Paul Hackett

Academy Award-winning screenwriter Budd Schulberg died Wednesday at the age of 95.

As a screenwriter he is best known for On The Waterfront (1954) and A Face in the Crowd(1957).  He is also the author of two of my favorite Hollywood books. One is the memoirs of his childhood growing up in Hollywood: Moving Pictures: Memories of a Hollywood Prince. He also wrote the popular 1941 novel What Makes Sammy Run? Both present candid views of life inside America’s dream factory.

Budd Schulberg lived an  interesting life. The Washington Post has a good Budd Schulberg obituary.

Like everyone else I’m sure, I have a few favorite films that I like to watch every couple of years. American filmmaker Martin Scorcese is behind some of my choices. When going through the Scorcese canon, a less than obvious choice is After Hours (1985). This is one of those bizarre films that works because it’s so unlike most other films. It’s also a wonderful piece of black comedy, something we see successfully done in British cinema all the time, but a genre that almost always fails with American films.

After Hours tells the story of Paul Hackett (coolest film name ever) played by Griffin Dunne. Paul Hackett is having the worst night of his life. Trying to make his way home from Soho, he faces a series of maddingly surreal and dangerous misadventures that make his pointless journey rather “Kafkaesque.” Scorcese actually called this film ”an exercise completely in style.”

Layman’s film critic, Roger Ebert, who has written a book on the work of Scorcese, is also a fan of After Hours. In  the Great Films section of his website he includes his take on this sometimes forgotten masterpiece. He describes this film as something approaching “pure filmmaking.” He says “it’s a nearly flawless example of — itself. It lacks, as nearly as I can determine, a lesson or message.” Many viewers have found the level of suspense in After Hours to be unbearbale. Ebert explains that while the film “is technically a comedy [it] plays like a satanic version of the classic Hitchcock plot formula.” Ebert has always been better at exlaining things than describing them.

The film should be available from most major movie outlets. You can read what Roger Ebert has to say about it in his review The time is three a.m. Do you know where your sanity is?

For me the review was worth reading for the quotable:

What happens to Paul Hackett is like what happens to Buster Keaton: just one damned thing after another.

That may not necessarily describe my life, but it’s a cool way to see my name used in print.

In the past week I’ve seen two new Hollywood movies featuring songs by the rock group Journey (Yes Man and Bedtime Stories). It got me wondering how many movies from the past year have included Journey songs. It seems like a lot.

I recall The Comebacks from 2007 had an amusing Don’t Stop Believin’ musical moment. But this is really enough. Any further use of Journey in a Hollywood movie is officially camp.

Thankfully the last movie I saw, Milk,  didn’t include a single Journey song, even though Journey enjoyed their first heyday in 1978 – the most significant year of Harvey Milk’s life.

Update: Who’s Crying Now by Journey is played in Monsters vs. Aliens.

For many online writers, the end of the year is a time for top ten lists. I didn’t get around to making my own list this year, but I don’t mind borrowing from The NY Times and their 10 Best American Movies list.  This list is by Stanley Fish, who I don’t know from Adam. But here are his picks for the best American movies of all time:

• The Best Years of Our Lives (William Wyler, 1946)
• Sunset Blvd. (Billy Wilder, 1950)
• Double Indemnity (Billy Wilder, 1944)
• Shane (George Stevens, 1953)
• Red River (Howard Hawks, 1948)
• Raging Bull (Martin Scorcese, 1980)
• Vertigo (Alfred Hitchcock, 1958)
• Groundhog Day (Harold Ramis, 1993)
• Meet Me In St. Louis (Vincente Minnelli, 1944)
• A Tree Grows In Brooklyn (Elia Kazan, 1945)

You can read the entire Times article for the commentary that goes with each choice.

The list heavily favors classics from the forties and fifties. I agree that all of these films are exceptional, and some of them are even my personal favorites, such as: Red River, The Best Years of Our Lives and Sunset Blvd. The Billy Wilder and Raymond Chandler Double Indeminity screenplay is also one of my favorites from that period.

I’m amused to see Groundog Day featured on this list. This isn’t even the first time I’ve noticed the film getting notable critical acclaim. It may not be one of the ten best American films, but it’s frequently mentioned positively in several screenwriting books.

I suppose if I were to quickly throw together a top ten list, I’d name my ten favorite Bill Murray movies (in no particular order): Caddyshack, Ghost Busters, Stripes, Meatballs, Rushmore, Groundhog Day, Kingpin….

What? No Lost In Translation?

Sorry. But that’s a little boring and irrelevant for me.

First impressions are just as important in screenwriting as they are in life. A good screenplay needs a likable hero that gets trapped in a compelling situation; someone the reader can relate to and root for as they turn the pages of your script. How you go about introducing your hero is something that should be given a lot of thought. A helpful approach is to watch how directors introduce their main characters. Rather than introducing a hero, a good director will reveal the hero to the audience. The reveal usually tells us something important about the character right off the bat and alerts us to their significance. More often than not, the hero is revealed through some kind of action.

An excellent example of a reveal is John Milius’ Conan The Barbarian (1982). Anyone who has seen the film is unlikely to forget the “Wheel of Pain” sequence. Conan is introduced through a montage sequence that follows his torturous passage to manhood. A young Conan is chained to a punishing device and made to walk in circles through all seasons. As weaker men die Conan presses on. His muscles grow. We see his feet plod on as the years pass. Finally, the full grown Conan looks up and stares into the camera. He’s already a hero in our minds because he has survived an ordeal that finished off weaker men. He’s now ready to embark on any journey.

It’s generally best to reveal characters by having them doing something when we first meet them. The first glimpse we get is going to tell us almost everything we need to know about them. I call it a reveal because it should share something about both the inner and outer life of the hero.

Imagine your protagonist is a taxi driver. The scene opens inside the taxi dispatch. We see someone fastidiously cleaning a taxi at the start of their shift. A person who begins their shift in this way is probably honest, hard working and perhaps has dreams of doing something greater. This sounds a lot like the reveal from Collateral (Stuart Beattie, 2004).

• INT. TAXI DISPATCH – L.A. – DAY
• ORANGE and YELLOW FORD CROWN VICTORIAS are wiping screen. We find ourselves in a busy garage at change of shift. A balletic convergence of arriving and departing cars. One’s door’s flung open…
• INT. ONE CAB – MAX’S HANDS
• enter. They wipe the seats with paper towels and 409…a DMV LICENSE fitted into the small Lexan holder. On it is a picture of Max.

  Lights being checked. Indicators. Hazards. Switches. Similar to a pilot doing an aircraft check list. Fast. All fine.

• REVEAL NOW: MAX’S BRIEFCASE
• He opens it, preparing for his workday. CD caddy of personal mixes goes on a visor. Spreadsheet peaks out a worn Mercedes S500 brochure, clipped open. A submarine sandwich from Subway.
• LONG LENS: OTHER CABBIES – OTHER FACES
• load-in. Southern California diversity – some unshaven, swapping stories, counting cash, one stands on the passenger seat to shout over the roof to his pal, spills his coffee, couldn’t care less…

  Not Max. His cab is fly. Among cabbies he is GQ.

  And as CAR HORNS BLARE. AD LIB BANTER. CABBIES SHOUT. Max gets behind the wheel, closes the door…

• INT. CAB – DAY
• …and WHAM! The noise evaporates. Welcome silence. Max takes a moment to savor it.

  He starts the engine. RAP MUSIC BLARES from the radio. Max turns it off.

  He dumps a CD into the changer. MOZART SONATA fills the cab.

  From the open briefcase, Max also pulls out one last thing…

  A TATTERED POSTCARD

  which depicts the whitest sand and bluest sea you can imagine. A dream place. An endorphin-releasing groove. Limitless horizon. It’s the Maldives Islands in the Indian Ocean.

  MAX

  slips the postcard under the rubber bands on the visor. He can see it whenever he wants to. But not now. He flips the visor up, puts the car in gear and pulls out.

This script is an excellent example of a reveal. We are already able to empathize with the hero. He’s doing his best while still dreaming of something greater for himself. That’s something we can respect.

Reveals can be humorous, endearing and insightful all at the same time. Check out the classic reveal from Cool Hand Luke (Donn Pearce and Frank Pierson, 1967):

• FADE IN:
• EXT. SOUTHERN CITY STREET EXTREME CLOSEUP PARKING METER (NIGHT)
• Its irritating head opens a glaring red eye: the red flag pops across the entire screen:
• VIOLATION
• INSERT: PARKING METER SUPPORT (NIGHT)
• CLOSEUP of a pipe cutter attached to the meter neck, metal slivers curling out. From o.s. we HEAR — LUCAS JACKSON cheerfully humming and mumbling Auld Lang Syne and then:
• LUKE
• Okay, Mister General, you son of a bitch. Sir. Think you can put things right with a piece of tin with a ribbon hangin’ on it? Gonna put you right.
• CLOSEUP PARKING METER (NIGHT)
• as the meter head falls out of FRAME.
• NEW ANGLE ON METER (NIGHT)
• as it falls to the ground amidst a forest of meter stands and Luke’s hand comes into the FRAME to pick it up and we SEE him in CLOSEUP for the first time. He is cheerful, drunk, wearing a faded GI Field jacket. A bottle opener hangs on a silver chain around his neck. He addresses the next meter.
• LUKE
• All right. Helen, honey. I lost my head over you. Now its your turn.

Today’s screenwriter generally pays a lot of attention to white space. The opening lines from Judd Apatow’s Knocked Up (2007) reveals entire character personalities:

• EXT. BEN’S HOUSE – DAY
• BEN STONE, 23, cute in a chunky Jewish guy sort of way, boxes one of his roommates, MARTIN. His other roommates, JAY and JASON fight with broom sticks. JONAH drinks beer on the couch spectating.

Half of the characters in this movie are set up in just a few lines. We already have a sense of who our hero is and what is in store for him. Taking into account the film’s title we already have a pretty good idea where this story is going.

When putting characters on the page for the first time, it’s not just important to describe them in a way that makes them memorable. You also need to reveal something about them. Show them at work or play in such a way that the reader can see much more than what’s on the page – their inner and outer lives intertwined.

Screen legend and cool guy Paul Newman has died. He was 83.

In a career spanning 50 years Newman acted in over 65 movies. His New York Times obituary describes him as “one of the last of the great 20th-century movie stars.” For more on the life of this Hollywood titan, check out his Washington Post obituary: Forget Cool: Paul Newman Knew How to Play It Smart.

Oscar winning director Sydney Pollack died of cancer on Monday. He was 73.

One of the things I admire most about Sydney’s work is that he is a real storyteller. While the movie landscape changed so much over his long career, he always made movies that were story centered. He may be known to many as an actor’s director, but to me, he is a wonderful storyteller.

If you’re interested in reading more about this great American director, The New York Times obituary is here: Sydney Pollack, Film Director, Is Dead at 73.

It’s been a tough year for working writers, but a fairly decent one for aspiring writers. Studios posted more scripts online in an effort to grab more award nominations. Aside from writing, the most important thing aspiring screenwriters should be doing is reading a lot of scripts.

The Thinking Writer tracked down and shared links to the studios that were basically giving scripts away for free. The links are More Scripts and More Scripts, Pt. 2.

Being earnest, I read all of them. In fact, I printed them all and what a mountain of paper it made.

I was not at all surprised that Cody Diablo’s Juno won the Academy Award award for Best Original Screenplay. I was quite happy with the choice, in fact. As I pored over every script I could find from the past year, Juno is the one that struck me as the most original. It is written with a unique voice. As I read, I could see the movie playing in my mind. It hooked me from the first page. And by the last page I was feeling jealous that my writing isn’t nearly as good.

It stands head and shoulders above the other original scripts I read this year. And those were good scripts too.

As for the Best Adapated Screenplay, I did enjoy reading No Country For Old Men. But it wasn’t my favorite. Of those nominated, I think The Diving Bell and The Butterfly is the one I’d rather read again.

Elaborating on my discussion of the moral center in films…

“The first casualty of war is innocence.” That’s the tagline for Oliver Stone’s Platoon (1986), a film that’s different from other Viet Nam war stories because it’s not about two countries fighting each other. Rather, it’s a story about a country at war with itself. Although the story centers on the thoughts and fears of one soldier, everyone in the platoon faces similar moral choices, and must decide for themselves what is right and wrong.

The men in Chris Taylor’s (Charlie Sheen) platoon divide into two groups: the heavy drinkers loyal to Barnes (Tom Berenger) and the pot smokers who follow Elias (Willem Dafoe). The main difference between them is that Elias already believes the war can’t be won, but keeps fighting in it with honor. The audience roots for him because he’s a moral compass and mentor to the liberal minded members of the platoon. Barnes and his men, however, have a different take on the war. They lash out at the Vietnamese and each other; committing atrocities that turn them into the real bad guys.

With a story as multi-layered as this, it’s not surprising to find a moral center – someone who voices the author’s perspective. The moral center steers the theme, so that is not about surviving war, but surviving war with humanity still intact. The moral center of Platoon is King (Keith David), introduced early in the script:

• KING looks like a king. A lion of a black man but with a sleepy, gentle face, not to be roused, is painfully trying to scrawl a letter home with the pencil held awkwardly, mouthing the words.

He has many of the film’s key lines and entertains the platoon with his home-spun wisdom and sense of humor.

King wonders how an educated man like Chris wound up in Viet Nam. The boy’s idealistic view of the war makes him laugh. He calls Chris a crusader for thinking dropping out of school and signing up would make a difference. (Stone reportedly dropped out of Yale twice and based Platoon on his own experiences serving in Viet Nam.)

After the hero survives an injury, King – whose very name is symbolic – accepts him as part of the group. He takes Chris under his wing, shrugging off the possibility that he might have let the platoon down. King tells him there is “no such thing here as a coward,” a line that he repeats later in the film.

As an ally, King introduces Chris to the “head,” an underground world where Elias’ crew smoke pot and escape the war. He gets Chris high for the first time, which not only relieves the pain of his injury, but initiates him into the underworld. The symbolism of this occasion isn’t lost on King:

• KING
• (smiling)
• This ain’t Taylor. Taylor been shot. This man Chris been resurrected…

King is not the only moral guide in Platoon. The Christ like figure Elias is another strong force of good and the focal point of Chris’ admiration.

In my mind, the moral center is generally a less active participant in the story and more of an observer. Elias plays a big part; staying very involved in the plot. He helps the men prepare for missions and teaches them what he can about survival. When faced with difficult tasks he crusades for good. King is more of a witness and commentator on the action. His actions never influence the direction of the story.

When the platoon suspects that Barnes actually killed Elias they talk about getting revenge. Barnes turns up drunk and challenges them, giving them a chance to get even.

• King, the biggest one there, is about to say something, but the moment passes.

He knows that an eye for an eye is not justice; and remains an observer. As an observer King is also the only that notices Chris isn’t writing home anymore. In case the audience hasn’t noticed Chris’ transformation, King is there to point it out.

We don’t know what happens to Chris and the other members of the platoon at the end. King makes it out alive before the final battle and he gives Chris some final advice:

• KING
• Make it outta here, it’s all gravy, every day of the rest of your life man – gravy.

If anything, this is the delivery of the film’s real message. War is a terrible experience for everyone involved. Surviving it is one thing, but surviving it and still remaining human is another.

For King, to have another chance at life, and to live life to the fullest, every day is gravy. It’s an extra gift that is worth staying alive for.

Only a day after writing about the death of Ingmar Bergman, Italian director Michelangelo Antonioni has also died. He was 94.

The legendary Italian director is another cornerstone of the art film world. Two of his most memorable films from his six decade career include “Blow-Up” and “L’Avventura.”

Once again, The Washington Post has an obituary in their online entertainment section.