Sunday, January 24, 2010

Things I Learned from DIE HARD, Part III: Quick Roads to Character

As soon as a screenwriter begins the first page, the clock is ticking when it comes to establishing everything the audience needs to know and understand about the characters. If you wish your plot to stick to a strong, traditional three-act structure (as 99.9% of successful screen stories do), your inciting incident (the event that creates your story's main conflict and launches the story into motion) must occur somewhere between twelve to seventeen minutes into the film. Do it too late and you risk putting the audience to sleep before the story even starts moving. This means you have only about fifteen pages to create your story's entire SETUP. If your story is going to work well, it is a must that your protagonist (at least, if not more characters) be firmly established by then. The audience must have a good idea of who this person is, what they want or need out of life, and how they tend to behave in given situations.
 
Why? Because the inciting incident is a point of no return. Once it occurs, the story is set in motion and must stay in motion. We will no longer have the time to stop and casually get to know the people who occupy the story. Secondly and more importantly, the audience needs to get to know these people before they see them in action. If you expect the audience to understand and care about what the characters are trying to do, and especially if you want your audience to root for these characters to succeed, you must do what is necessary to make your characters the audience's “friends” before the main conflict gets moving.
 
To do this, you need to find ways to communicate a lot of character information in a quick, easy to understand way, while at the same time keeping the story setup steadily moving toward the inciting incident. Die Hard demonstrates three devices that should be in every screenwriter's toolkit to do just that.

CHARACTERIZATION THROUGH CONTRAST
 
Die Hard shows that the quickest and easiest way to establish just what kind of person your protagonist is, is to put him/her face-to-face with exactly what he/she is NOT. 
  
Die Hard's protagonist John McClane is a blue-collar New York cop. He lives by working-class values and is proud of it. Like most of his ilk, he doesn't like to talk much and definitely does not discuss his feelings. But he is also a man of integrity, a guy who sticks to his guns to the point of stubbornness. Now, we can see bits and pieces of this information throughout the setup by John's actions and reactions to the world around him. However, John's most basic traits are never communicated in sharper focus than when John is forced to interact with another character who embodies the exact OPPOSITE trait(s) as John.

Throughout the setup, John is forced to interact with characters who could not be more different from him in some way or another. And just as the color white looks brightest when put next to black, just as noise seems the loudest when it follows silence, the contrast between these traits makes John's personality stand out far more than it would on its own.
 
John's “strong, silent” persona never seems more obvious than when he is with the loquacious Argyle. We see clearly how low-cultured John is when put side-by-side with refined and charming Mr. Takagi. John's quiet integrity speaks loud when he's with the sleazeball Ellis. His working-class pride is obvious by the patronizing manner he uses with the yuppie traveler sitting next to him on the plane. 
  
It's like that old joke about going to the club with your ugliest friends so you look more attractive. The quickest way to make character traits clear and obvious is to contrast them with their opposite.

TELLING ACTIONS
 
Director John McTiernan does not like to open his scenes with faces. He likes hands. He likes feet. McTiernan tends to start scenes emphasizing the action being performed over who is performing it. Most of the time, a face proves unnecessary because the audience can figure out who the hands or feet belong to. (Count how many scenes in Die Hard begin with John McClane's bare feet. Since the audience knows that John lost his shoes and socks, every time they see bare feet, they know it is him.)
 
This technique becomes capable of communicating a large amount of character information whenever Die Hard introduces a character for the VERY FIRST TIME. The creators of Die Hard have sought to do something impressive with the audience's first impressions. Instead of first showing a neutral shot of a person's face, they open with the character doing something that in some way sums up what type of person we are about to meet. They introduce the character with a TELLING ACTION.
 
Take the introduction of Sgt. Al Powell. We learn in the preceding scene that the police dispatcher will send a single cop to check out John's distress call from Nakatomi Tower. Cut to a convenience store where we see the front of a police uniform, its owner loading up his arms with gooey, unhealthy Hostess snack cakes.
The audience can safely assume that this is going to be the cop who is going to get the call. But what do we immediately learn about this guy from his first shot? He's soft, out of shape. Like the cakes he eats, he's probably gooey, sweet, and sort of an overgrown kid. Definitely not the top cop John would like to see get the job. It also makes the average person in the audience automatically relate to Al more than they would a top cop. He's an everyman. He craves the same tasty junk we do. If health were not a concern, we would probably be loading up our arms with this stuff every time we went into a convenience store as well. We get all of this info before we even see Al Powell's face.

We don't get to see Holly Gennaro's face for almost her entire opening scene. Instead, we get the back of her head. But we can tell a lot about what kind of woman she is by what she is doing. Holly is bustling through the corridors of Nakatomi Corp, keeping a laser focus on her work in the middle of the office Christmas party. Before we see her face we know that she is driven, no-nonsense, and may put way more focus on her work than her relationships.



I find John McClane's opening shot to be the most interesting because rather than communicate what John is, it tells us what he is NOT. When an audience comes to the theater to see an action film, they come with certain predisposed ideas about the protagonist. They expect the stereotypical hard-as-nails badass, a man without fear, always willing to shoot first and ask questions later. But our first shot of John McClane is of his hand gripping the armrest of his airplane seat in FEAR. Although John may act tough and stoic when he relates to people, we know from this opening action that John does not have nerves of steel. He is capable of fear, anxiety, indecision. This one shot helps establish the type of person John is at the start of his character arc compared to what story events turn him into in the end. (Remember that John remains reluctant to take on traditional action hero behavior until halfway through the movie. Until then, he tries to hide from the terrorists, arrest the terrorists, and avoid shooting the terrorists.)
 
Supporting characters also receive quick and easy character establishment from a telling action. We first meet ethically-challenged reporter Dick Thornburg on the phone, trying to impress a woman with how his phony connections can get him dinner reservations. The reckless and foolhardy Lt. Robinson is first seen flying dangerously onto the scene in his car and immediately barking orders even though he does not yet know what is going on. Theo's twisted sense of humor is quickly communicated when he enters Nakatomi talking about a Laker's game seconds before Karl executes the lobby guard.

FORCED EXPOSITION
 
Some character information has to be spoken aloud for the audience to receive it. This is never ideal, but often important backstory cannot be communicated in any other way. The worst way to provide this is information to have a character just come out and say it. Many mediocre writers present character background with “cocktail party” scenes. Two characters meet, and they voluntarily tell each other everything the audience needs to know. Not only is this poor dramatic writing, it is implausible. Outside of an actual cocktail party, you will rarely meet someone who will simply volunteer personal information to another person, whether that person is a stranger or someone they have known for years. If you ever do encounter a person like this, most people will be put off simply because it is so unusual.
 
This leads to a hard and simple rule about exposition. No character must ever volunteer information. Whatever they give, they should do so only because a situation FORCES them. Your characters are people. And most people like to keep their mouth shut and just live their lives. If you have a piece of information you need a character to tell the world, the writer's duty must be to put the character into a situation where the character is FORCED to do so. 
  
As an example, one essential piece of John McClane's background is that he is an experienced officer of the NYPD. Now, John would never be the type of guy who would say “Hi, I'm a cop.” Instead, the situation forces him to reveal this. In the opening scene, John gets out of his airplane seat to reach for his luggage. As he does this, the yuppie traveler in the next seat sees that John is carrying a gun -- something that would scare anyone on an airplane. When John noticed the reaction, the situation forces him to say, “It's okay. I'm a cop.” Then, to riff off the yuppie's previous line, “Trust me. I've been doing this for eleven years.”
 
At this point, we have met our protagonist, but we have yet to learn his name. He does not volunteer this information either. Once again, the writers put John into a situation where he is forced to reveal this information. John is in the Los Angeles airport. Pan over to a limo driver holding sign which reads, “MCCLANE”. Now if John wishes to get his ride from the airport, he must walk up to this man and proclaim, “Hey. I'm John McClane.”
 
For tougher exposition, information where a simple forced situation won't do, conflict works wonders. One of my favorite scenes of the entire film is John's limo ride with Argyle. Here, John spills the entire backstory about why he's here and why his marriage is in trouble. But again, he doesn't volunteer it. He is forced to do so through conflict.


(sorry about the crappy formatting. I can't figure out how to get it right on blogger)

INT. LIMO – DAY
 
Both Argyle and McClane are in the front seat.

ARGYLE
Relax, man. We got everything in here:
CD, CB, TV, VHS, telephone, full bar.
 
He looks in the back seat, which is occupied by the bear.
 
ARGYLE
If your friend is hot to trot...I know a couple of
mama bears we could hook up with.
(turning to McClane)
...Or is he married?
 
MCCLANE
He's married.
 
McClane tries to get comfortable, scowls as a RUSTLING NOISE reveals wrappers and styrofoam from Taco Bell.
 
ARGYLE
Sorry about that. It's the girl's day off. Hey, I
didn't know you were going to sit up front.
(back to the topic)
So, your lady live out here?
 
MCCLANE
For the past six months.
 
ARGYLE
Meaning, you still live in New York?
 
MCCLANE
You always ask this many questions, Argyle?
 
ARGYLE
Sorry, man. I used to drive a cab, People would
expect a little chit chat. So are you divorced?
 
MCCLANE
Just drive the car, man.
 
ARGYLE
Come on! You're divorced, you're separated?
She beat you up?
 
McClane gives up.
 
MCCLANE
She had a good job, it turned into a great career.
 
ARGYLE
But meant she had to move here.
 
MCCLANE
You're very fast, Argyle.
 
ARGYLE
So, why didn't you come?
 
McClane declines to answer.
 
ARGYLE (cont'd)
Why didn't you come with her man, what's up?
 
MCCLANE
'Cause I'm a New York cop, and I got six
months backlog of New York scumbags
I'm still trying to put behind bars.
I don't just can't pick up and go.
 
ARGYLE
In other words, you thought she wouldn't
make it out here and she'd come
crawling on back, so why bother to pack?
 
MCCLANE
Like I said, you're very fast Argyle.
 
ARGYLE
(popping in a cassette)
Mind if I play some tunes?
 
This scene work so well expositionally because the information is communicated through conflicting scene objectives. Argyle is the type of person who loves to talk, and isn't comfortable just sitting in silence. So, Argyle's scene objective is TO GET JOHN TO TALK. John on the other hand, does not like to talk and definitely doesn't like to talk about personal issues. His objective is to GET ARGYLE TO SHUT UP. And, just like in any scene conflict, the character who is more dedicated to their objective wins. Jon figures out that the only way to get Argyle to be quiet is to give in and give Argyle the information he wants. Also, take note that this confession is not just John spilling his guts. Most of what we learn about John comes not from John, but Argyle. Argyle's character acts like the audience's guide in this scene. He asks the questions the audience needs to know, and he puts together the clues for them. We learn what we need about John, and at the same time John's dominant trait, his tough, non-communicative nature, remains intact.
 

Sunday, January 17, 2010

The Confusitorium of Dr. Parnasssus

I think this one picture says it all.


I've chosen to take a detour from my scheduled series of articles. Not that I don't want to continue, it's just that sometimes I see a movie in which the script misfires so badly that I feel I cannot get over it until I do something about it. (See my May '08 article)
 
It pains me to write this article. Among filmmakers, I have always considered Terry Gilliam to be one of my role models. When I first saw Brazil at age 18, it changed my life. Until then, I never knew that a movie could be like that. As a self-proclaimed absurdist, I always felt a connection to Gilliam's bottomless imagination, his pessimistic fantasism, his irony pushed to its extreme. Gilliam always had a knack for finding the silly side of horror, and the grotesque side of the wholesome. And how much do young cinestes love to sympathize with the so-called “cursed genius,” a filmmaker who seems to have drama and misfortune fall upon every film he creates. Fans love to consider him as a poor underrated autuer, a tragic figure to the proportions of Greek myth, constantly kept from his rightful place in the heavens by the interference of studio nincompoops and bizarre acts of God. No one felt this way more than me. Which was why I was so excited to see The Imaginarium of Doctor Parnassus on its opening weekend.
 
And boy was I disappointed. Sure it was silly. Sure it was imaginative, ironic, fantastic and grotesque. Unfortunately, I know as a storyteller that none of these things mean a tinker's damn if it lacking in a certain important area.
 
What I remember most from the screening is me shifting in my seat – a lot. And feeling a sort of dull sensation right behind my forehead, the same sensation I feel every day on my hour-long commute home from work on the 10 freeway. My roommate was sitting next to me, and I also remember him shifting in his seat – a lot.
 
English is not my roommate's first language so, thinking he had maybe missed something important in the fast-spoken dialogue, he asked me on the way out of the theater, “So what was the deal with that flute Heath Ledger's character was always trying to swallow?”
My reply, “I have no freaking idea.”
His next question, “Okay. Why did all those people want to kill Heath Ledger?”
My answer, again, “I have no freaking idea.”
 
And it went on like that. See, no matter what language you speak, the problem with Imaginarium is that, despite its dazzling, mind-warping CGI, aside from its kooky, crazy, imaginative imagery, it is basically a movie with a story that doesn't make a LICK of sense! The film's premise is completely confused from the beginning to the end. The audience never really understands at any point just what the characters are trying to accomplish or for what reasons they wish to do it. Why is Parnassus putting on his Imaginarium show on the streets of London? What does he hope to gain from it? How exactly does the Imaginarium work? We are told that Parnassus has made a number of bets with the Devil. But the terms of the bet are never really explained. Neither is the reason why the Devil wished to make a bet in the first place. What in it for the Devil? How exactly does the Imaginarium “win souls”? Why is Ledger's character Tony first found hanging by a rope from a bridge? Why didn't he die? Why does Tony choose to join the show? What does he hope to accomplish? Why does Parnassus's daughter want to voluntarily throw herself into hell? Why is the Devil upset when he wins the bet? Why does the Devil want Tony dead?
 
It's not that Parnassus has a complicated story. The story is in fact very simplistic. It is just that none of these questions are ever, ever explained to the audience in a satisfactory way. And this is just a sampling the loose threads, logical holes, and unexplained information that plagues this movie from beginning to end. Imaginarium is so confused that it doesn't even seem sure of who it's protagonist is, Dr. Parnassus or Ledger's Tony.
 
Of course we know that the shooting of Parnassus was interrupted by the most tragic misfortune a film production could encounter with the death of star Heath Ledger halfway through it's production schedule. But this cannot be blamed for the movie's confused and piecemeal story. Very little rewriting was necessary to complete the film after Ledger's death. According to press releases, all important practical production involving Ledger had already been completed. All the was left was the green screen material for the scenes that took place inside the Imaginarium. A quick and easy script fix was found. All they needed to do was establish the fact that a person's appearance can change inside the Imaginarium, fill the Ledger role with three very able actors in these scenes, and the movie can continue to be shot as written.
 
No, the reason for the film's failure is quite obvious. When creating this script, writers Terry Gilliam and Charles McKnown overtly pursued theatricality to the complete expense of CLARITY. And clarity is something that ANY storyteller must never, ever do without.
 
Why? The reason is simple. How is it possible for an audience to enjoy a story if they can't even understand it? Storytelling after all is an art of communication. Telling a story demands two sides: a storyteller to communicate the story's information, and an audience to receive and comprehend it. If you, the storyteller, fail to communicate enough proper information within your story so that the audience can follow along with what your characters are doing and why they are doing it, your story will come across as nothing but a garbled mess. The art of Storytelling is in the “-telling.” It doesn't matter how great the story is in your head if you do not find the right methods to communicate its information. Just like what Denzel Washington's character Alonzo keeps saying in Training Day, “It's not what you know, it's what you can prove.”
 
Notes on early drafts of Brazil show that Gilliam and McKnown had the same troubles as Parnassus when trying to bring that masterpiece to life. From what I have read, early drafts did not put much focus on protagonist Sam Lowry's problems or the story's conflict, but focused mostly on Sam's fantastic, visually thrilling dream sequences. Nearly half of the early drafts were supposedly made up entirely of Sam's dreams. The story's plot on the other hand remained weak and confused. Luckily for Brazil, the Universal Studios of the early 1980's could never afford a film with so many enormously expensive effects sequences and asked for a version that would focus almost entirely on Sam's waking life. (This is probably one of the few cases in history where a studio's penny-pinching actually worked to create a better film). To do this, respected British playwright Tom Stoppard was brought on board for a rewrite. With the exception of another round of drafts by Gilliam and McKnown, Stoppard is more or less credited with whipping Brazil's plot into what it is on screen. Oh, if only there where less CGI screens these days and more Tom Stoppards.
 
 
If you must be obscure, be obscure clearly!” pleads E.B. White in the seminal handbook on writing, The Elements of Style. Oh, the tragedies of writing with ambiguity, says White. The “heartbreak among lovers caused by a misplaced phrase in a well-intentioned letter. The anguish of a traveler expecting to be met at a railroad station, and not being so due to a slipshod telegram,” the “death on the highway caused by a badly-worded road sign.” 
  
Cinema is a communicative art form. Communication that cannot be understood is worthless. You, the writer, are the audience's shepherd on their cinematic journey. Don't run them off the road by failing to present your story with the clarity the audience deserves.
 
And for the record, I still love Terry Gilliam.