Save the Cat! Goes to the Indies

by Salva Rubio

  As you can guess, no matter how crazy, trippy or surreal a film seems, when it is so wildly popular and successful, you can bet that hiding behind the maze-like theatre, the Blake Snyder Beat Sheet is waiting somewhere for its cue to step onstage. Break a leg and come with us!

  OOTB Type: Surreal Bottle

  OOTB Cousins: American Splendor; The Science of Sleep; Midnight in Paris; Primer; Synechdoche, New York

  BIRDMAN (or The Unexpected Virtue of Ignorance)

  Written by Alejandro González Iñárritu & Nicolás Giacobone & Alexander Dinelaris & Armando Bo

  Directed by Alejandro González Iñárritu

  Opening Image: Raymond Carver’s work is one of the thematic sources of this story, so the film starts with a quote, which is actually his epitaph. “To feel oneself beloved on Earth” (did you spot the word “amor”?) was his goal, and is also our protagonist’s — speaking of whom, the film opens with a man in his underwear... levitating! Is he really flying? We may know at the end.

  Theme Stated: A know-it-all critic quotes Roland Barthes: “Gods and epic sagas... are now being done... by comic strip characters.” This is our theme, and the major character’s dilemma. Should he go back to being a million-dollar-earning movie star doing frivolous superhero films, or should he become a respected actor in the small world of theatre? Can’t he synthesize both?

  Set-Up: “How did we end up here?” Riggan Thomson (Michael Keaton) asks himself. Famous for playing the film superhero “Birdman,” he is now risking all to become a new kind of person: a respected theater actor in a play he has adapted, directed and stars. Does he have the talent? Apparently, the stressed and insomnia-ridden Riggan has other abilities, like telekinetic powers! And he can hear Birdman’s demeaning voice in his head. It all adds up to create the “surreal magic” of the movie, which we will doubt constantly, such as when one of the lights falls on an actor’s head during rehearsals and Riggan claims he did it. His attorney, Jake (Zach Galifianakis), doesn’t believe him, and is more worried about the probable lawsuit. To make things worse, the cast is missing a key performer: “Our perfect dream actor is not going to knock on that door.”

  Catalyst: Presto! There is a knock on the door, and actress Lesley (Naomi Watts) offers to call renowned actor Mike Shiner (Edward Norton), who happens to be all that Riggan aspires to. But is he the man for the job?

  Debate: Riggan tests Shiner, a true professional who already knows the dialogue by heart. He is talented, self-assured, a method actor, a bit of a diva, and even changes Riggan’s text. He is so confident that he can get fully naked without a wink, but also is so outspoken that he gets on everyone’s nerves. During one of the previews, Shiner angrily demands his gin be real so that he can get drunk onstage, and Riggan decides to fire him before Shiner is out of control.

  Break into Two: Riggan did not expect that Jake would refuse to fire Shiner, who can draw crowds to the play, precisely what they need for it to be successful. Shiner can also please the dreaded New York Times theater critic whose bad review could kill the play. So Riggan is stuck with an actor he needs to make the play a success... but one who can outshine him onstage.

  B Story: Our B Story contains what we call a False Mentor — in this case, Riggan’s feathered alter ego Birdman. At first, he seems to be just a voice in Riggan’s head, telling him to drop everything and go back to Hollywood — but his comments will become more demeaning. Riggan is having a difficult time keeping him out of mind, but could the actor learn something from Birdman?

  Fun and Games: Our promise of the premise shows how a man who has bet everything (his money, career, family and love life) on a stage play that seems bigger than himself slowly gets overwhelmed. Not exactly Fun, but you get the idea. While Shiner respects Riggan in private, in the open he implies that prestige and popularity are not the same. The former Birdman has to deal with his self-destructive daughter Samantha (Emma Stone), just out of rehab, his current girlfriend/actress Laura’s (Andrea Riseborough) announcement that she is pregnant, his ex-wife Sylvia (Amy Ryan) putting fatherhood pressure on him, and the risk that critic Tabitha Dickinson (Lindsay Duncan) will give him a bad review. We also begin to see the cracks of the characters: Shiner is having a masculinity crisis he can only deal with onstage (“This is hard!”), Lesley is afraid of losing her first Broadway chance, Laura is lying about the pregnancy, and Samantha starts seducing Shiner.

  Midpoint: Can you fit the requirements of a proper Midpoint in this rule-breaking film? First, we see Riggan’s false defeat when he finds out Shiner has made the newspaper’s front page. He also comes out in public when telling his own tragic and false childhood story to Shiner, who believes him... showing that he can act, after all! But back in his dressing room, A and B Stories cross as the Birdman voice returns to tease the angry actor (“It’s always we, brother”), and he ends up destroying everything around using his telekinesis. Finally, Jake appears to set a time clock, as the last preview before the show is happening soon, and he further raises the stakes by telling Riggan that, among others, Martin Scorsese is attending the premiere.

  Bad Guys Close In: In this section of the Beat Sheet, the hero usually “loses allies” and “his team disintegrates.”— and that is exactly what happens here, putting more and more pressure on Riggan. Jake seems to be losing trust in him and reveals to others that he lied about Scorsese. Lesley lies to Riggan, too, and Samantha’s romance with Shiner heats up. Riggan feels the pressure and goes in his under-shorts behind the theatre to be alone, only to accidentally lock himself out. Adding insult to injury, he then has to trek to the front of the theatre on the next street through the middle of crowded Times Square, being watched and recorded by the audience that used to love him. Not only is he ridiculed in front of his fans, he also has to enter the preview almost naked and try to finish the final scene. Later, Samantha tells him he is becoming a trending topic in social media, as the video of his outside walk has gone viral. “Believe it or not, this is power,” she tells him. For a man who wanted respect and admiration the old-fashioned way, Riggan has reached a very low point.

  All Is Lost: Riggan finds critic Tabitha at the bar, and she swears that she will destroy the play, no matter how good it is, because she hates what Riggan represents: Hollywood. He steps into All Is Really Lost territory when he lets loose with some harsh words to the critic, making everything worse. “I am gonna kill your play,” Tabitha confirms.

  Dark Night of the Soul: Riggan walks the streets alone at night, drinking hard and lamenting his plight when he gets the whiff of death from an angry man reciting Shakespeare’s Macbeth: “Life’s but a walking shadow, a poor player / That struts and frets his hour upon the stage / And then is heard no more.”

  Break into Three: The next day, the Birdman voice wakes Riggan up in the street... and shows up flying behind him! Riggan is hallucinating (or is he?) while Birdman tells him to drop everything, get plastic surgery and go back to Hollywood to make billions. Things get even stranger — Riggan seems like he is about to jump from a building. Is he going to kill himself? “Yes, I know where to go,” he says, having his Moment of Clarity. And off he flies to the theater to enter Act Three.

  Finale:

  Gathering the Team: Riggan enters the theatre and gathers his team of actors off screen to carry out the play, while we momentarily remain outside.

  Executing the Plan: The play’s first act ends and the audience responds enthusiastically! Riggan seems strangely calm in his dressing room and confesses to Sylvia that he tried to kill himself once.

  High Tower Surprise: We suspect things are not really going well inside Riggan’s mind, and the High Tower Surprise happens when he shoots himself in the head. Upon waking up in the hospital, Riggan learns that he actually shot his nose and has been given a new one, and that people all over the world are praying for him. He has achieved success! He is a “respected actor-celebrity” and is loved by everyone, echoing the theme and his wish.

  Dig, Deep Down: Left a
lone in the room, Riggan “digs, deep down” to take off his beak-looking bandage to see his new face. He says goodbye to the Birdman, signaling that he will now “do it without the magic.” But will he succeed?

  The Execution of the New Plan: Riggan looks through the window and sees the birds singing outside. He opens the window and oh-so-happily... jumps. Was committing suicide his “new plan”?

  Final Image: The film does not give us enough clues, but we know something surreal is still going on when Samantha looks out of the window and smiles. Is Riggan flying? We will never really know, but somehow he and the ones that love him (like Samantha) have accepted him for who he is, so he has become Synthesis Man, one who can “fly” freely while not being harassed any more by the Birdman.

  4DUDE WITH A PROBLEM

  Okay, no doubt, you are a great dude or a wonderful dudette. You walk through life minding your own business, being a good person, living your own life and feeling the bliss of being just one more individual in the crowd, with no reasons to be worried by any possibility of danger.

  And, suddenly, WHAM! You wonder... why me?

  This is what all of our heroes in this genre think when their lives are suddenly thrown out of balance and put into a life or death battle: Why me? Well, there probably isn’t a logical answer for that, but there isn’t any time to think about that either — you are now in the middle of big trouble that you have to solve, because your life is at the stake!

  Every day, it happens to thousands of people — you try to exist as normal and problem-free as possible, but out of the blue, something horrible happens. No, you were not asking for it. But destiny, God or your fate dealer of choice just decided to put you through the test.

  This is the common storyline of our “Dude with a Problem” films, and many mainstream classics probably come to your mind right now, such as blueprint examples North by Northwest, Die Hard, Sleeping with the Enemy, The Bourne series, Deep Impact and many others. You’ll realize that many genres like disaster flicks, some spy films, domestic thrillers and such have the same kind of storyline summarized in three words: you are screwed!

  But don’t let their big-budget appearance mislead you, because in the indie and auteur world, there are many films dealing with people up to their armpits in trouble, chases, persecution, disease and danger. After all... it could happen to you! So what do we need to tell this type of story?

  First, you need a protagonist, but not just any kind: it must be an innocent hero, meaning that she or he did not do anything to see themselves swept into that particular adventure. Sure, they may or may not be angels in their ordinary lives, but they weren’t looking for trouble, at least consciously. So remember, these are stories of survival, not punishment for any kind of sin: our family in The Impossible was not perfect, but they were just on holiday, and the Ghost Writer is a bit greedy but just wanted to do his job. Yet they all found themselves in deep trouble.

  Speaking of which, let us introduce the second component of our genre: the problem or sudden event. It’s important that the event is unexpected, fast and dangerous, that it “comes from nowhere and our hero has to deal with it ASAP.” It could be anything from the arrival of some mobsters in A History of Violence to the announcement that you only have seven days to live, like in Dallas Buyers Club, or a tsunami wave like in The Impossible.

  As you can guess by these examples, our third element is the life or death battle that ensues, and we aren’t kidding around! Think of your problem with consequences as dramatic as you can and you will be on the right path, if not to solve it, then at least to write it! In the aforementioned examples, the battle is for survival — the existence of an individual, group, family, society, etc. is at stake.

  By now, you might have figured out that there are five situations in which your poor “dudes” may find themselves, and the names of our subgenres are indicative of the particular “problem.”

  Let’s start with the self-explanatory Spy Problem. In this case, our protagonists will find themselves in some sort of state affair, spy plot or undercover operation into which they had unknowingly stepped. Chased by agency or government officials, they may even be spies themselves, but our heroes are usually clueless about why they are the ones being chased. But they must figure it out, pronto!

  The second subgenre is the Law Enforcement Problem, which pertains to in-dude-viduals that find themselves in a tight spot, balancing on the thin line between both sides of the law, where both the “good guys” (police, government, etc.) and the “bad guys” (mafia, criminals, etc.) are after them. Double the enemies, double the fun! Think of the Ryan Gosling film Drive, in which a getaway driver will have to outrun both the police and the mobsters.

  A Domestic Problem takes our troubles to supposedly safe places like home, family or our own local town, where we usually feel at ease — but not anymore! Films like House of Sand and Fog, The Kids Are All Right or our chosen film, Cronenberg’s A History of Violence, teach us how to deal with the suddenness of change.

  The fourth subgenre, the Nature Problem, involves “acts of God” that make us endangered and miserable, often in films about disease. Consider, for example, Dancer in the Dark (blindness), The Diving Bell and the Butterfly (paralysis) or our chosen movie, Dallas Buyers Club (AIDS), and the loneliness they imply.

  Finally, beware the Epic Problem, in which the threat is anything that Mother Earth wants to throw at us (from plagues, to viruses, to catastrophes). In mainstream cinema, our “dudes” have to confront tornadoes, volcanoes and meteorites. But in our indie realm, these problems can be cold, hunger, drought, wild animals or any kind of survival in the outdoors. The true-life stories featured in movies like The Impossible and 127 Hours serve as perfect examples.

  A common beat in these films is what Blake called the eye of the storm moments, in which our main character finds rest and solace, usually in the arms or comfort of another character (that could be your love story or B Story). The eye of the storm allows our protagonist to take a break and discuss matters (and how to solve them) with another, caring character. In The Ghost Writer, Ruth is the one to console our poor fellow scribe; in A History of Violence it’s Edie, the protagonist’s wife; and in Dallas Buyers Club, it the transgender Rayon (much to our homophobic protagonist’s dismay — and thankfully for his personal development).

  SO WHAT IS YOUR PROBLEM... DUDE?

  If you want a thrilling story, fast-paced rhythm, nerve-wracked characters and your protagonist to really earn his or her salvation... give them hell! You’ll need:

  An “innocent hero,” usually minding his own business and unaware of what is about to transpire... just like it would happen to any of us!

  A “sudden event”— the more surprising, the better. It must shake the protagonist’s world to its foundations and throw him into a world of hurt… and it’s only the beginning!

  A “life or death battle,” for the drama in these situations is knowing that your existence is at stake — and possibly that of your friends, lovers, town or society.

  If you want to make your characters suffer and have them rise to the challenge, this is your genre... and your problem!

  THE GHOST WRITER (2010)

  “Men who know too much” are the perfect basis for what Blake called “Spy Problem” flicks. In this subgenre, our unknowing hero-to-be is an everyday schmuck who is about to be followed, harassed, chased and sometimes kidnapped by antagonists such as initial-named agencies: CIA, KGB, FDA, DEA, NSA... insert your favorite three-letter baddies here!

  Even if the heyday of the genre happened after WW 2 and during the Cold War, individuals and whistleblowers such as Edward Snowden and Julian Assange may confirm that the Spy Problem subgenre is alive and well, and this film by auteur Roman Polanski perfectly shows why, as we have all of our components:

  First, an “ordinary man” against “extraordinary circumstances,” that is, a literally anonymous, innocent ghost writer who does not have a family, who is unaware of what i
s about to happen to him, is

  lured by money and the promise of selling millions of copies of a controversial ex-Prime Minister’s biography.

  In this low-key film, reminiscent of the classics, you will not see big explosions or fast car chases, but you will still be glued to your seat and wondering where Robert Harris’s original plot will take you and our disgraced character in this “test of survival.”

  DWAP Type: Spy Problem

  DWAP Cousins: A Most Wanted Man, Tinker Tailor Soldier Spy, Confessions of a Dangerous Mind, The Fourth Protocol, Army of Shadows

  THE GHOST WRITER

  Based on the novel by Robert Harris

  Screenplay by Robert Harris & Roman Polanski

  Directed by Roman Polanski

  Opening Image: The film opens with the eerie image of an abandoned car in the cold insides of a whale-like ferry. We still don’t know yet (although we may have our suspicions), but this car symbolizes a recent death. An investigation starts, but will it bear any results? As we will learn, that is unlikely.

  Theme Stated: “Do you realize I know nothing about politics?” says an unnamed ghost writer (Ewan McGregor as “The Ghost”) to his agent. This is our theme: an “innocent hero” is about to get into the two-edged, two-sided, two-faced world of politics, and for that ignorance, he will have to pay a great price.

  Set-Up: We learn a little more about the Ghost’s things that need fixing, like his curiosity and greed, as he is about to be offered to write the memoirs of controversial former British Prime Minister Adam Lang (Pierce Brosnan), just after formerly-assigned writer (and Lang’s assistant) Mike McAra has died in an accident. “It was the book that killed him,” someone says. Later, despite the Ghost’s insistence he knows nothing about politics, he gets the job. “There is something not quite right about this project,” the editor says, finding McAra’s death suspicious.