TUESDAY'S SCRIPT TIP:

SULLIVAN'S TRAVELS

Today is 9/11. It's also Hurricane season. And every day there's a new mass shooting or disaster in the news...

When I was a kid, my life was hell. I was fat, came from a blue collar family in a neighborhood that was rapidly becoming a bedroom community for rich San Franciscans looking for a suburban lifestyle. I was the smart kid when smart kids were beat up for being smart. Every day. I was great at math, so when I raised my hand because I knew the answer and the other kids didn't? I was beat up. In class. In front of the teacher. Every day.

I learned not to raise my hand.

Movies were my escape. For two hours I could live someone else's life - someone who lived in the kind of adventurous world I could only dream about. I could be as suave as James Bond or as cool as John Shaft or as tough as Harry Callahan. While my real life problems snowballed, for two hours I could live in a world where problems are swiftly resolved...and in my favor. I think I would have gone insane without the escape that movies provided.

Everyone has problems in their lives. Everyone goes through some form of living hell.

I can't imagine the pain of losing a loved one in a terrorist attack or a child in a school shooting or losing everything you have in a tornado or hurricane or some other natural disaster.

But just the day to day frustrations and problems can be overwhealming. It doesn't seem right to complain about your work or some never ending problem in your life or any of the other things that seem minor... but also depressing.

How do we escape?

The first time I saw Preston Sturges' classic comedy SULLIVAN'S TRAVELS was at the UC Theater in Berkeley - I was already making short films and writing scripts.

Sullivan is a world famous film director during the Great Depression who plans to make a very serious film about the plight of the homeless titled OH BROTHER, WHERE ART THOU? (The Coen Bothers swiped the title for their depression era movie.) Because Sullivan's film is going to be gritty and realistic, he decides to "live among the homeless" in order to find out what it really feels like to be down and out... Of course, Sullivan is followed by a luxury motorhome containing his staff and servants. Hey - you wouldn't want to actually SLEEP on the street, would you?

Through a series of events, Sullivan gets separated from his staff, separated from his identity, and becomes actually homeless. No one will believe that he's really a big shot Hollywood director, and all of the barriers created to distance the unwashed masses from the great director now keep Sullivan away from the only people who can verify that he IS Sullivan. He's on his own, no direction home... how does it feel? The most famous director of all time finds himself as desperate and depressed as the bums and winos and hobos around him.

To cheer up these hopeless men, they are shown a Hollywood movie. A silly cartoon. Grim faces as the cartoon begins... then scattered laughter... then loud belly laughs. For a few minutes, these men who have lost everything, are allowed to escape their problems. As Sullivan looks at all of the laughing men surrounding him, he realizes that his serious film about the homeless problem isn't as important as laughter. Laughter is the best medicine. Entertainment eases the pain of life. When Sullivan finally regains his life as a famous Hollywood film director, he's a changed man. He now knows the value of providing escape for an audience.

Our job as screenwriters is to create fantasies where an audience can eacpe their problems or can deal with their fears and things too painful to think about in the safety of a dark theater. Also sometimes to help an audience vent their darker emotions - rage, revenge - so that they're less likely to act on these emotions in real life. And to provide closure in a world where real problems are never resolved to satisfaction.

But mostly to escape their problems for a couple of hours.

Today is the anniversary of 9/11 - twenty three years since thousands lost their lives in an instant and we Americans realized just how vulnerable we are... and how quickly life can be over. In those twelve years we've had Rita and Katrina and now Idalia, fires in California and Texas, earthquakes in Los Angeles, mass shootings and school shootings, and another string of hurricanes on the horizon. The rest of the world has had its share of tragedy, too. Every time you turn on the news, it's bad news. Every time you read the news online, more bad news. People need to escape reality and climb into fantasy world for a couple of hours. They NEED that. Without that escape, we would go crazy. So we are performing a valuable service. Entertainment is important . Escape is important. Laughter is important.

There has been some form of extertainment since time began. Some way to escape the problems of life. Cave paintings, court jesters, miusic, comic books, storytellers, plays, jugglers, acrobats, sports, comedians, video games, short stories, Mad Magazine, board games, novels, radio and television shows... and movies. When those depressed homeless people in SULLIVAN'S TRAVELS begin laughing at the cartoon, that's the power of entertainment... That's the value of entertainment.

If you don't think Entertainment is important, try going a month without it. No music, no sports, no TV, no books, no internet, nothing....
How long do you think you can last?
How many days before you want to listen to music, watch a TV show, play a game, read a funny meme, watch sports on TV, or do anything else that is *entertainment*?
It seems frivilous and unimportant... until you have to go without it.

After a few slow years, we've had some big years for movies. People looking for that escape.

This is the time of year when all of the serious Oscar contenders start to come out, but what did the audience want to see this year? INSIDE OUT 2 and DEADPOOL & WOLVERINE and DESPICABLE ME 4 and DUNE PART 2 and TWISTERS and BEETLEJUICE BEETLEJUICE abd BAD BOYS RIDE OR DIE and many others. Entertainment, escapism, genre films! Entertainment has more appeal than a serious film when times are tough. It seems weird, but the more trouble in real life, the more people want to go to the movies to *escape*.

We need our entertainment to survive.

Rescue workers, firemen, policemen, doctors - those are the real heroes... but even real heroes need to forget about reality for a couple of hours.

Movies may seem silly and frivolous after the World Trade Center tragedy and the latest tragedy on the Nightly News, but in times like these people need an escape more than ever. The pain is too intense. The emotions are overwhelming. People need something that will make them smile or laugh. They need a safe place to shed their tears. A couple of hours of escape. Silly and frivolous can be good things. Laughter makes the world a better place.

Let's try to make the world a better place.
Through entertainement. Taking people's minds off their troubles for a couple of hours.

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