When Is The Tedium Just Too Tedious?

I didn’t know much about the film “Chronic” before sitting down to see it here at the Palm Springs International Film Festival. I knew it starred Tim Roth, who can currently be seen staring down adversaries in “The Hateful Eight.” After walking what appeared to be a “walkable distance” from another location (it was not), I didn’t much care what it was about; I was just glad to finally be sitting down.

Image from "Chronic" courtesy of Wild Bunch

“Chronic” was written, directed, and produced by Michel Franco and made its debut at the Cannes Film Festival in 2015. The film follows the days and sometimes nights of Roth’s character, a home health care nurse, as he lifts, feeds, and bathes patients dealing with a host of debilitating ailments, ranging from the frustrating immobility of a recent stroke to the haunting effects of chemotherapy treatments. And when I say it follows him lifting and feeding and bathing his patients, I don’t mean that it shows snippets of such activities in order to give us a primer on what he does. Instead, the film shows the tedium of these dignity-destroying scenes nearly in real time, or at least what feels like real time. It reminded me of watching the characters in Michael Haneke’s “Amour,” as the husband helps his struggling wife get from one side of the room to the other, and we the audience watch nearly every painstaking step. These scenes can illustrate for the audience just how long it takes, just how much patience it takes, to accomplish what would have otherwise been quick and efficient tasks.  They can invoke empathy and understanding. But at what point is it just tedious?

Image from "Chronic" courtesy of Wild Bunch

At what point do you say…okay, I get it, now get on with it? “Chronic” takes its time setting up Roth’s day-to-day. There is no point at which the plot then switches to something else. It’s not as if the first act is setting up that Roth is a home health care nurse before he robs a bank or before he gets carjacked. His job is part of his backstory, or perhaps a result of it, and it’s what will ultimately contribute to his fate. And the long, seemingly monotonous scenes lull the audience into thinking there’s not much more… until the film slaps you across the face and pummels you like a rag doll with its loud gasp-provoking final scene. It’s an ending that you will either find brilliant or infuriating, or both, but tedious it is not.   

What Story Analysts Do and Don't Do: The Interview

What do Story Analysts really do? The easiest answer, especially when meeting someone new, is to say "we read screenplays." That's part of the job. But it really depends on for what company or person we are doing the reading. I discussed that with Brianne Hogan of Creative Screenwriting magazine, who recently interviewed me for her "Meet the Reader" feature.

We talked about multi-tasking, writing exercises, and why writers need to think like writers. Check it out, along with the online magazine's other great resources.

Your Outline Is Your Road Map

You’ve got a great idea for a movie. You jot down a few notes, buy some screenwriting software, click around a bit, and you’re off! Soon you’re writing clever dialogue and exciting action. And then around page 67 or so things start to fizzle. You lose your way. It’s like hopping in the car and setting out to drive to new destination without consulting a road map. You’re blissfully driving down the freeway without realizing you’ve missed your exit. You take the next exit. You make a wrong turn.  Soon you’re on a dead-end street. That’s what writing a screenplay without an outline is like. It’s fun at first, but then you lose your way.

Your outline is your road map. It’s going to help you get where you need to go. Use your outline to work out the kinks. Where are you introducing your characters? Where is your inciting incident? Are the beats of the story progressing so your character is getting from points A to B to C, or are you missing B? Are you successfully setting up the climactic sequence? These issues are a lot easier to hammer out in outline form than in a 100+ page screenplay. Writing a good outline takes time and effort. But once you have a solid, workable outline, you can follow it like a map when you go to script. Realizing you need another clue for your protagonist to uncover to solve the murder mystery is easier on page seven of your outline than it is once you’ve gotten to the page 107 of your script.

As a Story Analyst I can often tell when a writer didn’t take the time and effort to write an outline. I can tell they didn’t consult the map and they got lost. It shows on the page. Sometime it shows up in the form of a timeline that doesn’t track, or a plot development that doesn’t seem to fit with the rest of the story, or a twist ending that is not credible. So take the time to write the outline. Consult the road map. It will get you where you need to go.

On Craft: The Origins of "A War"

His own life, "only more dramatic." That's how the Danish writer/director Tobias Lindholm ("A Hijacking") described how he came up with some of the home life scenes in his latest film "A War." The film follows a soldier, Claus Pedersen, stationed in Afghanistan (played by Pilou Asbæk, who I will dub "the Danish Joshua Jackson") and his wife, Maria, who is taking care of three young children back home.

Image from "A War" courtesy of Magnolia Pictures

Claus commands a group of soldiers who go on patrol in Afghanistan and seem to simultaneously terrify and reassure the locals. In one particular scene, with bullets flying and chaos in the air, Claus makes a split-second decision that will come to haunt him later.

Image from "A War" courtesy of Magnolia Pictures.

At a recent Los Angeles Times Envelope screening of "A War" Lindholm described the origins of the story. He had read an article about a soldier who had been on multiple tours of duty and who said he wasn't afraid of being killed; he was afraid of being prosecuted once he got back home, because of the strict rules of engagement and a growing public sentiment that demanded someone be held responsible for the bad things that happen in war zones. I've often said newspapers and magazines are a treasure trove of story ideas for screenwriters. This is a great example of that. Lindholm didn't write a story about that real soldier, but rather he wrote a story about a fictional soldier with that real soldier's fear in mind.

Image from "A War" courtesy of Magnolia Pictures

In the home scenes, in which Maria juggles three young children, each processing and dealing with their father's prolonged absence in their own way. (Variety calls the film "impeccably sensitive.") One of the children gets in trouble at school and another child's mishap prompts a run to the emergency room, with Maria forced to drag the other two along. Lindholm told the audience those home scenes were inspired by his own life, only more dramatic. That's an important point: "only more dramatic." Lindholm, father of three, had himself made a run to the ER for one of the children, with the other two in tow while his wife was out. His own experience wasn't as dramatic as in the film. But he mined his own experiences and then heightened them. All writers have events in their own lives that can be mined for ideas and then made more dramatic.

Lindholm, who described casting real former soldiers and casting real Afghan refugees as villagers, excels at character and authenticity, which go hand in hand. To capture the most authentic reaction, he did not give his lead actor the last five pages of the script. In the Afghanistan-set scenes, his lead actor had to wait for the translators to speak and really listen to what they were saying.

Lindholm's previous film "A Hijacking," which also starred Pilou Asbæk, is about what happens when Somali pirates overtake a Danish cargo ship. It's a character drama mixed with thriller elements. If I were in the business of inventing genres, I'd call it a "character thriller." Asbæk plays the ship's cook, who is used as a conduit, or pawn really, in the pirates' negotiations with the shipping company's increasingly frustrated CEO back in Denmark.

Image from "A Hijacking" courtesy of Magnolia Pictures

Image from "A Hijacking" courtesy of Magnolia Pictures

 The cook is at the bottom of the proverbial corporate food chain; the CEO is at the top. One is a physical hostage and the other a metaphorical hostage, and how each deals with the situation and the decisions each make have great impact on the other. It's a great study in character, in a setting that would otherwise be considered prime action territory. Both "A Hijacking" and "A War" are excellent studies in character development and authenticity. "A War" premiered at the Venice Film Festival and will be released by Magnolia Pictures in the U.S. in April. It is Denmark's entry for the Oscar for Best Foreign Language Film.

On Craft: Fashionably Late in "Brooklyn"

The beautifully old-fashioned and cleverly modern tale that is "Brooklyn" has examples of a lesson I'm always hammering on in my script feedback notes for writers: get in late and get out early. In and out of what? Scenes. It means you start the scene "late," or after it would start if it was real life playing out in real time, and get out "early," or before the scene would end in real life. It cuts out the boring greetings and salutations that would occur. That's the pointless, boring, idle chit-chat. And that pointless chit-chat can be deadly in a script. Better to skip it and be fashionably late to the scene.

Fox Searchlight Pictures

In "Brooklyn," adapted for the screen by Nick Hornby, who knows his way around a story, there's a scene in which Saoirse Ronan's character is meeting her new boyfriend's family. She's lovely and charming and will make a good first impression. And the boyfriend's family members are minor supporting characters that don't affect the story much. So, instead of "hi, how are you, nice to meet you" and all that, the sequence goes from a scene in which Saoirse's character and the boyfriend are standing outside his door to them at the dinner table,  mid-meal and conversation. Because it's after everyone is nice and relaxed and the conversation is flowing freely that something interesting happens. The boyfriend let's something slip that affects the story.

No pointless chit-chat. They got in late, and got out early, skipping the "thanks for dinner" and "lovely to meet you" salutations that would happen if the scenes were playing out in real time, but that would have no bearing on the story, and instead resuming the sequence with a scene outside, after dinner and another conversation that affects the story. That's just one example of getting in late and getting out early in this fine film. There are countless others. For writers this is a reminder to take a close look at your script's scenes. Are you getting in late and getting out early?

Are You an Amateur Writer or an Undiscovered Writer?

Story Analysts, such as myself, often use the work "amateur" when writing about or discussing scripts. "This reads like an amateur script..." Or, "Such-and-such is clearly an amateur writer." So, do we mean this in the pejorative sense? Generally, yes. Is that fair? Probably not. While "amateur" can mean someone who isn't getting paid to write, or hasn't landed representation, "amateur" is often used as a shorthand to denote work that doesn't look or read like a professional script. There's something about it, maybe it's clunky exposition or incorrect formatting, that doesn't pass muster. But sometimes writers who are not getting paid to write or haven't landed representation write well enough to pass their work off as professional. I consider these writers "undiscovered." There's nothing pejorative about that. It actually sounds quite hopeful and full of possibilities. So, are you an amateur writer or are you undiscovered?

Let the blogging begin...

The Premise and Plot blog, an offshoot of my Synoptic Media site, is up and running! This blog will be a resource for people who write screenplays, for people who read screenplays either for work or fun, and for people who are avid film fans. Watch this space for insight, analysis, tips, advice, perspective and critiques of screenplays and the movies they become.