The Heart of “Hugo” (Part 1)

“Bursting with earned emotion, Hugo is a mechanism that comes to life at the turn of a key in the shape of a heart.”
Richard Corliss
Time

“How can you mend a broken heart? 
…How can you mend this broken man?”
Recorded by the Bee Gees (written by Barry Gibb &  Robin Gibb)

Within the last three days I completed a Hugo trifecta.  I watched the movie Hugo, read Hugo: The Shooting Script by John Logan, and read the book that inspired both, The Invention of Hugo Cabret by Brian Selznick— and I can say that they all share the same heartbeat. Which is kind of an amazing feat all by itself.

A good deal of the 530 page book is illustrations.

“Part of John’s challenge was to take my picture sequences and them into text, which would then be turned back into visuals by Scorsese using the latest technology the cinema has to offer:3-D.“
Brian Selznick
Forward to Hugo: The Shooting Script

There are little differences here and there, but the essential plot and characters of the book and movie remain intact. And, perhaps more importantly, the theme remains the same. In the book Hugo says;

“Did you ever notice that all machines are made for some reason?” he asked Isabelle. “They are built to make you laugh, like the mouse here, or to tell time, like clocks, or to fill you with wonder, like automaton. Maybe that’s why a broken machine makes me a little sad, because it isn’t able to do what it was meant to do.”

Isabelle picked up the mouse, wound it again, and set it down.

“Maybe it’s the same with people.” Hugo continued. “If you lose your purpose … it’s like you’re broken.” 

In the screenplay and movie Hugo says;

“Did you ever notice that all machines are made for some reason? They make you laugh, like Papa Georges’ toys, or they tell time, like the clocks … Maybe that’s why broken machines always make me sad, because they can’t do what they’re meant to do.”

She looks up at him. From her perspective, he is beautifully framed by the intricate clockwork.

“Maybe it’s the same with people. If you lose your purpose … it’s like you’re broken.”

That’s the heart of Hugo. In also happens to be the heart of Toy Story 3, Seabiscuit, and many other books and movies featuring broken characters who have lost their way in life. And part of what gives power and meaning to these stories is that is also our story.

“We spend much of our lives trying to reconcile these two halves of our spirit and soul—call it identity—we struggle to figure out just what and who it is we genuinely are. The reason we go to the movies is precisely to explore these perpetually unanswerable questions regarding our identity. It’s the same reason we go to church, temple, mosque, ashram or meetinghouse: we seek answers to the wonderful and dreadful puzzle of our existence.”
UCLA Screenwriting Chairman Richard Walter 
The Whole Picture (Book recently updated as Essentials of Screenwriting)

Recent headlines show all too well the detrimental effects of what happens when talented people lose their purpose in life. (And, unfortunately, that’s a timeless truism.)

Tomorrow, in The Heart of “Hugo” (Part 2), we’ll look why Hugo was such a personal story for its director, Martin Scorsese. A man usually known for his gritty films—but a man not immune to being broken. Who knew that Scorsese and the Bee Gees had something in common?

Happy Valentine’s Day.

Related Posts:

Writing from Theme (Tip #20)

Robert McKee vs. Richard Walter (on writing personal stories)

Scott W. Smith

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For the Love of Movies

Marcus Coral Ridge Cinema—Coralville, Iowa

Oops, I did it again. This weekend I watched both Hugo & The Artist in the theaters—just like I did last month to start the new year. (Saw Hugo at the Coral Ridge Cinema which has a nice movie tribute in their lobby—pictured above. Directly off Interstate 80 in the Iowa City area. )

I love those movies. Apparently others do as well. Yesterday, The Artist picked up seven BAFTA awards including Best Picture and for Michel Hazanavicus’s script, and Hugo picked up four awards and its director, Martin Scorsese, received the Academy Fellowship—”The highest accolades bestowed upon an individual in recognition of an outstanding and exceptional contribution to film.” (Hugo leads the Oscar pack with 11 nominations, followed by The Artist with 10.)

In my January 4th post Hugo & The Artist  I wrote, “I can’t remember when I’ve been as impressed seeing two films back to back.” Seeing them a second time allowed me to see more how they overlap and contrast each other.  They are similar in that parts of both of the stories occur in 1931 and represent a tribute of sorts to the history of cinema—and both represent broken characters. But they are also quite different in that The Artist is a black and white silent film in 4X3 format and Hugo is a colorful widescreen 3-D visual feast full of seamless special effects. Both have gotten great reviews, but unfortunately neither blazed any trails at the box office.

Those films (and their love of movies) have also set the tone for this blog this year, to weave in the history of film with more specific and contemporary issues related to screenwriting and filmmaking.

And since Valentine’s Day is tomorrow—a day to celebrate love— I thought I’d give you a few options other than roses & chocolate to give your loved one (or yourself).

1) Hugo: The Shooting Script published by Newmarket Press/Harper Collins will be made available tomorrow. I was fortunate to get an early copy and read it this weekend. The book features the John Logan screenplay, an introduction by Logan, a forward by the author Brian Selzick who wrote the novel The Invention of Hugo Cabret (from which the film is based), various production notes and 23 photos from the production. Over the years I’ve purchased about 10 of The Shooting Scripts and find them wonderful additions for those who love movies in general and screenwriting in particular. I’ll write more about the Hugo: The Shooting Script tomorrow, but you can order it at Amazon or perhaps find it at a bookstore tomorrow.

The other two Valentine specials are L.A.-centric, but I’m sure with a little creativity you can find something similar in your area.

2) Walt Disney’s Lady and the Tramp is currently playing (February 3-16,2012) at the El Capitan Theatre in Hollywood. This theater was built in 1926 and restored in 1991. It’s where Citizen Kane had its world premiere in 1941. Across the street, and later this month is where the Academy Awards will be held at The Kodak Theatre. And for a total Hollywood evening (if you can get a reservation) eat at The Musso & Frank Grill which has been serving meals in Hollywood since 1919. According to its website, its literary guests over the years have included; F.Scott Fitzgerald, William Faulkner, T.S. Elliot, John Steinbeck and many others, and Raymond Chandler is said to have written part of the The Big Sleep in the Back Room bar.

3) F.W. Murnau‘s classic 1927 silent film Sunrise: A Song of Two Humans will be playing at  The Cinefamily theater in LA on Valentine’s Day (2/14/12).

4) In Chicago at the Music Box Theatre they are showing The Princes Bride on Valentine’s Day. Inconceivable!

5) Or you can always stay home and watch The Bodyguard. The Lawrence Kasden written and Mick Jackson directed film starring Kevin Costner and the late Whitney Houston.

“I hope life treats you kind
And I hope you have all you’ve dreamed of.
And I wish to you, joy and happiness.
But above all this, I wish you love.”
I Will Always Love You
performed by Whitney Houston in My Bodyguard
written by Dolly Parton

What interesting film related things are going on in your neck of the woods this Valentine’s Day?

P.S. If anyone in LA goes to Lady and the Tramp, Sunrise, or The Princess Bride shoot me a note about the experience.

Related posts:
The Secret to Being a Successful Screenwriter (Seriously)–Insights from Hugo screenwriter John Logan
Writing “The Artist” (Part 1)
Writing “The Artist” (Part 2)
Writing “The Artist” (Part 3)

Scott W. Smith

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Screenwriting Obsession

“Most creators — and all would-be creators — simply aren’t obsessed enough.”
Eric Maisel

A few weeks ago I was talking to a couple filmmakers and we got to talking about a favorite topic of mine; Why are so many artists dysfunctional?  Take a handful of painters, writers, musicians and filmmakers and you’ll have more than your share of people who suffer from depression, mental illness or at least some phobia that haunts them. alcoholism and drug abuse appears more common with this tribe.

So the big question is — why?

One of the filmmakers had an easy answer, obsession.

I instantly thought of Jackson Pollock painting in his barn. I thought of Van Gogh’s passion. I thought of Martin Scorsese and his own demons. Obsession may be as good and answer as I’ve heard.

“One hasn’t become a writer until one has distilled writing into a habit, a habit that has been forced into an obsession. Writing has to be an obession. It has to be something as organic, physiological and psychological as speaking or sleeping or eating.”
Niyi Osudare
From the book One Hundred Habits of Highly Successful Screenwriters/Karl Iglesias

Eric Maisel, PhD has written several books that touch on this issue including Creativity for Life, The Creativity Book, and The Van Gogh Blues. I haven’t read his books, but in his article In Praise of Positive Obsessions he does make the distinction between positive and negative obsessions. He writes:

What exactly do I mean by a positive obsession?

A fair working definition is as follows: positive obsessions are insistent, recurrent thoughts or sets of thoughts, pressurized in feel, that are extremely difficult to ignore, that compel one to act, and that connect to one’s goals and values as an active meaning-maker and authentic human being.

For Van Gogh, for a period of time, sunflowers obsessed him. For Doestovshy, for decades, the question of whether an innocent–a “saintly man” –could survive in the real world haunted and obsessed him.

Georgia O’Keeffe obsessed about how to represent the desert, thrilling herself when her imagery of bleached bones satisfied her for a time.

It is no accident or coincidence that effective artists harbor preoccupations that rise to the level of positive obsession.

So maybe we just obsess too much about those creative souls who have negative obsessions. After all those are the ones that tend to fascinate us the most. Those are the ones books are written about and movies made of their lives.

If you have any books and articles that explore the similarities and differences of positive and negative obsessions toss them my way. I don’t think my obsession is going away from thinking about it anytime soon.

And as far as screenwriting obsessions—there are many. Why do people spend so much time and money on something when the odds are so against any meaningful return on investment? Why all the books, CDs, workshops, college degrees, screenwriting expos, script consultants, etc. if there wasn’t a screenwriting obsession in this country? Why do produced screenwriters continue though they often feel less than satisfied with the finished results of their script?

Maybe it has something to do with Van Gogh continuing to paint even though the appreciation for his work would come long after he died. I hope you can find that “positive obsession,” and can continue to work on your craft without losing your mind.

Scott W. Smith

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Kazan on Directing (Part 1)

Today I started reading Kazan on Directing, which is based on the notes of director Elia Kazan. Kazan who directed the classic (and Oscar-winning) On the Waterfront. Kazan has been called by Martin Scorsese as, “one of the most important figures in the history of movies. It’s that simple.”

Of course, Kazan first may inroads in the theater first where he was an actor in Clifford Odets plays, before going on to work on Broadway with Arthur Miller and Tennessee Williams.

He went on to be nominated for a total of seven Academy Awards, winning two and also an Honorary Oscar Award in 1999.

For the next few days I’ll be pulling quotes and sections from his book.

“The first problem of the director then is to determine what his direction is to be. And as this direction is to give organic unity to the whole production, his first job is to find a ‘center’ or ‘core’ for the work and for production. Once it is established the base decision has been made. All else devolves from this.

The director has to restate succinctly the play, its meaning and form, in his own terms; he has to reconceive it as if he had created it. What does it mean to him? What does it arouse in him? how does the manuscript affect his soul? In short, what is his relationship as an artist to this document, this manuscript?

It is not necessary that the director’s reaction match the author’s intention. Different periods have different values and meanings. And a director might want to produce a work for reasons other than the writer’s. Examples abound; the clearest is Shakespearean productions from Shakespeare’s time to ours.

Therefore, the director’s first question in approaching the script is not what the author intended, but what is his own response as an independent artist.”
Elia Kazan

Now you know why there are creative differences in theater and film productions.

Scott W. Smith

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Midwest Views of Far East Films

In the last few days I’ve glanced at filmmaking from Japan. I followed some rabbit trails and it’s lead me right back to the Midwest and David Bordwell over in Madison, Wisconsin. I have quoted Bordwell before, but was unaware that he wrote a whole book on one of Japan’s greatest filmmakers. The bad news is Ozu and the Poetics of Cinema is out of print, the good news is the entire book in available online for free.

The film scholar with long-standing ties to the University of Wisconsin at Madison has an arrangement with the University of Michigan’s Center for Japanese Studies  where you can download the entire book as a PDF file. Bordwell also did the audio commentary for Ozu’s An Autumn Afternoon. (Criterion Collection). You can read more of his writings at David Bordwell’s website on cinema.

I confess to dropping the first film history class I ever took at the University of Miami. I just wanted to make films. Not do a boring examination of dead filmmakers. Never understood the fascination with dates and influences. I’m not sure when that all changed for me but it probably had something to do with an interview I saw on Martin Scorsese where I began to understand the depth of his knowledge and appreciation of film history.

If you want to improve your appreciation of films, Bordwell’s writings are a great place to head.

“Filmmakers know more than they say or can say. They have secrets, some of which they don’t know they know. Let’s try to bring their tacit knowledge to light; let’s expose their secrets. Will that dispel the mysteries we cherish? Only if we cherish mysteries for their own sake. Know of how artists both rely upon and surpass their craft won’t diminish our admiration or dilute out experience. It’s illuminating to learn that Rembrandt starts from the portraitist’s standard schema for rendering eye sockets but them by applying looser brushwork conjures up a flickering glance. What seems an alchemist’s lair becomes a kitchen, where recipes are transformed by trial and error and spontaneous flair. Creation is demystified, and knowledge increases our appreciation and enjoyment.”
David Bordwell
Konban-wa, Ozu-san

Creativity is more about connecting influences rather than just making something up . An example is one of  the greatest Japanese films ever is Ozu’s Tokyo Story which was co-written with Kogo Noda. (Ozu & Noda, one of the all-time great director/writer teams, wrote 13 films together,) But that great film was inspired by the 1937 American film Make Way for Tomorrow.  (That film was written by Vina Delmar, and was based on the book The Years Are So Long (1934) by Josephine Lawrence (and a play by by Helen Leary & Noah Leary).

Lawrence was born in Newark, New Jersey kept a strict three-hour writing schedule at night after work. She wrote over thirty books for young people, and one adult novel before she wrote The Years are so Long.

Scott W. Smith

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Screenwriting Quote #132 (Kurosawa)

I wrote in my last post (Screenwriting from Japan) that many Japanese films are about respect and honor. Akira Kurosawa, who was the youngest of eight children, was born in Toyko in 1910 and would go on as a film director and screenwriter to gain the respect and honor of some of the greatest filmmakers in history including Fellini, Bergman, Spielberg, Lucas, and Coppola.

Martin Scorsese said of Kurosawa, “His influence on filmmakers throughout the entire world is so profound as to be almost incomparable.”

But one of the things that may make his films so accessible and enduring to those outside Japan is that Kurosawa was influenced by Frank Capra, William Wyler, Howard Hawks, John Ford and  William Shakespere.

And if you want to follow a nice exercise of how creativity is passed around read Shakespere’s King Lear and watch Kurosawa’s Ran. Watch Kurosawa’s Seven Samurai (1954) and then watch The Magnificent Seven (1960). Read Leo Tolstoy’s The Death of Ivan IIyich and then watch Kurosawa’s Ikiru.

As original as we think we are, “There’s nothing new under the sun.” But it doesn’t hurt to expose yourself to the wisdom and creativity of great artists from the past.

”With a good script, a good director can produce a masterpiece. With the same script, a mediocre director can produce a passable film. But with a bad script even a good director can’t possibly make a good film. For truly cinematic expression, the camera and the microphone must be able to cross both fire and water. The script must be something that has the power to do this.”
Akira Kurosawa

Kurosawa died in 1998, but look for some celebrations coming as the 100th anniversary of his birth arrives March 23. And for a list of Kurosawa’s films check out The Criterion Collection.

And, for good measure, I’ll toss in this quote by Tom Cruise;

“I was 18 when I saw Akira Kurosawa’s Shinchinin no samurai (Seven Samurai). After about 30 seconds, I realized that this was not just a cultural thing, it was universal. Years later, I read Bushido. It talked about many things that I strive for in my own life: loyalty, compassion, responsibility, the idea of looking back on your life and taking responsibility for everything you’ve ever done. I’m fascinated by the samurai and the samurai code – it’s one of the main reasons I wanted to make The Last Samurai.”

Scott W. Smith

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First screenplay, Oscar— Precious

“I devoted myself to writing for years without representation or a promise of anything. And there were times when I felt quite down about my prospects.”
Oscar-winning screenwriter Geoffrey Fletcher

Geoffrey Fletcher walked away with an Oscar for his first produced feature screenplay, Precious: Based on the Novel ‘Push’ by Sapphire. That part is true.

But what is also true is that he’s been at it for 25 years. The 39 year-old writer first began making films when he was 14. He later graduated from Harvard and earned a master’s degree from NYU. He was able to learn first hand from other NYU grads Martin Scorsese and Spike Lee, he made short films (and even had one shown at Sundance in ’96), he worked temp jobs to pay the bills, and eventually became an adjunct film professor at Columbia and NYU. And by his account the script count of unproduced pages he has written runs into the thousands. Thousands.

“I often felt like Precious — out of the picture and invisible. I was within reach of my dream of filmmaking but also a million miles away. I kept trying. But it’s tough to get people to listen to what I had to say. It’s the nature of the industry — there are so many people trying to get in. All the doors in the industry seemed to close, and I couldn’t seem to do anything right….While working on this project, I felt resurrected and reinvigorated. I poured every ounce of myself into the script. Looking back, it seemed to require every bit of it.”
Geoffrey Fletcher
Combined quote from LA Times article by John Horn and Take Part article by Wendy Cohen

Perhaps the one thing I’ve leaned most about doing this blog for more than two years is Fletcher has followed the time-honored path of every successful screenwriter I have read about– and that is he wrote, and wrote, and wrote. So when you hear “First time screenwriter wins Oscar,” don’t forget the thousands of unproduced pages he wrote before that first script got produced.

Scott W. Smith

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It Takes a Little Time Sometimes

When the Orlando Magic beat the Los Angeles Lakers last night it was a huge win for the franchise. It was their first NBA game victory in a Championship series in their 20 year history.

It takes a little time sometimes? No, it usually takes a lot of time to accomplish the big things we want to do in life.

Take writer Nichloas Pileggi for example. He was born in 1933 and grew up in Brooklyn, graduated from Long Island University with a degree in English, and then spent 12 years working for the Associated Press in New York where he collected and feed info to the writers.

He was 30 when he began writing for Esquire doing stories on New York’s crime and corruption and then began working for New York magazine in his mid-thirties.

All his work reporting on crime during New York’s prime mafia era prepared him well to write the book Wise Guy which came out in 1987. That lead him to receiving a phone call from a guy saying he was Martin Scorsese. Pileggi hung up on him. The guy saying he was Scorsese called back and finally convinced him he was Martin Scorsese and that he wanted to make a film based on Wise Guy. Pileggi, who then would have been in his early fifties, told Scorsese that this was the call that he had waited for his entire life.

Pileggi, along with Scorsese, wrote the script for the 1990 film Goodfellas which earned them both an Academy Award nomination for best writing, screenplay based on material from another medium.

Pileggi went on to write Casino and City Hall and was an executive producer on American Gangster and is currently developing a movie based on gambling in college sports.

So I figure the time from his internship at AP to his first produced screenplay was just over 35 years. No magic there—just plowing away at the work at hand and collecting material along the way. (And working on his 10,000 hours.)

 

Scott W. Smith

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Screenwriting Quote of the Day #82 (John Logan)

Most screenwriters don’t jump onto the world stage like Diablo Cody who won an Oscar for the first screenplay she ever wrote. More often than not they follow a 20 year journey like screenwriter John Logan who was 40 years old when he received an Oscar nominated for his part in writing Gladiator. 

Logan was born in 1961 and graduated in 1983 from Northwestern in Chicago. He started out with a desire to be an actor but fell in love writing when he took a playwriting class.  After Logan finished college, according to David S. Cohn “He stayed in Chicago, writing plays by night and working at Northwestern Law Library by day. Some fourteen years later he was solidly established in Chicago theater.”

His plays including “Never the Sinner” and “Hauptmann” won awards and he also acted on occasion. In 1996 he had his first TV movie produced (Tornado) and in 1999 approaching 40 years old he had his first feature film produced (Bats). A major break through occurred when Oliver Stone optioned his script Any Given Sunday in which Logan eventually earned a story credit and a lesson or two in screenwriting from Stone. 

From then on he left the tornados and bats behind and was in the big time.  In 2000 he received a shared screenwriting credit on Gladiator, in 2002 Star Trek; Nemesis,  in 2003 The Last Samurai, 2004 Aviator, and in 2007 Sweeney Todd.

“My learning curve on writing movies—which, believe me, is still going on, under the tutelage of people like Martin Scorsese—(has involved) the amazing slapping-the-head realization that Leo DiCaprio’s eyes communicate more than a paragraph I have written. Unlike writing for the stage, which is declamatory and presentational for an audience, in writing for a movie you’re really trying to bring the audience in to see, to experience the world through a character’s eyes. For me it’s always stunning to watch actors communicate so silently with one another, in a way that’s as powerful as the greatest line of dialogue I could possibly imagine writing.”
                                                        John Logan
                                                        Quoted in Screen Plays by David S. Cohen

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The Greatest Story Ever Told (part 2)

“Movie storytelling is about redemption–the recovery of something lost or the attainment of something needed.”
                                                               Brian Godowa
                                                               screenwriter, To End All Wars 

“All main characters are wounded souls, and the stories we tell are merely an acting out of the healing process.”
                                                               Richard Krevolin 
                                                               Screenwriting From the Soul 

 

Director Martin Scorsese was once told by a priest friend that his films were “too much Good Friday and not enough Easter Sunday.” In his films, characters like Travis Bickle (Taxi Driver) and Jake LaMotta (Raging Bull) are wounded souls with no hint of redemption. No hope of resurrection. (Though the real life Jake LaMotta has said that the film changed his life.)

But there are plenty of films that somewhat mirror the Christ story of death and resurrection, of transformation or redemption, or even the concept of laying ones life down for another. Though one could argue there are similar themes throughout history (and Joseph Campbell does) it’s hard to miss the Christ metaphor in a film like Gran Tornio when Clint Eastwood is positioned in a Christ-like pose at the end of the film.

And it’s impossible to miss the Christ-like imagery of Tim Robbins on the poster of The Shawshank Redemption, taken from the climatic moment in the film when he emerges free from prison (death) on his way to paradise (life). 

Audiences never tire of stories of  transformation because I think that is one of the chief reasons we go to films. Yes, we want to be entertained, we want to eat popcorn, and we want to escape. But deep down inside we want to have purpose and meaning in our lives and art acts as a conduit to give structure to what often seems like a meaningless life. It points to the mysterious. 
                                    

 “Stories are equipment for living.”
                                          Kenneth Burke 

 “Stories are the language of the heart.”
                                          John Eldredge 

So while yesterday on Easter Sunday I pointed to the many films that actually portrayed Christ figures such as in The Greatest Story Ever Told, today I’ll point to films that show a Christ-like metaphor in their central characters, or have themes of transformation, sacrifice and/ or resurrection. (And like yesterday this is just a partial list, but the ones that seem to have lasting appeal.)

ET
The Lion King
Tron
On the Waterfront
Terminator 2: Judgment Day
Sling Blade
Cool Hand Luke
Schindler’s List
The Natural
Babette’s Feast
Hoosiers
Cinderella
The Beauty & the Beast
An Officer and a Gentleman 
Tender Mercies 
Braveheart
Superman
Spiderman
Iron Man
The Matrix 

Roger Ebert has an interesting read called In search of redemption and talks about  the kind of films that made him want to be a film critic. He talks about films with “human generosity and goodness.” And he even closes with a nod to Juno.  

Now if you’d like to take a deeper look at spiritual side of films then Paul Schrader is your man and I recommend his book Transcendental Style in Film as he looks at the films of Ozu, Bresson and Dryer. Schrader is the screenwriter of Taxi Driver, The Mosquito Coast, and The Last Temptation of Christ. And he’s a graduate of Calvin College.

If you happen to be in the Grand Rapids, Michigan area tomorrow night (4/14/09) I will touch more on this in a talk I’m giving at Calvin College. Schrader is not Calvin’s only connection to Hollywood. Phil Oosrerhaus was an assistant to the Wachowski Brothers on The Matrix as well as an associate producer on the sequels. 

As I pointed out in Screenwriting from Michigan there is a lot going on there film-wise. There were 32 features shot there last year including Eastwood’s Gran Torino. I also look forward to giving a screenwriting talk there on Wednesday. 

 

copyright 2009 Scott W. Smith

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