WGA 101 BEST SCREENPLAY LIST RECAP
Here are 15 things I learned from watching and writing about these 101 movies:
1. There is a specific structure to great movies.
That structure is 4 acts, not 3. I will write a longer, more in-depth blog post about this in the next few weeks, but I think this was one of the most important revelations.
2. The films that last deal in life and death stakes.
In other words, the main character(s) must be in mortal danger for us to really care about what is happening to them. CHINATOWN wouldn't be nearly as good if Gittes didn't get his nose cut by a mysterious man in the second act. We wouldn't believe the cross-dressing in SOME LIKE IT HOT without the St. Valentine's Day massacre scene.
3. Story is change.
Look at the first scene and the last scene of the film: if the main character hasn't changed, it isn't a great movie. A good example of this is THE WIZARD OF OZ, where Dorothy is disgruntled, wants to get away, to see something else. She succeeds in that goal, and at the end, she is changed, she now knows she is home, and is happy about that. Or THE GODFATHER, where Michael Corleone goes from a returning war hero to the head of a Mafia family.
4. There must be a clean, clear, often tangible goal for the hero.
There are myriad examples of this: in THE MALTESE FALCON, it's the titular bird; in RAIDERS OF THE LOST ARK, it's the titular ark. In other words, the goal is actually in the title of the movie! That's how important it is.
5. The best movies are thematically consistent.
They use a central idea as a nucleus for everything -- characters, plot, act breaks -- to revolve around. Coppola recently suggested boiling that idea down to one word:
I personally don't believe you need to be that stringent, but look at one of Coppola's own films on this list, APOCALYPSE NOW. To me, the central theme is "War is not hell, war is insanity." Every choice made in that film seems to follow that idea: the main goal itself, to journey to and kill their own colonel; the Colonel himself, who has gone insane; the scene with the Playboy bunnies are the soldiers who attack them; surfing during a raid. Coppola took a central idea and squeezed as much as he could out of it.
6. Great films are great characters.
A high-concept premise or a heavy plot does not a brilliant film make. We care about the characters first, then the situation they are put into. The examples are legendary, and, again, often titular: BUTCH CASSIDY AND THE SUNDANCE KID, the wry, often incompetent cowboys; THELMA & LOUISE, the bored housewives on the run; JERRY MAGUIRE, the sports agent with scruples; ROCKY, the down-and-out boxer who gets a shot at redemption; FORREST GUMP, the simpleton whose sweet nature made him a silent participant in much of the 20th century.
7. The audience wants to be manipulated.
That's what they're there for. The typical filmgoer watches a movie for entertainment, and most of the time that means they want to feel something. Examples abound: Who isn't relieved when we discover Doc Brown's bullet proof vest in BACK TO THE FUTURE? Who doesn't cringe in horror when they see Steve Buscemi's foot poking out of the wood chipper in FARGO? Who doesn't share Bill Murray's joy at finally waking up to February 3rd in GROUNDHOG'S DAY?
8. Dialogue is overrated.
It is icing on the cake, but is nothing without structure, motivation, character arcs. Consider PULP FICTION, rightly known for Tarantino's dazzling dialogue. Something almost all of his imitators in the 90's never understood was that he always uses those words always in service of something else: building tension, setting something up, aligning us with a character. The beginning scenes with Jules Winfield and Vincent Vega discussing Tony "Rocky Horror" do this expertly. First, the interchange is funny, making us like these guys. Secondly, it introduces us to their boss, making their upcoming killing less offensive to us. Thirdly, the fact that a man was thrown out of a window for a foot massage makes us understand that Vincent better behave himself at his upcoming date (and again, makes us like him, because even though he's a hitman, he's now the underdog). Finally, since it begins with a discussion outside of how they "should have shotguns" and how they are about to go up against a room full of dudes, it begins a suspense sequence with us wondering what will happen next.
All of which is to say, Tarantino isn't just trying to dazzle us with how clever he can be and how many pop-culture references he can jam in, he's crafting a fantastic story.
9. Suspense involves the audiences in the story.
A good example would be from The Master of Suspense, Alfred Hitchcock, and his NOTORIOUS. Alicia (Bergman) and Devlin (Grant) are in Alicia's husband's wine cellar, investigating a mystery. We see her husband coming down the stairs, and audience, who is already invested in these characters (having seen them fall in love previously, including an iconic kiss), want them to not get caught, especially since they have just discovered uranium in one of the wine bottles. The audience asks: what will happen next? In a pay-off to a previous set-up (the iconic kiss), Grant kisses Bergman, feigning drunkeness. We are temporarily relieved.
10. Set-ups and pay-offs.
In ADAPTATION, this idea is turned on its head in a brilliant way. The story is about "Charlie Kaufman", a Hollywood screenwriter who wants to write movies about real life, real people, low stakes. His twin brother, "Donald", is also a writer, but writes the kind of high-concept, high-stakes genre shlock Charlie detests. At his wit's end adapting a book about flowers, Charlie does two things: he pitches a version of the flower book that basically amounts to an art film, and he goes to a Robert McKee screenwriting seminar. The third act is Charlie Kaufman, the writer of the movie, systematically paying off these two setups by taking McKee's advice and breaking all the rules he set for himself in the pitch: he says there will be no drugs, no car chases, no heroic deaths. Then, his brother dies, Chris Cooper runs them off the road, and Meryl Streep gets high.
11. Reversals/switcheroos.
Han Solo, in STAR WARS, is a rogue. That's why we like him. He cares only about money, about himself (his last name is "solo", get it?). He's only aligned with the resistance and against the Empire because the revolutionaries hired him first. So we are bummed, but not surprised, when he leaves before the final battle against the Death Star. But he's a mercenary with a heart, so when he comes back to the battle, guns blazing, it is a reversal that we buy, and a satisfying one.
Of course, bigger reversals, those that come at the end of a film and make us rethink the entire movie, are called twists. If done well, they make a great movie legendary, such as Bruce Willis being a ghost in THE SIXTH SENSE or Verbal being Keyser Soze in THE USUAL SUSPECTS.
Note: Reversals are closely tied to set-ups and pay-offs. To be an effective reversal, it needs to be set-up so that the pay-off is both unexpected and somehow also inevitable. Not easy.
12. Comedy is largely subjective.
This might explain the Academy Awards' general aversion towards comedy, because they don't know how to judge it. It also might explain my surprise at the inclusion of BROADCAST NEWS, MOONSTRUCK, and THE PRODUCERS on this list. All well-crafted, all funny, none of them much to my taste.
13. The moments of a movie that linger in memory are often fleeting.
I've often been surprised to find that a moment from an iconic movie that is now in the zeitgeist is played subtly or without fanfare in the actual film. The moment's reputation precedes it. One example would be the line "Frankly, my dear, I don't give a damn" in GONE WITH THE WIND. It's a big moment in the film (and in Hollywood history, due to it including a curse word), but it is played like a small moment, and the narrative immediately continues to the next moment, does not linger.
14. Although I'm still not great at it, I'm much better at writing about film now than I was when I started.
Consider this analysis of THE GRAPES OF WRATH that spends half the time reviewing the screening at Facets, versus this more recent review of ON THE WATERFRONT, which discusses structure, motivation, and character, and also includes a clip from the film.
15. Sometimes I disagreed.
One thing about educating yourself on something is that you become accomplished enough or secure enough in what you've learned that you become independent in your opinions and skeptical of conventional wisdom. In other words, especially as I was approaching the finish of this list, I sometimes disagreed about whether a movie was well-written. Two recent examples were ALL ABOUT EVE, which I believe was not visual enough and would work much better as a play, and THE GODFATHER PART II, which I found to pale in comparison to the first film.
I realize that none of these are new lessons, and could be gleaned from reading screenwriting books, but there is something to be said for direct experience, for watching great movies and seeing how they work firsthand.
I should mention that many of these lessons were illuminated by the reading I did concurrent to watching the movies. Some of the things I read that furthered my learning about screenwriting:
* HITCH/TRUFFAUT
* MAMET'S BAMBI VS. GODZILLA, 3 USES OF THE KNIFE, Memo to writers of THE UNIT
* SAVE THE CAT
* TODD ALCOTT
* DAN HARMON'S CHANNEL 101 TUTORIALS
Here are my writings about the entire list, in numerical order:
1. There is a specific structure to great movies.
That structure is 4 acts, not 3. I will write a longer, more in-depth blog post about this in the next few weeks, but I think this was one of the most important revelations.
2. The films that last deal in life and death stakes.
In other words, the main character(s) must be in mortal danger for us to really care about what is happening to them. CHINATOWN wouldn't be nearly as good if Gittes didn't get his nose cut by a mysterious man in the second act. We wouldn't believe the cross-dressing in SOME LIKE IT HOT without the St. Valentine's Day massacre scene.
3. Story is change.
Look at the first scene and the last scene of the film: if the main character hasn't changed, it isn't a great movie. A good example of this is THE WIZARD OF OZ, where Dorothy is disgruntled, wants to get away, to see something else. She succeeds in that goal, and at the end, she is changed, she now knows she is home, and is happy about that. Or THE GODFATHER, where Michael Corleone goes from a returning war hero to the head of a Mafia family.
4. There must be a clean, clear, often tangible goal for the hero.
There are myriad examples of this: in THE MALTESE FALCON, it's the titular bird; in RAIDERS OF THE LOST ARK, it's the titular ark. In other words, the goal is actually in the title of the movie! That's how important it is.
5. The best movies are thematically consistent.
They use a central idea as a nucleus for everything -- characters, plot, act breaks -- to revolve around. Coppola recently suggested boiling that idea down to one word:
What is the one thing to keep in mind when making a film?
When you make a movie, always try to discover what the theme of the movie is in one or two words. Every time I made a film, I always knew what I thought the theme was, the core, in one word. In “The Godfather,” it was succession. In “The Conversation,” it was privacy. In “Apocalypse,” it was morality.
The reason it’s important to have this is because most of the time what a director really does is make decisions. All day long: Do you want it to be long hair or short hair? Do you want a dress or pants? Do you want a beard or no beard? There are many times when you don’t know the answer. Knowing what the theme is always helps you.
I remember in “The Conversation,” they brought all these coats to me, and they said: Do you want him to look like a detective, Humphrey Bogart? Do you want him to look like a blah blah blah. I didn’t know, and said the theme is ‘privacy’ and chose the plastic coat you could see through. So knowing the theme helps you make a decision when you’re not sure which way to go.
I personally don't believe you need to be that stringent, but look at one of Coppola's own films on this list, APOCALYPSE NOW. To me, the central theme is "War is not hell, war is insanity." Every choice made in that film seems to follow that idea: the main goal itself, to journey to and kill their own colonel; the Colonel himself, who has gone insane; the scene with the Playboy bunnies are the soldiers who attack them; surfing during a raid. Coppola took a central idea and squeezed as much as he could out of it.
6. Great films are great characters.
A high-concept premise or a heavy plot does not a brilliant film make. We care about the characters first, then the situation they are put into. The examples are legendary, and, again, often titular: BUTCH CASSIDY AND THE SUNDANCE KID, the wry, often incompetent cowboys; THELMA & LOUISE, the bored housewives on the run; JERRY MAGUIRE, the sports agent with scruples; ROCKY, the down-and-out boxer who gets a shot at redemption; FORREST GUMP, the simpleton whose sweet nature made him a silent participant in much of the 20th century.
7. The audience wants to be manipulated.
That's what they're there for. The typical filmgoer watches a movie for entertainment, and most of the time that means they want to feel something. Examples abound: Who isn't relieved when we discover Doc Brown's bullet proof vest in BACK TO THE FUTURE? Who doesn't cringe in horror when they see Steve Buscemi's foot poking out of the wood chipper in FARGO? Who doesn't share Bill Murray's joy at finally waking up to February 3rd in GROUNDHOG'S DAY?
8. Dialogue is overrated.
It is icing on the cake, but is nothing without structure, motivation, character arcs. Consider PULP FICTION, rightly known for Tarantino's dazzling dialogue. Something almost all of his imitators in the 90's never understood was that he always uses those words always in service of something else: building tension, setting something up, aligning us with a character. The beginning scenes with Jules Winfield and Vincent Vega discussing Tony "Rocky Horror" do this expertly. First, the interchange is funny, making us like these guys. Secondly, it introduces us to their boss, making their upcoming killing less offensive to us. Thirdly, the fact that a man was thrown out of a window for a foot massage makes us understand that Vincent better behave himself at his upcoming date (and again, makes us like him, because even though he's a hitman, he's now the underdog). Finally, since it begins with a discussion outside of how they "should have shotguns" and how they are about to go up against a room full of dudes, it begins a suspense sequence with us wondering what will happen next.
All of which is to say, Tarantino isn't just trying to dazzle us with how clever he can be and how many pop-culture references he can jam in, he's crafting a fantastic story.
9. Suspense involves the audiences in the story.
A good example would be from The Master of Suspense, Alfred Hitchcock, and his NOTORIOUS. Alicia (Bergman) and Devlin (Grant) are in Alicia's husband's wine cellar, investigating a mystery. We see her husband coming down the stairs, and audience, who is already invested in these characters (having seen them fall in love previously, including an iconic kiss), want them to not get caught, especially since they have just discovered uranium in one of the wine bottles. The audience asks: what will happen next? In a pay-off to a previous set-up (the iconic kiss), Grant kisses Bergman, feigning drunkeness. We are temporarily relieved.
10. Set-ups and pay-offs.
In ADAPTATION, this idea is turned on its head in a brilliant way. The story is about "Charlie Kaufman", a Hollywood screenwriter who wants to write movies about real life, real people, low stakes. His twin brother, "Donald", is also a writer, but writes the kind of high-concept, high-stakes genre shlock Charlie detests. At his wit's end adapting a book about flowers, Charlie does two things: he pitches a version of the flower book that basically amounts to an art film, and he goes to a Robert McKee screenwriting seminar. The third act is Charlie Kaufman, the writer of the movie, systematically paying off these two setups by taking McKee's advice and breaking all the rules he set for himself in the pitch: he says there will be no drugs, no car chases, no heroic deaths. Then, his brother dies, Chris Cooper runs them off the road, and Meryl Streep gets high.
11. Reversals/switcheroos.
Han Solo, in STAR WARS, is a rogue. That's why we like him. He cares only about money, about himself (his last name is "solo", get it?). He's only aligned with the resistance and against the Empire because the revolutionaries hired him first. So we are bummed, but not surprised, when he leaves before the final battle against the Death Star. But he's a mercenary with a heart, so when he comes back to the battle, guns blazing, it is a reversal that we buy, and a satisfying one.
Of course, bigger reversals, those that come at the end of a film and make us rethink the entire movie, are called twists. If done well, they make a great movie legendary, such as Bruce Willis being a ghost in THE SIXTH SENSE or Verbal being Keyser Soze in THE USUAL SUSPECTS.
Note: Reversals are closely tied to set-ups and pay-offs. To be an effective reversal, it needs to be set-up so that the pay-off is both unexpected and somehow also inevitable. Not easy.
12. Comedy is largely subjective.
This might explain the Academy Awards' general aversion towards comedy, because they don't know how to judge it. It also might explain my surprise at the inclusion of BROADCAST NEWS, MOONSTRUCK, and THE PRODUCERS on this list. All well-crafted, all funny, none of them much to my taste.
13. The moments of a movie that linger in memory are often fleeting.
I've often been surprised to find that a moment from an iconic movie that is now in the zeitgeist is played subtly or without fanfare in the actual film. The moment's reputation precedes it. One example would be the line "Frankly, my dear, I don't give a damn" in GONE WITH THE WIND. It's a big moment in the film (and in Hollywood history, due to it including a curse word), but it is played like a small moment, and the narrative immediately continues to the next moment, does not linger.
14. Although I'm still not great at it, I'm much better at writing about film now than I was when I started.
Consider this analysis of THE GRAPES OF WRATH that spends half the time reviewing the screening at Facets, versus this more recent review of ON THE WATERFRONT, which discusses structure, motivation, and character, and also includes a clip from the film.
15. Sometimes I disagreed.
One thing about educating yourself on something is that you become accomplished enough or secure enough in what you've learned that you become independent in your opinions and skeptical of conventional wisdom. In other words, especially as I was approaching the finish of this list, I sometimes disagreed about whether a movie was well-written. Two recent examples were ALL ABOUT EVE, which I believe was not visual enough and would work much better as a play, and THE GODFATHER PART II, which I found to pale in comparison to the first film.
I realize that none of these are new lessons, and could be gleaned from reading screenwriting books, but there is something to be said for direct experience, for watching great movies and seeing how they work firsthand.
I should mention that many of these lessons were illuminated by the reading I did concurrent to watching the movies. Some of the things I read that furthered my learning about screenwriting:
* HITCH/TRUFFAUT
* MAMET'S BAMBI VS. GODZILLA, 3 USES OF THE KNIFE, Memo to writers of THE UNIT
* SAVE THE CAT
* TODD ALCOTT
* DAN HARMON'S CHANNEL 101 TUTORIALS
Here are my writings about the entire list, in numerical order:
- CASABLANCA
- THE GODFATHER
- CHINATOWN
- CITIZEN KANE
- ALL ABOUT EVE
- ANNIE HALL
- SUNSET BOULEVARD
- NETWORK
- SOME LIKE IT HOT
- THE GODFATHER PART II
- BUTCH CASSIDY AND THE SUNDANCE KID
- DR. STRANGELOVE
- THE GRADUATE
- LAWRENCE OF ARABIA
- THE APARTMENT
- PULP FICTION
- TOOTSIE
- ON THE WATERFRONT
- TO KILL A MOCKINGBIRD
- IT'S A WONDERFUL LIFE
- NORTH BY NORTHWEST
- THE SHAWSHANK REDEMPTION
- GONE WITH THE WIND
- ETERNAL SUNSHINE OF THE SPOTLESS MIND
- THE WIZARD OF OZ
- DOUBLE INDEMNITY
- GROUNDHOG DAY
- SHAKESPEARE IN LOVE
- SULLIVAN'S TRAVELS
- UNFORGIVEN
- HIS GIRL FRIDAY
- FARGO
- THE THIRD MAN
- SWEET SMELL OF SUCCESS
- THE USUAL SUSPECTS
- MIDNIGHT COWBOY
- THE PHILADELPHIA STORY
- AMERICAN BEAUTY
- THE STING
- WHEN HARRY MET SALLY
- GOODFELLAS
- RAIDERS OF THE LOST ARK
- TAXI DRIVER
- THE BEST YEARS OF OUR LIVES
- ONE FLEW OVER THE CUCKOO'S NEST
- THE TREASURE OF SIERRA MADRE
- THE MALTESE FALCON
- THE BRIDGE ON THE RIVER KWAI
- SCHINDLER'S LIST
- THE SIXTH SENSE
- BROADCAST NEWS
- THE LADY EVE
- ALL THE PRESIDENT'S MEN
- MANHATTAN
- APOCALYPSE NOW
- BACK TO THE FUTURE
- CRIMES AND MISDEMEANORS
- ORDINARY PEOPLE
- IT HAPPENED ONE NIGHT
- L.A. CONFIDENTIAL
- THE SILENCE OF THE LAMBS
- MOONSTRUCK
- JAWS
- TERMS OF ENDEARMENT
- SINGIN' IN THE RAIN
- JERRY MAGUIRE
- E.T.
- STAR WARS
- DOG DAY AFTERNOON
- THE AFRICAN QUEEN
- THE LION IN WINTER
- THELMA & LOUISE
- AMADEUS
- BEING JOHN MALKOVICH
- HIGH NOON
- RAGING BULL
- ADAPTATION
- ROCKY
- THE PRODUCERS
- WITNESS
- BEING THERE
- COOL HAND LUKE
- REAR WINDOW
- THE PRINCESS BRIDE
- THE GRAND ILLUSION
- HAROLD AND MAUDE
- 8 1/2
- FIELD OF DREAMS
- FORREST GUMP
- SIDEWAYS
- THE VERDICT
- PSYCHO
- DO THE RIGHT THING
- PATTON
- HANNAH AND HER SISTERS
- THE HUSTLER
- THE SEARCHERS
- THE GRAPES OF WRATH
- THE WILD BUNCH
- MEMENTO
- NOTORIOUS
posted by candycanesammy at 12:43 PM
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