various verbiage

It all began so very easily to understand– life moves at 24fps, & that life is Good.
But then “Bonnie & Clyde” happened, & we got to see death in slow-motion… repeated, from various angles, in overlapping action. We got to wallow in it, & it made it ‘hyper-real’. So much so that riots happened, & the film was nearly banned.
But, of course, soon every film did that. Until the ’slo-mo’ death scene became not just a hackneyed, expected effect… but it actually became the opposite of what it intended. Instead of emphasizing, ‘punching-up’ death, it instead became a distancing mechanism. By slowing-down, circling-around, seeing the action in repeating layers… we were pulled-out of the diegetic world, & instead were essentially reminded that we were watching actors on a screen, “covered in ketchup”.

So how to make Death meaningful again?

Play it at full-speed.

Anyone who saw Kubrick’s “Full Metal Jacket” in the theatres remembered the stark end of Part1– fatty salutes, whips the M1 into his mouth, pulls the trigger, his head flies back, & fades-to-black. All 1 continuous motion, boom & he’s gone. I remember a nervous shudder running thru the theatre seats… “did that just happen? holy shit”.

Mann takes that one step further in “Vice”. Crappy film, completely lost-touch with what made the original series great (attitude, clothes, & fast vehicles were secondary to a passionate sense of Sisyphus’ian morality)… but Does Action Right:

Death comes point-blank, no-hesitation, & no slo-mo or repeat/overlapping shots. Lady cop wastes the baddy; Foxx gatts the Big Boss.

And better– Mann does the same thing to sound. No ‘cannon-hit’ enhanced pistol shots; no fuscillade of machine-gun fire. Instead, the final shoot-out has the sporadic, quiet pop-pop which real M16’s & AK-47’s make.

And you know what? Since it’s so rarely seen or heard, reality actually is more impressive than Hollywood glamour.

Nicely done, Mr. Mann. But please– from “Heat” to “Collateral” to “Vice” is a precipitous drop; can we have a more “Heat”-like film already? Please?

My screenwriting teachers have always practiced ‘tough love’, & my fave writer-on-screenwriting is Goldman.
What they suggest is Asking:
1) What’s Happening, &
2) Why [should] I Care?

…& keep asking that, from the first page on. Flip it open to any page, & if the 2 answers aren’t immediately obvious, then there may be issues in need of attention.

Classic Structure is:
Act 1 ends w/ “Hero up a Tree” (with a tangible Want he must achieve… & best if it leverages the idiocyncracies of his Character)
Act 2 ends w/ “Point of No Return” (he’s already overcome increasingly impossible hurdles; but now he has to *truly* commit)
Act 3 climaxes w/ “He got [the tangible something], or He Didn’t”.

* Anything that doesn’t fit that thruline must be ruthlessly purged, or morphed into one that does.
* Any scene which has only 1 purpose must be rewritten
- (eg, backstory PLUS plot setup PLUS character-dev PLUS ’something important happens’ PLUS *surprise*).
- My fave example: the final confrontation between Rutger Hauer & Harrison Ford in “Blade Runner”. But damn near every scene in “Silence of the Lambs” does multiple things too.
* & the Ending must be a Surprise, but Justified. Which means to me: Yes the guy gets the girl, but Not the way we expect, & she’s Not quite completely what he had in mind. Kinda like getting “3 wishes” in Dungeons & Dragons– wish for gold, & you get it… in the form of a avalanche that suffocates you.

Finally– “complex characters, & simple story. Or the reverse. But never both complex at once”.
Which is why “Something About Mary” or even “Dumb & Dumber” work; very straightforward/simple characters, in a world increasingly complex. Mary can be (accidentally) creative in her hair products, or even have a ‘heart of gold’, but she can’t have an emotional transformation. And neither does our hero… what he ’succeeds’ at is steadfastness. Whereas “Annie Hall” has some funny set-pieces, but overall leaves tons of room for Woody to have an emotional transformation… his ‘pitfalls’ are all in his head, not in the scenery.

There– 1 yr of Screenwriting Classes, in 1 ‘post