The Importance of Being Earnest: Organic Characters and Eternal Themes
The Importance of Being Earnest: Organic Characters and Eternal Themes
Okay film kiddies – sit up straight in your seats! There’s a surprise pop quiz in session: the $100K question of the week.
Why are modern day films so vapid and forgettable? Missing “classic status” by a mile?
Sometimes, that dilemma doesn’t make sense. After all, State of the Art filmmaking’s grown by leaps and bounds – especially in the last two decades. Pacing’s quickened significantly. And Special Effects – from Gollum to Planet of the Apes – is awe inspiring. You can build a photorealistic character from pixels these days!
So why does movie going seem… so empty?
Well, I could start this analysis by bitch-slapping the hell out of Blake Snyder (RIP.) As anyone in this business knows, it’s Saving the Cat that’s turned screenwriting into a cookie-cutter exercise. Missing Art, Sensitivity and Soul.
But it’s not just Snyder who’s to blame. The issue is that characters are so formulaic now… at least in most films today. Don’t get me wrong: the studios and the writers do their best, putting in an obligatory character arc or two. But in real life, people don’t fall into simple categories. Hero, Villain, Victim, etc… Nope, people are complicated, and well rounded – no matter their station in life. So if you want your cast of characters to stand out, you’ve gotta be a student of psychology… studying the gray areas in the psyche of all you meet. And then capturing their complexity on the page.
And it’s not only characters that count – THEMES matter. HELL, yeah. I don’t mean pre-K stuff like “greed is evil”, “abuse and discrimination’s wrong”, etc. Like with personalities, true themes have many shades. (I’ll give you an example, utilizing my favorite personal horror script, Territory. Though a creature feature, the undercurrent of the story is bound inextricably to its theme. IE: is morality a luxury in the western world? Is compromise with evil a necessary thing, as long as good people are saved?)
And of course, I ain’t close to the only one. Just look at some of the classic movies of the seventies. Films like Godfather will always stand out from the rest. Why? Because the theme there is Eternal… that power can corrupt a person completely, even when motivated by good things like family: twisting their personality 180. The thing is… now that that theme has been fully explored, you’ve gotta find a new premise to play with. And folks, I mean deeply – like root canal and anal probe level. Make that concept your total bitch.
That’s what you’ve got to do, if you want a story to be more than a temporary diversion, and to stand the test of time. Decades. Centuries? Then explore eternal human themes that haven’t been cinematically regurgitated ad nauseum. And depict characters that have true depth. THEN you’ll have a tale to tell!
--J.E. Clarke 9/25/15