I’ve decided to give up the old Screenwriting News posts and Tweet Dailyany and all screenwriter-worthy links as soon as I see them. I’ve also added the “Tweeted Screenwriting News” feed to my sidebar, and yes, you can follow mewithout joining.
If you appreciate the news but not the overload of tweets, you might also consider TweetDeck, which I use. With TD, you can organize all of the accounts that you actually want to follow.
In light of the recent news on the passing of John Hughes, I thought I’d post a collection of his available screenplays.
There’s a continuously updated round-up of links at Auteurs.Will Harrisoffers snippets of great John Hughes dialogue. /Filmfound a 47-minute interview with Hughes from 1985, and Mark Matousekspoke with Hughes that same year for Interview Magazine. There’s also an interesting link on some of his unproduced projects. One was called Bartholomew Vs. Neff, which would have pit Sylvester Stallone & John Candy against each other as feuding neighbors.
I could write volumes, but, alas, I shall offer 5 screenplays.
If anyone is aware of other available scripts, let me know.
Here, Seitz gives us a sensational five-part series that he titled “Zen Pulp” on the TV shows and films of Michael Mann.
Be sure to click the lower right-hand button in the video player, because this really should be viewed full screen, particularly during Part Four where he gives a shot-by-shot analysis of Manhunter.
I loved it!
-MM
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PART ONE
In this first vid embedded below on Miami Vice, Matt says, “The city presented on the show was ultimately no more “real” than the title locale of Casablanca, a film that Vice, in its glamorously grubby way, often resembled—a global way station, a port city where people came to make a fortune and remake their identities and where international political forces—the CIA, the FBI, the Medellin Cartel, the IRA, the Yakuza—wrought havoc with individual lives. The weekly body count made real-world, mid-’80s Beirut or El Salvador seem like Club Med. Crockett, Tubbs, and their fellow officers rarely went a week without shooting several people and having several more killed on their watch—often innocents too naive or stupid to realize their dreams were unattainable. The show's depiction of violence is Exhibit A in the case for Mann as an irreconcilable mix of reporter and huckster. Depicting the impact and aftermath of violence, Vice was at once empathetic and glib. The bloodshed was grotesque and lovely. It meant everything and nothing. And by next week, it was usually forgotten.”
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PART TWO
“Michael Mann's heroes are thieves and killers, G-men and cops. They exist both inside and outside the system. Some like working in concentrated groups; others are lone wolves. But they all have certain traits in common. They are radical, sometimes fanatical individualists. They have a code of honor and stick to it. They value loyalty. respect, and professionalism and despise incompetence, equivocation, and ass-kissing. Above all else, they prize their freedom—freedom to live in the present moment, pursue their happiness without interference, and define themselves on their own terms. But their pursuit of their biggest dreams and highest ideals invariably puts them at odds with larger forces: representatives of institutions, governments, organizations, and cartels, big guys that reflexively seek to subvert, control, or profit from the little guy, and that destroy all who resist.”
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PART THREE
Matt has a quote so good, I wish he’d said it sooner so I could’ve used it in my sex article: “There is no such thing as casual sex in a Michael Mann film, because for his characters, sex is a respite from everything else. The lovers' bed is a sanctuary from the oppressiveness of life, the only place where they can experience true bliss. Mann is one of the most modernist of Hollywood directors, but when the action shifts to the bedroom, he becomes a religious filmmaker.”
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PART FOUR
This is probably the best in the series. Matt focuses his attention on Manhunter and gives lessons on the Shot-Reverse Shot technique as well as scene-by-scene analysis of the finale.
He says, “The film is itself a mirrored narrative, dividing its attention between Graham and Dollarhyde and then, in its final third, letting Graham recede so Dollarhyde can take center stage. It's no coincidence that we finally get a good look at the killer after Graham has accessed the buried part of himself that understands Dollarhyde; nor is it accidental that whenever Graham has a eureka moment that reveals Dollarhyde's essence, we hear rage welling up in his voice. Dollarhyde represents the hideous aspect of Graham that the agent must channel, confront, and defeat in order to defend the domestic paradise that Dollarhyde threatens, and from which he must ultimately separate in order to live in peace with his family.”
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PART FIVE
Crime Story, yeah baby! I used to love that show. Seitz tells us that “despite the peculiar specialness of Crime Story, it bears the dramatic hallmarks of a Mann production, starting with its two-sides-of-a-coin approach to its hero and villain. On first glance, Torello and Luca seem as different in their ways as Detective Vincent Hanna and thief Neil McCauley in Heat: strong antagonists marked by their respectively hot-blooded and ice-cold approach to their lives and jobs. But like Hanna and McCauley, Torello and Luca have similar weaknesses, including hair-trigger tempers. And both men are so obsessed with their jobs that they foul their nests, destroying the relationships that are theoretically most important to them.”
To this day, I still get e-mails about Kurosawa’s Ikiru and I never tire of talking about that film. It’s been nearly 10 months since I’ve seen that movie and yet the emotions, the imagery, and Kurosawa’s impeccable craftsmanship haunts me still. This is a film so powerful that Ebert wrote: “I think this is one of the few movies that might actually be able to inspire someone to lead their life a little differently.”
I have to share this with you. I discovered a recent, phenomenal, two-part analysis of Ikiru at Offscreenby Aryeh Kaufman. My meager notesreally didn’t do the film justice and this extensive analysis opens the film up so beautifully. “Ikiru’s focus on the great loneliness of the individual and the struggle to achieve meaningful encounters with others,” Kaufman writes, “proves relevant to all.”
To appreciate how groundbreaking the film is, you first have to understand its context in the cultural and social history of Japan at that time. This film was quite revolutionary. From Part One:
Ikiru, meaning “to live” or “living,” was directed by Akira Kurosawa in 1952 under Toho Productions. Kurosawa, with the help of Hashimoto and Oguni, wrote the screenplay for the black and white film at age 42. The film, widely recognized as one of Kurosawa’s masterpieces, must be understood within its historical and cultural contexts. Ikiru emerged during Japan’s postwar reconstruction, as the country sought to adapt to its newly inherited capitalism and democracy. Calling for forms of cultural upheaval and self-scrutiny, the film may be viewed as political cinema. Specifically, Ikiru affirms the pride and power of the individual. It promotes breaking traditional ties to larger social groups, such as family and company, for the sake of personal achievement.
Quite powerful, too, was what Kaufman wrote about Watanabe’s broken relationship with Mitsuo, his son:
Ikiru explicitly reveals the unworthiness of family, and questions the importance of communal bonds generally. Most illustrative is the father-son dichotomy. Palpable distance exists between Watanabe and Mitsuo, increased by misunderstandings and a generational gap that recalls Turgenev’s Fathers and Sons. Mitsuo first mentions his father by calling him a “petty bureaucrat.” Respect is absent in his claim that “even Pop wouldn’t want to take all that money to his grave.” Watanabe hides in the corner of his son’s room, most likely intending to disclose to Mitsuo the fateful news of his cancer, until hearing Mitsuo and Kazue discussing him and his savings. He leaves claiming that nothing is wrong—his son is too selfish to consider alternative causes to Watanabe’s sadness aside from his eavesdropping and hearing their discussion. In fact, Mitsuo fails to take notice of his father’s agony and never learns of his illness. He is more interested in whether Watanabe squanders his savings. Ironically, through a chance misunderstanding, Mitsuo concludes that his father has taken a young mistress in Toyo, played by Miki Odagiri, and scolds his father for his “degenerate” behavior. Once again, such remarks prevent Watanabe from explaining to his son the true cause of his suffering.
Viewers learn, through Watanabe, that 30 years of continuous work and significant time spent unmarried as a widower were for the sake of his son. Still despairing from his recent lay-diagnosis, Watanabe hears the laughter of Mitsuo and Kazue upstairs. This worsens his despair, as it appears they laugh at him. Suddenly, Watanabe hears the call of “Dad” twice. Music stops before Watanabe climbs the stairs to his beckoning son, only to receive an order to lock the front door. Watanabe descends with head lowered; all hopes of reconnecting with Mitsuo have vanished.
A series of flashbacks demonstrates how far father and son have grown apart. These flashbacks prove to be the visual equivalents of Watanabe’s freely associated thoughts. A baseball bat used in locking the door to the house leads to the memory of Mitsuo playing baseball and hitting a single. Watanabe shouts “Mitsuo” in congratulation in the stands before the film cuts back to Watanabe’s room for a close-up. Here, “Mitsuo” sounds twice though Watanabe fails to move his lips—the call is internal and in Watanabe’s choked voice. Returning to the baseball diamond, Mitsuo is called out in a run-down. As Watanabe sits down in the stands we return to his room as he shrinks down into sitting position. The camera, however, moves upward, providing a greater sense of his descent. Immediately, Watanabe recalls his adolescent son on a gurney in a hospital lift, similarly descending as the camera climbs. After informing his son that he cannot remain with him for the appendectomy, Mitsuo is wheeled away. Cutting back to Watanabe’s room, “Mitsuo” sounds twice again. Mitsuo’s being wheeled away lends itself to the flashback of Mitsuo’s train-departure for war. Son holds father before jumping back onto the moving train. Now, “Mitsuo” sounds nine times, echoing off in a final call. These images, so varied and freely instigated, show the breadth of memory father holds for son. Though these memories hold meaning, they emphasize the absence of successful communication.
“I have no son. I’m all alone,” Watanabe explains to Toyo, the young worker who becomes quite important to him. “My son is somewhere far, far away—just as my parents were when I was drowning in that pond.”
I daresay this film possesses the best use of flashbacks ever.
Even more interesting for me was the way Kaufman illustrates how Watanabe fits the mold of a hero as defined by Joseph Campbell. This comes to us from Part Two:
Joseph Campbell explains the following:
Everywhere, no matter what the sphere of interest (whether religious, political, or personal), the really creative acts are represented as those deriving from some sort of dying to the world; and what happens in the interval of the hero’s nonentity, so that he comes back as one reborn, made great and filled with creative power, mankind is also unanimous in declaring.
Certainly, Watanabe’s transformation from servile worker to active public servant represents one significant “dying to the world.” “The mummy” has finally been laid to rest. In this sense, creative acts, encompassing the volitional drive to create the playground, recreate Watanabe. The act of creation not only results in something new being formed but also in the essential recreation of the creator. Furthermore, Campbell’s statement may be applied to Watanabe’s physical death. Watanabe’s “nonentity,” his absence between the first and second divisions of Ikiru, results in his spiritual return to those at his wake, in the form of his portrait, his hat, the toy-rabbit, and even a wind-up clock, all which have been transformed by Watanabe’s deeds.
And then there is that marvelous break in the structure, which I wrote about in my Ikiru article. I love these paragraphs:
Kurosawa further prepares viewers to internalize Watanabe’s life as an example by depicting various coworkers deliberating the meaning of Watanabe’s final days, his behavior, whether he in fact knew he was to die, and whether he “created” the playground himself. Viewers want the misunderstanding mourners to think as they do, to believe that Watanabe did in fact accomplish a worthy goal and transform his life and that without Watanabe the playground would not have been. Viewers are prepared to argue and preach to these mourners—to do so with force—influenced by the knowledge and insight gained from the first part of the film, which now stands as absolutely real. We understand Watanabe’s situation and that he suffered from the knowledge of his terminal cancer. The mourners know the events immediately leading up to his death but not his inner mind. Kurosawa depicts drunken mourners disparaging the bureaucratic system, usurping credit for the playground from Watanabe, and finally claiming superficially, “I’ll work at it like I’m a man reborn…sacrifice the self to serve the many.” However, the next scene presents a mirror image of the opening scene: the chief officer, sitting in Watanabe’s place, passes off a potential project to the Engineering Department. One man stands up in silent protest, only to be submerged behind stacks of paper. Such an explicit failure to internalize and act on Watanabe’s lesson provides the strongest incentive to viewers to avoid such similar fate.
The perspectivism of the wake scene serves not only to inspire viewers to actively support Watanabe but also to grasp the ultimate incommunicability of enlightenment. Everyone views Watanabe’s life and death through the lenses of their own particular life and belief system. Mitsuo believes his father’s behavior is attributable to his overhearing talk of savings and pensions; Watanabe’s brother believes his transformation is due to a mistress; the Deputy Mayor claims most of the credit for the playground for himself. Rashomon forces viewers to question the veracity of conflicting perspectives. Ikiru, however, provides viewers with flashbacks that are literal and accurate in the wake scene. Mourners respond jointly to the flashbacks as if they too were watching them on screen. Therefore, Ikiru may be interpreted as building upon Rashomon’s perspectivism. In Rashomon, viewers must choose to believe either that no single truth exists, only perspectives, or that one view is more appropriate or truthful than others. The latter view implies an active engagement with the film that is similarly featured in Ikiru. An omniscient narrator serves as a teacher of Watanabe’s lesson to viewers, who, though perhaps differing in terms of interpretations of what exactly transformed Watanabe, accept the hero’s version of events as opposed to those of the erring bureaucrats. On balance, in addition to supporting one perspective through the demonstration of alternative perspectives, Ikiru develops Rashomon’s perspectivism by promoting the moral approach that one must necessarily detach from others to find meaning in life. Personal enlightenment and transformation cannot be achieved through the complex differences inherent in alternative perspectives. Such a view conforms to Campbell’s theory that detachment from interpersonal bonds and social groups is essential to personal transformation. “The hero has died as a modern man, but as eternal man—perfected, unspecific, universal man—he has been reborn,” claims Campbell. “His second solemn task and deed therefore…is to return to us, transfigured, and teach the lesson he has learned of life renewed.” Watanabe, through his creative deeds, returns to society after despair and isolation reached a peak. His creative action helps form meaningful interpersonal bonds; however, his return does not entail submission or acceptance of social mores and guidelines. This is one of the key lessons of his life. Watanabe struggled with and threatened to undermine office culture. He defied the Deputy Mayor thereby “changing city hall” and brought meaning to his public servant position through such an overthrowing.
Ahh, yes, the lovely Jenny Lumet who can be seen in Vogue’s latest Age Issue. God, I love screenwriters.
Now that my schedule has cleared up and I finally have the opportunity to get reconnected with all the goings-on around the World Wide Web, I thought we’d resume the News Links. “Around Blogosphere” will resume as well as “Goodies for Cinephile.”
What Price Hollywood- May 10, 1932, final draft by Adela Rogers St. Johns (What a name!)
A Serious Man- June 4, 2007, draft by Joel and Ethan Coen
The Ruins- January 19, 2007 draft script by Scott Smith
Speed Racer- January 4, 2007 draft by Larry & Andy Wachowski, although WHY anyone would want to read this is beyond me.
Casino Royale- December 13, 2005 draft by Neal Purvis & Robert Wade (and revised by Paul Haggis)
The Imaginarium of Doctor Parnassus- May 26, 2007 draft by "Terry McKeown and Charles Gilliam" (in other words, Terry Gilliam and Chalres McKeown. Those crazy kids!)
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From the Hollywood Roaster:"Study reveals 88% of screenwriters fell off the ugly tree and hit every branch on the way down." (Really? Take a good look at Variety’s 10 Screenwriters to Watch. Some of them are hot. And did you see the photo of Jenny Lumet above?)
More exciting news. Hold me back:Twilight Screenwriter Reveals One Of Rachelle Lefevre's Final Scenes. Even better: Etan Cohen tries to defend the idea of a Candy Land movie: "I think that people expect that it's just a way of marketing toys," he says. “But the real opportunity and the fun of it is to take a game that people love and have really warm associations from playing it as a kid and then do something totally innovative and new.” Uh huh.
“I have written or co-written 15 screenplays and I have only seven movies,” said Guillermo del Toro. “I find it frustrating when you write a screenplay and it lives, but you don’t get it produced – which is a lottery – it exists in a limbo that does not allow it to become public. A filmmaker will never be known by the movies he left in the drawer. Unlike a musician, a painter or a poet, nobody is going to open a box after I’m gone and say, ‘Oh, look, another great movie that he didn’t make.’”
Via The Examiner: Through news from The Hollywood Reporter, Sucker Punch Studios now has the chance to bring its highly successful game inFAMOUSfrom the Playstation 3 to the big screen, not unlike that of Naughty Dog Studios and its own prized title, Uncharted. Screenwriter Sheldon Turner has worked with the studio and Sony Pictures to bring what she believes is "...the future of gaming. The game, while big and fun, is at its core a love ballad to the underachiever, which is what our hero, Cole McGrath, is."
Interview with Orphan screenwriter, David Johnson hereand here.
Via FirstShowing.net:Way back in January it was announced that Roland Emmerich would be directing an adaptation of Isaac Asimov's Foundation trilogy. That's all we really knew at the time, but when Emmerich appeared at Comic-Con yesterday, he confirmed (via ComingSoon) that they've hired a screenwriter for the adaptation - Oscar nominated writer Robert Rodat (Saving Private Ryan, The Patriot). "He is the most knowledgeable person I ever met about the Foundation novels. It's great to write with somebody like that because… he knows it. I had a certain idea and he had a certain idea and that together I think will make this a movie."
Former World of Warcraft movie scriptwriter reveals himself In a post on the Quarter to Three forums, Gary Whitta, the former editor in chief of PC Gamer magazine and now a big time Hollywood screenwriter (Denzel's next movieis written by Whitta), stated he had actually been working on the World of Warcraft movie script "for the past two years" for Legendary Picturesand Warner Bros. The result was a screenplay that he felt "distilled the sprawling Warcraft mythology into a narrative that was easily accessible to the non-player, and everyone was really pleased with the results." That is until Raimi was brought in as the movie's director. Whitta states that Raimi "had his own pretty specific vision of what he wanted to do story-wise so that's the version they're now pursuing." There's no hard feelings, however, as Whitta says, "so far as I'm concerned Raimi is the best possible director for this."
From 10 Questions for Jerry Bruckheimer Does an unknown writer have any chance of getting a script read by a studio or put into production? Of course. Every writer in Hollywood started by writing a screenplay and getting recognition. If the movie didn't get made, it at least got noticed by somebody--a producer or an agent. If someone is prolific and keeps working at it, they're going to do it. You've just got to keep writing. I'm sure we could show you instances of very famous screenwriters whose first screenplay wasn't very good. They just kept at it.
Q&A with (500) Days of Summer director Marc Webb Alan Ball on True Blood What genre of television would you say True Blood is, if you had to pick just one? Drama. We don’t have an actual sign in the writers room that reads, “It’s the emotions, stupid,” but we might as well. We feel like we have to keep these characters rooted in some sort of emotional reality because otherwise, it’s a parade of special effects and set pieces.
On the implosion of the Moneyball project The movie, based on the bestselling book by Michael Lewis, wasn't just in pre-production. It was literally five days away from filming when Soderbergh turned in a new version of the script that Pascal and her Sony team found unacceptable. The decision was so abrupt that the film's producer, Michael DeLuca, got the call about it while on his honeymoon in Paris. As a courtesy to the talent, Pascal gave them an opportunity to try and set the film up elsewhere, but no other studio has shown any interest. So the movie remains at Sony, but will it ever get made? Will Pitt stick with the project? And what exactly went wrong…?And now, apparently, Aaron Sorkin is rewriting the script.
I'm famous yet anonymous, failed yet accomplished, brilliant yet semi-brilliant. I'm a homebody who jetsets around the world. I'm brash and daring yet chilled with a twist. I also write for Script Magazine.
