Cinematic Writing

It surprises me, talking to folks who are new to screenwriting, how many of them don't have a movie in their head. If you don't see a film, how are you going to make anyone else see it? They are telling a story, not creating a film. This often becomes clear if you ask them - what is character y doing while x and z are talking here? Or some other detail about something they put in the room and then left alone. They aren't *seeing* the scene.

Of course, I've always imagined somewhat cinematically. Even my most abstract poems (with the exception of a couple of grad-school literary cut-up experiments) run in my head as a short film. And I can tell you what every detail of each frame looks like.

Then there's the other sticking point - once you have the movie in your head, knowing how much to put down on paper to evoke those images in another person's head. Most of us have been told enough times not to overwrite that it's less common to see an overly florid screenplay than one which chooses such generic descriptions/dialogue that they flatten out and the flavor of the imagined story is lost. You can do a lot with the flavor of the language, rather than endless description - something I learned from poetry.

Yes, the language of a screenplay is stripped down, basic and straight-forward. That doesn't mean it can't be evocative. Your hero can walk down a wet street, or they can splash through the wet grime of rain-slicked asphalt.

My signature on Triggerstreet is: "Don't tell me the moon is shining; show me the glint of light on broken glass..." (Chekhov) and it illustrated perfectly what I mean. The moon may be shining, but what we see is the glint of light...and that piece of glass can add to a threatening or a down-trodden tone, depending on context.

Every word matters, every word is a chance to evoke the movie you see, in your reader's head.

Three Colors

I recently watched each of the three films in Kieslowski's Three Colors trilogy. I've been meaning to write about them, but haven't been able to focus my thoughts. (I get like that when I'm stressed. Which is why I never get much writing done when I'm unemployed, despite having so much time. Too worried about running out of money.)

At any rate - I'm sitting down to make my attempt.

Usually, before I write about a film, I read up on it and listen to the commentary. I didn't listen to the commentary on these, because I wanted to simply experience them - all three - as a whole. Eventually I'll buy them and listen to all the commentaries, but for now I'm just going on my own impressions. I have read a little about them, did before watching them. I'd originally heard of them through the commentary on Heaven, which was written by Kieslowski as part of another trilogy, but not made until after his death. It was directed by Twyker, and I found it after watching Twyker's The Princess and the Warrior, which was a wonderful portrayal of the differences in the way men and women communicate and relate to others. I watched Heaven, knowing nothing about its history, which was only alluded to briefly in the commentary.

So I looked up the Three Colors, and found that many people believe Blue is among the most finely crafted, perfect films ever made. When approaching movies these days, I try to learn very little about them in advance. I find that I am more likely to enjoy them if I go in without many expectations of what they should be... and sometimes I end up disliking a film that others I respect are saying is brilliant.

Well, in this case I am in accordance with those who think that Three Colors are brilliant.

I am glad I decided to watch all three films within a few days of each other. Though the stories are not a trilogy in the sense of being three parts of the same story with the same characters, no "part II & III" here, they are thematically related, and there is a definite emotional and spiritual progression across all three.

The theme of Red, the third film, is in fact the theme of all three - though it approaches it more directly: the human need for connection.

Each film uses color thematically, though Kieslowski employs it in different ways in each.

In Blue, it represents her grief. Some people have said it represents her moments of peace, but I think that's wrong. It's her most intense moments of feeling, when she immerses herself in the grief. And in some of those moments she finds a kind of peace. The color is tied to the memories and feelings she's trying to cast away. Ultimately, she's unable to disconnect herself, and it's only through accepting her connections, and through immersing herself in memories that she is able to move forward. The completion of her husband's final work, a piece about unification, is the act by which she
a) remembers her husband on a personal level
b) memorializes him in the public sphere
c) channels her emotions into a creative work
d) uses her connection and memory to move forward into the future and establish herself as her own person

Blue is almost meditative. Powerful and intense, the protagonist spends so much time alone that there is very little dialogue, and the music and the images (including Binoche's superbly subtle acting) tell the story.

Grief is difficult to portray. It can become melodrama so easily. This film, however, perfectly captured something quite close to my own experience of it. Even for those who do not go to such extremes to leave their old life behind, you do feel very much alone. You feel like your grief separates you from the world, from everyone around you (ironic, since it's a universal experience - the loss of loved ones.)

I must confess - as much as I was appreciative of the film and recognize its genius (a word I don't use casually), as much as I love the poetry of its images and deftness of the acting... I did not love Blue. I found it too difficult to watch, too unnerving, too uncomfortable. All of which simply underscore the brilliance, but it was simply too close to home for me.

One of the three screenplays I'm working on now centers around a young widow who is afraid of being touched and who must decide whether to memorialize her husband's legacy as an artist, or to let it go and move on with her life. And it does so, because that is my own story. My own process. And it's one which still continues and is still quite sharp and painful (even after ten years.) So, no - I was not able to really enjoy Blue as much as it deserved.


White uses the thematic color to represent an man's idealized vision of his wife. She is blonde and pale, and he has a bust which reminds him of her white skin. He remembers, over and over, her in her wedding dress. It's a little harder to spot the use of color in white. It doesn't saturate the way that Blue and Red do, but it's still a frequent presence.

Of the three, White has the most external story. It's funny - and makes light of dark subjects. The protagonist spends the film trying to get back home, make himself a "better" man, and re-capture the love of his cruel but beautiful wife. If this were an American film, we'd spend the movie psychoanalyzing why he would want to win back such a bitch, but Kieslowski never bothers to ask - because the answer is obvious. What man doesn't want the love of a beautiful woman? To impress her with his success and make her belong to him?

Her cruelty and capriciousness is no different from the cruelty of the world itself. She is a force of nature, an ideal which he strives for. She doesn't ever become quite real, and this is exactly how she is meant to be.

Whereas the protagonist in Blue goes to great lengths to run away from her connection with others, the protagonist in White goes to great (even absurd) lengths to assert his connection to one specific other...but his path to her ends up creating and strengthening his connections to the rest of the people in his life.


In Red, there's no mistaking the presence of the color. It's there in almost every shot, sometimes a spot of color, an accent, and often in great washes of red that take up most of the screen.

I found myself puzzling over the specific thematic correlation. In the other films, the titular color was used in very specific ways, to represent the emotion at the core of the story. In Red, it's so pervasive, I wasn't able to find any common thread. But by the end of the movie, I realized that was precisely the point.

Red is about connections. Chance, or purposeful. The ways that we brush up against one another, and suddenly find ourselves looking into another person's eyes and really seeing them, listening to another person's words and really hearing them. It's almost a shock when it happens, and yet it has a pleasant warmth - much like the color red.

Of the three, though I can recognize Blue as more finely crafted, I personally enjoyed Red the most. It is a story driven by chance. The characters seem buffeted about by fate or some other mysterious force. They do not make their most meaningful connections by choice... but it is by their choices that they are taken to them, and by choice that they recognize and nurture them.

All three films employ chance in a way that could easily ruin a story in lesser hands. Coincidence is tricky. It usually feels too convenient, too pat. It feels forced. Three Colors, however, are a study of what happens to people in the face of the random (or is it) whims of fate. It is through random chance that we find our most meaningful moments. The protagonist in Red seems to embrace this fully, and in the end is led to the possibility of love.

I could go on more about the symbolism in this last film... the seven puppies, the seven stones, the seven survivors. Several specific instances of chance, the similarity to Amelie... but I just noticed it's 3:55am. I really ought to go to bed.

Perhaps I'll further amend this in the future, but not likely.

One more word, though... I found Red to be one of the most romantic movies I've ever seen, and I'm such a sucker for that.

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.

Painting Pictures with Light and Words

Originally posted here

When you are writing the script, what is driving it? Is it character? Plot? Structure? Do you see the words in your head, hear the dialogue, know the characters as if you remember them like old friends (or enemies)?

Or do you see the movie, and set about describing it?

I was surprised in a recent thread on Triggerstreet, that I seem to be among the minority in being a visually driven screenwriter. People were talking about their technique, about what they begin with, how they develop the story - and among all of the comments, I was the only one who said I began with an image.

I'm sure there are others, but what I mean is this:

I start with an image. Every idea for a poem, or a screenplay, or novel, or anything I've attempted - starts with an image. Sometimes static, sometimes moving. I can describe every nuance of that image: the textures, the focus, the light.

From that image, I figure out what is happening, and to whom. The story and the characters come from the image.

As I outline, and write my scenes, I have an image of them in my head. Usually, from the original image, I get a series of other images.

For example:

one script (which is now taking a very different direction) began with the image of a large white cat with a red collar, sitting on the chest of a dead man in a snow-blanketed forest, looking him in the face. The man was asian, and had a moustache, which had frosted over from his breath - so I knew he had been alive recently, and yet he was quite pale and frozen.

other images that came up while outlining: a man with golden skin and a pretty (yes, pretty) face, dressed as a warrior, barechested - the sun shines behind him as he rides a large horse with a golden mantle, beside him is a rough-looking bearded man, and just behind - a boy on a pony with a banner, also in gold. Several yards behind are more mounted men.

A pale asian woman in white, with a red collar around her neck, walking around a battlefield among the dead - she bends to one man who is gasping for breath. He smiles slightly as she caresses his cheek, but then, as she brings her her lips close to his - panic flits across his face for a brief moment. She breathes in, and his eyes glaze over.

The golden man, sleeps in a sumptuous tent on the battlefield, on furs laid across a divan. Beside him is a morrocan-style table, sexagonal and elegantly carved. On the table rests a silver bowl filled with oranges. The pale woman stands a few feet from him, looking down on him. She reaches a hand cautiously toward his face, as though warming it at a fire, and holds it there. She edges closer, and grasps one of the oranges. As her hand closes on it, his hand closes on her wrist. He turns his head and opens his eyes to see who the orange thief is, and blinks in wonder. She pulls away and in three steps, disappears from sight - without disturbing the door to the tent or the guards posted outside.


When you have the film in your head, and write from that - describing what you see, then it's rare to write "unfilmables." And yet, with these purely visual scenes, I was able to learn about my characters, and see the potential story between them.

By seeing the scenes clearly, you also can find ways to hint at camera direction without spelling it out. For instance, the last scene might be scripted something like this (note, this is NOT from the actual script, I'm just winging it)

Rei sleeps in a sumptuous tent on the battlefield, on furs laid across a divan. Beside him is a morrocan-style table, sexagonal and elegantly carved. On the table rests a silver bowl filled with oranges.

Itsura stands a few feet from him, looking down on him. She reaches a hand cautiously toward his face, as though warming it at a fire, and holds it there.

She edges closer, and grasps one of the oranges.

As her hand closes on it, his hand closes on her wrist.

He turns his head and opens his eyes to see who the orange thief is, and blinks in wonder.

She pulls away and in three steps, disappears from sight - without disturbing the door to the tent or the guards posted outside.

-----

I threw some names on the characters, his derived from him being the king - and of the sun, hers similar to the Japanese word for frozen... but other than that, just broke up the paragraph of description in a way that suggests the shots as I see them in the film. It suggests that the camera is focused on him, lying on the divan, pulls back to show her nearby

Then the focus is on her, as she moves forward, and then a close shot on her hand and the oranges - and then his hand.

Then it pulls back to show his face, and back again to encompass both of them, closing with a shot of the tent doors, and the silhouettes of the guard.

Now, I'm certainly not saying this is the right way to write a screenplay... I'm still a novice, so I can't even say that it's a good way... but I read so many screenplays that have unfilmable scenes, or scenes where the action doesn't quite make sense - or where opportunities for visual themes are missed - and I wonder if the writer was seeing the movie.

Do you see the movie when you write? At what point do the images coalesce for you?