Genre: Drama
Premise: (from Hit List) A Texas lowlife is “born-again” and, over the next 20 years, builds an empire out of a prayer circle in his backyard, spanning publishing, broadcasting, and politics; all while fending off demons from his past.
About: Today’s writer, Jesse Maiman, studied screenwriting at Yale and currently teaches film history at the New York Film Academy. While he does not yet have a writing credit, he did produce the 2015 collection of short films, “The Heyday of Insensitive Bastards,” which starred James Franco, Kate Mara, Kristin Wiig, and Natalie Portman, among others. Being Christian finished on the 2016 Hit List.
Writer: Jesse Maiman
Details: 113 pages
We’re only 10 days away from the 2018 Hit List, a list of the best spec screenplays of the year (not to be confused with the Black List, which includes ALL scripts written during the year, including high profile adaptations and writers writing on assignment – that List comes out December 13). Over the last couple of years, I’ve found that The Hit List’s Top 10 more accurately represents the best scripts of the year compared to the The Black List’s Top 10. After those 10, however, The Hit List can’t compete, since it’s pitting mostly unknown screenwriters attempting to break in with spec scripts against seasoned writers getting paid six figures to adapt high profile material. Today’s script finished JUST INSIDE the top 10. Let’s see how it did.
The year is 2001 and John Christian Hillcox has become one of the most popular preachers in Texas. He’s also become one of the richest. And as we’re about to find out, a lot of that money wasn’t exactly earned. Within minutes of meeting Christian, we shoot back to the beginning of his life, where he’s being parented by his alcoholic sexually abusive father, Mason.
The evil that was his father inspired Christian to do everything in his power to make something of himself. Unfortunately, success was a long way’s away. As a junior in high school, Christian knocked up a classmate, and was told by her uncle that if he didn’t make an honest woman of her, he’d kill Christian. And so Christian got married to a girl he didn’t even like at age 16.
Once out of high school, Christian was desperate for money, and so teamed up with a gnarly acquaintance who knew how to hustle illegal aliens into America. The two got good at it, except for one hot day where they opened the door to freedom only to find their entire cargo dead from the heat. Actually, there was one young woman still alive, barely. That didn’t last long, as Christian covered her mouth with a towel and suffocated her. Couldn’t have witnesses.
Christian decided running aliens across the border wasn’t for him, and looked for other sources of income. That’s when he met a local preacher who told him the words that would change his life. If you sell Jesus, you can make more money than you can dream of. Christian took that advice to heart and quickly began shooting up the preacher ladder. And when it came time for his followers to donate to the lord, Christian kept anywhere between 70-80% of the money for himself.
When Christian found out that his wife had self-aborted their baby with a coat hanger, he divorced her, which is when he met Darlene, a Texas woman who loved money almost as much as he did. As their fortunes grew, the people Christian hoped were gone forever, came stumbling back. His abusive father, for one. Oh, and that guy who knows Christian killed an entire family of Mexicans. Can Christian keep them at bay? Or will his past come back to kill him?
Man, this script has it all!
Rape. Gay Preacher Sex. Stealing mass amounts of money. Pedophilia. Underage sex. Illegal aliens. Murder. Abortion.
Nothing is left off the table here. And, to be honest, I don’t know what to make of it.
Being Christian incorporates one of my least favorite narrative devices out there – the “Backstory as Story” Device. That’s when there is no present. There’s only what happened in the past. Since movies work best when they’re in the present, this approach is as problematic as they come.
The only person who knows how to do it is Scorsese. And even he fails sometimes. The only movie where this device truly shines is Goodfellas. And there are a couple of big reasons for that. The first is that the movie starts with a great teaser. A group of guys are riding along. Everything seems normal. Then we hear bumping. They stop. They go to the back of the car. We see that they’ve got a body inside the truck. It all of a sudden starts moving. And they begin beating it.
The reason this is relevant is because it creates a sense of curiosity in the audience. We want to know who these guys are and how the hell they got themselves into this situation. Therefore, we’re willing to do a little work in so far as learning about their past before we come back to the present.
Being Christian doesn’t have an intriguing teaser. We hear Christian preaching. Then we see him having sex with his wife. There isn’t a whole lot of curiosity built up by these events and therefore we’re less patient going into the backstory portion of the script.
The second thing that Scorsese does well with Goofellas – and he does it well with Casino also – is he gets very specific in how he details the world (crime for Goodfellas and casinos for Casino). That level of specificity means we’re learning a bunch of cool stuff about this world. And that’s fun. It’s also rare. Most writers don’t know any more about their subject matter than you do. So the stuff they detail turns out to be stuff you already knew. I would say that 80% of what I know about casinos to this day comes from watching Casino.
Being Christian doesn’t take us that deeply into the world of preachers and televangelists. Which is a second strike against it. So with each passing page, I was getting more and more bored. However, what Being Christian lacks in curiosity and detail, it makes up for in pure what-the-fuckness. This Christian dude is so bonkers that you can’t help but keep reading to see what craziness he’s going to get into next. I mean, when I read him killing the illegal alien, I was like, “What in the world is going on right now!???” I was abhorred, but I’d be lying if I said I wasn’t intrigued. If something as messed up as that could happen, what else did this script have in store?
Being Christian also utilized another Scorsese staple – dueling voice overs. At first, we’re hearing the movie solely through Christian’s voice over. But when Darlene arrives, we start getting her take as well. The choice doesn’t do much to improve the experience, and I would argue it actually hurts it. A lot of times writers will incorporate choices without considering whether they actually add to the story. Hearing Darlene’s inner thoughts is jarring at first, but, in the end, doesn’t tell us anything we don’t (arguably) already know.
Let this be a reminder to all writers to never incorporate things because they feel fun or cool or cause you saw it in one of your favorite movies. Just like a director should have a reason behind every shot (go handheld if you want to create a sense of unease), a screenwriter should have a reason behind every device. Otherwise, it just feels like you’re copying your heroes.
With all that said, the script remains entertaining throughout. Religion is one of the best ways to unleash one of writing’s most powerful tools – irony. Writing bad people who operate behind the veneer of religion works like gangbusters when done well. And Christian may have just become the poster child for it.
[ ] What the hell did I just read?
[ ] wasn’t for me
[x] worth the read
[ ] impressive
[ ] genius
What I learned: “Unable to resist any longer, Christian and Tiffany grab each other’s faces and there’s a mess of tongues and lips.” I love this line. I love it because it’s a great example of adding a little something extra to the description. Most writers would’ve written, “Unable to resist any longer, Christian and Tiffany grab each other’s faces and kiss wildly.” “…a mess of tongue and lips” is so much more playful and descriptive. Turbo-boost your phrasing to give your description a little extra kick.
