Billy Mernitt, you have just knocked my favorite crutch away. My best excuse for procrastination. The reason I end up spinning in circles and efficiently avoiding forward progress on my screenplays (or any writing, really.) I don't have to get it "perfect."
According to Mr. Mernitt, who has every reason to know, it's not only OK to break the "rules" of screenwriting, sometimes it helps you achieve the one goal that is paramount for any screenwriter: make them empathize with the protagonist. Get them to feel. If it takes parentheticals, unfilmable asides about the character's internal thoughts and intentions, or lots of ellipses, then so be it.
Thinking about it, I am reminded of something I learned when studying poetry in college. It struck me while reading Sonnet: On the Sonnet by Keats. The Sonnet is a very structured form. Not the most difficult, but still fairly rigorous. (I laugh when people complain about screenplay form being too limiting.) In this sonnet, Keats breaks the rhythm in one line - and does so with the explicit intention of making the reader pause, of drawing attention to the one line.
I learned two things from that poem: 1) Let structure serve a meaningful function. The actual rhythm contributes to and/or echoes the content. 2) Drama and meaning can be derived from breaking the form - but there has to be a form there to break for that to work.
So I think my feeling about using such things as internal unfilmables, is that they should be used consciously. They should be placed in essential spots, to break the form a little, change the pace, make the reader stop and think. But to achieve that effect, the rest of the writing has to be fairly clean and straightforward.
I know the examples on Mr. Mernitt's blog include a script that seems to go beyond the selective use idea... but I also found it a difficult passage to read. Maybe it reads differently in context.
Have I come full circle? Have I just proposed something even more difficult than perfection - perfection with intentional flaws? Shhh. I don't care. I need to go write.
Showing posts with label screenwriters. Show all posts
Showing posts with label screenwriters. Show all posts
Almodovar's Women
I finally watched Volver last week. As with all of Almodovar's films that I've seen so far, I spent the first 20 minutes or so not sure I'd like it, and by the end was totally engrossed in the fates of the characters. One of the reasons I get so involved in an Almodovar movie is the fact that the women are all crazy, contradictory messes...in other words, something like me.
Admittedly, the women in the earlier films (in particular Women on the Verge) are more like drag queens, but the stories themselves were more like soap operas - over the top in content, color, and style as well as character. But by All About My Mother, there's a definite shift. As his storytelling becomes a little less strident, so too his characters become less exclamatory...and many of his characters are women. This may not seem remarkable, but just try to think of films where the leads are women. Where the female characters have a relationship or interaction with each other, especially one that's not simply about men.
But simply featuring women isn't enough. The women are presented with difficult circumstances, hard choices, uncertain alliances - and they find their way through.
Volver, in particular, features some of the most mature portrayals of women I've ever seen in a movie. There is insanity and a kind of willful superstitiousness, a desire to believe the stories and myths because they work for the narratives each person creates about their own lives - and when these narratives these women create intersect with parts of other people's narratives in ways that don't fit, the characters are forced to examine themselves.
The women find ways to make reality work in their own personal stories. A lot of it is like the fake bottom Penelope Cruz wears to make her look more womanly (can you imagine an American actress doing this, and not for fat jokes but because she's too skinny to be a believable mom?) - it's a fiction that gives an illusion of reality as part of a myth, but those myths are ultimately what allows everyone to function.
SPOILERS
Raimunda's mother is dead. We start the movie at her grave. But when they visit the auntie, there's evidence that the mother is there in that house. Her smell in the air, her special cookies baked for them. They dismiss it at first, then they subscribe to the idea that Irene (Raimunda's mother) is a ghost, taking care of the old auntie. The sister even takes her in, and continues to half act as if Irene were a willful spirit - but no, she is alive. Everyone continues to pretend she is dead, however, because it hides another truth that's buried in a myth - the fact that Raimunda's father was with another woman when he died. It's only by managing a difficult balance of truth and myth that the characters are able to confront what really happened, and only as a ghost that Irene is able to make amends with the daughter of the other woman.
Of course, it's all much more complicated than that. This is Almodovar, after all. But it is this complexity that makes the women real. That makes us go from one outrageous circumstance or belief to another, without ever being thrown out of the story. Raimunda, for instance, is very good at pretending and ignoring the truth. She's had to be since she was a teenager, when she hid the fact that her father impregnated her. Pretended that the loser she ended up marrying to cover her shame and provide her daughter a father was more than a convenience.
I also love Almodovar's women because when faced with situations that would crush so many others, they simply go on, as we all must. They make terrible messes and then they find a way to live with them. They find the strength, sometimes in their friendships with each other, sometimes in themselves, and they are often surprised by it.
Isn't that how we all muddle through? With some myths about ourselves, a few hard truths, leaning on our friends a little and managing to find surprising strength in ourselves to not only muddle through impossible situations but even managing to shine once in a while.
It's refreshing to see such beautiful messes in a movie.
Admittedly, the women in the earlier films (in particular Women on the Verge) are more like drag queens, but the stories themselves were more like soap operas - over the top in content, color, and style as well as character. But by All About My Mother, there's a definite shift. As his storytelling becomes a little less strident, so too his characters become less exclamatory...and many of his characters are women. This may not seem remarkable, but just try to think of films where the leads are women. Where the female characters have a relationship or interaction with each other, especially one that's not simply about men.
But simply featuring women isn't enough. The women are presented with difficult circumstances, hard choices, uncertain alliances - and they find their way through.
Volver, in particular, features some of the most mature portrayals of women I've ever seen in a movie. There is insanity and a kind of willful superstitiousness, a desire to believe the stories and myths because they work for the narratives each person creates about their own lives - and when these narratives these women create intersect with parts of other people's narratives in ways that don't fit, the characters are forced to examine themselves.
The women find ways to make reality work in their own personal stories. A lot of it is like the fake bottom Penelope Cruz wears to make her look more womanly (can you imagine an American actress doing this, and not for fat jokes but because she's too skinny to be a believable mom?) - it's a fiction that gives an illusion of reality as part of a myth, but those myths are ultimately what allows everyone to function.
SPOILERS
Raimunda's mother is dead. We start the movie at her grave. But when they visit the auntie, there's evidence that the mother is there in that house. Her smell in the air, her special cookies baked for them. They dismiss it at first, then they subscribe to the idea that Irene (Raimunda's mother) is a ghost, taking care of the old auntie. The sister even takes her in, and continues to half act as if Irene were a willful spirit - but no, she is alive. Everyone continues to pretend she is dead, however, because it hides another truth that's buried in a myth - the fact that Raimunda's father was with another woman when he died. It's only by managing a difficult balance of truth and myth that the characters are able to confront what really happened, and only as a ghost that Irene is able to make amends with the daughter of the other woman.
Of course, it's all much more complicated than that. This is Almodovar, after all. But it is this complexity that makes the women real. That makes us go from one outrageous circumstance or belief to another, without ever being thrown out of the story. Raimunda, for instance, is very good at pretending and ignoring the truth. She's had to be since she was a teenager, when she hid the fact that her father impregnated her. Pretended that the loser she ended up marrying to cover her shame and provide her daughter a father was more than a convenience.
I also love Almodovar's women because when faced with situations that would crush so many others, they simply go on, as we all must. They make terrible messes and then they find a way to live with them. They find the strength, sometimes in their friendships with each other, sometimes in themselves, and they are often surprised by it.
Isn't that how we all muddle through? With some myths about ourselves, a few hard truths, leaning on our friends a little and managing to find surprising strength in ourselves to not only muddle through impossible situations but even managing to shine once in a while.
It's refreshing to see such beautiful messes in a movie.
Write What You Know
Imagination is a powerful tool. It can carry us into areas that no one before has ever conceived of, it can solve problems, it can pull beauty from nearly nothing. Imagination is essential to a writer. So why then, are new writers so often admonished to "write what you know?"
The truth is, for a writer who knows themselves, there is no contradiction.
Our imaginings are the product, just as everything else about us, of a combination of genetics and instinct with experience. It serves a function in our personal cognitive and social development (and in our development as a society, allowing humanity the diversity and adaptability that makes us so distinct from other species...even our ability to communicate with one another through language involves a level of abstraction that's greater than most species and thus an imagination to interpret - but that's another topic.)
In short, even the most grandiose or unusual imaginings are founded on things we know. But for most writers, imagination is not a problem. Those of us who are driven to create are more likely to have an active imagination that tends to wheel off in its own direction, that becomes it's own incentive to create. Thus, the admonition "write what you know" is a way to help ground our work.
It can function in the basic sense of knowing your material. Do research, character background studies, and know the reality behind the story.
It can function to encourage writers to experience life, to have a broader range to draw from.
But I think that the most useful and powerful function of writing what you know is specificity. The more specific and personal a work, the greater the likelihood that it will transcend itself and become universal.
It becomes "real" in ways we can't anticipate when we know that a brand of tennis shoes that were popular in a time a place our characters occupy, when we know that a certain carpet color is common to cheap motels built in the 80's, when we know how you hold a fishing line and how much room you need to cast a fly. Because when we know these things, our audience has a point of reference, and it becomes real to them.
Humans are social. We desire belonging, we are constantly (usually unconsciously) searching for connection. When a writer provides points of connection by giving specific, clear details, then the audience will join them.
It becomes "real" in ways that are surprising when we talk about our bi-racial friend who buys giant dubs to prove he's black while bragging about "sounding" white on the phone. Or about the dweeb who tells us for weeks how beautiful and sexy we are, turning up when we're out for coffee or at the grocery store, but the minute we say clearly that we're not interested pointedly calls us a fat bitch, and then whines because being a "nice guy" gets them nowhere. And the feeling of helplessness as we watch our mother on life support, surrounded by plastic tubes and wires that seem to hold a once-dynamic woman in stasis. The more specific you are about your experiences, the more likely you are to have people tell you they understand, and that it's "just like" something they've gone through.
So that feeling of helplessness gets attached to an image of an astronaut, so dependent on the tubes that connect her to life. Or the dweeb backs up their aggressive response to rejection with a knife. And bi-racial guy becomes a human raised in an alien environment. Focus on the specifics, and these situations will become familiar not only to us, but to an audience.
Thus, a writer must know themselves, so that when they do imagine flying, they can place the sensation of the rush as they dive through the air as something akin to riding a roller coaster. So that when feel a rush as they ride a roller coaster, they can think: this is what superman feels like when he's flying.
Know yourself. Pay attention. And then write what you know.
The truth is, for a writer who knows themselves, there is no contradiction.
Our imaginings are the product, just as everything else about us, of a combination of genetics and instinct with experience. It serves a function in our personal cognitive and social development (and in our development as a society, allowing humanity the diversity and adaptability that makes us so distinct from other species...even our ability to communicate with one another through language involves a level of abstraction that's greater than most species and thus an imagination to interpret - but that's another topic.)
In short, even the most grandiose or unusual imaginings are founded on things we know. But for most writers, imagination is not a problem. Those of us who are driven to create are more likely to have an active imagination that tends to wheel off in its own direction, that becomes it's own incentive to create. Thus, the admonition "write what you know" is a way to help ground our work.
It can function in the basic sense of knowing your material. Do research, character background studies, and know the reality behind the story.
It can function to encourage writers to experience life, to have a broader range to draw from.
But I think that the most useful and powerful function of writing what you know is specificity. The more specific and personal a work, the greater the likelihood that it will transcend itself and become universal.
It becomes "real" in ways we can't anticipate when we know that a brand of tennis shoes that were popular in a time a place our characters occupy, when we know that a certain carpet color is common to cheap motels built in the 80's, when we know how you hold a fishing line and how much room you need to cast a fly. Because when we know these things, our audience has a point of reference, and it becomes real to them.
Humans are social. We desire belonging, we are constantly (usually unconsciously) searching for connection. When a writer provides points of connection by giving specific, clear details, then the audience will join them.
It becomes "real" in ways that are surprising when we talk about our bi-racial friend who buys giant dubs to prove he's black while bragging about "sounding" white on the phone. Or about the dweeb who tells us for weeks how beautiful and sexy we are, turning up when we're out for coffee or at the grocery store, but the minute we say clearly that we're not interested pointedly calls us a fat bitch, and then whines because being a "nice guy" gets them nowhere. And the feeling of helplessness as we watch our mother on life support, surrounded by plastic tubes and wires that seem to hold a once-dynamic woman in stasis. The more specific you are about your experiences, the more likely you are to have people tell you they understand, and that it's "just like" something they've gone through.
So that feeling of helplessness gets attached to an image of an astronaut, so dependent on the tubes that connect her to life. Or the dweeb backs up their aggressive response to rejection with a knife. And bi-racial guy becomes a human raised in an alien environment. Focus on the specifics, and these situations will become familiar not only to us, but to an audience.
Thus, a writer must know themselves, so that when they do imagine flying, they can place the sensation of the rush as they dive through the air as something akin to riding a roller coaster. So that when feel a rush as they ride a roller coaster, they can think: this is what superman feels like when he's flying.
Know yourself. Pay attention. And then write what you know.
Page One
I'm going to blather about my process, and talk too much about my story - because I'm working things out in my head.
Not long ago, I posted about the Script Frenzy writing project. I intended to participate, writing a new screenplay from scratch during the month of June.
Instead, I've gotten stuck on my rewrite of "From the Ashes," a script I wrote the first draft of three years ago and then lost, and found again. I love the imagery. I love the characters, and the protagonists arc. I love the theme... but I've realized that it's, well... boring.
I write my first draft by hand in a notebook, and as I type it up, I tweak it - solidifying the character's voices, improving action lines, smoothing out progression in scenes, adding transitions in or between scenes. As I was working through my hand-written draft, I realized that I had written the same two scenes over and over again, with tiny variations. There's no progress for the first 2/3 of the story - just tiny revelations about the characters. Not surprising, because when I wrote this - I was stuck myself, and the theme deals with my own issue. My own attempt to rise from the ashes. So I have a 70 page character study about two messed up people and one somewhat stable one who doesn't do much.
Great. Solid characters, but not a film. At least not one I would go see.
So I added a new opening with more on the backstory, because it's the protag's past which makes her present dillema so intense. But, well, it's backstory. So I took it out. Then added it back, and considered bringing more of that story into the present - making the two timelines overlap.
Backstory:
She was a model for a controversial fetish photographer, who was her husband. He was abusive, and that abuse became part of his art. She took it, because he was a "genius." Until she couldn't. Then he died - under circumstances she could have prevented but made the conscious choice not to.
Secondary character's backstory (not the antagonist, as the antagonist is herself): a kid, who, tries to show off for his mom who is a bit permissive and a little drunk at the time, has an accident which nearly kills him - and leaves him badly scarred, and (as we find out) epileptic.
The story opens with these two, a few years later, encountering one another. He's a teen and trying not to need his dad so much, mom is an absent parent - gone off to chase an adolescent dream. She is closed off and trying not to need anyone... but he latches on to her, and she finds herself befriending him. She needs to help him, but doesn't trust herself - worries that her baggage means that she'll do him more harm than good... but she also needs to redeem herself, and so, when she realizes the extent of his problems - rather than tell his father, she tries to "fix" things herself...
which is all I've really got for the first two acts.
So, next thing I do when I'm rewriting is to take all the scenes I have so far, write them on cards and shuffle them. I add new scenes, and take out scenes and set them aside. In reality, I do much of this in my head.
I've been writing poetry for nearly 30 years. My process with that is thus: I write it once on paper (sometimes, now, I do write it electronically.) Then, I write the whole thing again, simply transcribing it, making small tweaks. This may be on paper once more, or may be typing it into an e-doc. Same as I do with the screenplays. Next, I take every line and I put spaces between them, making them into separate entities. I may leave a few stanzas together, as I do sequences of scenes in a script - because I'm confident that the progression there is exactly as I want it. Then I shuffle. Sometimes a random re-arrangement gives new energy to tired lines, points to a new direction. Sometimes I end up putting things back much as they were. Sometimes I cut out most of it, keeping only a fraction of the original. And sometimes I add in a great deal more.
And often, I do all of that in my head - juggling images and lines. I've been doing it long enough that I can manage much of it that way, see the effect without actually executing it. (I do the same with recipes when I cook. I can taste how certain ingredients will effect one another before I put them in the pan together.)
So, while I haven't typed or written much in the last couple of weeks - I've stripped down and re-built this thing in my head several times. I scan the draft - and re-consider. Make a note or two. I've figured out which scenes contribute nothing new, and which are essential to the theme and the characters. Only a couple are essential to the plot, as thin as the plot is. I've merged two characters (in an already small cast.)
I decided I needed a strong subplot to liven things up.
I had the seed of one, but hadn't really brought it out - related to her modeling, rather than focusing on her as the widow of an abuser.
I looked at the logline again, and realized that the fact that she's a widow is nowhere near as interesting as the fact that she's a former fetish model. (Mentioning both makes it a bit clunky.) But if I call her that in the logline, I need to bring that element into play earlier.
And that's when the whole thing turned inside out.
I'm now switching my A story and my B story. Which means cutting way back on the boy, who I've written so many pages about. Simplifying his dilemma - so that I can focus on an entirely new dramatic conflict for my protagonist. One which is actually external. One which involves a real antagonist. And which externalizes the theme, so that the B story can be the internal struggle.
But that means I'm scrapping all but about ten scenes, and starting from scratch.
So it is: a page one re-write. Back to the outline. I hope to have the outline (an actual written one) complete by Friday, and "From the Ashes" will be my project for Script Frenzy.
Yes, I've talked a lot about my ideas. Am I worried someone might steal them? What, are you kidding? Because the story of a widowed fetish model and abuse victim and a troubled epileptic boy is so commercial? Even if I had the nearly 12,000 people reading this blog that I have as friends on my poetry profile - I doubt any of them would have the personal experience to elucidate those characters even if they wanted to. And I've not said anything about my new A plot, except that it ties back to the modeling.
Nah, this one's mine. It's personal. And now that I've found the key to making it a movie, I'm excited about it again, and making progress on paper and not just reconstructing in my head.
Not long ago, I posted about the Script Frenzy writing project. I intended to participate, writing a new screenplay from scratch during the month of June.
Instead, I've gotten stuck on my rewrite of "From the Ashes," a script I wrote the first draft of three years ago and then lost, and found again. I love the imagery. I love the characters, and the protagonists arc. I love the theme... but I've realized that it's, well... boring.
I write my first draft by hand in a notebook, and as I type it up, I tweak it - solidifying the character's voices, improving action lines, smoothing out progression in scenes, adding transitions in or between scenes. As I was working through my hand-written draft, I realized that I had written the same two scenes over and over again, with tiny variations. There's no progress for the first 2/3 of the story - just tiny revelations about the characters. Not surprising, because when I wrote this - I was stuck myself, and the theme deals with my own issue. My own attempt to rise from the ashes. So I have a 70 page character study about two messed up people and one somewhat stable one who doesn't do much.
Great. Solid characters, but not a film. At least not one I would go see.
So I added a new opening with more on the backstory, because it's the protag's past which makes her present dillema so intense. But, well, it's backstory. So I took it out. Then added it back, and considered bringing more of that story into the present - making the two timelines overlap.
Backstory:
She was a model for a controversial fetish photographer, who was her husband. He was abusive, and that abuse became part of his art. She took it, because he was a "genius." Until she couldn't. Then he died - under circumstances she could have prevented but made the conscious choice not to.
Secondary character's backstory (not the antagonist, as the antagonist is herself): a kid, who, tries to show off for his mom who is a bit permissive and a little drunk at the time, has an accident which nearly kills him - and leaves him badly scarred, and (as we find out) epileptic.
The story opens with these two, a few years later, encountering one another. He's a teen and trying not to need his dad so much, mom is an absent parent - gone off to chase an adolescent dream. She is closed off and trying not to need anyone... but he latches on to her, and she finds herself befriending him. She needs to help him, but doesn't trust herself - worries that her baggage means that she'll do him more harm than good... but she also needs to redeem herself, and so, when she realizes the extent of his problems - rather than tell his father, she tries to "fix" things herself...
which is all I've really got for the first two acts.
So, next thing I do when I'm rewriting is to take all the scenes I have so far, write them on cards and shuffle them. I add new scenes, and take out scenes and set them aside. In reality, I do much of this in my head.
I've been writing poetry for nearly 30 years. My process with that is thus: I write it once on paper (sometimes, now, I do write it electronically.) Then, I write the whole thing again, simply transcribing it, making small tweaks. This may be on paper once more, or may be typing it into an e-doc. Same as I do with the screenplays. Next, I take every line and I put spaces between them, making them into separate entities. I may leave a few stanzas together, as I do sequences of scenes in a script - because I'm confident that the progression there is exactly as I want it. Then I shuffle. Sometimes a random re-arrangement gives new energy to tired lines, points to a new direction. Sometimes I end up putting things back much as they were. Sometimes I cut out most of it, keeping only a fraction of the original. And sometimes I add in a great deal more.
And often, I do all of that in my head - juggling images and lines. I've been doing it long enough that I can manage much of it that way, see the effect without actually executing it. (I do the same with recipes when I cook. I can taste how certain ingredients will effect one another before I put them in the pan together.)
So, while I haven't typed or written much in the last couple of weeks - I've stripped down and re-built this thing in my head several times. I scan the draft - and re-consider. Make a note or two. I've figured out which scenes contribute nothing new, and which are essential to the theme and the characters. Only a couple are essential to the plot, as thin as the plot is. I've merged two characters (in an already small cast.)
I decided I needed a strong subplot to liven things up.
I had the seed of one, but hadn't really brought it out - related to her modeling, rather than focusing on her as the widow of an abuser.
I looked at the logline again, and realized that the fact that she's a widow is nowhere near as interesting as the fact that she's a former fetish model. (Mentioning both makes it a bit clunky.) But if I call her that in the logline, I need to bring that element into play earlier.
And that's when the whole thing turned inside out.
I'm now switching my A story and my B story. Which means cutting way back on the boy, who I've written so many pages about. Simplifying his dilemma - so that I can focus on an entirely new dramatic conflict for my protagonist. One which is actually external. One which involves a real antagonist. And which externalizes the theme, so that the B story can be the internal struggle.
But that means I'm scrapping all but about ten scenes, and starting from scratch.
So it is: a page one re-write. Back to the outline. I hope to have the outline (an actual written one) complete by Friday, and "From the Ashes" will be my project for Script Frenzy.
Yes, I've talked a lot about my ideas. Am I worried someone might steal them? What, are you kidding? Because the story of a widowed fetish model and abuse victim and a troubled epileptic boy is so commercial? Even if I had the nearly 12,000 people reading this blog that I have as friends on my poetry profile - I doubt any of them would have the personal experience to elucidate those characters even if they wanted to. And I've not said anything about my new A plot, except that it ties back to the modeling.
Nah, this one's mine. It's personal. And now that I've found the key to making it a movie, I'm excited about it again, and making progress on paper and not just reconstructing in my head.
Storytelling Objects: Props as Story Devices in Dead Again
I watched Dead Again for the umpteenth time. It's one of my favorite movies, but it's been a while since I'd seen it - and I've never listened to the writer's commentary on the film.
There were two aspects of the screenplay that he discussed which really interested me: the use of objects as storytelling devices
the modulation of tone in scenes
The plot of this story is complex. If you haven't seen it, you won't be able to follow my discussion... so go watch it already. It's great fun.
I think that the first subject is interesting, because as a writer, I find it easy to get too much in my head - and the real 3-D world of plastic, material objects can be overlooked. In Dead Again, objects are used as clues, as character development, to imply relationships between the present and the past, and to reveal plot points.
Minor objects include the gloves and furniture... The gloves. Grace has only one glove when Mike meets her. It's a clue - both about her, and it ends up being a clue about who is behind her attempted abduction. (Who could know she was missing a glove?)
Furniture - specifically chairs. Grace blocks her door at night with a chair. Mike collects furniture that could have been in Roman's home, and comments specifically on a chair (which she then uses to block her door.) When the adult Frankie comes into his home, he comments on one of the chairs, also subtly revealing his connection to that period. Couches - the first time Roman and Margaret have sex, they are wet on a couch, and the sex scene with Mike and Grace mirrors this.
The most important are the scissors, and the anklet.
The story revolves around a murder that was done with a pair or scissors. "Grace" (aka Amanda) dreams about them. We see several around Mike's house. In one scene, he uses them to cut up bacon while he's cooking.
They've been shown and we've built up fear around them - so the scene in which he tries clumsily to assure Grace that he's not dangerous works well. He storms around the house, pulling her along, picking up each pair of scissors and giving them to her, forcing them into her hand. This is also a nice way of showing that it was not he, but she, who held the scissors which were the murder weapon in the past.
When we finally take Grace/Amanda back to her house, we see that she's been obsessed with scissors for a while. Suddenly the three or four pair that Mike had don't look nearly so ominous as compared to the dozens of paintings and sculptures she has.
Then there are the actual scissors which were used in the murder. We see them in the memories, used to cur hair, sitting on a dresser... as well as in Grace's nightmares - where they threaten her, and finally in the scene of the actual murder. When the antiques collector pulls them out, and shows that he owns them now, we already know that it was he who used them to kill Margaret. The other scissors have all just been echoes of this pair, and none carry the threat that these do.
The anklet: This object has a myth attached to it. It becomes a symbol of their love, of their romance. When Frankie considers stealing it, it is a threat to the couple and not simply the theft of an object. When she wears it in to the party, and Gray Baker admires it - he is, unconsciously perhaps, not admiring her only, but admiring them as a couple. It connects Roman and Margaret for all time, two halves of one whole, so that they return to one another in their new life. When Frankie kills her, and takes the anklet, he pulls it - snapping the clasp, as though breaking the bond.
When Frankie's mother pulls it out to give it to Mike, it is as though she's been the guardian of the love for all these years. She was always the protector - of Frankie, but also of Roman... and despite his love for another woman, she preserved the symbol of his happiness. She returned it to Mike, and the return of the anklet precipitates the resolution, and thus ends the artificial separation between the lovers.
But before that can occur, of course, justice must be done and the murderer is done in by his own weapon - the original scissors are buried in his back.
Thus the two central symbols of the film are opposites - the scissors which divide, and the anklet which unites.
There were two aspects of the screenplay that he discussed which really interested me: the use of objects as storytelling devices
the modulation of tone in scenes
The plot of this story is complex. If you haven't seen it, you won't be able to follow my discussion... so go watch it already. It's great fun.
I think that the first subject is interesting, because as a writer, I find it easy to get too much in my head - and the real 3-D world of plastic, material objects can be overlooked. In Dead Again, objects are used as clues, as character development, to imply relationships between the present and the past, and to reveal plot points.
Minor objects include the gloves and furniture... The gloves. Grace has only one glove when Mike meets her. It's a clue - both about her, and it ends up being a clue about who is behind her attempted abduction. (Who could know she was missing a glove?)
Furniture - specifically chairs. Grace blocks her door at night with a chair. Mike collects furniture that could have been in Roman's home, and comments specifically on a chair (which she then uses to block her door.) When the adult Frankie comes into his home, he comments on one of the chairs, also subtly revealing his connection to that period. Couches - the first time Roman and Margaret have sex, they are wet on a couch, and the sex scene with Mike and Grace mirrors this.
The most important are the scissors, and the anklet.
The story revolves around a murder that was done with a pair or scissors. "Grace" (aka Amanda) dreams about them. We see several around Mike's house. In one scene, he uses them to cut up bacon while he's cooking.
They've been shown and we've built up fear around them - so the scene in which he tries clumsily to assure Grace that he's not dangerous works well. He storms around the house, pulling her along, picking up each pair of scissors and giving them to her, forcing them into her hand. This is also a nice way of showing that it was not he, but she, who held the scissors which were the murder weapon in the past.
When we finally take Grace/Amanda back to her house, we see that she's been obsessed with scissors for a while. Suddenly the three or four pair that Mike had don't look nearly so ominous as compared to the dozens of paintings and sculptures she has.
Then there are the actual scissors which were used in the murder. We see them in the memories, used to cur hair, sitting on a dresser... as well as in Grace's nightmares - where they threaten her, and finally in the scene of the actual murder. When the antiques collector pulls them out, and shows that he owns them now, we already know that it was he who used them to kill Margaret. The other scissors have all just been echoes of this pair, and none carry the threat that these do.
The anklet: This object has a myth attached to it. It becomes a symbol of their love, of their romance. When Frankie considers stealing it, it is a threat to the couple and not simply the theft of an object. When she wears it in to the party, and Gray Baker admires it - he is, unconsciously perhaps, not admiring her only, but admiring them as a couple. It connects Roman and Margaret for all time, two halves of one whole, so that they return to one another in their new life. When Frankie kills her, and takes the anklet, he pulls it - snapping the clasp, as though breaking the bond.
When Frankie's mother pulls it out to give it to Mike, it is as though she's been the guardian of the love for all these years. She was always the protector - of Frankie, but also of Roman... and despite his love for another woman, she preserved the symbol of his happiness. She returned it to Mike, and the return of the anklet precipitates the resolution, and thus ends the artificial separation between the lovers.
But before that can occur, of course, justice must be done and the murderer is done in by his own weapon - the original scissors are buried in his back.
Thus the two central symbols of the film are opposites - the scissors which divide, and the anklet which unites.
The Big Bucks to the Men
Not surprising since I've already noted the lack of women overall behind the camera in Hollywood, such as the abysmally low percentage of women directors (4-5%)... but I was curious how much was the most a woman had ever been paid for a screenplay.
Look at the following:
Top 11 Highest Paid Screenwriters
Screenwriter's Salaries
Highest Paid Screenwriters
In the first list, there are no women.
In the second, there is one woman's name attached to a produced screenplay - but the other (2 or 3) mentions of women on the second two pages are all for unproduced work. In fact, the highest amount offered to a woman was offered on the condition she step away from a project she'd written for herself - and she refused. (It hardly counts if she didn't even take the money.) All of the women on the list had male collaborators. The single produced script was co-authored by Anne-Marie Crichton and her husband - Michael... I feel somewhat certain it would have sold for as much without her name attached.
In response to this, I declare my intention to have the record for the most paid to a woman for a produced screenplay. So there.
Look at the following:
Top 11 Highest Paid Screenwriters
Screenwriter's Salaries
Highest Paid Screenwriters
In the first list, there are no women.
In the second, there is one woman's name attached to a produced screenplay - but the other (2 or 3) mentions of women on the second two pages are all for unproduced work. In fact, the highest amount offered to a woman was offered on the condition she step away from a project she'd written for herself - and she refused. (It hardly counts if she didn't even take the money.) All of the women on the list had male collaborators. The single produced script was co-authored by Anne-Marie Crichton and her husband - Michael... I feel somewhat certain it would have sold for as much without her name attached.
In response to this, I declare my intention to have the record for the most paid to a woman for a produced screenplay. So there.
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