“Emotion is your screenplay’s lifeblood.”
Karl Iglesias
“We’re in the emotion picture business.”
William C. Martell
A few years ago Karl Iglesias wrote a book called Writing for Emotional Impact and the first 48 pages alone are worth the 15 or 20 bucks it cost you to buy that book. (The book was based on his UCLA Extention class.)
In those first four chapters he does an introduction on how —”Hollywood is in the emotion-delivery business,” covers the importance of writing to be read—”Remember that your screenplay will be read a hundred times before a single frame is shot, so you’d better make it a page turner,” covers the importance of concept—”This may shock you, but most beginners fail at the concept. It’s the single most common problem I’ve found with scripts,” and goes into theme—”An idea expressed only intellectually is just an essay. But when it’s wrapped inside an emotion, it’s more powerful and more memorable.”
Glance at the AFI list, the Box Office Mojo’s list and the IMDB Top 250 list and recall scenes you remember from those films and contemplate the importance of emotions in screenwriting and filmmaking. And of the basic emotions—joy, sadness, fear, and anticipation seem to be the most common as I glance at those lists of great films. From my perspective, sadness as a result of some sort of loss stands out as a core emotion in the following movies;
Citizen Kane
The Godfather
Casablanca
Raging Bull
Schindler’s List
Vertigo
The Wizard of Oz
The Searchers
Star Wars
On the Waterfront
It’s a Wonderful life
Chinatown
The Grapes of Wrath
E.T. The Extra-Terrestrial
Gone with the Wind
Titanic
Ben Hur
The Lion King
Bambi
Up
The Gold Rush
Greed
Toy Story
The Shawshank Redemption
The Treasure of the Sierra Madre
Sometimes ultimately there is a payoff of hope or joy, but sometimes there isn’t. But the road to a critically acclaimed film—one that also finds favor at the box office and at Academy Award time—is apparently paved by sadness and loss. Ditto that for indie and foreign film favorites: Winter’s Bone, Babette’s Feast, Departures, The Wrestler, Memento, Reservoir Dogs , The Passion of the Christ, The Elephant Man, Tokyo Story, Fanny and Alexander, The Battleship Potemkin, etc., etc, etc.
Related posts: Filmmaking Quote #25 (David Fincher)
Filmmaking Quote #26 (Hitchcock)
What’s at Stake (Tip #9)
Query Letter Stikeout
“Visceral Emotions”
William Froug on Theme
Writing from Theme (Tip #20)
Screenwriting Headaches & Scars
[…] “Emotion is your screenplay’s lifeblood.” Karl Iglesias More than 15 years ago Karl Iglesias wrote a book called Writing from Emotional Impact and the first 48 pages alone are worth the 15 or 20 bucks it cost you to buy that book. In those first four chapters he does an introduction on how —”Hollywood is in […] Original Source… […]