THE SCRIPTWRIGHT

It was like yesterday. My mom and my fiancé in the kitchen cleaning up and my fiancé said we were going to see a war movie that evening. 

“Why does he do that?” my mom asked. I was only a few months fresh from my last circle through Central America during one of the last bloodiest civil wars the US and USSR took advantage of to keep fighting a 60-year war and not get it “hot”—nuclear.

“I don’t know,” my fiancé said.

Cork in El Sal: www.corkincombat.com

Eavesdropping spurred me to answer silently: Because we’re searching for answers to the war and reasons for my and others’ experience…

Every veteran watches movies that deal with war. For some it’s the reliving of past glories of youth, especially apparent in those who served in WWII and like watching John Wayne movies.

…Or, for the young it’s what they imagine or possibly hope war will be: whether as a reason not to go, or to go. When I read that a bunch of Marines watched Apocalypse Now the night before the run into Iraq, I wasn’t surprised.

…Or, the last reason, the reason I found myself watching all these war movies when I returned from Central America: to interpret the emotions and feelings that I hadn’t been permitted to feel while in combat. You start bawling, and feeling all those emotional and psychological pains while you’re in a firefight, instead of responding effectively and as clear thinking as possible, you’re setting up yourself and your team for a whole mess more of hurt.

–Bottle it up and save it for later time we’d say, not realizing that we were prepping our subconscious for a much longer run with PTSD. Listen to Marines and soldiers who survived the breakout of the Chosin Reservoir in the Korean War and you’ll get a clear idea of how time doesn’t always heal all wounds.

…Listen to someone who has done the processing of clearing out the auto-effects of PTSD you see the difference. War movies provide this…and sometimes it gives just enough of a peak to relatives and friends who perhaps might want to understand what had happened.

In a film we get to see life as we wish it was: the hero wins. The bad guy dies….Or we get to at least see events similar to what we might have experienced, and just by seeing something, anything similar, outside of our memories, enables us to get a grasp of what roils and slithers through our memories—it’s what makes real sense of getting another point of view.

And that’s why every war has a marker of war movies: they’re good business for Hollywood, even when Hollywood says no. No, not when the films come out, except for Apocalypse Now and Deer Hunter—Coppola and Cimino always did well, back then.

No, I’m talking about movies such as those that come out during a war. The only ones that did well were propoganda films that came out during WWII and WWI. There were two audiences then: those going and coming back, and those wishing they’d gone and those who hoped their loved ones were either John Wayne or protected by John Wayne.

But, as the masses move so do the movies. This was evident with Korea. Pork Chop Hill with Gregory Peck, great movie really started to see what the hell was that American and UN personnel and were going through in Korea, but after WWII, Americans didn’t want to know about Korea of those who came back—they don’t call it The Forgotten War for nothing. As for Pork Chop Hill, it didn’t come out until later.

Then there was the anger of Vietnam, and doing everything not to mention it in Hollywood: except for the ra-ra film, Green Berets, most films dealt with the wars before…One of my favorite films of that era wasn’t a Vietnam movie, but a Kelly Heroes with Clint Eastwood. Remember what I said about films being an escape? Something to remember when coming up with a film idea: want to do a war movie? Don’t do it on the one you’re fighting now unless you want to do a documentary—Stop-Loss came out a few years too early…when we get our medicine we don’t want to know about it.

…And we especially don’t want it at the cost of our escape: when I checked on it today, the gross for Stop-Loss was only $10.9 Million (Budget was $25 Million). Look at Robert Altman’s M*A*S*H which was the use of a past war to comment on a present war and you’ll get my drift (Koreans wearing Vietnamese conical hats, say what??)…medicine for those in the know, comedy and fun for those looking to escape = Box Office smash and critical acclaim!

…We’ll talk about this next time when I share with you “true-life” as narrated by a journalist, and “true-life” as depicted by screenwriter.

Up until the societal effects of the Vietnam War in the early 1970s, the anti-hero never received the kind of accolade that the hero did. Then, Taxi Diver. A psychopath reveals shining qualities (he wants to kill corrupt politicians and save a child from prostitution), the film does well at the box office and suddenly the anti-hero becomes all too real and hero is lost.

Only John Wayne hangs on and actually receives his first and only Academy Award for True Grit. Is the traditional hero lost? If lost, is this a good thing?

The answer is Myth and Mythos. Just in case you thought otherwise, especially if you like to watch “Based On A True Story” films, nothing is true in a film. The only true story is that recorded in the eye of the those who beheld the events themselves. And more importantly, there is no true story that can ever be turned into a good story without modifying at least the chain of events—reality is just too messy. This goes back to the earliest stories, as an example, The Iliad and The Odyssey.

Whether because of these stories, or those that followed, we have a sociological imprint that states how a good story is told, and what a hero is. Heroes an ideal…

Can you imagine actually having to live day in and day out the lives of those characters you most admire? It’s hard enough for those we see, or have read about, that have acted heroically to live the rest of their lives in a manner that can even compete with the heroic act. This is one of the reasons war heroes, traumatic memories aside, have such problems living “normal” lives, and why some continue searching for that high they experienced during their act of heroism, or later high of public recognition.

Pardon me if I’ve digressed, so let’s get back to the reality of the film hero, or protagonist. First, the hero, he or she, needs to get us to want to spend 90 minutes to 120 minutes with them. It’s because they remind us of that guy or gal who we liked in school because they were so friendly, or helpful or as of late, so handsome or pretty. We need to be invested in their story: that makes it our story. We want to escape: entertainment is after all escape: comedy, drama. We live through the “what if”. What if I were an astronaut leading a team through mishap in space. What if I were a book mogul who finally falls in love with the owner of a small bookstore that’s being bought out by my bookstore chain. What if…what if…

Yes, perhaps we might be lucky enough as an audience to escape all our normal lives that we might live for a moment a life of daring or incredible wealth or superhuman strength, incredible amorous bliss, and most of all without the risk involved in reality.

A hero in films has those qualities that enable us to like them, but at the same time they have that quality of unbelievability that enables them to do complete heroic acts, such as hang from a chopper with one hand, or shoot a long squad weapon from the hips with total effectiveness. They do what they do so that for one moment, we get the ride of our llife without the reality of responsible and real life cost. If you get a chance to see Tropic Thunder, please do! It was hilarious and really was a good take on the world according to celluloid, a humorous, yet very dark, take on war filmmaking—Jack Black hanging from a chopper with wires was perfect.

Speaking of reality and the contrast to film reality, I’ll tell you a story about a little hike in the jungle sometime soon…

Normally I prefer not to comment on someone else’s writing, whether book or film. I prefer to leave that to lit professors milking tenure in their ivory towers. But, sometimes, just sometimes you see something so appalling that you have to just say enough is enough!

The last straw for me was a film (I’m not going to do any marketing for them by mentioning the title—but if you saw it you’ll recognize it). Now, I could be wrong in thinking that fault lay with the writer, that the director saw the script and said, yeah, whatever….

But, I’m pretty sure it’s the writer’s fault: characters that have no business being in the film!

Ever watch a movie and wonder what’s this guy, or gal, is doing in the scene? Well, last week while watching a film On Demand (I’m so happy I didn’t plunk down hard-earned money for even seeing it at a matinee) I was reminded of this question.

Basically it was a loser character, who was supposed to be the comedy foil for a film about a groom who died before reaching the altar. We then find out that the groom has a child from a one-night stand while he was away from his hometown.

First all there were problems with the whole storyline. The real protagonist was the guy who died off screen at the beginning of the film: an opening preparation of flowers becomes changes to flower for a funeral, interesting but clichéd.

So, throughout the film we’re left with only the supporting characters, who try to make sense of their deceased friend and his illegitimate son. What it became was a really bad copy of The Big Chill.

Why was the The Big Chill such a good film?

The group of mourners was the protagonist, they and the remembrance of their times together in the late 1960s and early 1970s and what they stood for, with the antagonist being the people they had become: the image of the people they had rebelled against, their parents.

The friend who had killed himself, was actually only the impetus for the story become. Is it any wonder that the character, who died was never shown, played by Kevin Costner? It would have completely confused the story either through flashback, something considered, or to start the film with Kevin Costner’s character still alive.

What a powerful open to see a man being dressed, only to soon realize that it’s a corpse being prepared for an open casket funeral.

The producers of The Big Chill did the story right.

…I wish the producers and director of the other piece, that will go nameless, had done the same. First of all, it’s a generational thing. There was connectivity in the ‘60s generation that just isn’t there in Generation X and later groups—and even an innocent and idealism lost on later generations (Still, Ben Stiller’s delivery of Reality Bites did well with the topic of maturation angst for a later generation). But, still a big difference between wondering if you’re going to be drafted for Vietnam, and whether you’re parents will buy you a new car so that you can look good to your classmates. Relative quality of risk and conflict makes cohesion in compelling drama, or even a good comedy.

Storyline disasters aside, let’s look at that character who was just annoying. Basically the actor’s playing the same character he’s played in every film he’s ever done since his acting/writing/directing debut: nagging slob. That he’s friends with the husband of the female lead was no surprise—and Hollywood complains that audiences just don’t go to films the way they used to?

People pay for entertainment and escape: remind me of every loser I’ve ever had to deal with and expect me to pay for it, and hold me to listening to this guy for two hours and I get angry. Sure, you want to teach me some of your wisdom about life and people? No problem, great masterpieces came about as the result of such great idealisms—just don’t do it at the cost of my escaping the depressing thoughts hitting me as the result of daily grinds and national and global news.

First of all, I’m not into being a sounding board for a nag in my daily life. I’m especially not going to pay for the disastrous privilege of listening to one throughout a film. Secondly you better get that character changing pretty quick and getting those redeeming qualities appearing long before the middle of the film.

Most of all, you better have a reason for him or her even being in the film, and comedy foils just suck if they don’t have my respect. Take for example the comedy foil in Big Chill: Jeff Goldblum. Why was he integral?

We all know or recall someone like him. And an ex-journalist, I knew many of them just like him. But, he had a redeeming quality: he was a professional, he did become the investigative journalist he had aspired to be, he was just slightly annoying. His redeeming qualities were apparent. Though a little annoying, he was also endearing. Compare that with the Loser in the no-name flick and there’s no redeeming quality, only a nag.

Remember redeeming qualities: for all main characters! Think I’m kidding? Wait until I talk about antagonists: those bad guys and gals we love to hate and hate to love.

Until then, I’ll be up in the Eastern Sierra teasing a rainbow with a fly…Tight lines!