{"id":7758,"date":"2017-01-08T07:00:53","date_gmt":"2017-01-08T07:00:53","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/janetgover.com\/?p=7758"},"modified":"2017-01-08T07:00:53","modified_gmt":"2017-01-08T07:00:53","slug":"reading-between-the-frames","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/johnhocking.net\/jg2025demo1\/films\/reading-between-the-frames\/","title":{"rendered":"Reading between the frames"},"content":{"rendered":"
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If you haven’t seen this – it really is worth a look.<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n

I read a film last night.<\/p>\n

I know what you are thinking \u2013 and yes, I watched it too. In fact I did both. At the same time.\u00a0 And it was quite an eye opener.<\/p>\n

The film was A Few Good Men \u2013 which of course features an absolutely brilliant performance by Jack Nicholson. A fine Keifer Sutherland performance too. Not to mention Kevin Bacon. And a young Tom Cruise doesn\u2019t do too badly either.<\/p>\n

The reason I watched it was none of the above \u2013 it was all about the writing.The film was written by the great Aaron Sorkin, based on his play. For those who haven\u2019t seen it, it\u2019s based around the death of a marine at the US base in Cuba \u2013 and deals with themes of right and wrong and duty and justice. I\u2019m a huge Sorkin fan, and am currently doing on online masterclass with him. As part of that, I got a copy of the screenplay for A Few Good Men. So last night I sat down with the script on my laptop, the DVD on my TV \u2013 and of course a notebook and pen.<\/p>\n

I like the idea of colour coding the drafts – I assume it was printed on pretty coloured paper<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n

The first thing that struck me about the script wasn\u2019t just that it seemed to have been written on a typewriter \u2013 it was 1991 after all. On the cover I saw this was the third draft of the screenplay \u2013 and this third draft had been through 6 revisions. As the film progressed, there were other places where the film deviated from the script \u2013 with changes obviously made during production and during editing.<\/p>\n

It was a great comfort to me that such a brilliant writer fiddles and revises as much as I do. In fact, in his course, Sorkin said \u2013 revisions are not an indication of bad writing, revisions are an indication of a good writer. I couldn\u2019t agree more. Revisions are a sign of the writer\u2019s desire to make their work the very best it can be.<\/p>\n

Back to the film \/ screenplay. Sorkin is a master of dialogue and characters. In the final film of course you have the visuals to help, but it all starts with a screenplay. At that point, words define the character, just as they do in a novel. Here\u2019s how Sorkin introduces the character played by Keifer Sutherland.<\/p>\n

And here are two examples of Lt. Kendrick\u2019s dialogue.<\/p>\n

This comes very early in the film our second meeting with Kendrick<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n
This dialogue is later in the film – during the court hearing.<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n

Kiefer Sutherland did a fabulous job in the role \u2013 but even without him \u2013 you know everything you need to know about the character from just those\u00a0few paragraphs\u2026<\/p>\n

Sutherland was chilling and very believable in the role.<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n

In terms of dialogue, I found that the lead actors \u2013 Nicholson, Cruise, Demi Moore, Bacon etc \u2013 did change the text. Just slightly. A word or phrase here or there. But the secondary characters \/ actors pretty much stayed with the script. I guess that\u2019s why the stars earn the big bucks. The changes they brought fitted seamlessly into the dialogue. They totally worked for the characters. That\u2019s what the great actors bring to the table.<\/p>\n

And once again \u2013 it was dialogue creating character. And character driving plot. Here\u2019s one of Jack Nicholson\u2019s most memorable lines\u2026<\/p>\n

I love this bit – it says so much more than the words themselves.<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n

What does that tell us \u2013 that he\u2019s arrogant and powerful. And a bully. It also tells us he enjoys the danger and would enjoy a fight. Not a nice man. Of course, in the film, Nicholson\u2019s delivery adds greater depth, but not much. The depth is already there. The words determine the way they were delivered. There was no other way it could have been done.<\/p>\n

A Few Good Men was nominated for a number of awards \u2013 which it didn\u2019t win. Sorkin has of course gone on to win many, many awards for his writing. I haven\u2019t finished the course with him yet. Last night\u2019s exercise really got me thinking \u2013 I wonder what\u2019s next.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

I read a film last night. I know what you are thinking \u2013 and yes, I watched it too. In fact I did both. At the same time.\u00a0 And it was quite…<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[11,17,20],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-7758","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-films","category-reading","category-writing"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/johnhocking.net\/jg2025demo1\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/7758","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/johnhocking.net\/jg2025demo1\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/johnhocking.net\/jg2025demo1\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/johnhocking.net\/jg2025demo1\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/johnhocking.net\/jg2025demo1\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=7758"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/johnhocking.net\/jg2025demo1\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/7758\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/johnhocking.net\/jg2025demo1\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=7758"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/johnhocking.net\/jg2025demo1\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=7758"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/johnhocking.net\/jg2025demo1\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=7758"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}