Your only touchstone as to what’s good is what you like and what makes you feel good as a writer— what inspires you. And then you hope that that will somehow connect with an audience. I think there are some stories that are less cinematic than others, and might not be engaging in terms of film. But David Lynch made a movie about a guy riding a lawnmower across the country [The Straight Story] and I loved it. The Trip to Bountiful is about an old woman who wants to go back home and I didn’t blink for two hours in that movie. In fact, it’s classic screenwriting 101; What does your character want? Very simply you get the audience to want it with her. And by the end you’re just ‘please get home.’ And it’s an unbelievable piece of writing by Horton Foote. All you have is what inspires you, period.”
Director/Screenwriter Scott Frank (Minority Report, The Wolverine, Godless)
The Art of Screenwriting/2002 seminar
(That talk/Q&A along with Steve Zaillian can be seen on Amazon Prime)
And to show that the concept of going home is universal, here’s the Lifetime Channel version of The Trip to Bountiful starring Cicely Tyson.
Related posts
Horton Foote (1916-2009) “I picked a difficult subject, a little lost Texas town no one’s heard of or cares about … But I’m at the mercy of what I write. The subject matter has taken me over.”
Screenwriting Quote #56 (Horton Foote)
Postcard #6 (Waxahacie, TX)
David Lynch in Iowa (The Straight Story takes place mostly in Iowa)
DAVID MAMET BOLD MEMO (?) “QUESTION:WHAT IS DRAMA? DRAMA, AGAIN, IS THE QUEST OF THE HERO TO OVERCOME THOSE THINGS WHICH PREVENT HIM FROM ACHIEVING A SPECIFIC, ACUTE GOAL.
Mamet also the first question to ask is “Who wants what?” In The Straight Story Richard Farnsworth wants to see his dying brother and if it takes a riding lawnmower from Iowa to Wisconsin, then he’ll do it. In The Trip To Bountiful Mrs Watts (Geraldine Page) wants to see her childhood home before she dies. Page won an Oscar for her performance and Foote received as Oscar nomination for his script. The Straight Story won the Best Foreign Independent Film from British Independent Film Award, and Farnsworth also received an Oscar-nomination for his performance as Alvin.