOMING DETONATIONS hurtling down hallways and through rooms, funnels of flame ROARING like living things, shattering glass and peeling walls, eating piles of books.

EXT. HOUSE – NIGHT

The living room EXPLODES, blowing the windows out into the street, staggering Montag back on a concussion wave of heat.

The other firemen join in, hosing the house with flame from all directions. EXPLOSIONS punch through the roof, blow out the walls, hurl enormous BALLS OF FLAME into the night sky.

MONTAG

backs away with the others, seared by the heat.

CAMERA CLOSES IN on him as he snaps his protective faceplate up and wrenches his breather mask aside, wanting to feel the heat on his goddamn face. Exhilarated. Worshipping the flame…


MM’S THREE SUGGESTIONS

1) Millie’s betrayal. In the book and in this script, I always felt that Millie’s betrayal was never given its due. This has the potential to have a much bigger, stronger, emotional impact than it does. I think that the key is how Montag reacts to her betrayal. If he feels absolutely devastated, so will the audience.

2) I never for a minute believed that a) sirens would’ve gone off in the event of an attack in the city, which is inconsistent with the theme of keeping the citizens in intellectual darkness or b) that Millie would’ve gone to the window to see what’s going on before the missiles hit the city. She would’ve been glued to her TV screen, and that makes a bigger statement, I think, about not seeing the coming dangers. Montag’s firemen, though, would’ve watched the missiles coming.

3) The final shot, which were the reflections of the nuclear holocaust in a tight closeup of Montag’s eye, was never earned in the narrative. I think you have to set that up first. In fact, you need a shot in the opening, perhaps reflections of a house burning on Montag’s mask, to mirror the shot in the closing. At first, he saw the world through his mask, and in the end, he was seeing the world through HIS EYES.

-MM

MM Returns on Monday!

Hey guys,

I finally have the chance to get back to blogging! I appreciate everyone’s patience. And I will most certainly respond to all of the e-mails. I spent the vast majority of April working on a film project that absolutely kicked my ass. In fact, for much of the month, I was writing scared. Have you ever done that? You’re writing for some titan of industry and you’re nervous as your fingers type the keypad from FADE IN all the way to FADE OUT? That’s when you really discover what you’re made of. That’s when you go “oh shit, I’ve got to really deliver the goods.” So you dive in and use every trick you know, everything you’ve studied your whole life, from depth to subtext to exposition, and hopefully, you make all the right decisions.

I’ll be back on Monday with a big script review of Fahrenheit 451.

I’m also in the latest issue of Script Magazine with a big discussion about unsympathetic protagonists. Here’s a taste:

Say, has anyone ever heard of Scrooge? He has a transformational arc, does he not? He must be completely unsympathetic before he can transform, right? How are you going to tell a story about a man who has a transformational arc if he’s sympathetic from the start?

I’m also reminded of a great article by Terry Rossio on his Wordplayer website called One Hundred Million Dollar Mistakes. He wrote, “On Shrek, we were insistent that the story had to be about an ogre who was happy the way he was -- if the world rejected him, then he would reject the world. It was about putting up emotional barriers as an inappropriate reaction to rejection. Surrounding Shrek, all the main characters were dealing with similar inappropriate reactions to issues of self-worth, exploring all faces of the theme, and giving the film a sense of unity. At one point, the production team decided to throw that out and explore the notion that Shrek's real problem was that he wanted to be a Knight, so people would like him (we called this the 'woe is me' or Hunchback version of the story). That change screwed everything up, and you could see a hundred million $1 bills flying out the window. Happily, the production team, after seven months of brutally hard work, abandoned the 'woe is me' approach and came back to the emotional barrier theme. Now of course nobody can see the film any other way. Essential battle won, and the One Hundred Million Dollar Mistake narrowly avoided!”

The “I want to be a Knight” idea makes me want to heave. This over-zealous pursuit of sympathy in a protagonist has lead to so many cornball ideas. Good lessons get lost and bad films get made because preposterous concepts get shoved down our throats all in the name of sympathetic protagonists with goals we can root for. History has proven time and again that audiences can deal with an unsympathetic protagonist in the context of a good story. Audiences are good people. They will watch mean characters like Walt Kowalski or Shrek or Scrooge, because they will quietly hope for them to change for the better and discover the good in life.

-MM

Script Review: Scott Frank’s “After Hailey” (Or How to Manage Your Emotions and Learn to Embrace Drama)

Hey guys,

I thought I might get back into script reviews & analysis beginning with stories from the 2008 Blacklist, which can still be obtained here. I know many of my readers weren’t excited about the Blacklist scripts, and honestly, I wasn’t either. But weak scripts make for good reviews because you can always learn something new.

Ever since I read fellow Script columnist Bill Martel’s article on Scott Frank’s After Hailey, I’ve been curious. Scott Frank, the man who fixed Minority Report and gave us Out of Sight, Dead Again, and Get Shorty wrote a melodrama about a man recovering from the death of his wife. Really? The story is based on a novel by Jonathan Tropper in which a 20-something man’s older wife dies. He returns to his old home for his sister’s wedding, and he is reunited with the troubled teenage son from Hailey's previous marriage. Ho hum, right? Martel called it “Plot 53B” because we’ve seen it a million times. Hell, I’d say it’s beyond clichéd to have this kind of setup. If a couple of producers asked me to write this kind of story for them, I’d pass. I can foresee all the potential problems – the clichés, the passive protagonist moping about over the death of his wife, and the stomach-churning melodrama. You’d have to be insanely careful to avoid so many career-halting pitfalls in this kind of setup. But – Scott Frank took this on. SCOTT. FRANK. How the hell would he handle this subject? Thus, I had to read it.

I found this script to be a great platform to talk about something I’ve been thinking about for a while – Managing Your Emotions.

So let me cover Bill’s article first. I agreed with every word he wrote:

Because it’s Scott Frank (or, maybe this was in the novel it’s adapted from) someone does pull out a gun and actually shoot someone - those dramatic family explosions include fist fights and shootings - and what is amazing is how even the violence pays off in interesting character-oriented ways. One character has their greatest moment due to the presence of the gun. The film has a different story, but much of the same feel of Frank’s THE LOOKOUT - a character dealing with past mistakes and past tragedies. The strength in this script is the writing, not the story... and that may be why it only got 5 votes. It’s probably the least flashy script on the Black List.


And I have to share this, too, which is about writers who take on personal stories when they’re finally given the chance to direct:

This is a trap screenwriters often fall into when they get to make their own films. One of the reasons why I am a big fan of Scott Frank is because he usually works in the crime genre - his big break was DEAD AGAIN, a mystery thriller about reincarnation starring Emma Thompson as an amnesiac who was either a victim or a killer in her past life... and Frank kept you guessing until the very end. Frank adapted two Elmore Leonard novels to the screen - and both were critical and financial successes (GET SHORTY and OUT OF SIGHT). Elmore Leonard calls him “his screenwriter”. I read the Cohen draft of MINORITY REPORT, and it was crap... then read the Frank draft and it was brilliant - all of the great things in the film are from the Frank draft. If you want a great crime-mystery-thriller type script, Scott Frank is the man.... But when he got a chance to make his own movie, he made THE LOOKOUT... which is more character study than crime drama. Look, I loved THE LOOKOUT - I wrote an article for Script about some of the swell, clever writing. I own the movie on DVD. But no matter how great that film is, it is not MINORITY REPORT or DEAD AGAIN or GET SHORTY... and the film didn’t burn up the box office.

Take Tony Gilroy, who took a Robert Ludlum potboiler and turned it into a franchise that is not only the most freakin’ exciting action films made in a decade, they are also intelligent and character oriented and haunting. When the BOURNE movies are so powerful that they change James Bond... and recharge that series with CASINO ROYALE (until QUANTUM killed it) - you have a writer who knows how to please the audience and the critics. So they give Gilroy the chance to make a movie, and does he make something that will catapult him to the top? Does he write the script that will be a huge financial success and insure that he will be able to call the shots from now on? No, he falls into the trap and makes MICHAEL [CLAYTON], a really good character study that doesn’t make much money... though, I own that one on DVD, too and really like it. Basically, the writer’s trap is to make the film that other writers will really love... but won’t do very well with the mass audience that controls what films get made and who makes them. These guys end up making small films that either result in them being able to make more small films... or them not being allowed to make anything ever again. They make that one personal film that no one would ever buy or ever let them make in the past... without asking “Why?” Why wouldn’t anyone let them make it? Why wouldn’t anyone buy it? Why do they think this is the best script to make now? Why do they even want to make this script?

I completely agree. And I can hear the complaints already: “It’s not always about the box office.” You’re right. It’s not. But you better make damned sure you don’t lose money either. And these little personal stories can very easily sink your backers, which will in turn sink your career. This is more about establishing yourself (as a new director) with solid hits before you move on to personal stories. Building a following as a screenwriter is one thing. Building a following as a director is another and you have to build trust first. There’s a lot of wisdom in waiting before you get personal. You need to know what you’re doing and hone your craft first, and I’ll tell you why: personal stories can be unbelievably deceptive as you write them.


It’s like this. You sit down and start writing your story. You know the characters inside and out. You’re in a scene and you’re feeling the feelings of all the characters. That’s a good thing. Nothing wrong with that. But some writers can get swept away and distracted by those feelings. And they assume that the feelings of the characters that they are feeling as they write the scene will also be felt by the audience. That’s deceptive. That may not be the case. The scene may not play well at all. So you have to be careful. You have to Manage Your Emotions as you write a story. You have to know the emotions of the characters certainly, but you also need the discipline to step back and understand the emotion of the scene, have a feel for the rhythms and beats of solid drama, and consider how well it will play to audiences.

So, for example (and this is common), I read a scene in which all of the characters are having a fun moment together. They’re getting along and feeling good and laughing. And the writer is feeling the happy feelings of those characters as he writes the scene. And he assumes that the readers will also feel those same happy feelings as well. But, more likely, they won’t, because a scene like that is static, has no conflict, no tension, no drama, and usually fails to advance the story in a substantive way. You may be feeling those happy feelings of the characters in that moment, but you need the discipline to know that this scene may not play well for all the reasons I just listed and cut it. This is not to say that you can’t have a scene like this, but you have to be damn careful. If your script is filled with scenes like this, you better believe your readers will be bored out of their minds. I think this is a big pitfall for timid screenwriters, because they write a bunch of happy scenes like this and want the readers to feel happy and praise the writer, but all it does is put the readers to sleep. It takes conflict and drama to hold the attention of all your readers.


How you’re feeling when you’re writing your scenes and how the reader feels when he’s reading your scenes are many times totally different perceptions and experiences. You have to Manage Your Emotions and step back, look at your story as a whole, and work hard to make the reader feel the emotions you want them to feel, which does not necessarily mean you will be feeling them as you write.

Here’s another example: a newbie writes a story from his personal life experience and wrote the script EXACTLY as it happened. And then he’s stunned and angry that he’s getting bad reviews. “This is real life! This is what happened!” That doesn’t necessarily mean that it makes for a good screenplay or an engaging drama. That doesn’t mean it’s cinematic or a story well told. Or the characters are fleshed-out. All it means is that the writer committed an act of personal indulgence because he was thinking about himself, his friends, how it all happened, re-experiencing the emotions he felt at the time, and never once thought about the craft of drama or how well this might play to audiences. But he felt all the emotions of the scenes as he wrote them! Except they didn't play well because he hasn't had enough writing experience to stand back, consider how it plays to an audience, and work hard to create effective, engaging drama. Also, because it's so personal, the newbie will inevitably lose all sense of objectivity about his story. When someone tells him, “you should cut this one character - he’s a waste,” the newbie resists because… that’s his friend. He’s not thinking about the craft of drama and screenwriting. I always tell newbies – avoid personal stories. Learn the craft first.


And so we have a setup like After Hailey. We have a man coming home for a wedding after his wife has died. This kind of setup can be deceptively appealing even to the pros. Writers can be attracted to this kind of story because they want to go on that emotional journey of the protagonist. They want to feel the feelings of that sad protag and go with him on the journey of emotional rehabilitation. (I’m not suggesting this is why Frank chose to take on this story. He may very well be doing this story for a myriad of other reasons. But this is usually why a writer would tackle a story like this.)

Now, just because you’re feeling the feelings of that sad protag and also the changing feelings of the protag over the course of the story does not necessarily mean that the audience will be feeling those feelings, too. What the character is feeling and how effectively those feelings are being conveyed to the audience are two completely different scenarios. Because what are they seeing? A boring, sad, passive protag moping about his house for two hours accompanied by a bunch of sad music. This is how writers can fall into a trap with their personal stories because they’re committing acts of emotional indulgences as opposed to writing a story for an audience. And they’re not effectively managing their own emotions as they write because they’re not stepping back from the characters to look at the scene and story as a whole and consider how well it will play to audiences.

And you think I’m setting you up for big complaints about Scott Frank, don’t you? No, just the opposite. This is where I find praise for Scott Frank. The setup is clichéd as hell, but Frank never fell into writerly indulgences and he never lost sight of the audience as he wrote his story. That is such a refreshing, admirable quality to find in a setup like this. He kept it simple and brought in a lot of humor so the movie would play well. The humor was the highlight for me.

There is, however, a fatal error in my opinion. In a setup like this, I think you have to show the death of Hailey in the beginning, because that guarantees the audience will be feeling the feelings of your sad protagonist as he mopes about. You have to do that. Here, Frank saves the revelation of how she dies for the end, which didn’t work for me. How her death took place isn’t such a big deal that it should be saved for the end. You need to show that in the beginning in order to ensure that the audience is on the same page as the protag. You can fill in the details later with the kind of flashbacks that are already in the script, but showing the death early will sink a deeper hook in the audience, make them more invested in the protag’s arc, and ensure that they are on the same emotional page as the protag.


A few other random thoughts:

- Let me just quote Bill Martell again, because I completely agree. The script is littered with “we see”s and camera direction stuff, and at 127 pages, I think it would have come out danged close to 120 without them... and you’d never miss ‘em. Those things take me out of the story and take up space. Another thing that bugged me was having everyone called MAN or WOMAN if they speak before being introduced - I have no idea whose fool idea this is, but if you’re doing breakdowns you end up with this character MAN in almost every scene, but when it comes to casting MAN it ends up not a character at all - but all of the male characters the first time they speak. I can understand if you are trying to keep the identity of a character secret, but when the same actor is going to play MAN and RICHARD, you’re just making it pointlessly confusing by referring to him by two names. The breakdown and scheduling programs go by the character name - and MAN and RICHARD are two different names and that makes them two different characters. I thought the exact same thing!

- At times, the story dipped into melodrama.

- I thought the tone was uneven. The beginning of the story was deadly serious with Doug taking photos of dead babies and their crying mothers but then the story shifted gears into comedy, which was odd to me. That’s too big a shift in the tone.

- Doug, the protag, was too passive. Of course, that’s the nature of the beast in this kind of story, because he is reacting and dealing with Hailey’s death. But things were always being done TO him instead of him doing anything to push the plot forward. Hailey approaches him in the bar. Russ is brought to Doug to deal with. Laney makes the move on Doug. Claire pushes the plot forward with her own problems, etc. Because he’s a passive photographer, because he keeps himself disconnected from the subjects he’s taking photos of, because things are always being done TO him, his personality gets lost in the process, and you never really connect with him. The best example of this kind of setup has to be Kieslowski’s Blue. When her husband and daughter were killed in the car accident, Julie (Juliette Kinoche) was still active in all the ways she was running away from life.

- For me, too much of the dialogue was on-the-nose, characters saying exactly what they are thinking and feeling. I’d like to see Frank aspire to more layered dialogue, more subtext. (BTW - I loved Claire.)

- And the ending. I thought it went on for too long and it was filled with too much dialogue. He needed a stronger emotional punch than what he gave us, one that really justifies us sitting through this terribly clichéd setup we’ve seen a million times. Frank crammed many things into that ending, and all things considered, I just wasn’t moved. I’d suspect that the ending was weak because the setup was weak.

- Having said all of these things, I do love Scott Frank, man. That man should keep writing to the end of his days.

-MM