Tài liệu Writing the short film 3th - Part 28 pdf

The Use of Character and Goal Although the docudrama can proceed without a main character if it chroni-cles an event, more often there is a main character, and that character does have a

Every story can be presented in a style that emphasizes veracity, but not every story is suitable for such treatment The first question you must answer for yourself has to do with your sense of purpose for the story Is your goal concerned with politics, education, or information, as opposed to entertainment? A second question has to do with the importance of the event

or person you are dramatizing Was the event critical to history? Was the per-son influential? If so, how is the event or perper-son relevant to today’s audi-ence? Finally, do you feel it is very important to share your view of this story with the audience? How will it change their lives? How has it changed yours? If the majority of your answers are affirmative, the docudrama may very well be a useful approach to your story

The Use of Character and Goal

Although the docudrama can proceed without a main character if it chroni-cles an event, more often there is a main character, and that character does have a goal The difference between melodrama and docudrama is actually one of point of view: how the main character and his or her goal is deployed

In melodrama, we enter and experience the story through the main char-acter In docudrama, however, the point of view—or point of entry to the story—is via the writer-director, whose point of view is not necessarily that

of the main character In fact, the main character and his or her goal is sim-ply the vehicle by which the writer-director presents his or her views on the

story In Land and Freedom, Ken Loach wants to say something about

ideal-ism and about how realpolitik destroys the idealideal-ism that arises out of hope-ful political ideology He uses the main character and his consequent disillusionment as the vehicle for that idea In this film, the view of the writer-director exists separately from the main character and his goal The main character and his goal become the lightning rod for the ideas of the writer-director

The Proximity of the Docudrama to the Documentary

Docudramas are organized dramatically in a manner closer to the documen-tary than to the melodrama The melodrama is organized on a three-act structure It deploys character in a particular way It may or may not have plot It may or may not have resolution

The documentary, on the other hand, is organized like a court case An idea is put forward, then a number of points are argued that make the case The idea is then restated in the light of the case established

The documentary tends to be a closed, or resolved, presentation because it

is in essence a proven case Whether about a person or an event, the process

will be the same The case will be made The docudrama makes a case for the writer-director’s views upon a person or event The writer-director organ-izes the story around the case structure If the film concerns a person, the character and his goal constitute the vehicle for the case—so too does the course of an event, if the story focuses on one The shape of the docudrama follows the shape of the documentary rather than that of the melodrama

Plot Is Used in the Same Manner as the Main Character and His

or Her Goal

Plot in the melodrama is used in opposition to the main character and his or her goal Since the role (that is, view) of the writer-director is the dominant presence in the docudrama, a parallel process goes on in the deployment of plot Plot serves to illustrate, and make the case for, the views of the

writer-director In Culloden, Peter Watkins has particular views on the imperialism

of England vis-à-vis Scotland, and Scotland’s 18th-century venture into nationalism The plot, the Battle of Culloden, is Watkins’s case against England, and he finds the country guilty

Find the Structure That Is Suitable to the Story

Several of the previously mentioned docudramas use narrators It is by no means mandatory that there be a narrator; however, the device, borrowed from documentary, is commonly used in docudrama Very often that narra-tor assumes the journalistic role of reporter, and so the structure proceeds as

a piece of reportage (Culloden) Another approach to the narrator is to use a diarist In Loach’s Land and Freedom, the letters of the main character

docu-ment the story

Whether reporter or diarist, the framing device of a shared piece of reportage or a recorded piece of personal history provides an entry point into what is essentially historical material The presence of the narrator helps shape for the audience what might otherwise be difficult or inaccessible material The narrator is a useful device to structure the story

This differs from the playwright’s approach to a real life event, such as the Battle of Gallipoli David Williamson’s treatment of events in the Peter Weir

film Gallipoli is very dramatic, and we do enter the story through the

experi-ence of two main characters The treatment, however, is very different from the narrator approach earlier described for the docudrama

The second dimension to the structure of the docudrama is that it can be shaped as a character-driven or a plot-driven narrative Whichever is

cho-sen, the narrative tends to have closure or resolution In this sense, it differs from melodrama, which can proceed either to an open-ended conclusion or

to resolution

THE SHORT FILM

Having elaborated upon the features of the docudrama in the long film, what is the balance between subject matter and style in the short film? Are main character and goal, plot, and tone deployed in a manner that supports the authorial voice? How much if any variance in tone does the short docu-drama tolerate? These are questions to which we now turn

Style in the Short Film

In the short film, the notion that you are watching a documentary is even more critical than in the long film Consequently, the deployment of jour-nalistic techniques, from camera style to on or off-air narration, is critical In fact, the first narrative responsibility of the writer is to create at least the illu-sion that what we are watching are real people at real work or leisure A can-did quality, even the sense of “eavesdropping,” should inform the writing and the style of performance This “spontaneity” immediately establishes veracity and seriousness, upon which the writer-director will draw What is being captured is not so much an enactment as the real thing This is the cen-tral style of the docudrama It is the primary and foremost key to the success

of the docudrama

The Main Character and the Goal

As in the long film, the main character, with his or her goal, is the vehi-cle for the ideas of the writer-director Although the character may be vivid or important, the narrative has to create a large place for the voice

of the writer-director We will look at this issue in detail below, under structure

The Role of Plot

As with the main character, plot too can be vivid; indeed, it can be the prin-cipal focus of the narrative However, the voice of the writer-director has to

be a counterweight The plot, like the main character, has to be secondary to the voice of the writer-director in this genre

Whether the narrative is plot-driven or character-driven, the dominant or shaping element of the docudrama is the voice of the writer-director Whatever opinion is being pursued, it is that view that will shape the narra-tive Very much like a documentary, the narrative is shaped as a case to be proven Plot and character are tools used to illustrate, but the organization and presentation of the narrative, whether through onscreen or offscreen narration, is the principal shaping device It is here where the voice of the author resides

Tone

The tone will be emphatically realistic, with as much detail to emphasize realism as possible This may mean camera style, or it may mean an on-air narrator speaking directly to the audience The one exception is the mocku-mentary, where the realism itself is undermined as the viewer gradually real-izes that it is realism itself that is being attacked

Case Study in Character

Matt Mailer’s The Money Shot chronicles a particular film project The

film-maker is the central character He is following two “street kids,” both teenagers in trouble The film opens with the male subject confessing to killing people He is charming but brutal and very candid about what he does The female subject also lives a marginalized life—alienated from her mother, she supports herself by prostitution, and she is a drug user The film-maker also interviews the young woman’s mother and the young man’s aunt Both duck the realities of the two young people’s lives Both refuse to speak about matters too personal to them In the course of the narrative, the filmmaker crosses the line and gets personally involved with both young people The young woman overdoses on drugs, and the young man kills a policeman while being filmed The filmmaker is thrilled to get the incident

on film, but when threatened by the young man, who wants the incriminat-ing footage, the filmmaker tries to call his bluff The young man kills him and takes the film

The character of the filmmaker is presented first as relentlessly pursuing the truth about life on the streets Later we see he is a user, interested only in exploiting the situation, the entrapped and dangerous lives of two young people His cynicism about people and his zeal for exploitation in the end cost him his life

Matt Mailer is very interested, as others have been (Oliver Stone, in

Natural Born Killers), in the exploitative power of film His voice implies

that the media are two-edged swords Their power can destroy the lives of the subjects as well as of the observers This cautionary tale uses the main character and his goal to voice concerns about the media A more satiric

form of this caution was the subject of Paddy Chayevsky’s Network The main character and his goal in The Money Shot is the primary vehicle for the

exploration of Mailer’s ideas about exploitation, media, and the power of the media

Case Study in Place

Helen Besfamilny’s Brighton Blues is a story about the Russian émigré

com-munity in the Brighton Beach area of Brooklyn The story is a simple one A Russian wanders into a deli and admires the variety of food The woman behind the counter is young, an American He tells her he cannot afford the food, that he spent his money on cigarettes She invites him out for dinner Their night together is a bittersweet one Other émigrés drop in to her apart-ment while he sleeps off the evening He leaves but returns to invite her to accompany him to the airport, from which he’ll leave for home, the USSR She refuses, but after he leaves she follows, loaded down with food for him She goes to the subway station, but they do not see each other She is alone, and he is gone This brief description does not capture the despair, loneli-ness, and the fleeting joy these people experience in the film

The film uses a blue filter to present an attitude about Brighton Beach The cinema verité footage of the deli, the restaurant, the street, and the subway station, as well as the beach, echo a community in a deep malaise The émigrés are not home in their new home But they recreate the sounds and smells and sights that remind them of home—Moscow, Mother Russia The film has a powerful sense of place and of nostalgia for that other home, far away

Besfamilny’s views about place infuse Brighton Blues and share with us a profound sadness about displacement This is her voice in Brighton Blues.

Cast Study in Plot

Ethan Spigland’s Strange Case of Balthazar Hyppolite tells the story of a film

archivist who finds some rare film footage by the filmmaker Balthazar Hyppolite The film predates the numerous technological discoveries that helped create the film industry Consequently, it is footage of considerable historical importance The balance of the film is devoted to searching and reconstructing the footage In the second part of the film, the main charac-ter’s love interest in a fellow archivist is introduced By the end, the

footage has been added to, and a new narrative reconsideration of the footage is presented

Spigland is himself obsessed with obsessive characters This plot of recon-structing lost footage provides him with the opportunity to explore that characteristic, to observe that love of film and love itself often fuse and, in a sense, combine The distinction between movie life and real life blurs for the character His structure, essentially a detective story told initially in a serious and later in a mocking tone, is both a paean to film and a mocking com-mentary on obsession (his and others) with film The detective-style plot allows Spigland to freely editorialize about the purpose and passion of his main character

A Case Study in Time

Phil Bertelson’s Around the Time is an interview of a black father by his son.

What Bertelson is exploring is actually the circumstances of his own birth This encounter of young adult and middle-aged man is a meeting of two strangers The conversation triggers the narration by the father of a time a generation earlier, of his relationship with a white woman, and of the racism

of the times and the consequent impermanence of interracial relationships The relationship fails, but the narrator gives us the nervous, excited feel of the early ‘60s, a time when change was possible, if elusive By framing the story around the relationship and the time of the relationship, the filmmaker

is looking to understand the circumstances of his birth Bertelson does not condemn or approve of his father He remains dispassionate, the true interviewer of the narrative Consequently, the sense of time dominates character, goal, and plot As in the Besfamilny film, the sense of place and time is overwhelmingly the core of the film All else is secondary

A Case Study in Tone

Geoffrey Mandel’s Kill the Director is a mockumentary about film

produc-tion, specifically student production It uses interview techniques focusing

on the director and his crew The tale is one of continual failure Crew mem-bers leave The director feigns optimism, and artistic integrity above all is his goal, even in the nude scenes Eventually, all the crew members and actors leave, and the director undresses and films himself as stand-in for the actor

A lamp falls on him and kills him His crew rallies, finishes the film, and wins numerous awards It was art after all

Mandel’s film amusingly mocks pretension, film criticism, acting, and directing Every area is subject to mockery, and the result is a mockumentary

that amusingly portrays student film production as disproportionately earnest

To sum up, docudrama allows the voice of the writer-director to dominate

As a form, it uses style to suggest the importance of the film, but also to allow that voice to override and shape the dramatic properties—character, structure, and tone

NOTE

1 As described in K Dancyger and J Rush, Alternative Scriptwriting (Boston: Focal

Press, 1991), 52–54.