By Shelly Frome
Because of their collective memory, no
matter if they’re watching on a screen at home via Netflix or Turner Classics or
at a multiplex, viewers can tell almost immediately whether the experience
is going to be worth their while.
Take The
Guns of Navarone (1961) as the first of three random examples. At the opening it seems some vague garrison in
Crete is about to be overrun unless allied ships can come to the rescue. But
the channel is deemed impassable because of a pair of humongous Nazi cannons. The
only way around depends on the efforts of a handful of men to scale a sheer
“impossible” cliff, slip into an impregnable fortress guarded by an
overwhelming German force and destroy these “dreadful guns.” And who is the
demolition expert and one of the stars of this enterprise? A slight, blasé`
Englishman (David Niven) with absolutely no physical training who professes he
can’t swim.
It goes without saying if the first
building block in a screenplay is contrived, everything that follows is bound
to become an escalating set of dubious cliffhangers.
In marked contrast, all you have to do
is recall, say, The Bridge on the River Kwai (1957). Almost immediately the camera draws you
inside the realities and keeps you in suspense with no idea who will survive
this ordeal no matter who appears in a leading role. And by realities we’re not
referring to pure realism. We’re concerned with the logic within a consistent
set of given circumstances, whether it’s Luke Skywalker’s colorful space
odyssey or Sam Spade’s hardboiled black-in-white case in San Francisco.
In any event, pure realism can only take
you so far. Within the first few minutes of Night
and the City (1992) the camera peers in and out of a seedy section of
Manhattan following a low-rent shyster lawyer (Robert De Niro) as he plies his sleazy
trade, using a bartender’s phone to con prospective clients, takes a moment out
for a tryst in the alley with the bartender’s wife, etc. There is no hope here for
a single redeemable instant. On the other hand, in De Niro’s iconic debut in
Scorsese’s Mean Streets (1973), his
slow-witted Johnny Boy tries to navigate the Little Italy section, unable to
fathom the interplay between petty crime and the tenets of the church, assuming
it’s all a game. In this case, the viewer truly has something to worry about as
Johnny Boy “keeps asking for it,” borrowing money he has no intention of paying
back, goading his gangster creditor to the point of no return. And that, as
they say, is just for openers.
Sometimes the material is as obscure as
its title (Phantom Thread, 2017) and it’s difficult to find
what seasoned screenwriters call “the front door.” In this instance, it seems that a rather clumsy
waitress is taken with a customer old enough to be her father (Daniel Day
Lewis), accepts his invitation to dine as a middle-aged woman later joins them
and looks on approvingly. The man in
question claims to be a fastidious dressmaker and a confirmed bachelor; the
young lady soon occupies a private room
in the dressmaker’s house and, through a voice over, declares that she’s flattered
because she always thought her shoulders were too wide. But where are we? And what woman, young or
old, could relate to this tale and find herself willing enough to go on with
this charade?
Instead, how much more gratifying would
it be to hear the gentle, wise voiceover of the grownup Jean Louse “Scout” Finch (Kim
Stanley) as she reminisces about her small town Alabama childhood in To Kill a Mockingbird (1962)? And, through
cinematic memory, releases countless girls and women at the outset from the
burden of being docile, secondary creatures in favor of opting to be a
spirited, honest and intrepid force in their life’s journey. Part Two will appear on Monday, September 24,
2018.
___________________________________________________________________
Shelly Frome is the film columnist
for Southern Writers Magazine. He is also a member of Mystery
Writers of America, a professor of dramatic arts emeritus at the University of
Connecticut, a former professional actor, and a writer of crime novels and
books on theater and film. His fiction includes Sun Dance for Andy Horn, Lilac Moon, Twilight of the Drifter and Tinseltown Riff.
Among his works of non-fiction are The Actors Studio and
texts on the art and craft of screenwriting and writing for the stage. Murder Run, his latest
crime novel, was just released. He lives in Black Mountain, North
Carolina.
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