The “X-Men: First Class” co-screenwriter talks screenwriting and her latest movie, The Woman In Black, with Scriptshadow.

 

Jane Goldman has had the kind of screenwriting career most writers dream of.  She co-wrote “Stardust,” “Kick-Ass,” “X-Men: First Class,” and most recently, “The Debt,” all with Matthew Vaughn.  This week, she offers her first solo screenwriting effort, an adaptation of “The Woman in Black,” about a young lawyer who travels to a town only to find out it’s being haunted by the ghost of a scorned woman.  The movie stars Daniel Radcliffe and comes out next weekend. 

SS: You seem to have a lot of different career opportunities (presenter, model, producer, etc.). What is it that draws you to screenwriting, a path that’s more low-key and that some might say doesn’t get nearly as much recognition as those other ventures?

JG: I’m honestly the least ambitious person I know in terms of a desire for recognition – the idea of being “known” has not only never appealed to me, but actually gives me panic attacks, as I’m chronically shy!

I’ve occasionally strayed off the writing career path as and when opportunities have presented themselves, but writing is what I’ve done my whole life, and what I wanted to do ever since I was a child.

I started freelancing while I was still at school – I used to spend my summer vacations hanging around in magazine office lobbies badgering features editors, which miraculously paid off! When I left school, my first full-time job was as a junior reporter on a newspaper and from there I moved on to working for magazines and writing books (eight non-fiction titles and one novel) before I wound up moving into screenwriting six years ago.

Along the way, I got offered various other jobs in other areas, and I always think it’s worth giving things a shot out of curiosity or just for fun. In the case of TV presenting, I turned out to be pretty crap at it and really didn’t enjoy being on the “wrong” side of the camera! Producing I love, however, and it’s the one other thing I still do when I can, alongside screenwriting.

I genuinely prefer the notion of a low-key career, as I’ve never craved recognition, and with screenwriting, I especially like the fact that you are part of a team rather than having to push yourself forward as an individual.

SS: I have a large UK following and a lot of UK’ers ask me how to break into Hollywood from another country. Can you give any advice to those trying to make it from the UK (or any other country)?

JG: My advice would be to do the very best work you can in order to break in to the film industry in your own country first, as anyone whose work has had even a small measure of success and recognition in their own country will likely be approached by US agents offering representation. Or at the very least, you can legitimately approach US agents yourself. I’d say that’s a far swifter and less stressful approach than moving to LA and trying to get a foot in the door without having anything substantial as a calling card.

The UK has the huge advantage of having radio as a very accessible stepping stone for writers, leading to getting an agent and opening doors into TV and film. But in these days of cheap HD cameras and Youtube there’s also always the option of just getting out there and making a low budget short – write something wonderful and find an aspiring director to make it, or even direct it yourself.

I thought the character development in X-Men was some of the best I’ve ever seen in a superhero movie. What’s your approach to building characters and what do you think the key is to creating a truly memorable character? 

JG: Thank you SO much, that’s extremely kind of you! My initial approach is quite clinical and technical, in trying to make sure that a character has enough traits, complexities and flaws that they feel three dimensional. If I were trying to describe my best friend to you, I’d probably be able to reel off five or six adjectives or phrases without having to think too hard, so my aim would always be to strive for a similar level of detail in a fictional character, even if some of that detail never makes it onto the page. Ideally, you want to know your character so well that you know exactly what they’d do in any given situation. Then the next step is ensuring that all your characters who interact have traits that spark off one another – you want them to push each others buttons, yank one another out of their comfort zones, force each other to see things they don’t want to see. You want them to provide each other with obstacles or be catalysts for change – even the ones who get along.

Putting a touch of yourself, or people you’re close to, into your characters obviously doesn’t hurt either, in terms of making characters who feel real and relatable, and that’s certainly something I – and I think most writers – do.

Being objective, I’d say the key to creating a memorable character is to create someone with familiar traits, but in an uncommon combination, or someone who is a recognizable archetype with a surprising twist. For instance, one of my favorite characters is Maude from Harold and Maude. She’s the archetypal eccentric free spirit with a passion for life and scant regard for law or convention, and if she was also young and pretty with dyed hair and crazy clothes and too much mascara, it would all be eye-rollingly tedious, but the fact that she’s an octogenarian (and, it’s hinted, a holocaust survivor) makes her character fresh, affecting, extraordinary. By the same token, so many memorable characters play the game of combining traits you’d normally use in creating an unlikeable character, with other traits that make you adore them despite yourself – Ferris Bueller is a spoilt, manipulative rich kid who does whatever he wants, Melvin Udall from As Good As It Gets is a rude misanthrope, Tyler Durden is a psychopath, terrorist and all-round reprobate, Dexter and Hannibal Lecter kill people for kicks. But we love them all.

SS: I find that most screenwriters focus on the wrong things when they first start out. What was the primary thing you focused on as a beginning screenwriter and what’s the primary thing you focus on now? Do you look back and roll your eyes at the silly stuff you used to obsess about?

JG: The primary thing I focus on now is economy and pacing. I try to be really strict with the rule that every scene, every beat, every word of dialogue should be doing a job, or else it shouldn’t be there.

I feel like I made most of my mistakes, and hopefully learned from them, when I wrote my novel. I’m not sure that I focused on a specific wrong thing, but I deeply regret that what was published was essentially a first draft and it could have been a million times better if I’d gone through it with a critical eye, been brutal about editing, taken it apart, put it back together again and polished it until I was positive that every scene, every beat, every word was doing a vital job. I was just so happy when my editor didn’t suggest any changes that I cheerfully let it go to print as it was. I really regret that.

SS: You’ve been fortunate enough to work with a lot of talented people. What’s the best piece of story/screenwriting advice you’ve received from them?

JG: One director I worked with was a particular influence, although I unfortunately can’t name him, as the re-write job I did for him was a non-public thing. He had a really interesting policy about minor characters – he believed that whatever function they are serving, you can usually do away with them entirely and find other ways of making the same thing happen without them, and it’s a lot cleaner. I thought that was very interesting advice and have found on numerous occasions since that he’s absolutely right. He also likes his scripts to be notably shorter than the “standard” length for whatever genre, which made so much sense to me. Pretty much every movie’s first assembly in the edit room is always not just a little too long, but way too long, and losing scenes and moments that you love is never a nice experience.

SS: You’ve now written/co-written 5 movies. Which one of those movies was the hardest to write and why? 

JG: Every project has it’s own challenges and pleasures, so it’s hard to single one out. X-Men: First Class had the tightest deadline, and the first draft needed to be delivered very fast because they were waiting to begin preproduction. That essentially meant a few weeks of writing seven days a week, essentially every hour that I was awake – literally only stopping for food, bathroom breaks and bedtime. My back eventually gave out from sitting in an office chair, so I started writing lying down on my couch instead, which has remained my favorite writing position ever since!

The most technically demanding was a screenplay that I recently completed, an adaptation of an incredible novel by Peter Ackroyd called Dan Leno and the Limehouse Golem (I believe it has a different title in the US, The Trial of Elizabeth Cree). It’s multi-stranded, strays into the esoteric and involves a monumental plot twist that is brilliantly concealed in the book by a literary conceit that you couldn’t possibly employ in a film! Figuring out how to approach an adaptation of it was immensely challenging but also unbelievably rewarding.

SS: You take some crazy chances in your screenplays. I particularly remember Stardust having some totally off-the-wall things going on (I loved the ending with the “dead person” swordfight). Do you deliberately try and buck convention or do you follow the traditional screenplay “rules” (3 acts, inciting incident, the protagonist arcs, hero must be likable, etc.)?

JG: Thank you! Re: the swordfight, a friend of mine remarked that it was typical of me to be working on a fairytale and find a way to slip a zombie in! I’d put zombies in everything, if I had my way :)

I think confounding expectations within storytelling is vitally important, but when it comes to structural framework, I don’t see any great need to buck convention – most of the traditional “rules” are there because they work well. It’s like building a house. You could build a house out of poptarts just to be different, but surely it’s more appealing to build it out of bricks and then buck convention in the design itself, knowing that it’ll hold strong.

To do away with things like inciting incident and protagonist arcs would seem a little bloody-minded and self-defeating to me. Some rules you can play with though, I think. In fact, Matthew recently noted that the screenplays we’ve worked on together could sort of be viewed as having four acts, rather than three. I’m not sure that a hero has to be likeable, either – just this year Young Adult and Submarine both played with that convention very effectively – but it obviously requires a different narrative drive to replace the one that is lost. There’s got to be something else that makes you want to see how the story is going to play out.

SS: I’ve been trying to come up with a good ghost story idea myself for years. What do you think the key is to making a ghost story work?

JG: I think the best ghost stories have an emotional core, but the main thing is probably mining what actually, genuinely scares you. I think with other genres you can approach things technically, but with horror – just like comedy – you’re actually trying to invoke a physical reaction in yourself and others. I think it’s not about finding something that seems scary, but a notion or collection of elements that actually make your skin creep, or send a shudder down your spine, or have you looking over your shoulder, even if you don’t believe in ghosts.

SS: What were some of the unique challenges you ran into while writing The Woman In Black and how did you go about solving them?

JG: One unique challenge was trying to ensure that it was scary! Writing descriptions of what are essentially visual beats, in a way that would convey their essence and my intentions clearly to a director, was a challenge because you need to be very specific. I’m used to writing action scenes, so conveying non-verbal beats wasn’t new to me, but at the same time, this was very different – it really required a lot of focus and careful choice of words – even punctuation! – in order to transfer from my head to the page what were often intricately timed moments, and their intended emotional and visceral effects.

SS: One of the issues I’ve noticed in these slower darker movies is that all of the characters are very restrained, and therefore it can be hard to write dialogue (in Kick-Ass for instance, every character has so much personality that I’m sure the dialogue flies off the fingertips). How do you conquer that problem and still make the dialogue pop? 

JG: I actually made a conscious decision with the Woman in Black to let dialogue take a back seat and to keep things very simple, restrained and un-showy. I realized early on that this would serve the plot and the atmosphere best, and it was an interesting exercise as a writer, as you have to find other ways to convey character. It was also a good exercise in humility and ego-checking, as dialogue is the area where it’s easiest to show off!

SS: An always controversial discussion in the screenwriting community is the importance of theme. Do you put a high value on theme, and if so, can you explain how you incorporate it, and more specifically how you incorporated it into The Woman In Black?

JG: I do think theme is important, in that I think that if it is absent, a film risks having a sense of being directionless. Sometimes that sense is only vaguely tangible, other times it’s pretty obvious. I think incorporating theme is just about ensuring that there are plot points and scenes throughout that speak to your theme in a way that is consistent. It’s also pretty key that those thematic elements should involve not just your main character and their central dilemma or drive, but also ideally your supporting characters in parallel, related or opposing situations.

In the Woman in Black I guess the pervading theme is loss. And more specifically, the different ways in which people respond to loss. Without wanting to give away too much of the plot, we learn that the Woman in Black herself is driven by grief, anger and vengeance, so I wanted to ensure that Arthur, the main character, reflected another facet of that experience, an alternate reaction to bereavement. And, in fact, pretty much every supporting character also inhabits a different point on that same spectrum.

SS: Finally, it looks like this is the first time you’ve written by yourself. What was the biggest screenwriting lesson you learned that came out of that experience? 

JG: I’ve done quite a few solo screenwriting jobs since Woman in Black, but yes, it was my first. It wasn’t really a markedly different experience, though, since Matthew and I don’t have the work habits of a traditional writing partnership – usually he works on the structure alone first, then we discuss it, then I go off and write alone, he gives me notes on the draft and then I make revisions. I just followed the same procedure – writing an outline, then the draft, then going through it with a critical eye and making improvements. I did miss having him to bounce ideas off at the structural stage, or to phone up to chat things through, or just to ask “I’ve just had an insane idea for how this scene could go – do you think it’s insane, or shall I try it?”

I guess I’d also written alone for a couple of decades before that, too, as a journalist and author, so it probably didn’t feel like a new enough experience to learn from it. I love the collaborative nature of screenwriting, though – whether you’re working with a director, a producer or directly with a creative partner. For me that’s probably one of things I enjoy most about screenwriting – the feeling that everyone is working together towards the common goal of making sure that you write the very best version of your screenplay possible.

Great interview!  Thank you to Jane for stopping by.  I learned a ton from her answers.   Hope you guys did too. :)

A million dollar screenplay with a little help from Will Ferrell and Adam McKay.

Genre: Comedy
Premise: A woman uses her amazing internet skills to stalk and seduce the perfect guy.
About: This script finished Top 10 on the Black List and I believe Top 3 on the Hit List (list of best spec screenplays of the year). This is reportedly Kahn’s first script, but I have serious doubts about that. Nobody writes this efficiently their first time out. Either this is misinformation and they meant it’s the first script she’s gotten notice from, or she’s had help from producers guiding her along (like Diablo Cody did with Juno). Kahn was also Will Ferrell’s old assistant. Some people have told me he gave her notes on the script. Anyway, the script sold last year for a million bucks!
Writer: Lauryn Kahn
Details: 114 pages – August 22nd, 2011 draft (This is an early draft of the script. The situations, characters, and plot may change significantly by the time the film is released. This is not a definitive statement about the project, but rather an analysis of this unique draft as it pertains to the craft of screenwriting).

Well here’s a funny story. I’ve been going around telling everybody for the last two months that “He’s Fucking Perfect” is really fucking bad. I’d shout it from the rooftops when I could, only because I didn’t want anyone to waste their time. So it continually confused me when so many people wrote me saying, “Um, Carson, I don’t think this is that bad. I actually liked it a lot.” This led me to believe that everybody in the world was insane. But at a certain point, when, like, the 30th person in a row told me it was a good script, I began to wonder, “Am *I* the one who’s insane?”

So finally, the other day, I picked it up and re-read the first 10 pages. Every reader has bad days when no matter what you put in front of them, they won’t like it. And I was wondering if I had had one of those days.

It took me about two pages to realize….this was a different script! This entire time I was confusing THIS script with ANOTHER script that had the word “Fucking” in the title. Hey, I’m sorry okay? I read a lot of scripts. This sometimes happens. But it would be helpful if everyone and their mom wasn’t putting the word “Fucking” in the title of their screenplay!

Anyway, as I started reading, it became clear to me, this script was EVEN WORSE than the other script I read!

No, I’m kidding. I’m KIDDING. Truth be told I was laughing within the first two pages. And it only got funnier from there. I’m just going to say it: This script is fuckin perfect!

Well, no, that’s not true. But it’s really good. In fact, the read so inspired me, I decided to create an impromptu list of “5 Ways You Know You’re Reading A Great Script.” Here we go!

1 – For the 100 minutes you’re reading the script, writing seems like the easiest thing in the world.

2 – Afterwards, you immediately want to go write a similar script in the same genre.

3 – You’re bummed when it’s over and wonder, “Why can’t every script be this good?”

I actually don’t have a 4 and 5. That’s what happens when you go impromptu. Man, I am not doing this review justice. Maybe now is a good time to get to the plot, no?

29 year old Charlie (Oh no! A female character with a male name in a romantic comedy – maybe this *is* Lauryn’s first time writing a script) is a Google ninja. Her biggest talent is her ability to research guys her friends are dating to determine whether they’re marriage material or not. She’s gotten so good at it, in fact, that women are now coming to her willing to pay for her services.

This culminates in an old bitchy acquaintance of hers asking to look into her new boyfriend, Evan, who seems too good to be true. Charlie does just that and for the first time in history, she doesn’t find a SINGLE thing wrong with the man she’s researching. He’s hot. He’s kind. He climbs mountains. He plays instruments. He volunteers at children’s clubs (he’s even a “Big Brother!”). He’s fucking PERFECT.

So what does Charlie do? Well of course she tells her acquaintance that she found out Even has gonorrhea and then goes after him herself! But not the way normal people go after someone. Charlie learns every single thing about the guy on the internet so that she can become his perfect match!

After stalking his foursquare movements, she “accidentally” bumps into him one day, and because she’s able to play to his every interest, he quickly falls for her.

But what Charlie starts to realize is that dating the perfect guy is HARD WORK. It means that YOU TOO have to be perfect. And since Charlie is anything but perfect (she’s not a vegetarian, she doesn’t play instruments, she doesn’t like culture, she doesn’t want to feed the children in Africa), making this relationship work is taking a LOT of effort.

What’s complicating things even more is that Evan’s best friend seems WAY more like her crowd. I mean, he doesn’t have 8 pack abs and isn’t changing the world, but he likes to smoke pot, he likes to eat meat and he’s generally more…relaxed. Like Charlie! As Charlie tries to navigate these conflicted feelings – being with the man she believes she’s supposed to be with or being with the man she’s actually supposed to be with – her not-so-secret plan begins to unravel, possibly destroying her chances with either of them.

This screenplay was just fucking good. There’s usually one really good comedy script every year and this is the one, without question. I mean, I don’t even know where to begin.

The characters! The characters were great. Besides the main three, we have Betsy, Charlie’s best friend, who may be the dumbest girl you’ve ever met, and yet the funniest. Little quirks like her always messing up popular phrases (“I’m waiting on eggshells.”) were perfect.

Then there’s Doug, the weirdo potential stalker/rapist who Betsy hires to help Charlie stalk Evan. Even though Charlie fires him the first day, he still somehow finds his way to every single event and date that Charlie goes on with Evan.

Lauryn also got the best out of every scene she wrote. This is really what separates the okay comedy writers from the great ones. Every single scene is good. Not every fourth scene. EVERY scene. For example, there’s a scene early on where Charlie prepares to ‘accidentally’ bump into Evan at the bookstore. She spots him, picks up a random book to look busy, and just as planned, he notices her. They start chatting and in order to impress him, she makes up a story about buying the book for her “younger sister” from the “Little Sisters” program. But Charlie hasn’t actually looked at the book yet and when she lifts it up, it’s one of those weird inappropriate fantasy books with naked alien women on the cover. Evan’s weirded out, but she’s able to talk her way out of it AND secure a future date with the hunk. Except Evan suggests they get their little brother and sister together to bring with them. Of course, Charlie doesn’t have a little sister, so she has to go find one for the date. And it’s all hilarious. Every scene here is full of funny situations like this.

One thing I noticed about “He’s Fucking Perfect” is that it had a few “Let’s Get High” scenes (Charlie smokes pot with Evan’s friend) JUST LIKE Two Night Stand from last week. And if you remember, I took that script to task for the lazy choice. Usually, when you have two characters wanting to get high, it means you’ve run out of ideas for your story.

But here’s the difference. In “He’s Fucking Perfect,” the “Let’s get high” scenes are integrated into the characters and plot. The whole point here is that Charlie’s trying to be this “perfect” person in front of Evan. But “getting high” is who she *really is.* It’s a secret she keeps from him. So when she’s given the opportunity to secretly get high with his friend, she’s making a choice steeped in character – go back to who she really is or be this “new person” that she wants to be. The scenes also push forward the relationship between her and Evan’s friend, making them plot-related as well. In other words, the choice to include the “let’s get high” scenes is necessary for the story.

In Two Night Stand, it boiled down to a writer who didn’t have any ideas so he threw in the infamous, “Wanna get high?” scenario.

In the end, what I really loved about this script though was how infectious and fun the writing was. There was no strain here. The words on the page seemed to emerge effortlessly, as if they were coming right out of Lauryn’s mouth.

This is so contrary to what I usually read, where sentences and paragraphs feel heavy – almost *too* constructed. Don’t get me wrong. You want your script and your writing to be polished. But there’s a point where it becomes too perfect and the writing doesn’t feel natural anymore. You want to watch out for that, ESPECIALLY in a comedy, where the writing is supposed to feel loose and fast.

I don’t know what else to say. This script was really good. It might even make my Top 25 after I sit on it for awhile. If you’re a comedy writer, this is the bar. This is what you’re aiming for.

[ ] Wait for the rewrite
[ ] wasn’t for me
[ ] worth the read
[x] impressive
[ ] genius

What I learned: The other day, Tawnya talked about how theme is the opposite of a character’s flaw. Let’s see that in action here. The theme of this script is a simple one: “Be yourself.” Charlie’s flaw is what? She’s trying to become someone she’s not. There it is. Flaw and theme are the opposite of one another.

For a full list of all of the nominations, head over to Slash-Film.  Basically, the writing nominations this year are sort of lacking.  There’s nothing that sexy, nothing with any HUGE buzz attached to it.  In the adapted category, I’m thinking the bigger names have a leg up on the competition. That means Moneyball and The Descendents are your frontrunners (Payne, Zallian and Sorkin are hard to say no to).  If you asked me which SCRIPT was the best, I would say “The Ides Of March.”  I remember reading that when it was Farragut North and really liking it. I just don’t think it has the cache to stand up to those other films.

The original category is more interesting (as it usually is).  I mean, it has Bridesmaids in there.  Now let me say this.  I REALLY LIKED Bridesmaids.  But if a straight comedy gets an Oscar nomination in screenwriting, it’s probably a weak year.  I’m a little surprised to see Margin Call in there.  I liked the script and I loved JC Chandor’s success story (he struggled his ass off before writing this script). But he’s likewise probably helped by a weak year as well.  The Artist has a shot but I find it hard to believe people will give a screenwriting Oscar to a movie with no dialogue (I’m not saying *I* would penalize it – I’m saying others probably will).  I’ll be honest.  I don’t even know what “A Separation” is.  So I can’t comment on that.  And that leaves us with the huge favorite in the group, Midnight in Paris.  Allen will almost certainly win this one.

Some people have asked how I feel about Drive being snubbed by the voters.  I can’t say I’m surprised.  It’s just a weird little movie and I’m not sure they campaigned for it very well.  So I’m a little bummed but I’ll get over it.  Here are the nominations.

Writing (Adapted Screenplay)

“The Descendants” (Fox Searchlight) Screenplay by Alexander Payne and Nat Faxon & Jim Rash
“Hugo” (Paramount) Screenplay by John Logan
“The Ides of March” (Sony Pictures Releasing) Screenplay by George Clooney & Grant Heslov and Beau Willimon
“Moneyball” (Sony Pictures Releasing) Screenplay by Steven Zaillian and Aaron Sorkin Story by Stan Chervin
“Tinker Tailor Soldier Spy” (Focus Features) Screenplay by Bridget O’Connor & Peter Straughan

Writing (Original Screenplay)

“The Artist” (The Weinstein Company) Written by Michel Hazanavicius
“Bridesmaids” (Universal) Written by Annie Mumolo & Kristen Wiig
“Margin Call” (Roadside Attractions) Written by J.C. Chandor
“Midnight in Paris” (Sony Pictures Classics) Written by Woody Allen
“A Separation” (Sony Pictures Classics) Written by Asghar Farhadi

Genre: Contained Thriller
Premise: A group of masked thugs break into a morgue, demanding access to a body that contains evidence to a crime they recently committed.
About: Information on this one is mixed but I believe it originally went wide in 2010 and then finally ended up selling (possibly after a few rewrites) at the end of 2011. David Lesser, the writer, has been around for a long time, working mainly in TV. He wrote for “Who’s The Boss,” and wrote episodes for “Coach” and “Sabrina The Teenage Witch.”
Writer: David Lesser
Details: 106 pages – undated (This is an early draft of the script. The situations, characters, and plot may change significantly by the time the film is released. This is not a definitive statement about the project, but rather an analysis of this unique draft as it pertains to the craft of screenwriting).

I guess what happens when you get into the later stages of your screenwriting career is you stop writing spec scripts. You usually have a family, children, people who depend on you. So you don’t have the luxury of spending those precious few hours each day on writing something that doesn’t guarantee a paycheck. Instead, you go where the money is. And the money is in a steady paying TV job or assignment work.

For that reason, it’s always cool to see a veteran writer still writing specs – still taking a shot. And to that end, I love what Lesser has done here. He’s come up with a cool little idea with plenty of conflict and a cheap production tag.

With that said, Bodies at Rest is one of those screenplays that exists in the floating netherworld of spec sales. It’s good enough to get purchased, but something’s missing from making it that break out “talked about” screenplay. Sometimes I bring up the notion that certain stories (namely dramas and thrillers) need TEETH. They need to bite down on you, wrestle you, make you feel like you’re not going to get away. They need to feel DANGEROUS. That’s how I felt yesterday. I felt like The Stanford Prison Experiment dug its teeth into me and wouldn’t let go. With this script, I feel more like the characters are blowing bubbles at me. They’re winking and smiling when the cameras aren’t looking. Nobody ever feels threatening or threatened. For that reason, it was hard to become invested.

For example, it seemed like over a dozen times the villain said to our hero, “If you try and screw around ONE MORE TIME I’m going to [some clever saying about the method in which he was going to kill him].” But that moment never came. Once you get past 3 empty threats, it’s hard to take anything the villain says seriously. The irony is that in The Stanford Prison Experiment, we knew with 100% certainty that those characters were safe – that nothing terrible was ever going to happen to them. And yet I was a thousand times more terrified for them than I was the characters in Bodies At Rest. And that’s because that script had TEETH.

Anyway, Bodies At Rest follows the beautiful Lia and the mischievously handsome Abe. Both of them work together at the morgue, tearing up dead bodies and trying to figure out how they died. The two have a bit of a romance going, but Lia wants more out of it than Abe, and that causes just the slightest bit of friction between the two. She’s ready to take the next step. He’s not.

Well that white picket fence Lia’s so obsessed with is about to get mowed down, because three armed men in masks burst into the morgue, demanding to see a woman’s body. Now you’d think our body carvers would be terrified by this development. I mean, it’s not every night that someone breaks into a morgue and threatens to kill you. But for whatever reason, our heroic duo is as calm as the dead body lying on the table in front of them.

We soon learn that the trio wants a bullet taken out of a female body. Abe, who is somehow more relaxed now than he was when Lia was asking for a commitment, shrugs his shoulders as if to say, “Sure, why not?” He goes in the back room to extract the bullet from the woman. The thug watching him is so grossed out, he can’t look. Abe gives the man his bullet and the group leaves.

Once they go, Abe reveals to Lia that he didn’t give the men the bullet they were looking for. He extracted a bullet out of a different female body. Now he wants to find out why the men wanted that body. Hmmm. So instead of calling the cops, Abe wants to play Sherlock Holmes? Of course, the thugs realize that they’ve been had and charge back into the morgue all over again, demanding the REAL bullet.

What follows is a psychological game of cat and mouse as Casual Abe leads the thugs on and the thugs keep catching on, menacingly threatening Abe each time but never actually doing anything about it. In the end, when they’ve really truly honestly had enough of Abe’s antics, it looks like they’re REALLY going to kill him. Casual Abe will then have to come up with one last trick to get he and Lia out of this mess.

So I’ve already given you my main problems with the script. But here’s the thing I’m stumped over. There are certain movies where the main character is essentially a super-hero. He’s not afraid of anything because he knows he’s more powerful than everyone else. Many of these movies are popular (Mission Impossible, James Bond). But isn’t it more interesting when the main character actually exhibits fear? When he (and we) feel like there’s a possibility that he can be beaten/defeated/killed?

Because if we’re not worried that anything’s going to happen to our protagonist, then what are the stakes? What’s dramatically interesting about a person who can’t be hurt? That was my issue with Abe. He just seemed WAY too sure of himself and was never once afraid. Since he wasn’t afraid, I wasn’t afraid. And if I’m not afraid, I’m not going to be into the movie.

Still, I admit this kind of character works in some scenarios. One of my favorite characters of all time, Wesley from The Princess Bride, is this kind of character. He always knew he was going to come out okay and so did we. So what’s the difference here? Why does Wesley work and Abe not work? Or do we only accept these characters in larger than life scenarios?

This same approach was extended over to Lia. There’s a moment early on, when the thugs send Abe off to extract the bullet, and Lia is left standing there with the men. What is the first thing she says to them? “Do you mind if I get back to work?”

Uh, wait a minute. What did you just say?

DO YOU MIND IF I GET BACK TO WORK?????

Oh yeah, that would definitely be my reaction if someone was pointing a gun to my head. “Hey guys? I know you want to kill me n’stuff but I REALLY need to get this blog entry up. If you can just hang out for a moment? There’s food in the fridge. Believe me, if you knew Grendl, you’d know why I need to do this pronto.”

Anyway, this gets to the heart of why the script didn’t work for me. Nobody acted like people would really act in this situation. For example, when one of the bad guys is about to rape Lia, she tells him she’s into weird kinky sexual shit and asks if she can spit on him. The thug answers “yes” for God knows what reason and she asks him to hold out his hands. He does, she spits on them, and then kicks him backwards into a freezer where his wet hands get stuck on the frozen doors. This, apparently, was her plan all along. I mean let’s be serious for a second. Is this in any way believable?

My philosophy is always to put yourself in your character’s shoes. Ask the question, “What would I do if I were in this situation?” If your characters are doing something completely different from that, you better have a great reason for why. And I couldn’t find that reason with Bodies At Rest.

[ ] Wait for the rewrite
[x] wasn’t for me
[ ] worth the read
[ ] impressive
[ ] genius

What I learned: I think it’s important that the audience FEARS your villain. If we don’t fear the villain, there’s a lack of tension and uncertainty in the script that’s hard to make up for. Star Wars has a great moment early on when Darth Vader holds a rebel soldier up off the ground by his neck, choking him to death. So right away, I’m scared of Darth Vader. But it’s not just that he killed someone (the villain in Bodies at Rest kills a few people). It’s the manner in which he does it. It’s cold, it’s heartless, it’s brutal. I just never got that feeling here from the villain. He was never very frightening.

Genre: Drama
Premise: Based on a true story, in 1971, a Stanford professor initiated one of the most controversial university experiments of all time, recreating a simulated prison environment with volunteers. Within hours, the experiment spun out of control.
About: The Stanford Prison Experiment is a 2006 script written by Christopher McQuarrie and Tim Talbott for McQuarrie to direct. McQuarrie had assembled a great cast that included Channing Tatum, Giovanni Ribisi, Ryan Phillipe, Jesse Eisenberg, Paul Dano, Jamie Bell, Ben McKenzie, and others, but just as the project was getting ready to go, Valkyrie emerged, and McQuarrie had to make a tough decision on whether to produce that film or direct this one.  It was a difficult choice but he ultimately went with Valkyrie. You might remember I reviewed a more recent McQuarrie screenplay, One Shot, a couple of months back.
Writers: Tim Talbott & Christopher McQuarrie
Details: 122 pages – August 7, 2006 Draft (This is an early draft of the script. The situations, characters, and plot may change significantly by the time the film is released. This is not a definitive statement about the project, but rather an analysis of this unique draft as it pertains to the craft of screenwriting).

So I’d been hearing about how good this script was for-evvvvv-er but the reason I hadn’t picked it up is because I’d seen “Das Experiment” (A German film covering the same territory – it was pretty good) and figured I already knew the story, so what was the point? But this script had a nasty habit of not going away. It just kept popping up on my radar. And due to the recent slate of less than stellar scripts here on Scriptshadow, I decided to read something I knew was going to be a quality screenplay.

Whereas Das Experiment took the subject matter and went all “creative license” with it, Chris and Tim seem to be more interested in exploring how things *really* went down on that fateful week in 1971. The event centers around an arrogant Stanford Professor named Dr. Philip Zimbrado who thought it’d be interesting to study the effects of how prisoners and guards interact with one another in a prison setting.

So he put an ad in the paper and narrowed the applicants down to 30 people, most of them in the 19-25 age range. 9 of them were made guards and the rest prisoners. Zimbardo then set up a make-shift jail and began the experiment.

Immediately, things started getting weird. The volunteers were led to believe this was going to be a fun little experiment they could leave at any moment. Zimbardo had another plan, however. His goal was to strip away every “prisoner’s” humanity, make them feel like dirt, and study how this affected them. So right when they arrived, the prisoners were literally stripped naked and de-liced. They were then given smocks that barely covered anything. The experience was humiliating but they still went along with it, figuring things would get better.

They didn’t.

One of the guards, a cocksure 18 year old sociopath named David Eshleman, decided to take his role very seriously, to the point where he changed his Northeastern accent to a Southern one. He took on the persona of a meaner creepier version of himself who didn’t take shit from anybody. He began harassing the prisoners with a vengeance. And if any of them got out of line, he’d send them to “the hole,” a box so tiny you couldn’t even stand up in it.

One of the prisoners, 22 year old Doug Corpi, quickly realized that if the prisoners didn’t stand up for their rights, they were about to experience two weeks of torture. So he began rebelling, refusing to eat food and barricading the cell entrances so the guards couldn’t get inside. Eshelman didn’t back down. He told the other inmates that unless Corpi started abiding by the rules, they wouldn’t eat. They wouldn’t get bathroom breaks.

It was a standoff. A hatred began building between the two sides, fueled by Corpi and Eshelman, and it was clear that only 48 hours in, things were out of control. But did Zimbardo stop? No. He was too fascinated by the interaction. He wanted more.

Soon, the psychological exhaustion of dealing with the relentless guards began to take its toll, and the prisoners started breaking down. They went to Zimbardo, begging for help, but since they never specifically asked to leave, he wouldn’t let them go. He’d force them right back into their cells to endure more psychological terror.

His biggest fascination, however, was Eshelman. He wanted to see how far he would go. The problem with that was Eshelman wanted to see how far he could take it. So he just got worse and worse and worse until he was a bona fide monster. But since no one was telling him to stop, he kept going. He devoted his entire shifts to torturing the inmates.

At a certain point, things became so ridiculously out of control, that Zimbardo had no choice but to stop the experiment, a mere six days in. It was not due to any sympathy on his part. It was only because his staff couldn’t bear it anymore. And just like that, it was over. The prisoners were released from their cells and told to go home.

Man, I don’t even know if I can talk about this script in screenwriting terms. I was just so fucking…..ANGRY at Zimbardo and Eshelman. These people were tortured for six straight days and there were no consequences for their torturers! They just got to smile and shrug their shoulders at the end and call it a day.

I think this is why this script leaves such an impression. There aren’t many movies where the bad guys get to mercilessly torture the good guys without any payback. It just feels so…unfair.

Especially in the case of Zimbardo, the smarmy piece of shit who came up with the idea. He just watches the whole thing with this evil little grin on his face, allowing these men to be berated and humiliated. I wanted to find out where he lived and conduct my own little experiment on him.

And you want to talk about a script with awkward mechanics. You know our hero? Corpi? Yeah well he goes insane and leaves the movie at the 65% point. So our main character is just gone. It’s a little like Psycho in that sense. After Corpi leaves, we’re sitting there going, “Who is it we’re now supposed to follow? Whose story is it now?” And at a certain point we realize it’s Zimbardo’s. We’re stuck with this manipulating douche-bag monster for the rest of the film.

You’ll also notice the script has a ton of characters, which I thought I’d bring up because last week I went off on Cities of Refuge for having too many characters. First of all, it’s important to remember that McQuarrie was directing this himself. So the only person who had to remember all these characters was him. But he and Tim also do something unique with the characters at the beginning of the screenplay. They tell you they’re going to name them, but to pay no attention to their names. Because they’re not people in this movie. They’re rats in a maze. They’re nobodies.

Truthfully, the only people we have to remember are Korpi, Eshelman, Zimbardo, and a few minor characters.

This isn’t a GSU movie either. The driving force behind the movie is not a goal – it’s a question. What’s going to happen to these people? What’s going to happen in this situation? And because the situation is so compelling (every single scene is packed with conflict), we want to find out.

The thing about the script that baffles me most, though, is the lack of stakes. Going into this, I thought for sure I wouldn’t care because the stakes were so low. It’s just an experiment – and an experiment at a prestigious University at that. You knew nothing could get *too* bad. I mean any of the prisoners could get up, say they had enough, and walk out without any consequences.

And yet despite this, I was still riveted by their predicament. I’m still not sure how Talbott and McQuarrie managed to do this. I think part of it may be that humans always respond passionately towards a) people being taken advantage of, and b) people abusing their power. Since both of those scenarios were on full display here, we were invested in the story from the moment those prisoners walked into their cells.

I’m still pissed off there were no repercussions for Zimbardo and Eshelmen though. I wanted somebody to go down at the end of this. But you’ll have a tough time finding another screenplay out there that pulls you into its story as effectively as this one.

[ ] What The Hell Did I Just Read?
[ ] wasn’t for me
[ ] worth the read
[x] impressive
[ ] genius

What I learned: A lot of writers are looking for that perfect “save the cat” moment, the thing that’s going to make the audience fall in love with their main character. They forget, however, that an often more effective way of making us like the main character is to “kick the owner.” If we see the bad guy beat down our protagonist, a much stronger “sympathy” bond is created between us and the character, resulting in our steadfast support of him for the rest of the movie. You see that here in spades (you also saw it in The Shawshank Redemption). So remember, saving the cat isn’t your only option. Kicking the owner creates a similar – and often – more powerful effect.