Thoughts after seeing CHE

[jpp]

With all due respect to the babes, maybe beauty IS the eye of the beholder.

People in this business seem to like scripts which reflect their own fantasies, either about life or (more often) about movies they themselves would like to make. Or judgments of quality are so tied up with marketing assessments (how did everyone get to be an expert on what makes money, when so few films actually do?), that it's useless talking about dramatic, theatrical or visual qualities.

I mean, jeez - there are disagreements in all art forms, classical and popular, but when there's no consensus on whether Jaws or Star Wars are masterpieces or mass-market trash, how and where do you begin determining what a great screenplay is?

Look at American cinema today, and this confusion of standards is played out daily. It gets to the point where nobody knows whether a movie is sublime or ridiculous ("There Will Be Blood", for one?).

But it's the six and seven figure filmmaking in the U.S., where redemption is supposed to reside, which is really infuriating - invariably a dead loss financially, and little else to recommend it, apart from the occasional personal effort which doesn't come out of Sundance Labs or indie culture. And yet every indie producer and investor, and everyone from Robert Redford to Mark Cuban, knows what a great screenplay is.... Or so they tell us.

 

[josh]

But for the record, American Beauty was a script that everyone loved, Spielberg approved with no changes (and the original version has Spacey's character actually sleeping with the girl). A lot of directors wanted that one and it ended up being great. A lot of scripts seem to rise above the crowd.

ahahahahah, who told you that, the Phoenix Gazzette?

American Beauty is famous for having being turned down by EVERYBODY in Hollywood.

So many readers passed because they thought it was pedestrian.

And BTW, few years ago there was another script that did the rounds and was turned down by everybody.

it was an old one with a new title.

that script was Casablanca.

a "good script" raises above the crowd? yeah, keep thinking that.





a "good script" is like the holy grail: nobody knows how it looks like.

 

[josh]

Eh sort of, it's a property typically based on an engaging commercial hook that creates and builds dramatic tension over about 120 pages. Some scripts do it much better than others and they're usually the ones that get purchased and sometimes produced.

really?

most of the scripts that win contests, like the Nicholl or Disney, are that way.

do you see them as guaranteed purchases?

do you think that Gigli had an engaging commercial hook that created and built dramatic tension over about 120 pages?

have you actually read any of the screenplays that get bought?

there is not such a thing as a "great script". What there is its the "right script": the script that tickles the fancy of the buyer. period.



one man's trash is another man's treasure.

 

[jpp]

most of the scripts that win contests, like the Nicholl or Disney, are that way.

Are you sure you want to go even that far? I've read a few Nicholl winners, and don't think that anyone would describe them as "great screenplays". They're free of some Hollywood conventions, like exploitative violence, but they embrace plenty of other conventions. "Normative" is the word which comes to mind.

These are also "the right scripts", the feel-good stuff the judges are looking for and which they can justify to program trustees. To the extent they have literary form which is missing from Hollywood movies, it's the most conventional and unexciting kind. The freedom to bore.

 

[josh]

jpp, I completely agree with you (I read several winners and they are definitely not my taste) and you're absolutely right: they fulfilled the conventional parameters of good writing according to what's taught in writing classes, hence making them the right scripts.

like i said. the right script. not great script.

 

[Christoffer Glans]

Wilson's first impression of Los Angeles was blue. He was in
the sky at the time, so it was a curious reversal, looking
down rather than up at the color he had always felt was
nature's finest.

Swimming pools. Hundreds of them. Pockmarking the landscape
like miniature lakes. A flat landscape of straight streets
and square blocks and sparse grass that didn't look quite
green enough.

As far as Wilson could remember, he had only ever seen seven
or eight swimming pools in his entire life and they had been
public ones. Here everyone had their own. Marvellous.

You know, a screenplay should never describe a characters inner thoughts, because that is something you can't tell through images. It's also these kinds of inner thinking that is thrown away during pre-production and especially in rehearsal because actors can't work with someone else's description on how they should feel, that is their work.

I find it odd that many big budget hollywood productions have these "inner thought" descriptions because it's almost the first basic thing you learn to not do. It's also that which makes it something else then litterature.

So, just because you find screenplays with "inner thoughts" and "inner emotions" in the text doesn't mean that screenplays written like that is what defines what a screenplay is.

I find it rather more interesting to read theatre plays because the text is much more about dialogue and not so much about soulless explainations on what is happening.
It might be more fun reading a screenplay that is written like litterature, but it doesn't mean that it is how a screenplay should be. Such screenplays work good with producers who lack the skill to understand a true screenplay structure, but for a production screenplay it's useless = needs alot of work before shooting.

 

[James T Mather]

As David Mamet says - great verbiage and all that but a director looking to film that script will be hard pressed to find a clue contained within as to where to put the camera.

In short, it's charming description but unless it happens to be voiceover (in which case I stand corrected) then it's pretty redundant as screenwriting.

EDIT: Glazarus types faster than me.

 

[jpp]

Hate to come in third, and I'm the fastest typist here, but jtm and glazarus have it right: this stuff is nonsense in a screenplay. It's unnecessary for the actors and it's useless for the director. And it's not literature in its own right. What's being described should have been handled in one sentence. This is a screenplay, not The New Yorker.

And yet for everything being said here, there ARE "great screenplays", it's not an entirely mythical animal. Do we want to go into this or not?

 

[James T Mather]

What rules? At what stage was courier font mentioned? Nobody suggested conforming. So how does the passage you qouted "prove" anything outside of the fact that it exists and you are fond of it?

Plus why pick on Lem Dobbs specifically? The Limey and Kafka are pretty unusual scripts. How is it battle tested stuff and in what regard has it "succeeded on every level"?

It seems to me that because people picked apart the suitability of a script piece thats been posted, hitting them with the "oh you're all conformists" chant is pretty innaccurate - the only argument laid against it was that it is pretty, yet unfilmable verbiage as part of a script written for the screen - that is if it exists purely as action description - as voiceover there is nothing wrong with it.

 

[Joel Kaye]

American Beauty is famous for having being turned down by EVERYBODY in Hollywood.

That's a different statement than saying a script isn't great. It was certainly a very hot script for Directors to get a crack at directing once Spielberg decided to give it a shot.

Studios pass on great scripts they don't think will make money all the time. That's not news. And it's their job.

I don't think I'm saying a great script is a perfect predictor of commercial success or even a good movie. I think I'm saying some people can tell a good script (with interesting characters, situations etc.) from a piece of crap. A script is simply a blueprint though. Different filmmakers will turn out very different movies from the same blueprint.

As to the rules of screenwriting I think we'd see the "rules" were largely made up in the last 20 years with the screenwriting "how to" books. Scripts seem to differ between spec scripts (rules), accomplished writers writing for a producer (fewer rules) and a writer/director writing for themselves to shoot (few rules).

 

[jpp]

There were several arguments laid against the passage including your latest (that it's cherry picking) that it's "Redundant" or "Nonsense", and is more suited for the pages of the New Yorker.

You can argue that literary devices which have nothing to do with making movies sell screenplays. And you may be right. I once saw a screenplay by a big name writer who stopped the action to address the development executives directly in a kidding tone. And maybe that works for him. Or, at least, he can get away with it.

But the presence of extra-filmic material in screenplays isn't the issue here. We're talking about what in a script can be actually realized, and descriptive prose generally doesn't make it to the screen. If Lem Dobbs wrote that passage and it sells scripts, good for him. But its presence in the script says nothing about the ultimate quality of the film, which is the subject under discussion here, after all. Who cares what makes for a good read? We're interested in scripts that make for good films.

BTW, jtm: Dobbs was so infuriated by what Soderbergh did to Kafka that, after a negative review in the NY Times, he wrote to the paper protesting that the inanities of the script were Soderbergh's, not his. And they printed it. So much for great screenplays....

 

[Joel Kaye]

Dobbs was so infuriated by what Soderbergh did to Kafka that, after a negative review in the NY Times, he wrote to the paper protesting that the inanities of the script were Soderbergh's, not his. And they printed it. So much for great screenplays....

Luckily he didn't write for Michael Bay.

Stories of writers hating the movie are pretty common. They have their perfect version of the movie in their head. It's tough to match that. OTOH - I think Directors probably do really screw up stuff.

I was listening to the commentary on Sum of All Fears with the Director and Tom Clancy and there's a scene where the Russians are tracking Stealth Bombers on radar and Clancy says something "you know why they call 'em Stealth bombers don't you? 'Cause they don't show up on radar."

That movie had bigger problems than that but his comment was emblematic of the script problems.

 

[10s]

You guys are still on this? -- I said way back Jannard should back a good screenplay and have a movie made using RED at it's best by a Hollywood name so RED is introduced as a legitimate money making tool. Hollywood respects money, especially if it can make money repeatedly, who wouldn't? Good, simply means it appeals to a large number of the targeted demographic. Debating "Good' any other way is a waste of time, though I agree it can be fun to waste time arguing such a matter. Cinema is business and an art, an art you view while eating popcorn, red vines and sucking down a coke. Try that at your local art gallery.

IMO, Screen writing is the most difficult form of writing, hands down. Novels don't come close to the brevity and internal construction required to pull off a largely visual work. Poetry is close but not nearly as intense, and a poem usually doesn't go on for 110 pages.

continue the battle.....

 

[jpp]

You guys are still on this?... Good, simply means it appeals to a large number of the targeted demographic.)

That may be true in a cynical or tautological sense, but if you believe it literally, on what basis do you write screenplays? It's going to very difficult to get through a script (or a movie) if you don't know, or think you know, good from bad, beyond what appeals "to a large number of the targeted demographic". And your definition is good, at best, only after the movie has been released, since nobody knows for sure at the script stage what's going to appeal to the "targeted demographic". So we're running in circles here. It's like saying a good lottery number is one which wins the lottery.

[Edit: Then again, I guess you could say that in the eyes of the industry, a "good" script is one which executives think they can sell to the audience, and it doesn't really matter whether they're right or not, because they determine what gets bought and produced. But still..... Is that all we're really arguing about here? Hope not!]

IMO, Screen writing is the most difficult form of writing, hands down. Novels don't come close to the brevity and internal construction required to pull off a largely visual work. Poetry is close but not nearly as intense, and a poem usually doesn't go on for 110 pages.

No no no no. Try writing a novel sometime. The two forms are difficult in different ways, and there's no point arguing over which form is "better", but far more people can come up with passable screenplays than passable novels or passable stage plays.

 

[10s]

That may be true in a cynical or tautological sense, but if you believe it literally, on what basis do you write screenplays? It's going to very difficult to get through a script (or a movie) if you don't know, or think you know, good from bad, beyond what appeals "to a large number of the targeted demographic". And your definition is good, at best, only after the movie has been released, since nobody knows for sure at the script stage what's going to appeal to the "targeted demographic". So we're running in circles here. It's like saying a good lottery number is one which wins the lottery.

[Edit: Then again, I guess you could say that in the eyes of the industry, a "good" script is one which executives think they can sell to the audience, and it doesn't really matter whether they're right or not, because they determine what gets bought and produced. But still..... Is that all we're really arguing about here? Hope not!]



No no no no. Try writing a novel sometime. The two forms are difficult in different ways, and there's no point arguing over which form is "better", but far more people can come up with passable screenplays than passable novels or passable stage plays.

1. The determination of Good, is based upon many things to many people. Businesses, governments, churches, ordinary people, etc. do this everyday in determined what they will and will not produce. Markets (people searching for solutions) decide what is good for them and they obtain these items with the belief it is Good for them. This happens for all physical and mental/spirtitual goods. We can argue this for ever or just realize that people do find satisfaction in a cinematic story which causes them no harm, provides entertainment in which they forget about their daily lives as they journey along and in fact it may help them to contemplate deeper issues. Also, story elements are well known, we consume them everyday. Most of us know what a good story is, like we know when we have eaten a good meal. Don't fool yourself into thinking Good = Outstanding, brilliant, fantastic... it could be those things, but it doesn't have to be any of those to be Good.

2. Novels are easier IMO, in comparison to a screenplay. How many pages must a novel be? answer: whatever. Try that with a screenplay. Novels have a far easier time depicting thoughts, motivations, etc... A screenplay must put visuals into a very limited and tight configuration of words. A novel can go on forever. A novel is consumed in bits, a movie is consumed in one physically suitable sitting. Ever hear people complain about a movie being too long vs. a novel?

Screenplays are more difficult because of the number of resrictions placed upon it. Also, screenplay must be producible. They have budgets and time schedules... it's far more complex than a novel could ever dream of being. And to top it off they have all these people going to WEB sites to learn about new tools so they can construct a movie from a screenplay.

 

[Joe G.]

"They have budgets and time schedules... it's far more complex than a novel could ever dream of being."

I must say I don't agree with that statement. People become very insular about their own fields, elitist and biased. You see it all the time across many industries and enterprises.

I've seen a lot of crap movies, about as "complex" as an extended gag. Many are just rehashed, ripped off, same old uncreative sludge, with a few new "witty" lines or a new twist thrown in that made somebody orgasm somewhere along the lines. They lack.

I've read so many horrible, juvenile, bland, boring screenplays (and stopped before I got to 10 pages) that -- ahh you get the idea.

There's no reason to attack novels as an artform. Why would you?

 

[Scott Murphy]

Bootlegged (ie., "flickery") spanish-language version of the trailer just went up on YouTube:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=uAsyGJbuU9Q

 

[sergio arguello]

thanks matt
if you look at traffic ...the interiors are prestine exteriors are alot of what you have desribed...perhaps thats SS's style choice.

 

[José L. Martínez]

I've just seen it at local cineplex, and it just confirm RED is the closest to 35mm available, IMHO. I've already seen 4k projection from RED material, but this was the first time to see a filmout.

No videoish image, no strange artifacts, no trails (a la Apocalypto), more latitude you could dream of, and really nice highlights . I surveyed about 10 people, 2 of them work in movies. None of them could 'feel' it wasn't film originated material. And the super16mm segments just give another head to RED.

Once you burn it to film, it looks as film, but perhaps less grainy.

My camera ships this month. I've seen is possible, I'll see if I'm able...

J