"You can't wait for inspiration, you have to go after it with a club."
– Jack London
Friday, August 14, 2009
Friday, August 7, 2009
Who Wants Blood?
...and who wants self-actualization?
I recently read David Mamet's Bambi vs. Godzilla: On the Nature, Purpose and Practice of the Movie Business. It's a remarkable book. I usually choose not to read books about screenwriting or, for that matter, the movie business. A little Robert McKee or Syd Field goes a long way for me. Then I'm somehow bloated. Never trust a guru. They're smart, sure. But you have to shut a little something off to stay with them.
Bambi vs. Godzilla is different. Mamet is, of course, a first-rate dramatist. And this has driven him to revulsion at the way things work in Hollywood. There's a gem every other page or so. Some of the gems are depressing as hell. But you leave the book a better writer, I think.
Mamet turned me onto a remarkable American noir film from 1967: Point Blank. It stars Lee Marvin and Angie Dickinson. The tagline is one for the ages:
"There are two kinds of people in his up-tight world: his victims and his women. And sometimes you can't tell them apart." Uh huh.
Mamet points to the film as an example of what's wrong with many mainstream Hollywood thinking about main characters: that they must be likable. After all, the audience essentially engages the main character as his lackey to pull us through the plot, right? So, the audience is happiest when they like the guy up on screen most of the time. Audiences like main characters with pluck (and boobs) and a desire to become better people. Everybody likes that, right?
But drama isn't always so easy on the viewer. This self-actualization that Hollywood wants us to vicariously enjoy while sitting upon our ample asses descends from a much sterner mother: catharsis. Catharsis isn't a pleasant thing to go through. It's ripping away the traits that define you and letting yourself slide to the floor in a jelly, hoping that something new and better will prop you back up.
And that's not the worst of it.
What drives any good drama is the main character's need for something. Think to what you lack. Think to what you can't bear to have the world know you lack. Love. Respect. Family. Something darker, perhaps. That's what drives a drama. It's what you can't mention. Hollywood realized a while back that this isn't quite as safe a model as self-actualization. Nobody's afraid to want that for themselves, at least vicariously through Spiderman.
This, predictably, makes the drama (and the very potential for drama) less.
At the beginning of Point Blank, Lee Marvin loses big. While robbing some gangsters, Marvin's partner steals his wife, his share, then lodges two bullets in him -- all on an abandoned Alcatraz. As his life seeps away, he wants one thing: revenge. And this alone drives him to survive (and swim to San Francisco, apparently).
Now, self-actualization is an easy, calm, soothing kind of master. It has twelve steps. You can take a break. You do your best. There are books to help you. Self-actualization has websites. Revenge? Not so much. It's irrational, unquenchable, and merciless.
Lee Marvin tracks down his wife. As he sits there wordlessly she pours out her confession and he realizes that she wished for the death she thought he had. Unsure whether to kill her or take her back, he loses both options when she does kill herself. He marches on. He tracks down his former partner, who's now bought his way into the mafia. He gets his sister-in-law, Angie Dickinson, to sleep with her dead sister's husband so he can sneak up and kill him. He does kill the partner -- but in about the most unsatisfying way possible: the poor guy falls off the roof trying to get away from Marvin.
At this point you'd think the movie is about done. Everything that was set up has been resolved. But not for Marvin. Where do you put revenge? He was ripped off for $93,000 in the initial heist. He chases and murders his way up through the criminal syndicate to get the money. They're mostly baffled by him. What is he gaining by going after this incredibly powerful organization? Why, for that matter, does he even think they owe him a penny? It's not terribly rational -- but revenge just isn't.
And then at the end Marvin finally gets his money. Or he could. It's offered to him in a pay off back on Alcatraz. But he won't come out of the shadows to take it. He won't take the boat back to San Francisco. Instead, he just recedes into the darkness. End of movie.
Ouch.
NEVER do you 'like' Marvin's character. Sure, he maybe fulfills the old screenwriting bromide: "the audience has to want the main character to succeed'. But that's begging the question. And if you gave him a dog and a sweet, supportive wife, we'd puke.
What makes him work as a character? Put simply: a great dramatic question at every step. What happens next? He's a mystery, a Manichean hodgepodge of good and evil with a not insignificant pinch of crazy thrown in. But he is consistent and coherent, and he never once panders to the audience.
This has the effect of making him human. The final tragedy hits like a ton of bricks.
And while the movie business might have difficulty making money laying that kind of trip on you, it's certainly something the audience can appreciate. And I'd say the writer of drama simply must understand this.
I recently read David Mamet's Bambi vs. Godzilla: On the Nature, Purpose and Practice of the Movie Business. It's a remarkable book. I usually choose not to read books about screenwriting or, for that matter, the movie business. A little Robert McKee or Syd Field goes a long way for me. Then I'm somehow bloated. Never trust a guru. They're smart, sure. But you have to shut a little something off to stay with them.
Bambi vs. Godzilla is different. Mamet is, of course, a first-rate dramatist. And this has driven him to revulsion at the way things work in Hollywood. There's a gem every other page or so. Some of the gems are depressing as hell. But you leave the book a better writer, I think.
Mamet turned me onto a remarkable American noir film from 1967: Point Blank. It stars Lee Marvin and Angie Dickinson. The tagline is one for the ages:
"There are two kinds of people in his up-tight world: his victims and his women. And sometimes you can't tell them apart." Uh huh.
Mamet points to the film as an example of what's wrong with many mainstream Hollywood thinking about main characters: that they must be likable. After all, the audience essentially engages the main character as his lackey to pull us through the plot, right? So, the audience is happiest when they like the guy up on screen most of the time. Audiences like main characters with pluck (and boobs) and a desire to become better people. Everybody likes that, right?
But drama isn't always so easy on the viewer. This self-actualization that Hollywood wants us to vicariously enjoy while sitting upon our ample asses descends from a much sterner mother: catharsis. Catharsis isn't a pleasant thing to go through. It's ripping away the traits that define you and letting yourself slide to the floor in a jelly, hoping that something new and better will prop you back up.
And that's not the worst of it.
What drives any good drama is the main character's need for something. Think to what you lack. Think to what you can't bear to have the world know you lack. Love. Respect. Family. Something darker, perhaps. That's what drives a drama. It's what you can't mention. Hollywood realized a while back that this isn't quite as safe a model as self-actualization. Nobody's afraid to want that for themselves, at least vicariously through Spiderman.
This, predictably, makes the drama (and the very potential for drama) less.
At the beginning of Point Blank, Lee Marvin loses big. While robbing some gangsters, Marvin's partner steals his wife, his share, then lodges two bullets in him -- all on an abandoned Alcatraz. As his life seeps away, he wants one thing: revenge. And this alone drives him to survive (and swim to San Francisco, apparently).
Now, self-actualization is an easy, calm, soothing kind of master. It has twelve steps. You can take a break. You do your best. There are books to help you. Self-actualization has websites. Revenge? Not so much. It's irrational, unquenchable, and merciless.
Lee Marvin tracks down his wife. As he sits there wordlessly she pours out her confession and he realizes that she wished for the death she thought he had. Unsure whether to kill her or take her back, he loses both options when she does kill herself. He marches on. He tracks down his former partner, who's now bought his way into the mafia. He gets his sister-in-law, Angie Dickinson, to sleep with her dead sister's husband so he can sneak up and kill him. He does kill the partner -- but in about the most unsatisfying way possible: the poor guy falls off the roof trying to get away from Marvin.
At this point you'd think the movie is about done. Everything that was set up has been resolved. But not for Marvin. Where do you put revenge? He was ripped off for $93,000 in the initial heist. He chases and murders his way up through the criminal syndicate to get the money. They're mostly baffled by him. What is he gaining by going after this incredibly powerful organization? Why, for that matter, does he even think they owe him a penny? It's not terribly rational -- but revenge just isn't.
And then at the end Marvin finally gets his money. Or he could. It's offered to him in a pay off back on Alcatraz. But he won't come out of the shadows to take it. He won't take the boat back to San Francisco. Instead, he just recedes into the darkness. End of movie.
Ouch.
NEVER do you 'like' Marvin's character. Sure, he maybe fulfills the old screenwriting bromide: "the audience has to want the main character to succeed'. But that's begging the question. And if you gave him a dog and a sweet, supportive wife, we'd puke.
What makes him work as a character? Put simply: a great dramatic question at every step. What happens next? He's a mystery, a Manichean hodgepodge of good and evil with a not insignificant pinch of crazy thrown in. But he is consistent and coherent, and he never once panders to the audience.
This has the effect of making him human. The final tragedy hits like a ton of bricks.
And while the movie business might have difficulty making money laying that kind of trip on you, it's certainly something the audience can appreciate. And I'd say the writer of drama simply must understand this.
Friday, July 31, 2009
The Wild Blue Yonder
Tonight I stumbled upon one of the most original films I've ever seen: Werner Herzog's The Wild Blue Yonder. It's a hybrid of science fiction and documentary, if you will. A sci fi fantasy made by a writer/director who, by his own admission, is not terribly well acquainted with sci fi.
Herzog is, above all, a good eye. He knows how to dig through footage and know when he's found something. It's a unique skill. If you saw Grizzly Man you know what I'm talking about: finding images taken by others and bringing out the story that's really there beyond what the supposed teller intended.
Wild Blue Yonder is a weird amalgam -- material in equal parts found and created. The whole conceit lies on the fascinating dichotomy of disparate parts coming together and creating something unexpected.
Brad Dourif plays the only true character in the movie: an alien from the Andromeda Galaxy now living on a lonely earth. His people intended to come here and establish a colony, but it didn't really take. These aliens don't vaporize L.A. They just, in his own words, "suck". They sit by and watch as humans now locate his planet and consider what it might be useful for (as humans do).
The film is a composite of several formats. The earthlings traveling in search of a colonizable planet are actually astronauts on the space shuttle. The aliens are found footage of early 20th century aviators. Underwater shots from Antarctica sub in for an alien planet with a frozen sky.
The piece has a distinctly cobbled together feel. The audience is continuously forced to suspend disbelief -- or at least play with disbelief -- to pretend they aren't watching astronauts spinning around and eating pudding on the space shuttle.
But what arises out of this cobbling and weird play with disbelief is something truly beautiful. You watch found footage of a functionary at the Pentagon from the early 20th century and somehow the suggestion that he's an alien colonizer makes a great deal of sense. The audience fills in the gaps -- they see something that rings true. And this alien is a great deal more real than Spock or Obi Wan Kenobi. There's a life story there. There's a resonance.
When the film drifts into a kind of visual poetry -- beautiful original music played alongside undersea footage you can hardly believe was shot on earth, the audience undergoes a strange transformation. There's something rare and strange here, and it's been found again simply by making us the alien on our own planet.
Sometimes in our rush to make something seamless we create something hermetically sealed. But I'm more of the Leonard Cohen school on this one:
Ring the bells that still can ring.
Forget your perfect offering.
There's a crack in everything.
That's how the light gets in.
That's how the light gets in.
That's how the light gets in.
"Anthem", Leonard Cohen
The Wild Blue Yonder is by no means a perfect film, but it did wake me up to myself in a way sci fi is, or at least once was, supposed to.
Herzog is, above all, a good eye. He knows how to dig through footage and know when he's found something. It's a unique skill. If you saw Grizzly Man you know what I'm talking about: finding images taken by others and bringing out the story that's really there beyond what the supposed teller intended.
Wild Blue Yonder is a weird amalgam -- material in equal parts found and created. The whole conceit lies on the fascinating dichotomy of disparate parts coming together and creating something unexpected.
Brad Dourif plays the only true character in the movie: an alien from the Andromeda Galaxy now living on a lonely earth. His people intended to come here and establish a colony, but it didn't really take. These aliens don't vaporize L.A. They just, in his own words, "suck". They sit by and watch as humans now locate his planet and consider what it might be useful for (as humans do).
The film is a composite of several formats. The earthlings traveling in search of a colonizable planet are actually astronauts on the space shuttle. The aliens are found footage of early 20th century aviators. Underwater shots from Antarctica sub in for an alien planet with a frozen sky.
The piece has a distinctly cobbled together feel. The audience is continuously forced to suspend disbelief -- or at least play with disbelief -- to pretend they aren't watching astronauts spinning around and eating pudding on the space shuttle.
But what arises out of this cobbling and weird play with disbelief is something truly beautiful. You watch found footage of a functionary at the Pentagon from the early 20th century and somehow the suggestion that he's an alien colonizer makes a great deal of sense. The audience fills in the gaps -- they see something that rings true. And this alien is a great deal more real than Spock or Obi Wan Kenobi. There's a life story there. There's a resonance.
When the film drifts into a kind of visual poetry -- beautiful original music played alongside undersea footage you can hardly believe was shot on earth, the audience undergoes a strange transformation. There's something rare and strange here, and it's been found again simply by making us the alien on our own planet.
Sometimes in our rush to make something seamless we create something hermetically sealed. But I'm more of the Leonard Cohen school on this one:
Ring the bells that still can ring.
Forget your perfect offering.
There's a crack in everything.
That's how the light gets in.
That's how the light gets in.
That's how the light gets in.
"Anthem", Leonard Cohen
The Wild Blue Yonder is by no means a perfect film, but it did wake me up to myself in a way sci fi is, or at least once was, supposed to.
Thursday, July 30, 2009
Elizabeth Gilbert on Creativity
I hate it when bloggers apologize for their absence. It seems like a cop out -- a somewhat presumptuous cop out. But I am sorry for not spending more time on the blog. I've been working on a stage play and a LOT of teaching. My screenwriting efforts have been mostly limited to clients, and it's best not to share material related to those projects (even obliquely).
I did re-open a script for redrafting today and had one of those beautiful, transcendent moments when you slip into your work like a hot bath. You find the key to something and before you know it the insurmountable job of a few weeks suddenly makes sense in a morning. I stood back and let whatever or whoever is in charge of inspiration take over.
It made me think of this lecture by Elizabeth Gilbert, author of Eat, Pray, Love. I offer it up to all the writers out there with the dedication and fearlessness to choose a career (and a life) founded on a capricious little daemon that speaks only when propitiated in the most maddening ways.
And I promise I'll be back with more posts soon.
I did re-open a script for redrafting today and had one of those beautiful, transcendent moments when you slip into your work like a hot bath. You find the key to something and before you know it the insurmountable job of a few weeks suddenly makes sense in a morning. I stood back and let whatever or whoever is in charge of inspiration take over.
It made me think of this lecture by Elizabeth Gilbert, author of Eat, Pray, Love. I offer it up to all the writers out there with the dedication and fearlessness to choose a career (and a life) founded on a capricious little daemon that speaks only when propitiated in the most maddening ways.
And I promise I'll be back with more posts soon.
Wednesday, June 10, 2009
Shameless Plugs: Frameline Edition
Friends and colleagues of mine wrote, directed and/or produced four great movies that are showing in the 2009 Frameline Film Festival this month. If you're a fan of indie film -- especially LGBT film -- these films are well worth your time.
Prodigal Sons finally makes it to SF after an incredible run on the festival circuit. This documentary tells the true story of a truly unique family -- complete with transgendered football star, grandchild of Orson Welles and Rita Hayworth, and... more. we'll leave it at that. See it in a big theater.
David Lewis' latest effort The Redwoods is making its festival debut. David's been working late and sleeping little since I saw a rough cut a few months back. As he put it to me, it's a gay "The Bridges of Madison County". This film breaks out of the gay romance genre in a big way.
Back to Life is long-time actor Desi del Valle's directing debut. She also plays the lead, which should set girls' hearts a-patter all over the Bay Area.
City of Borders has made a splash all over the world. It's a documentary about a gay bar in the heart of Jerusalem -- where gay and lesbian Israelis and Palestinians commingle and find a way to share ground and build community. Like a lot of films in the festival, it's not about what makes gay people different, but about what makes our stories universal. If you've never considered going to an LGBT film festival, maybe this is the year to start.
Prodigal Sons finally makes it to SF after an incredible run on the festival circuit. This documentary tells the true story of a truly unique family -- complete with transgendered football star, grandchild of Orson Welles and Rita Hayworth, and... more. we'll leave it at that. See it in a big theater.
David Lewis' latest effort The Redwoods is making its festival debut. David's been working late and sleeping little since I saw a rough cut a few months back. As he put it to me, it's a gay "The Bridges of Madison County". This film breaks out of the gay romance genre in a big way.
Back to Life is long-time actor Desi del Valle's directing debut. She also plays the lead, which should set girls' hearts a-patter all over the Bay Area.
City of Borders has made a splash all over the world. It's a documentary about a gay bar in the heart of Jerusalem -- where gay and lesbian Israelis and Palestinians commingle and find a way to share ground and build community. Like a lot of films in the festival, it's not about what makes gay people different, but about what makes our stories universal. If you've never considered going to an LGBT film festival, maybe this is the year to start.
Sunday, June 7, 2009
Anvil: Story and Life
I went to see Anvil: The Story of Anvil yesterday. This documentary's being called the greatest rock movie of the year -- or ever -- depending on who you're reading. I'm not quite sure that's the case, but it is good. And it did get me thinking.
There was a time way back when most documentaries were structured more like an essay than a story. What does this mean? An essay format approaches facets and aspects of the story, takes into account the different arguments, and makes a case for seeing an issue in a certain way. An essay format documentary on, say, Einstein, might look at his early life, then his first successes and troubles, political problems and exile, rivalries with other physicists, and how he came upon relativity, then follow up with what this all means.
Story-format documentaries work more like feature films. The audience engages a story because they want to see how it turns out. The main character must embody a strong question and engage the audience. Put simply, there must be both a 'why' and a 'how' for the audience to care about the protagonist. We stay tuned because we want to see how things turn out for the main character. A story-format doc (usually) engages on a more emotional level than an essay-format doc.
Anvil has this all in spades. Back in the early 1980's, at the height of heavy metal, Anvil seemed destined to ride the wave to the top. They headlined with The Scorpions, Bon Jovi, and White Snake. They knew everybody, and everybody knew them. Now the lead singer works for a school lunch delivery service. But he still dreams of making it and the band is still together. They'd make a great subject for a feature script.
The documentary is structured very carefully to fit a standard three-act structure. You meet the band at the height of their fame. Talking heads like Lars Ulrich of Metallica and Slash of Guns N Roses wonder why they never made it. Twisted Sister remembers back when Anvil blew them off stage. Then you find the lead singer talking about when the schools on his delivery route get meatballs and when they get shepherd's pie. Depressing, huh? Yes and no -- they still play regularly, and a chance for a European tour falls in their laps.
The hero's journey rolls on before us. They commit to the journey, find no way back, and encounter innumerable and unbearable sufferings along the way. But they manage to capture an amulet or two, and when they return home you sense it's just in time for the third act to begin. I won't spoil it for you because I think you should see the movie.
I recently consulted on a documentary about a musician. It's difficult. Unlike Lips, the protagonist in Anvil, this musician seemed bent on undermining any possible story. He was reticent, difficult, and at times adversarial with the filmmaker. After all, you can't have a hero's journey without going through innumerable humiliations and defeats. No one actually wants that -- especially with a documentary filmmaker following you around. It wasn't feasible or desirable to move to an essay format, so we wrestled with how to make the story compelling without changing it.
As I watched Anvil, the screen was littered with tiny moments that show the restructuring. Band members wearing T-shirts from the as-yet-unrevealed low point. The return home finds everybody in surprisingly similar garb and mood to the first scene in the house.
Now, it's effective to bring a main character back to a familiar setting from early on in the movie. It allows the audience to gauge dramatic distance -- how far the main character has traveled since we met him. In a feature film (that is fiction), the writer has the ability to manipulate elements however he or she wants. It's part of being a good writer. Documentary filmmakers aren't so lucky. You don't know where you'll end up when you start. You don't know when someone will do something memorable. And you certainly don't know when that memorable thing will actually fit the narrative you've constructed. So you move material around. You stay true to the spirit. Or at least you try.
It's a weird compromise. You want to please the audience but you also want to stay true. I'm not sure if those two can ever sit together peaceably.
I wonder if there's not a better structure for documentaries. Something freer. Something that uses surprise to capture an audience rather than adherence to a mythic structure. Imagine what reality TV could actually do without all the cliches and structural points that the producers seem to think we need. It feels like there's a wealth of story hiding there, buried just under our expectations.
There was a time way back when most documentaries were structured more like an essay than a story. What does this mean? An essay format approaches facets and aspects of the story, takes into account the different arguments, and makes a case for seeing an issue in a certain way. An essay format documentary on, say, Einstein, might look at his early life, then his first successes and troubles, political problems and exile, rivalries with other physicists, and how he came upon relativity, then follow up with what this all means.
Story-format documentaries work more like feature films. The audience engages a story because they want to see how it turns out. The main character must embody a strong question and engage the audience. Put simply, there must be both a 'why' and a 'how' for the audience to care about the protagonist. We stay tuned because we want to see how things turn out for the main character. A story-format doc (usually) engages on a more emotional level than an essay-format doc.
Anvil has this all in spades. Back in the early 1980's, at the height of heavy metal, Anvil seemed destined to ride the wave to the top. They headlined with The Scorpions, Bon Jovi, and White Snake. They knew everybody, and everybody knew them. Now the lead singer works for a school lunch delivery service. But he still dreams of making it and the band is still together. They'd make a great subject for a feature script.
The documentary is structured very carefully to fit a standard three-act structure. You meet the band at the height of their fame. Talking heads like Lars Ulrich of Metallica and Slash of Guns N Roses wonder why they never made it. Twisted Sister remembers back when Anvil blew them off stage. Then you find the lead singer talking about when the schools on his delivery route get meatballs and when they get shepherd's pie. Depressing, huh? Yes and no -- they still play regularly, and a chance for a European tour falls in their laps.
The hero's journey rolls on before us. They commit to the journey, find no way back, and encounter innumerable and unbearable sufferings along the way. But they manage to capture an amulet or two, and when they return home you sense it's just in time for the third act to begin. I won't spoil it for you because I think you should see the movie.
I recently consulted on a documentary about a musician. It's difficult. Unlike Lips, the protagonist in Anvil, this musician seemed bent on undermining any possible story. He was reticent, difficult, and at times adversarial with the filmmaker. After all, you can't have a hero's journey without going through innumerable humiliations and defeats. No one actually wants that -- especially with a documentary filmmaker following you around. It wasn't feasible or desirable to move to an essay format, so we wrestled with how to make the story compelling without changing it.
As I watched Anvil, the screen was littered with tiny moments that show the restructuring. Band members wearing T-shirts from the as-yet-unrevealed low point. The return home finds everybody in surprisingly similar garb and mood to the first scene in the house.
Now, it's effective to bring a main character back to a familiar setting from early on in the movie. It allows the audience to gauge dramatic distance -- how far the main character has traveled since we met him. In a feature film (that is fiction), the writer has the ability to manipulate elements however he or she wants. It's part of being a good writer. Documentary filmmakers aren't so lucky. You don't know where you'll end up when you start. You don't know when someone will do something memorable. And you certainly don't know when that memorable thing will actually fit the narrative you've constructed. So you move material around. You stay true to the spirit. Or at least you try.
It's a weird compromise. You want to please the audience but you also want to stay true. I'm not sure if those two can ever sit together peaceably.
I wonder if there's not a better structure for documentaries. Something freer. Something that uses surprise to capture an audience rather than adherence to a mythic structure. Imagine what reality TV could actually do without all the cliches and structural points that the producers seem to think we need. It feels like there's a wealth of story hiding there, buried just under our expectations.
Friday, May 15, 2009
Food For Thought
The American Heritage Dictionary's definition of the word 'plot', found in Peter Brooks' magnificent Reading for the Plot:
1. (a) A small piece of ground, generally used for a specific purpose. (b) A measured area of land; lot.
2. A ground plan, as for a building; chart; diagram.
3. The series of events consisting of an outline of the action of a narrative or drama.
4. A secret plan to accomplish a hostile or illegal purpose; scheme.
As Brooks points out, "there may be a subterranean logic connecting these heterogeneous meanings."
Brooks blew me away when I first read Reading for the Plot 20+ years ago, in college. I've just picked the book up again, and it doesn't seem to have aged a bit. Well worth a read if you're through with the screenwriting gurus of the world and ready for something a little meatier.
1. (a) A small piece of ground, generally used for a specific purpose. (b) A measured area of land; lot.
2. A ground plan, as for a building; chart; diagram.
3. The series of events consisting of an outline of the action of a narrative or drama.
4. A secret plan to accomplish a hostile or illegal purpose; scheme.
As Brooks points out, "there may be a subterranean logic connecting these heterogeneous meanings."
Brooks blew me away when I first read Reading for the Plot 20+ years ago, in college. I've just picked the book up again, and it doesn't seem to have aged a bit. Well worth a read if you're through with the screenwriting gurus of the world and ready for something a little meatier.
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