I write this Scriptland almost a week late…and for that I apologise…blaming work is a weak excuse but the truth. I could blame the weather but that would be a lie. I’m sitting in the British Library with a Japanese man beside me. He really does look like Mr. Miyagi. Honest. He sneezes a lot. I think swine flu. Get a grip. So Thursday is graphic novel day (please check out the sneak preview at http://twitpic.com/90tws or under the GRAPHIC NOVEL SECTION.) Love working on our comic. It feels pure and without interference. I am also hugely excited by the story as it’s been festering within me for years. I want to create a graphic novel that people who don’t read comics want to buy…to read as a stand alone book or to read to their kids. That’s my goal…I’ll let you guys be the judge.
So library…ear phones listening to Alberto Inglesias’ score to the Constant Gardner. One of my favourite films, editorially, story wise and visually. When I first saw it I dissed it. Not impressed was I. But I wonder if some films when you watch them you have to be in the mood for them? Like I hated Wanted the first time I saw it. But saw it again recently and really appreciated it. Not as good as the graphic novel but the graphic novel would never have been filmed.
So a few weeks ago in the Guardian…Friday’s G2 the dog’s bollocks…there was an article by Paul Schrader (Taxi Driver and Exorcist II!) on narrative exhaustion. Let me just relate some of it to you:
‘Writers have always known there are a limited number of storylines. Christopher Booker’s Seven Basic Plots popularised the number 7, but others have argued 3, 20 and 26…Rudyard Kipling said 69. That’s not new. We do tell variations of the same stories over and over. That’s not what I mean by the ‘exhaustion of narrative.’ What is new is the omnipresence and ubiquity of plot created by media proliferation. We are inundated by narrative. We are swimming with storylines.’
Schrader goes on to talk about how our Grandfathers might have seen 2,500 hours of audio visual narrative by the time they were 30…but today an average person aged 30 would have seen over 35,000 hours of plot. In part because I think film has replaced books as the main narrative well that we drink from. Which is a shame I think. Prose should be the foundation.
Schrader asks what does to mean to the storyteller? He argues that is incredibly difficult to get out in front of a viewer’s expectation. I’ll repeat that… he argues that is incredibly difficult to get out in front of a viewer’s expectation.
He goes on:
‘Almost every subject has been covered and covered exhaustively. How many hours has the average viewer seen of the serial killer plot? 50? 100? He’s seen the basic plots, the permutations of those plots and the permutations of the imitations. How does the writer capture the imagination of the viewer seeped in serial killer plot? Make it even gorier? Seen it. More perverse? Seen it. Serial killer with humour? Been there. A parody? Yawn.’
He goes on to argue and this happened with me in some Hush reviews…that people hear your story and immediately place it in a box. Schrader thinks that the average Joe is so savvy when it comes to story he immediately upon hearing your idea labels it. ‘Oh that sounds like Memento.’ ‘Oh that sounds like Breakdown.’
And Schrader asks one pertinent question (he actually asks quite a few!): does the proliferation of media mean it is harder to be original today than 50 years ago? He says yes. And half agree with him. As he says ‘the bar of originality has been raised’ but notice how classic stories continue to be ‘rebooted’ for a new generation?
You see, in some reviews of Hush we were accused by SOME CRITICS…of being unoriginal. Well that’s because the basic plots of everything will be by definition be the same. But what makes something unique and original is its soul. And should be best typified by character and theme. Theme…what the film is about…not what the story is. Hush is about self interest verses social responsibility merged with that is the theme of being trapped. The car is literally Zakes’ prison. Zakes’ view on the World. His situation is totally unique. Totally. That journey…the one he makes…the one the coupe make is totally unique. And that is the point. What I have taken from inside me and put on screen that’s what gives a story a unique angle. Everything that happens in Star Trek has been seen before. Rogue outsider who goes good. (Kirk.) Time travelling vengeful bad guys? Seen that too. But what makes it unique is JJ/Orci/Kurtzman’s take on it. What they’re trying to say about friendship is what makes it unique. Take away all the gloss that film could still have been filmed as a 2 million dollar film. Trust me.
Look at the Hangover. Again. A premise deceptively simple. 3 men wake up with a baby, a tiger and missing groom with no memory of the night before. They need to find the groom before he gets married. Even this has a whiff of familiarity about it but what makes it unique are the characters and how they respond to the situation and the wonderful line Todd Philipps treads…he never lets the humour become puerile nor does he ever let the premise exclude women. Unique in my book.
Hopefully next week I’ll get back on track on the story telling stuff.
