Blog Assignment #1

Reading Melissa Mathison’s A Boy’s Life proved to be an adventure. From the very beginning, through some familiar images, I recognized the screenplay from a film I had not seen since I was a child, E.T: The Extra-Terrestrial.

Initially, the first few pages bored me with the screenwriter’s heavily descriptive action, which was something I was not used to from reading other professional scripts. I admit I was ready to quit and search for its summary on the internet; however, as I continued to read, the familiarity of the scenes and characters reignited my interest. I am glad I continued because once the story started to gather momentum I could not put it down. Throughout the screenplay, Mathison beautifully uses contradictions to mislead and surprise her audience. During her description of the forest and creatures in the opening scenes, Mathison uses “gnarled tree limbs” and “[creature’s] jerky movements” to convey a dark and sinister tone as though something menacing is about to occur . However, as the audience soon finds out through E.T., the creatures are peaceful and delicate. In addition, Mathison’s depiction of the agent she refers to as Keys misleads the audience toward his character. Her only description of the man throughout most of the screenplay is through the cacophonous sound of his keys, which portrays him to the audience as a harsh individual. However, when Mathison reveals him to be a “kindly-looking young man,” the audience discovers that their previous assumption of the character had been incorrect.

With the exception of the first few pages, the script reads fairly quickly. The dialogue is clear and concise, the images are fantastic and easy to visualize, the action is fast paced, and there is a definite three act structure that leaves nothing unexplained. Any non-professional would be able to enjoy this script; however, a solid grasp of screenwriting terms would definitely help them appreciate it even further.

Fernando Rosas


Discussion Questions:

1. How do you feel about a screenplay’s stage of development? Should Clint Eastwood have held on to Peoples’s script for so long? Should the process be changed?

2. Is a spontaneous approach to character and story analysis, as presented in Weston’s The Film Director’s Intuition, more effective than careful preparation? How so? What are the advantages? Disadvantages?