In making a film based on a true story I\u2019m conscious of giving precedence to certain facts over others. Here I\u2019m reminded of the producer, Robert Evans\u2019 quote \u2013 \u2018there\u2019s three sides to every story, yours, mine and the truth\u2019, drawn from his biopic, \u2018The Kid Stays in the Picture\u2019 (2002). Anyone who saw it perhaps recalls the other half of his assertion \u2013 \u2018And no one is lying. Memories shared serve each differently\u2019.<\/p>\n
For any conventional feature film a 107-page script is standard, the rule of thumb being a minute of screen time per page. The current draft of \u201cVoyageuse\u201d \u2013 a narration\/performance \u2013 currently runs at over 3 hours so my task of editing the script to a manageable feature length is less about writing and more about amputation. Writing is hard enough but arguably screenwriting is harder because unlike in literature, where the author commands the parameters of his or her endeavour, a novel can be of any scope and length whereas screenwriters are limited to industry-defined conventions.<\/p>\n
D. W. Griffiths made the 165 minute \u201cBirth of a Nation\u201d in 1915 but today\u2019s equivalent isn\u2019t to be found in cinemas because episodic television and games now offer the opportunity to produce and consume long-form work in ways that cinema can’t and won’t; that, and by offering audiences the option of the off-switch are TV and Games truly interactive.<\/p>\n
Time to kill my darlings. Last week I culled 32 pages by asking the question: does this scene advance the page-one premise and\/or the story\u2019s themes? The brutal process of omission is no less painful by literally cutting printed pages and making two piles \u2013 in and out. Having spent most of last year writing and researching the script, informed by Erica\u2019s diaries, letters and papers, I realise each scene must earn its keep no matter how fascinating or revelatory. The same applies to the words; those hard-won turns-of-phrase and the recreation of Erica\u2019s speech patterns. If it\u2019s not on the spine of the narrative, I chastise myself, it\u2019s got to go.<\/p>\n
But what exactly is the narrative? As words on paper \u201cVoyageuse\u201d contains no action or description, none of the black stuff found in any normal narrative script. Rather, it\u2019s a piece of pure storytelling based on person, place and memory that attempts to convey 40 years of Erica\u2019s life as a series of seemingly random reminiscences recounted over the span of one day, a typical day in her empty life and heavy heart. Given this matrix of multiple timelines, my instinct is to recreate Erica as two characters, or at least two distinct consciences\/voices, in effect, the \u2018inner\u2019 and \u2018outer\u2019 selves that reveal her struggle, to my mind a human struggle more common than most care to admit.<\/p>\n
In the context of film is there space for such a contrary and complex character as Erica? Given the narrow range of roles for female actors is it too big a stretch for an audience inured to a century\u2019s worth of cinematic stereotypes to connect with her? A quick scan of previous years\u2019 Best Acting Oscars shows how film thrives not only on the portrayal of highly dysfunctional characters but also how many stellar performances are based on \u2018real\u2019 people. Filtered through the lens of stardom and A-lister script approval, however, in these films the flaws are not quite as flawed, the behaviour more well-behaved, the pill sugar-coated and easier to swallow. The \u2018truth\u2019 \u2013 as Evans observed \u2013 becomes the plaything of the highest bidder.<\/p>\n
In previous versions of \u201cVoyageuse\u201d I shied away from Erica\u2019s demons; her drug habit, her all-consuming sense of loss and loneliness, her desire for \u2018congenial company\u2019 that conflicted with her perceived lack of social skills, her longing to express emotion while striving for composure. These flaws and frailties, so I thought, were unattractive, certainly not the stuff of cinematic heroines. Lately I\u2019ve concluded, as echoed by Peter Greenaway, that I should not have the arrogance to assume I\u2019m making this film for anyone else but myself. To deny Erica her<\/span> version of the truth would be wrong, no matter how disagreeable or unpalatable I find it. To do this story justice I need a scalpel, not a blunt knife.<\/p>\n The photograph is of Erica, taken in 1971 at the entrance to her Edinburgh house. It is unretouched.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":" In making a film based on a true story I\u2019m conscious of giving precedence to certain facts over others. Here I\u2019m reminded of the producer, Robert Evans\u2019 quote \u2013 \u2018there\u2019s three sides to every story, ...more<\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":2080,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[1],"tags":[45,108,114,116,138],"class_list":["post-285","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-uncategorised","tag-film","tag-robert-evans","tag-screenwriting","tag-script-editing","tag-voyageuse"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.elementalfilms.eu\/voyageuse\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/285","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.elementalfilms.eu\/voyageuse\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.elementalfilms.eu\/voyageuse\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.elementalfilms.eu\/voyageuse\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.elementalfilms.eu\/voyageuse\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=285"}],"version-history":[{"count":2,"href":"https:\/\/www.elementalfilms.eu\/voyageuse\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/285\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":1975,"href":"https:\/\/www.elementalfilms.eu\/voyageuse\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/285\/revisions\/1975"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.elementalfilms.eu\/voyageuse\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/2080"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.elementalfilms.eu\/voyageuse\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=285"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.elementalfilms.eu\/voyageuse\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=285"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.elementalfilms.eu\/voyageuse\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=285"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}