Movies for Writers / Watching Like a Writer

Jaws (1975)

2010-10-26T09:58:00.005-04:00

When I told a friend of mine about the topic of this blog post, he said, “You’re not going to say what everyone else says about Jaws are you?” He was half-right. As such, this will be the least adventurous “choose your own adventure” blog you’ve ever seen, if there ever was such a thing. Readers who are familiar with the making of Jaws should skip part A and read only part B; readers who aren’t familiar with the making of the film can follow the usual A to B sequence.

A. The pre-production and early-production of Jaws imagined a very different film from that which was actually produced. Spielberg and company drew story boards that included the shark in many of the film’s early “attack” scenes. Their idea was to build a mechanical shark to be shown on screen. A crew working on the West Coast built a shark in a fresh water tank, but when the shark was brought to the salt waters of the Atlantic Ocean, the electronics failed. Unable to make the shark as responsive and mobile as necessary, Spielberg had to re-envision the shooting of the film without the presence of the shark.

Jaws is commonly described as a horror-film. The success of the film, as many have declared, is that the shark is absent for much of the film. The horror comes from our fear of what we cannot see.

B. What I’d like fiction writers to consider is the idea of constraints. Famous fictional constraints include George Perec’s A Void, a French novel that refuses to use the letter e, the most commonly occurring vowel in the French language, and Ian McEwan’s Saturday, which is a novel whose temporal setting is restricted to only a single day, and recently, Padgett Powel’s The Interrogative Mood, which is a novel whose sentences are composed entirely in the form of questions. In this fashion, Jaws’s constraint is the inability—or, necessary refusal—to show the shark on screen.

Why use constraints? Among other reasons, constraints force storytellers to employ techniques they wouldn’t ordinarily employ if they were free to tell the story as they wished; constraints generate innovation and invention of form, technique, and style. Often, it is a new form or technique or style that marks the success of a story, that captures a reader’s attention.

Up in the Air (2009)

2010-07-27T14:47:00.004-04:00

A. Papatya Bucak, my professor and thesis chair, whose blog “Reading for Writers” is one of this blog’s progenitors, has a keen eye for spotting overused literary devices. I once overheard that she wrote a paper about the preponderance of literary heroines who commit suicide. Commenting on one of my stories, she spotted a female character with a need for intimacy, which immediately suggests a gender stereotype. Does her comment mean that we can never have females with a need for intimacy?

If you intend to generate reader interest for your fiction primarily on the basis of “freshness” and originality, I think it does.

If your female character has only one dimension, the desire for intimacy, and nothing else to complicate her character, I think you’ve made the mistake I made in my aforementioned story.

If you create a female character who has a need for intimacy, among other needs—that is to say, a more complex set of desires—I think you’re okay.

The topic at hand is not female stereotypes. The topic at hand is overused literary devices. Up in the Air uses the familiar device of sending a character home, “back to his roots.” Up in the Air portrays home as nearly all films—especially those marketing themselves as artistic or independent. Home is a small, rural town populated with bleak, stifling, and culturally deaf family and friends (as if those types can't be found in cities). It’s always a place “sophisticated” characters have outgrown. Is this more or less true of small town America? That’s not the point. The point is we see it over and over and over again and it gets boring.

A more specific aspect of the “small town” Up in the Air and most other films give us is the “broken family.” In the broken family brothers and sisters don’t speak, divorces are contagious, and the bills barely get paid. It’s “real life”…I get it.

I’m not trying to get all Fox News-ish, though. I’d hate a fiction that blindly praises “Main Street USA” without ever recognizing its limitations. I think it’d be quite refreshing to see “small town” life treated with more complexity, rather than a forgettable and regrettable childhood memory.

Anyway, I suppose this is an argument for awareness. A good writer identifies patterns in other works and makes sure to avoid them in her own.

Charade (1963)

2010-07-14T18:25:00.002-04:00

Characterization Characterization Characterization. This is the mantra for fiction writers of “the program era.” At its most basic, characterization asks that we “round out” our characters with both good and bad personality traits, that we make them neither entirely “good” nor entirely “evil.” But, characterization also means “give me interesting characters—characters who will make me turn the page.”

One way to create characters who make a reader a turn the page, or a viewer forget she is eating her popcorn, is to endow them with charm. Charade, with Audrey Hepburn and Cary Grant, remains modern despite the absence of triple flipping body doubles and exploding helicopters because its characters have charm.

Hepburn and Grant have large whites around their irises and slow blinking eyelids, but appearance, the textbooks tell us, is not the only aspect of characterization we writers need give attention. Speech deserves equal importance (as do thought and action).

One aspect of speech that makes Hepburn and Grant appealing is their ability to deliver one-liners at seemingly inopportune times. My favorite lines from this film seem to rescue moments of tension. For instance, in an early squabble, Hepburn shouts to Grant “You know what’s wrong with you?” “What?” he asks seemingly caught off guard. She pauses, blinking ever s0 slowly: “Nothing.”

Later, during another spat over dinner, Grant says, “Oh, you should see your face right now.” “What’s wrong with it?” Hepburn asks, touching it, reaching for a mirror. “It’s lovely,” he says.

There is a pattern to these exchanges. They occur in moments of tension. They begin with a misdirection—an oncoming insult. And then they deliver an unexpected and just cheesy enough compliment. (One-liners, I think, always need a little bit of cheese sprinkled on top. Just enough so that they can be consumed lightly.)

So, being the unoriginal imitator that I am, I impersonated Hepburn once. “Do you know what’s wrong with you?” I asked a girl. “I didn’t think there was anything wrong with me,” she said.

Oops.

But this exchange taught me a lesson. Charming as these two characters may be, they are not without insecurities. And the types of exchanges I’ve discussed fail unless the insecurities arise. What I find unique about charmers is that quite often they allow their insecurities to become strengths of character.

The Wire (Episode 17, Season 2)

2010-05-18T15:20:00.006-04:00

I reference the particular episode because it’s highly probable that I will discuss the “the greatest television series ever made” many more times.

The quotation above is important because The Wire is made for television, not for the screen. Therefore, considerations such as serialization, screen size and aspect ratio, and time, are effective constraints for the show’s “makers”—and there are many, as the show features several different directors, as well as guest writers like novelists Richard Price and Dennis Lehane. Further, The Wire doesn’t always work against the traditional constraints of television, but in fact, embraces some of them.

Being the amorous fan that I am, I’ve long wanted to write about The Wire and a particular formal structure I find in television sitcoms, but have not quite had the lexical inventiveness to do so. I find enabling language in (my professor) Marc Scroggin’s biographical study of Louis Zukofsky, who may be contrary to widely-held opinion “the last modernist” (The Poem of a Life: A Biography of Louis Zukofsky, 2007).

Scroggins examines the early sections of Zukofksky’s long poem “A”:

"In a musical fugue, a short melody, the subject or theme, is stated in a single instrument voice, then taken up or imitated by other voices, New motifs—countersubjects—may be introduced in counterpoints to the subject and reappear throughout the fugue much like the subject. Strictly speaking, the fugue is not a form but a formal principle, a method for generating music through the contrapuntal juxtaposition of melodic motifs. Instead of melodic motifs, Zukofsky counterpoints poetic “themes” or ideas."

So, what does this look like in The Wire? In Episode 17, we see several “contrapuntal juxtapositions.” For one, Keema, an officer recently recovered from a gunshot wound now working in the office (as her girlfriend desires) has the opportunity to get back on the beat as her former boss, Cedric Daniels, who also is in the office, and effectively out of line to rise through the ranks of the “brass,” consenting, like Keema, to the desires of his politically ambitious wife, will head a new detail. Both choose the streets against the wishes of their partners. The theme of choosing between career and home is repeated. Indeed, McNulty, arguably the show’s protagonist, is separated from his wife because of his megalomaniacal dedication to his job (Infamously, in Season 1, McNulty has his pre-adolescent sons follow a known drug dealer through the fish market). As the series progresses, Keema (in law school) and Daniels (with a law degree in hand) handle their situations differently, often commiserating on their predicaments.

Season 2, I tell JMill all the time, is a bit of an aberration in that it focuses on East Baltimore and “the docks,” that is the industry of the Port of Baltimore. Here we find a countersubject to the corner boys in the low and high rises of West Baltimore. Nico, the nephew of union leader Frank Sabotka, is frustrated by not getting enough work on the docks. His cousin, Zig, Sobatka’s son, suggests they sling blow, to which Nico retorts, “I ain’t slanging dope on the corner like some project nigga.” Eventually, Zig and Nico do turn to disseminating narcotics. We find two groups of people, those living in the projects in West Baltimore and those used to relying on the harbor in East Baltimore, who think (as do we, the viewers) they are extremely different from those on the other side of town, resorting to the same alternative. Thus, this strategy of “contrapuntal juxtaposition” sheds light on desperate and seemingly disparate situations. From Nico, desperation is dramatized in terms of a (more or less contemporary) traditional family unit (he needs money to get a place for his girlfriend and their daughter), and therefore avoids the assumption of ruthless criminality that often accompanies the inner-city drug trade. From the “Barksdale crew,” the narcotics conduit of West Baltimore, we learn the ingenuity necessary to successfully thwart Baltimore law enforcement. From both, we can easily identify systemic politics perpetuating poverty and violence.

Why am I so sure this technique is characteristic of television? Think about the Seinfeld episode where Jerry and George decide to both get married. Jerry never proposes, George does. The theme of engagement in dramatized in two different situations. Or, the recent South Park episode where everyone wants facebook friends—Stan is the exception, not wanting to “get sucked into facebook.” I think “time” is the culprit in the sitcom. In less than a half-hour, the episode must dramatize as many variations of the same predicament as possible. Notice, there is usually an opposition—George does, Jerry doesn’t; Stan doesn’t, others do.

Here, The Wire deviates from the sitcom. Recall that Keema and Daniels share the same predicament, as do Nico and the average corner boy, but both handle the situation similarly. Keema and Daniels are back on the beat. Nico, as most up and comers do, hits the street lured by the money. Quite simply, The Wire has more time to make a refined use of contrapuntal juxtapositions. There are differences between Keema (homosexual, unmarried, and caring for a child) and Daniels (heterosexual, married and childless). Sitcoms cover as much as possible in a short amount of time. The Wire carries its narrative across episodes and seasons (Keema and Daniels wrestle with their predicaments to different ends all the way to the series finale). This more refined and subtle handling is why The Wire is so admired.

So, what is the lineage of the fugal mode from modernist poetry to television sitcom? I have no idea, and I’m sure there is a book about it, and I’m sure that lineage includes novels and films somewhere in between. Also, what is the value of the fugal mode at this point, considering its old age, cooption by popular culture, and formulaic properties? My answer is that at this point contrapuntal juxtapositions are essentially “narrative grammar” (Roland Barthe’s term). And, it’s important to remember, its generative capability. Therefore, when the fiction is cornered, a contrapuntal juxtaposition may provide mobility and escape

Crazy Heart (2010)

2010-03-12T12:25:00.003-05:00

…Okay, country music fans: here is the film that you haven’t heard about and the film that you hadn’t been dying for, but is certainly worth your nine bucks...but now you know that because you probably watched the Academy Awards.

…One issue that deserves attention is the “the happy ending.”

What qualifies this ending as “happy?” For one, sixteen months after declaring himself sober, Bad Blake, is still sober. What would disqualify this ending from being “happy?” From Bad’s point of view, “his girl” (meaning ex-girlfriend whom he still loves) wears an engagement ring that Bad didn’t give her. Additionally, for the second time in his life, he has lost a son—his exgirlfriend’s four year old son, Buddy. (This is a nice touch, pointed out to me by JMill, as the last time Bad saw his own son, he was also four. And, JMill continues, the movie doesn’t beat us over the head with this subtle bit of fictional “magic”; rather, we’re informed at one time the age of his girl’s son and at another that Bad hasn’t seen his own son in twenty-four years and at another that his son is now twenty-eight.) Back to the happy side, his relationship with Tony Sweet, Bad’s former protégé who “sold out,” seems repaired; and, his agent, who hassles Bad all movie long, is now satisfied as Bad agrees to open for Sweet (The bad / sweet opposition seems too strong, now that I think about it). But then again, his girl who is not his girl is happy with him, and he seems, however perfunctorily, happy for her (to me, this is the heart of the movie, as Blake is a performer and entertainer and in the final scene he has to give a performance, of sorts). The end then introduces a brief encore of pleasantly predictable conflict as his ex invites Bad to talk with her son, Buddy. He politely declines. The camera swiftly zooms out and the remaining figures shrink in the Arizona landscape. Somehow, “it feels all good.” But when I think of Bad’s perspective, it seems things aren’t all good. The resonating effect, then, is one where he makes decisions to make others happy, as I imagine is the essence of the life of a performing artist. Bad’s own desires shrink in the background.

...another something to think about, a pattern I notice in my tastes for stories, is that stories are often a process of creation.

Here, I'm not talking about the process of an artist creating the story. I'm talking about a story which is an adventure into creation. Perhaps you've read The Known World by Edward P. Jones. The novel is coyly presented as a mural--a collection of stories and illustrations that are not in chronological order. The novel ends with the image of a mural depicting all of the stories and illustrations we've read. I also read recently an experimental novel by Raymond Federman, Double or Nothing , which uses the writing of a book as its principle conceit (though I discourage this, as it's a tired conceit in 2010). In Crazy Heart, Bad struggles to write new songs and much of the film focuses on his process of songwriting. The value of writing a fiction that is an "adventure into creation" is twofold. For one, it's the story's propeller, which often comes in the form of a protagonist's desires. Secondly, a character with a creative process is expected to be quirky, irrational, and/or passionate--the characteristics that lead to unique and memorable characters.

Avatar (2009)

2010-02-24T17:01:00.005-05:00

As I'd like to accurately think myself a critic, I'm attempting to reserve my judgements of the films I "review." Here, then, I offer a single critique, which fiction writers might make use of.

An achievement of this film's storytelling is the invasion of the humans just after Jake Sully and Neytiri make Omaticayan love. We find here a simple principle, which you can use in your fiction: once something good happens, have something bad happen.

Avatar employs this simple principle in a sophisticated way. For one, the scenes I mention answer two major dramatic questions in close succession. The two questions are: Will Sully and Neytiri become lovers? Will the humans attack the Omaticayans? The reader / viewer feels gratified that the major questions are answered. Additionally, the reader / viewer experiences opposite emotions as the mood of the juxtaposed scenes changes suddenly. Finally, this simple principle works on a conceptual level as well. The union of Sully and Neytiri is a joining of the humans and Omaticayans. The next scene, when the humans attack, is the opposite. The union accomplished by "making love" is destroyed by "making war."

Sleepless in Seattle (1993)

2010-02-24T12:24:00.002-05:00

...caught the last five minutes of this today

...that's like a disclaimer

So…at the end of this film Meg Ryan is on a date with her fiancé and they see on the Empire State Building red lights forming a heart. The fiancé says, “It’s a sign.” She agrees and ditches him for Tom Hanks.

So…after all the hugging and kissing the film concludes with a computer-generated image of the NYC skyline, the Empire State Building and its red heart. In fiction, we might call this shift in “tone” problematic. For ninety minutes, the screen has had a “realistic” tone, and then we get a computer-generated tone. SS illustrates the jarring effect a tonal shift can have.

…However, I’m one who doesn’t necessarily consider “jarring” a pejorative critique.

…However, sometimes jarring works and sometimes jarring doesn’t. To measure its success, we might ask: Is the fiction conscious of the sudden shift in tone? And, what is the lasting effect? In SS, we can’t answer these questions, as this computer-generated image is our last until the credits roll. SS changes its visual tone more out of convenience (how else than a computer can we make the image of a heart on the Empire State Building?) than for artistic effect.

…To all of which, you might reply: “It’s just a movie, Scott.”

…Fair enough.

Revolutionary Road (2008)

2010-01-28T08:12:00.004-05:00

Perhaps your fiction has stalled…perhaps you want your audience to see something your character cannot… perhaps you want to emphasize what your character cannot see without “telling”…perhaps you want a moment where your character metaphorically looks into the proverbial mirror but you don’t want to use a mirror because that would be too damn obvious…

RR is a tragedy very much in the vein of Shakespeare.

A common technique of Shakespeare, which RR borrows, is the fool. In Shakespeare, the fool is often a vessel of knowledge whose contents are disregarded simply because of his appearance. In RR, John Givings, a patient in a mental institution, plays the role of the fool. RR, however, doesn’t use the fool without its own invention.

Throughout King Lear, the fool brings advice to Lear, and Lear continually fails to see.

Fool: …The sweet and bitter fool
Will presently appear;
The one in motley here,
The other found out there.

Lear: Dost thou call me a fool, boy?

Fool: All the other titles thou hast given away.

In RR, John Givings expresses to Frank and April Wheeler many sentiments with which they agree and which we’ve previously heard them express. Rather than speaking in puns and double-entendres as a Shakespearean fool might, Givings speaks bluntly. Rather than speaking unheard as the Shakespearean fool might, the Wheeler’s openly agree. Although Givings doesn’t act the fool, the validity of his ideas appears compromised to both the Wheelers and the audience because of his “social status,” much like a Shakespearean fool.

Alterations to the appearance and manner of the fool as seen in RR are easily contrived (they function to disguise the trope of the fool); however, the force of the alterations stems mainly from Givings’s bluntly insulting disapproval of the Wheeler’s decision to remain in America and not to move to Paris, which leads to a fight, which leads to (insert spoiler here). The tragedy then is amplified: in contrast to Lear, who is simply blind to the truth due to old age, the young Wheelers choose to blindfold themselves, continuing to live under a banner of truth they know to be false.

Brothers (2009)

2010-01-09T09:44:00.004-05:00

In Brothers, a lesser talked about film this holiday season, the fiction writer might pay attention to the parallel storylines which arise from a familiar film technique: montage. Montage works on film because humans have a propensity to not look away from frenetic images. Frenetic images in fiction (or whatever technique may come closest) are not often successful (or labeled experimental) because a piece will feel non-sequitur, unfocused, and/or haphazard.

Brothers is inventive because it uses montage and then slows the montage to parallel storylines. We move between small town USA and worn-torn Afghanistan at slower and slower rates. The scenes feel progressively drawn out. Initially, the montage pulls at our heartstrings, juxtaposing images of a soldier at war with images of his wife and kids at home. Then, the film raises the stakes by slowing down. I won’t spoil how it raises the stakes (because I want you to see it) but the important thing is that the storyline slows down.

Parallel storylines is a popular, if not overused, technique of fiction. An issue I have with the term is that often the storylines are not parallel but converging. We know the two lines will eventually come together. Brothers is inventive because it makes its converging storylines feel like diverging storylines.

As montage becomes parallel storylines, the fiction writer should note how much its success relies on opposition. Foremost, there is simply the contrast in atmosphere between the US and Afghanistan. A more pointed example, however, comes when Captain Cahill is captured. He instructs his fellow captive to forget everything he knows. He tells him he no longer has a family as Afghanis rummage through his belongings, which include pictures of his wife and son. Meanwhile, Cahill’s wife sits on her couch watching home videos. While the husband is forgetting, the wife is remembering.

I think the use of opposition coupled with the slower rate at which the story progresses works to heighten tension—in a novel with converging storylines, it’s easy to see how progressively longer chapters might achieve the same effect. While parallel storylines is certainly not inventive in fiction or film, what is inventive (and counterintuitive) in Brothers is that the parallel storylines seem to suggest that the family will not reunite, the storylines will never converge. When they do, we’re relieved; but, we’re also eager to see how the film will resolve conflicts developed through the parallel storylines.

Miller's Crossing (1990)

2009-12-28T10:29:00.003-05:00

If there’s one thing my creative writing students have learned this semester, it is the need to begin a story in the middle of the action. They easily recognize (and call each other) when a fiction begins with too much exposition, or flat out begins in the wrong place.

Gran Torino begins with the death of Eastwood’s wife. As I watched the film, I thought: "how nice. We begin the story in a significant moment."

But, the death of Eastwood’s wife, unfortunately, turns out to be an insignificant moment. Pretty quickly, we realize that this man doesn’t act any differently now that his wife is gone. Secondly, we realize that the conflicts that later arise are in no way complicated by the fact that this man has lost his wife. My creative writing students recognize that this funeral may not be “dropping us into the action.”

Miller’s Crossing is a good example of a story dropping the reader / viewer into the action. It begins with an intense conversation between two rival crime bosses, while an adviser to one boss is in the room. Later in the movie, one boss encroaches the other’s territory.

The opening of Miller’s Crossing performs double duty. Not only does it focus our attention on the rival crime bosses, it also focuses our attention on a second major conflict: The adviser is sleeping with his bosses girl.

Often, writers confuse “dropping the reader into the action” with “begin with a scene of intensity” (a la Gran Torino). It is critical (and difficult), however, to place the reader / viewer in a moment of significance. The intense opening needs to speak to the larger action, the overall storyline. If we think about Gran Torino and where the opening directs our attention—the belly buttons, short skirts, gossip, and cell-phones—we see that this focus does not become the focus of the movie. (The focus of the movie is actually a Korean War Vet and his relationship with his immigrant neighbors.)

So, rather than intending to “drop the reader into the action,” focus the reader’s attention. While it helps to remind yourself that you control the camera’s gaze, it also helps to think of your opening as a stage. A stage has limits. Set the limits of your story in the opening. Say to your reader / viewer: “You think this is intense? Wait until you see what happens when we go sniffing around the stage.” Or, like Miller’s Crossing: “This stage ain’t big enough for the three of us. Someone’s got to go.”

Gran Torino (2008)

2009-10-25T10:57:00.008-04:00

In the introduction to Hitchcock Truffaut, the French critic cites Hitchcock’s rule of counterpoint between dialogue and image. Truffaut writes, “If we observe any [dinner or cocktail party], it is clear that the words exchanged between the guests are superficial formalities and quite meaningless, whereas the essential is elsewhere…The rule of counterpoint between dialogue and image achieves a dramatic effect by purely visual means. Hitchcock is almost unique in being able to film directly, that is without resorting to explanatory dialogue, such intimate emotions.” (I’m puzzled by the phrase almost unique.)

We see this technique in Gran Torino at the very very very beginning. Clint Eastwood, scowling, stands alone next to his wife’s casket at the front of a Catholic church. A man approaches and expresses condolence. Eastwood says, “Thanks for coming, Al.”

Then, the movie falls apart. I groan when Eastwood growls at the idiocies of youth—belly buttons and cell phones at funerals—pointed out to me by the camera as it cuts to another rude person or son or granddaughter fidgeting in a pew, waiting for the funeral to end. As if Eastwood’s anger needs provocation.

My problem with the film concerns this kind of heavy handedness, something I discuss as "in your face directorial decisions" in Rachel Getting Married. The film cares more about racisms than racism. The drum roll every time Eastwood touches a firearm.

So, here’s a thesis against heavy handedness: if something is constantly in your face, eventually you’ll want to push it away. With the alternative, subtlety, you never feel irritated at what’s in your face, because it’s never in your face. One could argue, that you could be irritated by what’s not in your face. But if there are enough subtleties, you’ll find something. So, you can never have enough subtlety. Viewers and readers building connections keeps fictions from falling apart.

The Great Debaters (2007)

2009-09-26T17:09:00.003-04:00

When I can accurately describe a movie as logical, illogical, predictable, unpredictable, serious, subtle, light-hearted, heart-warming, hysterical, sickening, heart-breaking, ugly, disgusting, and beautiful, I tend to like it.

The marketing / packaging of this movie led me to believe producers strapped it into a formulaic straightjacket, whereas vitality and versatility better dress The Great Debaters. I blame the title.

The careful sequencing of shots impresses. Each scene ends with an unexpected watcher, or an unexpected smile, just enough twist that makes every scene feel worthwhile. It’s an idea for us fiction writers to take note of it. Offering the reader a gift—a reward—in each scene keeps a reader hooked. It's like a cliffhanger, but more subtle and genuine.

The climactic example of this comes in the final debate scene, which is broadcast across the country. Mister Tolson, black-listed for his extreme politics (more on the politically incorrect English teacher later), is not in the sequence of shots that contain all the characters of the film either attending the debate or listening next to a radio. The debate begins, still more cuts, ups and downs, and finally a cut to a man in a dark suit and dark hat making his way to the auditorium. We knew he’d come eventually, though.

If someone had told me that Denzel plays an inspirational, politically incorrect, poetry quoting English teacher, I doubt I’d give this movie a chance. (No one did.) Mr. Tolson, however, is more of a hardass than a Romantic poet, more discipline than liberation. The writers dealt with the characterization of Mr. Tolson carefully, undoubtedly aware of the type character they needed to avoid to make theirs interesting. Mr. Tolson is introduced to us while dancing at a backwoods whiskey fest. In the next scene, he, in suit and tie, lectures to college students. He also leads a movement to unionize local sharecroppers .

The story ends weakly, unfortunately. It’s hard to believe a movie that references warrants and logical fallacies would fall into its own trap. Weasely wins the debate against Harvard when a Crimson debater declares, “Nothing that erodes the law can be moral.” But, this is far too easy. Who better knows laws can be absurdly and violently unjust than Southern African-Americans circa Jim Crow?

But I pardon the movie because it reinforces many ideals that I hold true: the power of language, racism is wrong, the need for unions, the power of education, David can slay Goliath. I accept the movie because I accept its stance.

What’s got me hung up is that put another way these ideals are also clichés: the pen is mightier than the sword, all people are equal, power to the people, reading is power, and Go underdog Go.

Here is my update to Defiance, which also reinforces ideals I take to be true: 1. Love your family 2. Holocaust was horrific. 3. Go underdog Go.

Defiance masks the clichés of plot and ideology in illusion. The Great Debaters hardly masks the predictability of its plot.

Watchmen (2009)

2009-09-26T16:09:00.002-04:00

...I wish there were more films / literature as outraged with contemporary morality as Watchmen.

...At 2 hours, 40 minutes, I wish more films to be a lot shorter than Watchmen.

...I wish I had time to read the graphic novel. I'm an outcast in the English department because I haven't. And, it seems Watchmen fans and movie critics agree that "prior knowledge" enhances the experience of the film.

Vicky Cristina Barcelona (2008)

2009-09-26T15:36:00.005-04:00

I think it's fun the way this film uses clichéd actions to create an explosive plot. In this film, clichéd actions are earned by the absurd amount of clichéd actions. The collision of absurdities is what keeps the viewer interested. The film doesn't ask the viewer to believe in its realism, so much as asks a viewer to ponder "what if?".

...I appreciated the runtime, as well--96 minutes.

Inglourious Basterds (2009)

2009-08-30T19:07:00.004-04:00

I was lucky to have caught this interview the other day so I thought I'd share, especially because Mr. Tarantino reveals himself a "novelist" and "poet."

"Pulp And Circumstance: Tarantino Rewrites History"

Summary Judgements

2009-08-03T15:14:00.004-04:00

For those of you wondering if I ever planned to write about those movies in my stationless queue, which is now my revolutionized queue...

The Wrestler (2008) -- This is a nice case study for the “open ending.” I was indifferent at first about the successfulness of The Wrestler’s end. But, the more I think about it, the more I focus on that final shot. A lasting final image is evidence of a powerful ending, right?

Revolutionary Road (2008) -- If I could adequately articulate my thoughts on this film, I would have done so (I’m still trying). I think the film is fantastic.

I read this while doing some homework on Richard Yates (author of Revolutionary Road, the novel (which is the final book of my summer reading list)): “And I think it's a curious thing, maybe a significant thing, that good novels - let's say great novels - have almost never been adapted into good movies.”

Read the full interview, here: http://www.pshares.org/issues/article.cfm?prmArticleID=128

Choke (2008) -- I think this is what Forrest Gump meant when he said “Stupid is as stupid does.” But, I’m still trying to figure out what Gump meant.

Changeling (2008) -- The first time I sat down to watch it, I drank too much and fell asleep before it ended. The second time, I fell asleep before it ended and I regret not drinking. Sorry, Mom.

Blindness (2008) -- I didn’t take too much away from this film, either. DP (my roommate) sat down in the middle of it and after a few minutes asked, “Are we supposed to be blind, too?”

…But DP has me thinking about the relationship of free and indirect style to film…and the limits of free and indirect style…

Defiance (2008)

2009-07-29T01:08:00.005-04:00

Mainly, I measure a movie by how much I suffer, how much I want the movie to just end. The less I suffer, the more I enjoy the movie. I suffered through a long stretch of Defiance. Eventually, I stopped my DVD player with little intention of returning to finish the movie.

I’m glad I returned to Defiance.

In writing workshop, we often talk about payoff, which can be understood in terms of economics. Does the viewer’s investment produce a high, profit-yielding return? Or, from the writer’s perspective, does a decision (killing off a character, possibly) produce the desired effect (we’re happy to see a character’s still alive)? Somtimes, the payoff is worth the suffering.

Defiance does not kill a character and bring him back, but a character does go away and return, and that character saves the day, and it sounds cheesy, but I found the payoff to be extremely high.

For those unfamiliar with the film, Defiance is based on the true story of Jewish brothers who begin living in the forest to escape the Holocaust and eventually lead a refugee colony which survives the end of the war. One brother (Zus), aggressive and uncompromising, leaves the colony after a spat with his brother (Tuvia) to fight with the Russians, who are aware they share the forest with the refugees. While in camp with his new comrades, Zus learns that the Russians, aware of an impending German attack, will retreat from the forest. The scene ends ambiguously as Zus’s allegiance is obviously called into question.

The refugee camp is left for dead by the Russians and the German slaughter begins. Tuvia, the leader of the refugees, outflanks the Germans and picks off only enough so that the Germans redirect their attack in his direction. Tuvia’s death is certain. Then, German soldiers begin to fall inexplicably. As only film can do, the camera zooms out to a bird’s eye a view and it’s clear that Germans are being attacked from the other flank. They are being shot from behind. Zus, the deserting brother, and a small number of Russian troops, save the day.

I use the term “save the day” facetiously. Because in no way did I find it cheesy that Zus returned. In no way, did the illusion of the story break down. Here are some reasons why:

1. Zus does not return alone; he is accompanied by Russian soldiers.

2. The ambiguity of the scene with Zus and the Russian commander leaves it unclear as to who did the “right” thing, who decided to help the refugees (Was it Zus? Was it the Russian commander?).

3. The love expressed by Zus’s return was not romantic love; it was love for his brothers and love for his Jewish brethren.

Zus as solitary hero, Zus giving the Russian commander a metaphoric middle finger, and Zus returning to the woman of his dreams are common tropes that remind us (me) the story / film is only an illusion.

So, the formula, is pretty simple: Step 1 – Establish a relationship. Step 2 – End the relationship. Step 3 – Renew the relationship.

Step 4 requires magic. Make me believe I’ve never seen this formula. That’s the return I want on my investment.

...I have more to say...Update coming soon...

Away We Go (2009)

2009-07-01T15:49:00.003-04:00

Here’s the premise of Away We Go: An expecting, unmarried couple in their thirties wants to find a new place to live because the man’s parents are leaving town a month before the baby will be born to travel for two years and his parents are the only reason they're in that town. So, they travel to cities like Phoenix, Montreal, and Miami to find a place to raise their child. Oh yeah, and the pregnant women refuses to marry.

Currently, I’m reading The Assassination of Jesse James by the Coward Robert Ford (author Ron Hansen). Yesterday, noting a major similarity, I was ready to compare it to Away We Go.

Yesterday, I was ready to toss both into a garbage bin I call “Technically Astute, Narratively Arid.” That may be a fancy way of saying “This story is boring,” but I think it says a little more: It’s built well, but what is built isn’t very interesting.

My issue with Away We Go and (previously with) The Assassination of Jesse James is that these stories never get messy. I never get a sense of the story becoming increasingly complicated.

Away We Go is a road trip from heaven. The protagonists fly from one city to the next. They always have a free place to stay. The breadwinner works from his cell-phone; he has no office. His long time girlfriend is sixth months pregnant, though large as nine (a running joke of the movie). But nothing bad ever happens to this couple.

Likewise, there aren’t many twists and turns in the first two-hundred pages of The Assassination of Jesse James. The writing is excellent often. Occasionally, you cringe at a visceral description. The conversations are interesting. You get upset that Hansen turns a noun into a verb and then he hits you with a shocking slice of 19th century real life that makes it okay. But the situation never gets messy…until yesterday (about page 200 (of 300)).

The Assassination of Jesse James (finally) gets messy, gets complicated, makes you wonder what could possibly happen next. I never felt that way about Away We Go.

One way Hansen, despite his title giving the story away (a very clever decision, it seems now), creates tension is that all characters always feel like they’re in danger, whether it be from each other, from the law, or from their 19th century diet. In Away We Go, the protagonists don’t encounter many problems that a credit card can’t solve.

Hansen also uses many characters and these characters always come back, less they die (still, though, issues of the dead come back in this story). In Away We Go, peripheral characters are dropped when the protagonists move on to the next city. And I can see that the story may drop characters to effect--to enhance, and ultimately, perhaps, to embrace the isolation of their future. But the payoff isn’t there.

It seems to me that the writers of Away We Go deliberately avoid physical harm (or the threat of) as “too easy,” meaning that they want to raise the stakes for these characters in a more original way than physical pain. Indeed, most conflicts in this story are those between characters and the ways they live. The moments where the protagonists are discovering the bizarre lifestyles of family and old friends are the liveliest, funniest, and the ones that we’re probably supposed to have the most invested in.

But I don’t care about the two protagonists from Away We Go, probably because of their seemingly effortless existence. To me, the alternative Away We Go accepts in exchange for dropping the threat of the physical is a conflict of existence. How should we live? Where should we live? Who are our friends? Are we fuck-ups?

But, why should I care if you get married? Or, if you’re a fuck-up? Or, if you’re not a fuck-up, but everyone thinks you are? Or, you’re a fuck-up despite everyone thinking you’re not? Or, whatever.

I could go on and on and on and on about why I don’t care about this movie. I’ve done it in my head. It always comes back to the same thing. There isn’t much in this film that really surprises me. Maybe, it’s so believable it’s boring. Regardless, Away We Go can’t hold my attention because the story is too busy keeping its hands clean.

Sunshine Cleaning (2008)

2009-06-08T10:28:00.003-04:00

Good movie. Good story. Go see it.

Give your characters courage.

Rachel Getting Married (2008)

2009-06-03T09:20:00.003-04:00

Could have been great, if it had tried to be great. All(?) it needed was a story.

Rachel Getting Married isn’t great because nothing happens. Or, everything that we expect will happen happens. There just aren’t many surprises. I hear some of you yelling and throwing your fists in the air, asking if this idiot actually watched the movie, but to me, this film was a classic case of a story relying too heavily on quirky, diverse characters that we love, but failing to push the characters out of the proverbial room.

I’m of the opinion that revealing backstory, in particular backstory that all the characters know, but the audience doesn’t, isn’t something happening. Backstory, when used correctly, complicates the situation / story / scenario for the characters as much as it complicates for the audience. Rachel Getting Married places an elephant in the room but waits much too long to show / tell us it has been sitting there all along. Everyone else (in the film) knew, and I didn’t. That’s just not fair. Is it? = you tell me.

So, I think that if RGM had revealed information that radically changed the way we, the audience, and they, the characters, see the story, then it would have been a bit more successful. In Revision = Check to make sure your backstory changes the stakes not only for the audience, but also for the characters in your story.

However, what I found extremely fresh about the backstory is that we didn’t see it. We only hear it through the words of the characters. It is all too easy for film to visually recreate backstory so that the audience “sees it,” but RGM refrains from doing so. And for that, amidst all the in your face directorial decisions—the fork in the road, the bouncing camera, the guy with the home video camera, holding hands to cut the cake—I appreciated RGM.

…It’s extremely difficult to buy into a story based on the consequences of a car crash and then there is a second car crash and the second car crash has no consequences.

…You could also argue RGM isn’t supposed to me a story, but a portrait. Who looks at a portrait for 113 minutes?

Nick and Norah's Infinite Playlist (2008)

2009-05-25T09:46:00.006-04:00

Norah: There's this part of Judaism that I like. Tikun Olam. It said that the world is broken into pieces and everyone has to find them and put them back together.
Nick: Maybe we don't have to find it. Maybe we are the pieces.
Norah: Nick? I'm coming in... [she goes into the recording studio to have sex with him]

Sound like teenagers?

Nick: [leaving a message on his ex-girlfriend Tris’s phone] I think we both said some things we didn't mean, like... when you broke up with me... on my b-day.

Sounds like a teenager.

Here are some difficulties when writing adolescent dialogue. Go heavy (Exhibit A) and they don’t sound / feel like teenagers. Go humorous (Exhibit B) and the seriousness / intensity dissipates tremendously.

Norah: This is amazing! You are literally like my music soul mate.

Exhibit C is probably right on. But it feels absolutely empty. What is the value in a music soul mate? It is interesting because it sounds right (the misuse of literally, the rhythmic addition of like, the clichéd soul mate) and sounds fresh (whoever heard of a music soul mate?), but there isn’t much substance here. This leads to the bigger question of how much we can lean on adolescent voices to impart something meaningful to the viewer / reader. It’s tricky because we are quite reductive when we think about teenage relationships / feelings / emotions / knowledge. It’s so easy for the viewer to toss these in the file marked “trivial” or "they'll get over it." But, I’ve always been a big fan of teenagers. In story, they are often reliable sources or energy and intensity. Desirous, emotional, fickle, unpredictable youth usually equal adventure—something this film relies on too heavily.

I long to see teens treated seriously. And I’m interested in doing so using their own voices. Some of the moments in the film that I found particularly engaging were those where Nick and Norah reflected on their past relationships. I think that teenagers reflect on the past is too often overlooked. In fact, it seems common sense that teenagers obsess with the (not very distant) past. So, reflection is a real opportunity to let loose a serious, adolescent voice. For one, reflecting is a shared experience—the audience can relate. Also, reflection requires specificity. The character has to refer to specific actions and names and dates. The character doesn’t have to (and probably shouldn’t) get abstract, which is the point where I think most of us stop listening to teenagers because we think they have so little life experience (note exhibit D). Finally, if the teenager reflects as a teenager and not as an adult (the most common way to work around the problem of adolescent stories), then the wound is still fresh, the intensity is naturally higher, years and years haven’t gone by. Try it = write the dialogue of a teenager who is reflecting on a recent, past experience.

Exhibit D

Thom: You just haven't figured it out yet, have you?
Nick: What?
Thom: ...The big picture.
Nick: I guess not.
Thom: The Beatles.
Nick: What about them?
Thom: This. [grabs Nick's hand] Look, other bands, they want to make it about sex or pain, but you know, The Beatles, they had it all figured out, okay? "I Want to Hold Your Hand." The first single. It's F-ing brilliant, right?... That's what everybody wants, Nicky. They don't want a twenty-four-hour hump sesh, they don't want to be married to you for a hundred years. They just want to hold your hand.

Eh.

The Queen (2006)

2009-05-23T12:11:00.005-04:00

I really enjoyed this film, and I see that most others have as well. I enjoyed it so much that as I was watching it, I was having a hard time deciding how I would respond to it in a way beneficial to fiction writers.

My first impulse was to offer a spiritual platitude to writers: Think Big. This film is ambitious in its content and in the roles. Because character driven stories so dominate the landscape of literary fiction, I feel too often we resign ourselves to simple characters in simple settings with simple (though serious) conflicts—because we think this is all we know. However, there is so much info out there these days, I see no reason why someone can’t get to know Buckingham Palace as well as the Queen.

This film takes on the largest media event of the 1990s and tells the story through the eyes of the major players: The Queen and the Prime Minister. Think Big.

I knew from the beginning it was the characters that made the film intriguing. Us common folk seem desperate to look inside the lives of the figures we see on the television. Writers shouldn’t forget, us common folk have big desires too; this film taps into those desires by giving us the behind the scenes.

Beyond the conceptual (or early) choices, though, I realized that this story uses POV to the maximum. In fact, wikipedia tells me that the scenes with the Queen were shot in 35mm film, while scenes with Blair were shot in 16mm film. Here, we see how the movie’s conflict—how the Queen and Blair have different views on how to handle Diana’s death—is enhanced through POV.

But, POV isn’t used only to enhance the conflict. It is also used in the resolution, which is what I think writers should take from this film. The movie restricts itself to these POVs and uses no “common folk” characters to help tell the story. We only see the public as these two dignitaries see the public: through media clips.

Dehumanizing as this may seem, the film uses it to its advantage, for the resolution comes when the Queen returns to London, visits the flowers and the people outside of Buckingham Palace, and addresses the public in a televised speech. When the Royal Family is looking at the flowers stacked around the gates of BP, there is a distinct change in POV. We watch the Royal Fam through the eyes of the crowd. Heads and hats and cameras are in our way, while the camera bobs like a person searching for a better sightline. Instead of witnessing through the eyes of Blair or the Queen, and instead of looking at the public through a television screen, the viewer becomes the public, seeing what they see, not what the Queen sees, not what Blair sees.

The Queen’s televised speech, then, becomes a union of perspectives, a union of POVs. The Queen, who learns of the public only through the tabloids and television, uses the media so that the public can learn about her, come into her world, if only briefly.

So, the conflict is resolved, but it uses merging POVs to provide the feeling of resolution. A similar technique, used to opposite effect comes in Chekhov’s “The Lady with a Pet Dog.” After restricting POV to Gurov for the length of the story, just before the end we have a glimpse of Anna’s perspective on their relationship and just how different it is from Gurov’s, thus providing the feeling—despite not knowing for sure—the relationship is doomed.

Breaking POV so late in a story (if ever) is a no-no according to the textbooks, but here we have two great stories that break POV near the end because it better facilitates the writer’s desired ending. But how do they get away with this? I’m not sure. My guess is that the story creates a desire to know other perspectives and learning other perspectives feels satisfying.

What seems obvious, though, is that POV isn’t exact, steady, or reliable. In story, it inevitably bounces, oscillates, shifts, and/or breaks. And perhaps the naturally unstable POV is most effective when such movement creates expectations and responds to them.

Try it = when considering your next resolution, ask how POV fulfills the expectations your story has created.

Think Big.

Doubt (2008)

2009-05-22T10:37:00.006-04:00

The first black student in a Catholic school. Altar boys. Priest. I don’t like where this is heading. Squirmy as that sounds, interpreted another way it sounds impossible: Meryl Streep opposite Phillip Seymour Hoffman. Priest versus nun. Luckily, Doubt had a head start. It was written for the stage—this film was not adapted from a novel. The story was adapted from the award-winning play of the same name, by John Patrick Shanley.

Regardless of form, one must consider what an intelligent narrative decision it is to place two socially esteemed and trusted roles in conflict with another. This especially works for film because I can think of no serious attempts to portray a priest or a sister as real, flawed human beings (comments welcome), rather than the traditional role they might fulfill in society, and within our minds. Shanley deserves all the credit for this. (Doesn’t he?) It is geniusly simple and simply genius to pose two morally upright souls against one another as the central conflict. It’s genius because conflict forces these two roles, which can easily fall into types, to be treated as human beings. Conflict makes us see their dark sides. I often wonder how fiction writers and storytellers arrive at such decisions. Did Shanley wisely decide on those two characters and their conflict from the beginning? Or, did he write and fight through draft after draft to find his story? Try it = write a piece where two “good” characters have a conflict, a fight.

There are a few scenes about foul shots and American history that are quite topical and shallow, tragically uninsightful and unoriginal, unfortunate to my experience of the movie. Fortunately, the scenes appear early, and the conflict builds enough to where I’m only focused on the characters and what they will do next. In Revision = ask why something feels shallow. Question its necessity.

An elegant aspect of the conflict revolves around lack of communication. It makes me wonder how much suspicion and a lack of communication are linked. In Doubt, the priest refuses to divulge information that should quell suspicions. The Sister, meanwhile, convinces herself despite zero evidence. Whom do you trust more, a priest or a nun? The father believes the sister has an agenda against him because he is “new school” and she is “old school.” The Sister believes the priest is having an inappropriate relationship with the new black student, yet doesn’t ask the student what happened. That sounds like a one-sided interpretation in favor of the father, I know, but the film does well to cast both characters in a light that makes appear good on their word, yet capable of sin.

Probably due to Doubt’s success on the stage, I enjoyed the film’s ability to refrain from making the film too filmy. Happily, there is quite a steady camera, no jumpy, quick cutting scenes that I recall, and certainly no exceptional photography or special effects. I also appreciated the film’s loyalty to some of the tropes we expect in plays. The backstage, not-so special-effects is what I’m referring to. The wind blows at all the right times, thunderstorms crash behind a heated argument. It works on screen, I think, because of the steady camera and static scenery. I was expecting, however, big drama, a scene of theatrical frenzy. My expectation was met with convention. Not flurry and frenzy, but pure, woe-begotten, cathartic melodrama. The confession feels much more for the audience than organic to the story, or naturally coming from characters. Question = Do you think of your fiction as having to separate resolutions? One for the reader and one for the characters.

The wails suspended my suspension of disbelief and the invocation of the title I believe is taboo in a scene of confession—even if the invocation is more thematic than revealing. The invocation of the title late in the story makes it cheesy. Doubt's resolution doesn’t tie the strings of the story together, it just places a factory-made, store-bought bow on the gift. Try it = invoke your piece’s title at the end, without being cheesy, of course.

I liked the lack of resolution. I didn’t need the bow. The most important thing we want to know: did he do it? did he not? We never find out. Maybe that bow was supposed to make us feel like we did.