If you want to know what powerful screen drama looks, feels and smells like, go see Before the Devil Knows You're Dead while it's in cinemas. Note the behaviour of the protagonists, two brothers played by Ethan Hawke and Phillip Seymour Hoffman - people of action (I don't mean in the Die Hard genre sense but in the true dramatic sense) who argue, make plans and put them into action to generally disastrous effect.
Do Australian film protagonists always behave like this? The lead character - a cop - of last year's Noise, superbly played by
Brendan Cowell , certainly didn't. Which is why I was intrigued to come across these comments from Cowell: "If you look at what a protagonist should be, it should be, if they don't get want they want, it's a huge crisis, whereas in Australia if they don't get what they want it's kind of alright. And that's the problem" - Brendan Cowell
Cowell is reiterating points made by interviewees in my January 2 piece for The Australian and in this blog on common Australian feature script problems. Cowell is quoted in a trailer for a documentary in production called Into The Shadows, which has its own website. (Thanks again to reader Syms Covington for drawing the film to my attention.)
Screenwriting teacher and script consultant Billy Marshall Stoneking, one of my interviewees in that original piece, now has his own website, Where's the Drama, devoted to screenwriting issues which I highly recommend.
Meanwhile here's more from Into the Shadows, starting with veteran director Bruce Beresford:
Producer-director Robert Connolly:
Independent distributor John L. Simpson (The Jammed):
Writer director Murali K. Thalluri (2:37) (incidentally, Murali - you accuse Australian filmmakers of making films the public doesn't want to see, including films about single mothers in the suburbs - but the public didn't want to see 2:37. Does that mean you were making the wrong film?):
Producer Sue Maslin (Japanese Story):
Director of MUFF (Melbourne Underground Film Festival) Richard Wolstencroft:
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11 comments:
I will address some of the issues raised by the filmmakers:
1. Star status - yes it helps distributors in the marketing of the film to lure an audience but the film should stand on its own feet. Investors outside of the industry want names to ensure global appeal ie Cate Blanchett.
2. Film technique - Connolly was right. Australian films are all shot the same way with the same basic standard conventions of filmmaking. No one makes films that are innovative and different. Part of the problem is government funding bodies who like conservative films to appeal to a wide an audience as possible. Wrong attitude.
3. Distributors - I disagree that distributors are bullied. It is more the exhibitors. Distributors will try and get a minimum session policy of two day and two night sessions in weeks one and two. If exhibitor only offers one day and one night as minimum then distributor should look elsewhere. No film can make a decent box office, especially when exhibitors get so much of the box office at around 70%. If exhibitors offer less sessions then distributors should get higher film hire. Exhibitors will never agree to this.
4. Exhibitors - 70% of box office goes to distributors. The remaining 30% goes to distributor who has a P&A budget to try and recoup and then the splits goes to the producers. So producers will get 50% once box office is recouped out of the 30$ given to distributors. Exhibitors are the bullies, not the distributors.
Sorry made two typos. replace with the following:
1. "I disagree that distributors are bullies."
2. "70% of box office goes to exhibitors."
All but one of the interviewees touched on the notion of the rampant political correctness that renders the industry hopeless.
Don't blame distributors or exhibitors, blame the writer and directors who push and push and push to have their politically correct scripts made.
They submit to govt with briefs that often include taglines such as gay, indigenous, coming of age, class, gender, race, all from the rag bag of 1970's Marxist theory, long discarded by everyone except those in the arts, and, tragically, those in funding bodies. So funding bodies are of the same political pursuasions as the film makers (actually, they often went to the same unis in the 1980's - some went into production, others went into govt.)
FILM MAKERS SHOULD STOP BLAMING EVERYBODY ELSE. In this country, a grand sum of money is pumped into film every year.
OK, SO NOW THAT HOWARD'S GONE, WHO YOU GONNA BLAME? The mad mentality that a prime minister is the cause of crap films is infuriating. Uh, hang on, I thought arts found a voice under 'harsh regimes' such as er...John Howard. If he was so evil, how come great art didn't come through under his reign??
THE HARD SOCIALOGICAL FACTS:
FILM MAKERS IN AUSTRALIA OFTEN THINK OF THEMSELVES AS "OUTSIDERS" OR "BLACK SHEEP" IN THEIR OWN ANGLO SAXON MIDDLE-CLASS CULTURE. FROM CHILDHOOD, THEY READILY IDENTIFY WITH "THE OTHER", THEY BELIEVE THEY CAN "FEEL THE PAIN" OF OPPRESSED, MARGINAL PEOPLE WHOM THEY IDENTIFY WITH.
SO, WHEN THEY GET THEIR GRANT AND MAKE A FILM, AND HAVE IT IN THEATRES, AND IT MAKES 0 $$$, THEY FEEL LIKE "OUTSIDERS" IE. THIS IS THE ZONE WITH WHICH THEY ARE COMFORTABLE, BECAUSE THEY'VE BEEN THERE FROM CHILDHOOD.
I'm a film maker, and I live neither in NSW or VIC.
Before the Devil Knows You're Dead is a perfect example of how scriptwriting formulas can so easily come up with an earnest, finely polished, grandstanding turd:
- The expository dialogue ("You want us to rob *that* jewellery store? But.. But.. that's Mum and Dad's place...");
- the contrived monologues ("I don't add up as a character" - if the scriptwriter admits this in the dialogue, then it's not a flaw of the script;
- the character behaviour motivated purely by operatic pretence (why was that final suffocation necessary? hadn't they already made the point;
- a gimmicky and thoroughly redundant flashback structure that requires intertitles and a drumroll to let the audience know what's happening;
- sketchy unhinged Oscar-hungry performances from otherwise brilliant actors (if I see Ethan Hawke twitching uncontrollably one more time to show me the unimaginable conflict that's going on behind those vacant eyes; and Marisa Tomei's suitcase scene was embarrassing);
- expository sideline characters (pre-teen girl to irresponsible father: "But Dad! You promised to find the money to let me go to Lion King camp! In case the audience didn't notice, you're a horrible Dad! You've failed me yet again! I hate you!");
- lower-class stereotypes;
- upper-middle-class stereotypes (overweight corporate guy in loveless marriage with impossibly hot femme fatale, who hates his Dad, gambles, steals from work, shoots up heroin, hates his younger prettier brother, has contrived Paul-Haggis-worthy monologues, shoots up heroin);
- melodramatic subplot about wife having affair with brother-in-law that goes absolutely. freaking. nowhere!
It's funny you should bring up this film to point out the inadequacies of Australian scriptwriting. To me the expository dialogue, implausible characters, half-assed plotting and overwrought acting positively screamed FFC. I've not seen a more misguided American film in over a year.
And please don't be taken in by this whole oh-so-pat active-protagonist=great-cinema. Even as far as reductive scriptwriting formulas go, that's morbidly reductive.
And I'd love to read/see any screenplay the ubiquitous Mr. Stoneking has written.
Hello Lynden.
I like what you wrote about Into the Shadows. I am currently co-producing/co-directing the doco with my business partner and I also happened to be operating the camera on this particular interview.
The reason I say this is because when Brendan says his comment I start uncontrollably smiling in agreement. He sees this and kind of looks up at me, but being the true professional that he is, he continues on his point.
I don't know if that is interesting to anyone else, but I just thought I'd point it out.
Anyway, for some reason, when I try to play said clip (and a few others I might add) it doesn't play and there is an error message that appears. I am currently working to try to fix this on our YouTube channel, so please bare with me.
It could be just my computer...is anyone else having this issue?
Anonymous - For the most part I like your comments. It sounds like you have a great deal of knowledge about the industry and the relationships between exhibitors and distributors.
When John L. Simpson is talking about the bully tactics used by distributors he is referring to the tactics they use on independent cinemas. Key word being independent.
There is no doubt that larger exhibitors with chains around the country have more bargaining power. No question at all.
But as I say, John (after his extensive work on releasing the Jammed) is referring to the relationships between larger distributors and smaller owner operated (or independent) exhibitors.
There are some great discussions going on right now on our Facebook page about subjects very similar to this. So take a look and become a fan.
Phil
Y Kant Goran Rite: The only thing that really annoyed me about the film was that it was so hard to hear so much of the dialogue (at least where I saw it, at the Sydney Academy Twin, where there was no surround-sound - was there any where you saw the film?). The scene near the beginning where Hoffman pitches the robbery to Hawke in a bar is the worst offender: it seems to be a crucial scene and yet I literally struggled to catch even the odd word (and my hearing's not that bad). In an odd way that made me struggle to keep up with the exposition in a way that made the film an interesting challenge. In the end everything does become clear.
Secondly: I challenge you to name (without spending half an hour on imdb or using reference books) to name half a dozen really compelling yet essentially passive - protagonists. I don't deny that they exist (eg Wake in Fright), but they're very rare. In reacting against the idea of reductive formulas, you seem to be rejecting sound dramatic principles that have worked for centuries, in cultures all over the world, seeing them falsely as being solely associated with the big bad wolf of crass Hollywood.
Now here's some decidedly non-mainstream films: Breathless, Taxi Driver, Run Lola Run, Minnie and Moskowicz, Paris Texas, The Passenger. Would you say they were all guilty of formula for having active - or at least relatively active - protagonists?
For that matter - looking to the stage - how about Macbeth, Saint Joan or A Doll's House? Even Hamlet, a character who supposedly can't make up his mind, is dramatically active in his delaying tactics (eg. setting the play as a trap, putting on an antic disposition, turning the tables on the plot against him at sea etc). Et cetera, et cetera.
Phil: glad to hear your comments and thanks for the Facebook link, I'll be taking the RSS feed.
Compelling really passive protagonists: Five Easy Pieces, L'Avventura, L'Atalante, The Third Man (things happen to him, he rarely instigates them), 8 1/2, The Passion of Joan of Arc, Andrei Rublev, Three Colours: Red, My Night at Maud's, Vivre sa vie, Woman Is a Woman, Contempt, La Dolce vita, Fanny and Alexander, Wild Strawberries... That's off the top of my head in 3 minutes. I'm not saying scriptwriters should reject active (or passive!) protagonists outright. Only that as a *rule*, it is as silly and arrogant a generalisation as crap like 'your inciting incident must occur on page 17'.
I prize reflection above action.
Conversely, here's a list of Australian films with active protagonists, which are weaker than 'Noise', 'Wake in Fright', 'The Piano', 'Head On', 'Look Both Ways' and 'Picnic at Hanging Rock': 'The Caterpillar Wish', 'Alexandra's Project', 'The Jammed', 'Looking for Alibrandi' (not necessarily weak, but weaker), 'Black Balloon', 'The Proposition', 'Macbeth' etc etc.
Y goran, Better the Devil Knows You're Dead is a fine film. Your criticisms are hollow. The film has grossed $1m at the gross box office in less than 4 weeks because people want to see the film.
A film will gross well because there's enough people who think they want to see it (i.e. marketing, for a film like this disguised as critical praise), and because there's not enough else out there they'd rather see instead (i.e. the competition in the market for that type of viewer). You don't say criticisms are hollow because timing, tastes and circumstances coincided in a film's favour. If the film really is good, it would still be good even if nobody had seen it.
I do like that list of films with passive protagonists two comments up.
Y Goran: Inspired answer, thanks. I plan to take this up in a future post and look at the question of passive vs active protagonists more closely.
Y Kant - ultimately you are having the wrong argument - it is not really about passive or impassive - it is about the quality of the relationship that ALL of the storytellers have with ALL of the characters - and that relationship must be hinged on a problem - a DRAMATIC problem - or lacking that, the situation must be imbued with mystery and suspense which are kept alove throughout the run of the action (story) - what i feel is that many filmmakers - particularly in Australia - are not working with ALL of the characters necessary for finding the story that wants to get itself told. These "others" include the Audience as well as the Tribe or Tribes of the storyteller/s. I don't know where you are in Australia but if you are in Melbourne come to my one day seminar on the 24th August. I promise a lively and DRAMATIC experience. BTW, you can see the application of many of my ideas in the forthcoming feature, SEEING THE ELEPHANT. Details at http://www.wheresthedrama.com
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