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Genre: Biopic
Premise (from writer): A Southern black folk singer walks the line between a violent criminal life and becoming a great American musician.
Why You Should Read (from writer): Inspired by the likes of “Raging Bull” and “Thirty Two Short Films About Glenn Gould”, “Sessions of Lead Belly” is stylistic bordering on surreal and strives for quality even at expense of authenticity. — The nonlinear structure throughout different periods in Lead Belly’s life of the early 1900’s is patterned to best draw interest and convey information, exploring who Lead Belly is and why, as well as the futility of triumph and meagerness of survival against all odds. — Every sequence is nearly standalone, playing out as ambitious mini-stories and innovative short films, each with a calculated build and unique style.
Writer: Cody Kerr
Details: 124 pages (this is a slightly different draft, I’m told, from the one that appeared on Amateur Offerings – Cody has reworked a few things based on your suggestions. That’s the draft I’m including in this review)
As we head into a strangely mediocre movie weekend that includes films like Pixels (quite possibly the most vanilla execution of an idea I’ve ever seen), Paper Towns (a John Greene novel that, based on the trailer, appears to change plots 17 different times) and Southpaw (Can we just be honest here and admit that the only reason these boxing movies get made is because an actor wants to show how good of shape he can get in for the role?), my question to you is, “What do you wanna see?”
No, not between these three movies. I know you don’t want to see any of those. I mean, are there movies out there you wish were being made but aren’t? What are the ideas? What are the genres? Are you like me? You know you want something different, you just won’t know what it is until you see it. I suppose that’s part of being different. Is you just don’t know what it is until it’s placed in front of you.
Well, one thing that audiences have definitely been more into lately is biopics. David O. Russell’s “Joy” trailer just debuted and while I’m pretty sure whoever cut that trailer did 11 lines of coke right beforehand (it’s a movie about a woman who makes the miracle mop that doesn’t include one mention of the actual mop), I’m sure subsequent trailers will get everyone revved up to see it, because the script was damn good.
Which brings us to today’s screenplay. Cody Kerr is hoping to capitalize on the biopic craze by introducing us to a controversial singer from the first half of the 20th century. Is “Sessions of Lead Belly” going to garner a David O. Russell like visionary to attach himself and make it the next big biohit? Let’s find out!
At various points between the 1910s and 1940s, we follow a man named Lead Belly, a black musician who likes to sing about a variety of things like slavery, shipwrecks, and Hitler. In the 1920s, Lead Belly suspects his wife’s cousin is sleeping with her, so he shoots and kills him.
Once in prison, Lead Belly becomes extremely popular as he loves to perform for the other prisoners and the prison staff. This ends up getting him out of prison after only 7 years of a 35 year sentence. Once out, Lead Belly struggles with a drinking problem, and strives to shed his “murderer” image in an attempt to be taken seriously.
But problems seem to follow the man wherever he goes and, I believe (to be completely honest, it was hard to understand what was going on a lot of the time here), he killed a second man and had to serve a sentence at another prison. But Lead Belly kept fighting, getting out of prison again, and ended up making some of the best music ever recorded by man.
Something we don’t talk about a whole lot here on the site is CRAFT. Craft is the ability to put a clear story together within the unique constraints of the screenplay format. While reading Lead Belly, I could see how much love and emotion was infused into the story. But what I didn’t see was craft – the ability to take that emotion and make sense of it. There’s too much going on here. There’s too much jumping to different years for no reason. There are basic clarity mistakes being made in almost every scene.
I felt like a detective wading through this script. I had to piece together clues just to keep up with basic story points. For example, there’s this guy named “Huddie” in the script. Then there’s this guy named “Lead Belly” in the script. Well, low and behold, at around the mid-point, I found out they were the same people!!
That’s really basic clarity stuff that you don’t want to mess up on. Just use one name the whole time. And if you absolutely have to change the name in the script (which sometimes happens), fucking throw a fireworks party worth of attention at it. “JOE IS NOW FRANK!!!” (that’s a slight exaggeration – don’t use exclamation points – but do make it damn clear).
And to get into this a little deeper, consider how this issue plays out on the reader’s end. Sessions of Lead Belly jumps all over the place in time. It’s 1942, 1917, 1930, 1938, 1918. We’re already struggling to keep up with all this jumping around. Then on top of that you change the main character’s name on us? So in some sections he’s one name and in others he’s another? I almost want to ask: Are you purposefully trying to confuse us??
Actually, this kind of thing happens a lot with new writers. They want to be different. They want to be edgy. They want to fix the very issue I brought up at the beginning of this review. They want to make something different that people haven’t seen before.
But they don’t understand the craft yet so they don’t know how to pull of this edgy approach. When you’re jumping through time a lot, one of your jobs is to become something I call: a grandmaster hand-holder. You need to do a lot more hand-holding with the reader than normal, because we’re being thrown around into too many time periods and if you aren’t EXTREMELY CLEAR about where we are, we’re going to get confused and eventually check out.
And I’ll be completely honest – by page 70 I started skimming. And I rarely do that when I review a script but, damn, I was so confused and frustrated about where we were and what was going on half the time, I just didn’t have the mental capacity to keep trying to figure things out. I felt like the writer had made things way more confusing than they needed to be.
And for what purpose? What was gained by these time jumps? They seemed to be there to be there. To give the script an “artsier” feel. If I felt some purpose behind them, I might’ve been more receptive. Like the opening scene shows someone stab Lead Belly. If the rest of the movie would’ve been a lead up to that moment, I would’ve understood the purpose behind starting with that flash-forward. But we don’t get that. We’re just randomly thrown into various years and expected to keep up.
And also – and maybe this had something to do with me expending so much energy on figuring out where we were in the story – I never felt like I understood Lead Belly’s problem. What was the main thing he was dealing with in his life that he needed to fix?
Cause when you write a biopic, “what he needs to fix” is the heart of your story. Unlike regular movies which have goals for the characters to achieve, biopics are all about the main subject figuring themselves out – or at least coming to peace with who they are. It’s been forever since I saw the Johnny Cash movie with Joaquin Phoenix, but I remember in that movie, Cash couldn’t get past the fact that his father didn’t love him, didn’t approve of him. That’s what the movie kept coming back to.
I couldn’t figure out what was “wrong” with Lead Belly. And, actually, because the script was laid out in such a confusing way, I had to go to Lead Belly’s Wikipedia page to fill in the gaps. And what I learned was that he had a really bad temper. That seems like something that could’ve been explored. Especially if that’s the reason he murdered two people. A man learning to control his inner rage and trying to become a better person – I definitely could’ve gotten on board with that.
But, again, I think Cody just needs to write a few more screenplays and get a better feel for how this craft works because, unfortunately, just feeling emotions about your character and jumping around to moments in their life – that isn’t enough. There has to be a plan and a theme (that thing your character is trying to overcome) clearly established. The destination has to be better laid out (where are we going??). And simple things shouldn’t be needlessly complicated.
And I’m going to end this review by saying this – because it continues to be the number 1 reason that amateur writers screw up their screenplays: Stop trying to be so complex. Just tell a simple story. If it’s a good story, we’ll enjoy it. I promise.
Screenplay link: Sessions of Lead Belly
[ ] what the hell did I just read?
[x] wasn’t for me
[ ] worth the read
[ ] impressive
[ ] genius
What I learned: Grand Master Hand-holding. The more complex your story is (the more time jumping, the more characters, the more subplots, the more plot points, the more plot twists), the more you’re going to need to hold the reader’s hand during the story. Never be afraid to be clear. I know some writers are scared of being too “on the nose,” but I’d much rather be sure of something important (like that a character from the 1920s with one name and a character from the 1930s with another name are actually the same person) than be left guessing.
