Hi
Disability studies has provided many cultural critiques of the movie
genre. However, I thought you might be interested in a little extract
from the horse's mouth.
Syd Field was a writer-producer for David L. Wolper Productions, a
successful screenwriter and head of the story department at Cinemobile
Systems (The Godfather, Jeramiah Johnson, Deliverance, to name a few).
His job was to 'synopsize' thousands of screenplays and recommend the
best of them to funders like United Artists, Hemdale and Taft.
Building on this wealth of experience, he has also written several
definitive books on how to write screenplays and get them accepted. My
partner has just been reading the 'completely revised and updated'
edition of his book 'Screenplay: the foundations of screenwriting'
(1994, Dell). It is the publisher's 'bestselling bible' on the subject.
In the chapter on 'Character' (ch 3, p. 31) we learn the following
lesson from Syd:
%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%
'A screenplay, remember, is a story told with pictures. And "every
picture tells a story", sings Rod Stewart. Pictures, or images,
reveal aspects of character. In Robert Rossen's classic film The
Hustler, a physical defect symbolizes an aspect of character. The
girl played by Piper Laurie is a cripple; she walks with a limp. She
is also an emotional cripple; she drinks too much, has no sense of
purpose in life. The physical limp underscores her emotional
qualities - VISUALLY. Sam Peckinpah does this in The Wild Bunch. The
character played by William Holden walks with a limp, the result of
an aborted holdup some years before. It represents an aspect of
Holden's character, revealing him to be an "unchanged man in a
changing land", one of Peckinpah's favourite themes: a man born ten
years too late, a man out of time. In Chinatown, Nicholson gets his
nose slit because, as a detective, he's "nosy". Physical handicap -
as an aspect of characterisation - is a theatrical convention that
extends far back into the past. One thinks of Richard III, or the
use of consumption or VD that strike the characters in the drama of
O'Neill and Ibsen, respectively. Form your characters by creating a
character biography, then reveal them by their actions, and possibly
physical traits. ACTION IS CHARACTER.'
%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%
The cover reviews are enlightening:
"Syd Field is the preeminent analyzer in the study of American
screenplays..." (James L. Brooks, scriptwriter, Terms of Endearment).
"...the guru of would-be screenwriters" (Los Angeles Herald Examiner)
"...the most sought-after screeenwriting teacher in the world" (the
Hollywood Reporter)
"If I were writing screenplays...I would carry Syd Field around in my
back pocket wherever I went" (Steven Bochco, writer/producer/driector,
LA Law and NYPD Blue)
"Quite simply the ONLY manual to be taken seriously by aspiring
screenwriters" (Tony Bill, co-producer of The Sting)
"A wonderful book that should be in every filmmaker's library" (Howard
Kazanjian, producer, Raiders of the Lost Ark, Return of the Jedi, More
American Grafffiti, Demolition Man)
Mmmmmm? Way to go Syd...
Best Wishes
Mark Priestley
Disability Research Unit
School of Sociology and Social Policy
University of Leeds
LEEDS
LS2 9JT
UK
Tel: +44 113 2334417/2334418
Fax: +44 113 2334415
E-mail: [log in to unmask]
http://www.leeds.ac.uk/sociology/dru/dru.htm
%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%
|