Outcomes...

The last few months have been dominated by interest in the films up for Awards, at Venice, BAFTA, Golden Globes (currently controversial) and all the others, and which finally culminated a few weeks ago in the Oscars. And oh what a welcome diversion from Covid and politics. Fittingly bizarre, the Oscars ceremony was held in a railway station! Union Station, in Los Angeles. Steven Soderbergh, the producer of the “show,” assured us it wasn’t going to be a webinar. It wasn’t. It certainly wasn’t the splashy event it is known for, but it did manage to hold the attention of avid film goers and industry folk.

Does all of this matter?

Yes and no. It matters because the results have an impact on the box office success of the films, but more importantly, that our viewing is enriched by fresh stories and the extraordinary filmmaking of all the nominees.

Personally I felt that Nomadland, which won Best Picture, was a light weight. Chloé Zhao is a gifted director with a photographers eye. However with a thin story and lapses in logic, I felt the film was at best a mood piece. The screenplay included real life interviews that appear in the book from which the script was adapted and filmed with the same non-actors it was part documentary, and I might add with a narrow view, therefore a poor representation as a nominee in the Best Adapted Screenplay category which was won by The Father won. And rightly so. The screenwriters of the film so skillfully devised a structure that shifts reality as the character loses his bearings, that you - the viewer - find yourself just as confused, smack in the center of the bewildered mind of someone with dementia. Originally a stage play - the story takes place in only two locations - the screenplay is an exceptional example of visual writing in encompassing the spatial element that is only possible in film. Promising Young Woman, a fiercely stylized treatment on sexual assault, won Best Original Screenplay. Another Round was wonderful but honestly I haven’t seen all the nominated films in the category yet.

Ultimately of course, outcomes, are for moving forward. Finding inspiration and stimulation in good work and learning from it. Have YOU seen some of the films? Have they made you think about where YOU are as a screenwriter? Watching these films you have been the viewer. So, has that made you more aware of the importance of steering your audience so that they feel as alive as your characters?

Although we are speaking about writing, I have to mention the performance of Anthony Hopkins in The Father, which truly is the towering achievement of a consummate actor. I was dismayed that Frances McDormand, doing what we’ve seen her do before, won over Viola Davis’ incredibly human and finely tuned performance as Ma Rainey. Eventually though, Ma Rainey’s Black Bottom belonged to Chadwick Boseman. A glorious performance made even more heart-wrenching, as he the actor himself knew his own life would not be long. A limitless talent lost too early.

The visual nature of film does indeed offer a ton of possibilities, but at the same time, it can also obscure the need for grounding your story and your characters in believability, as it did for me with the lead character in Nomadland. Although film is a visual medium, the visual element is there to set the stage for, and enhance and reveal and partner the story, not the other way around. Striking a complimentary balance between the visual and the emotional depth and logic of the story is what makes film transporting. Films that come to mind that exemplify this are, Lawrence of Arabia and Doctor Zhivago, both directed by David Lean, and written by, screenwriter Robert Bolt. At the other extreme is Hungarian director, Béla Tarr’s, The Man From London. The whole film in black and white, serves to build the monotony of every day to deliver the insights and tension in this classic mystery.

As screenwriters the camera is always rolling in our heads and the discovery is in the execution on the page. When Toni Morrison was asked why she writes, her answer was, “Because otherwise I’m stuck with life.”

As a writer, life is only the beginning.

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