WEDNESDAY'S SCRIPT TIP:
EDGE DEFINES SUBSTANCE
What makes a film edgy? Risks! The type of risks that most Hollywood films would never consider. If your protagonist has to kill an evil character in the story, it's dull. No drama is involved in that. No real decision. All of us would kill the evil character if we had no other choice. Though we know that killing is wrong, if the person the protagonist has to kill is clearly evil, it's "justified".
But the less evil the antagonist, the more interesting the decision to kill him becomes. Instead of being a typical black hat/white hat Hollywood movie scenario, we're dealing with real moral issues. This becomes a major decision, a life altering event that's loaded with drama. The audience has to think. They have to deal with big questions, rather than just sit back and be entertained.
A few years ago there was a film called ALBINO ALLIGATOR about a trio of robbers who hold a bar hostage. The decision has been made to kill all the hostages, so they can't identify the robbers. One character played by Faye Dunnaway begs for a chance to live. So the robbers make her an offer: If she kills one of the hostages, they'll let her live. Dunnaway will be just as guilty as the robbers and won't go to the police later. Would you kill an innocent man so that you could survive?
Now there's a meaty conflict! That's something that requires the audience to think. To wrestle with moral issues.
THE RIVER'S EDGE
Many movies are made about "women's issues", there are even two TV networks dedicated to films and stories that focus on that; but movies about "men's issues" are rare. If you watch Spike TV (for men) there is no programming that really deals with the problems of men... and most movies aimed at men are more about explosions or fight scenes or crude humor than issues concerning men. Hollywood will make two dozen movies like IN HER SHOES before they make a single drama about men.
So we have to go back to 1972 to find the last great "men's issues" movie, the adventure film DELIVERANCE written by James Dickey (based on his novel) and directed by John Boorman. This film takes a group of four suburban men to the very edge... then over that edge into the darkness beyond. These four have ventured out of civilization to ride the rapids on an untamed river... about to be dammed and turned into a lake by the power company. Instead, *they* are damned.
DELIVERANCE keeps taking its characters to the limits - pushing them to their breaking points, and thereby exposing character. Not surface character... the deep character buried within. The soul of the character. The essence. By taking the characters to the very edge... then over... we find out who they really are. Without the white water raft trip and the events that happen on that river - if had they spent the day at home in the suburbs watching the football game on TV - we would have never have found that edge and known these characters as well as we do. We need to take characters to their limits - right up to the edge.
Our four suburban guys are a mix off different types, creating contrast and conflict between them before they hit any rough water. Lewis (Burt Reynolds) is an adrenaline junkie who is always trying to push himself to the limit... and beyond. His best friend Ed (Jon Voight) was an outdoor guy before settling down - now his hunting bow is in disrepair. Drew (Ronny Cox) the quiet guitar playing guy is religious. Bobby (Ned Beatty) is the chubby city slicker - completely out of his element... and nervous. When things go wrong on the rapids, each brings a different perspective to the problem.
We also learn their secrets along the way - Ed may own a hunting bow, but he can't bring himself to kill a living thing... he chokes when he has a perfect shot at a deer. These character secrets aren't just there to give us information about the guys - they are also set ups that pay off later in the story.
OVER THE EDGE
To expose and explore the characters - to find out what they are really made of - the story pushes them *way* over the edge... Bobby and Ed bump into a pair of hillbilly hunters in the woods. The hillbillies threaten them. At first hey think it's because they may have a still hidden in the woods... but that's not far enough over the edge.
They tie Ed to a tree with his own belt, then force Bobby at gunpoint to take off his clothes... "Them panties, take ‘em off." What follows is probably one of the most difficult to watch scenes in the history of cinema. It doesn't just take you to the edge, it goes *way* over that edge. The lead hillbilly grabs Bobby, takes down his underpants, and sodomizes him. It's not quick. Bobby tries to get away. The hillbilly catches him, holds on to him, rides him... as Ed watches, helpless. The hillbilly forces Bobby to squeal like a pig as he rapes him.
Our four white water rafters have just entered hell - and how they react will tell us about their characters. The story has removed layers of civilization... taken us to some primal place where what we pretend to be has been stripped away, leaving only what we are. How will these four deal with this?
Just as the hillbillies are preparing to rape Ed ("Got a real pretty mouth, ain't he?"), Lewis comes out of the woods with his bow and shoots the lead hillbilly through the chest. Ed wrestles the gun away from the other hillbilly (it's a struggle - not easy), who then runs away - disappears into the woods. But, as legend tells us, it takes three arrows to kill a man... and the lead hillbilly only has one arrow in him. He staggers around - combining threat with regret. These civilized men have killed. Except the guy won't die. He staggers around - Ed keeping the shotgun on him but afraid to shoot - until the hillbilly collapses on a tree. How will our four deal with killing a man?
EDGE CREATES DRAMA
If these four guys had just stayed home in Atlanta and watched the football game, we would never have learned as much about them, and the story would not have been as dramatic. By taking the story so far over the edge, to each character's breaking point, it explodes into drama.
Now our four must decide what to do with the dead hillbilly.
Drew wants to report this to the police.
Lewis thinks telling the police what happened is just going to screw up Bobby even more... plus, if this ever goes to trial, would the other hillbillies on the jury do the right thing?
Ed doesn't know what to do - he's on the fence between civilization and this primal world they have found themselves in.
Bobby? He's happy the guy is dead. In fact, he'd like to kill him again.
The argument over what to do with the dead hillbilly - where each of the four gets right in each other's face over how to solve this problem - lasts seven minutes. Most of that is between Lewis and Drew arguing between the law of society and the law of the jungle. A big, juicy, dramatic scene... ending with a vote. The decision comes down to Ed - our identification character. What should he do? There is no easy decision, no right decision, no safe decision. Ed decides to bury the hillbilly and try to forget that any of this ever happened - even though he knows that's not possible.
Even the burial scene is dramatic - because they are burying the evidence of their crime. And they get filthy digging the hole. And the hillbilly's hand springs out of the earth - and must be *pushed down* - forced into the earth. Not an easy burial.
Afterwards, Ed can't seem to get the earth off his hands no matter how hard he scrubs them in the river. Drew can't cope with what he's done, is practically comatose.
MORE SHARP EDGES
But it's not over. They still have to fight the river to make it back to civilization... and the hillbillies may be chasing them. They hit a stretch of dangerous rapids. Drew ends up in the water - shot by a hillbilly? One of the canoes tears in half, ejecting Bobby and Lewis. Ed keeps hold of his bow... and becomes the new leader - Lewis has a badly broken leg - bone tearing through flesh. All that's left of Drew is his broken guitar.
Lewis believes Drew was shot by a hillbilly on the cliff overlooking them... convinces Bobby and Ed that they have to deal with the hillbilly if they hope to survive. Now it's up to Ed to climb the face of a cliff with his bow and kill the hillbilly. This is a great man against nature scene - a suburban man fighting the face of a cliff, fighting gravity, fighting the elements... as he climbs the sheer wall of the cliff.
Halfway up, dead tired, Ed pulls out his wallet to look at a photo of his wife and son. Everything that is important to him. His reasons to live. As he hangs on the side of the cliff looking at the photo, he loses his grip... and the photo falls hundreds of feet to the rapids below. He's lost them. Maybe he's lost himself, too.
He still has to climb to the top of the cliff.
He still has to kill the hillbilly who shot Drew.
But we know his secret - he can't kill a living thing.
When the hillbilly with the rifle spots him, Ed has trouble shooting his arrow - his hand is shaking like crazy. This is not an easy thing to do... and becomes even more difficult when the hillbilly fires his gun at him. Ed fires an arrow... then falls on his bow and quiver - another arrow piercing his side. He's shot a man, and shot himself as well! But the hillbilly is still staggering - in this movie, killing a bad guy isn't clean and simple. Isn't black and white. Isn't easy - physically or morally. Ed must grab his hunting knife and go to finish him off...
And that's when he discovers that he's probably killed the wrong man. Oops! The hillbilly who got away was toothless, the man he killed has teeth. Ed realizes he's a murderer.
He lowers the hillbilly's body down the cliff into the water... but when he tries to climb down the cliff, his rope breaks and he ends up falling into the river - and tangling himself up with the dead hillbilly's body. He's tied to this dead man...
Ed sinks the hillbilly's body into the river and they take the remaining canoe down river to civilization... finding Drew's body along the way. Not shot. "Oh, God, there's no end to it," Bobby says. Things just keep getting worse - further over the edge - deeper into hell. There is no easy way out... no easy decisions.
Even when they make it back to civilization, the danger isn't over - the difficult decisions aren't over, they are still way over the ege.
The more difficult the decision the character has to make, the more the audience has to think about the question... the more edgy the script. The further characters we care about are pushed to the edge, the more dramatic and emotional the story becomes. We rip through the layers of armor to find the true character underneath it all. We force the audience to wonder what they would do in the situation. We create bih, meaty dramatic scenes. Edge defines substance - if you aren't pushing the characters to the edge, you aren't going to find the meat of the story.
Four suburban men from Atlanta on a weekend canoe trip. No big effects. No CGI. No car chases. No explosions. No mega-villains. Just character.
Are you pushing your characters far enough?
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READY TO BREAK IN?
THE BUISINESS SIDE
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