At first I didn't realize that I was in fact reading E.T. but after the ship description I then knew it was in fact that childhood favorite of mine. For the most part the script read rather easily, but there where a few parts of camera (shot) descriptions that threw me off. The (boy's life) script read easy enough but I guess it got boring only because I knew the movie and simply just wanted to watch that. I think one of the main things that stood out to me was Ms. Mathison's detail for everything. She writes almost like a novelist, not a screenwriter. I was never confused, but I defiantly saw a movie in my head due to seeing it obviously. In some ways I guess it did feel incomplete, because of the warm family feeling the movie gives me. In the screenplay its obviously there, but with out Spielberg and Henry Thomas I just didn't get that same feel. It’s hard to say if screenplays are or are not meant to be read by non- professionals. Because on one hand they won't get the jargon of screenplays, but on the other hand they will add a fresh perspective to the screenplay. So I guess I'm really just undecided.
My questions: How does everyone feel about group work, need it be college level or any other? If you could have picked one screenplay to study in this class what would it have been?
2 comments:
I have to say without a doubt I would have liked to study The Way of the Gun, by Christopher McQuarrie. This is the story of two bad, bad, bad men that wind up in a kidnapping scheme that goes way over there heads. The movie has a bit of everything, and no one is to be trusted. The reason I would like to study this particular screenplay is because the final movie is only like a hundred or so minutes long, but the shooting script is like two hundred and forty pages. I would have liked to see what else was in the script that was not in the movie and the reverse, and then think about why. This has a pedigree that would make it worthy of being studied inspite of its lewd and offensive language, as it was written by the Academy Award winning writer of The Usual Suspects, which I believe wasn’t as good a script as The Way of The Gun.
To be quite honest, I would like to analyze the script for Eraserhead by David Lynch. The reason I would like to analyze said script is because the dialouge in the film is so sparse that it at points feels like a silent film. I would like to see if there where vivid descriptions of the characters and the world the characters live in, or is David Lynch just bat-shit crazy and just made the movie up on the fly.
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