I tell you this: being there, hearing his fear, knowing I had caused it with my words, is something I will never stop remembering. He was quiet for a while and we ate a little. "Would this be all right?" I asked him. "I love the moment and it's true, so could we keep the moment but not have you say anything. Would it be all right if you were there, but silent?"
He thought about that. "I would have no problem," he said. Which was how it was shot.
I will never do another movie when the people are alive.
I tried a couple of times after Bridge, never will again. Lots of reasons. People panic when they are going to be up there on screen. (I would. You would, too.) People also get greedy when they are going to be up there on screen. The writer cannot make the crucial changes required, the compressions that are essential to screenplays.
But most of all, I won't because you're going to hurt somebody, cause pain or embarrassment. And God does that well enough without our help ...
Story Two: The Good Guy
* * *
Before we get started, does it strike anyone else as odd that the beautiful and ruddy-cheeked state of Colorado has been host to two of the most horrific crimes of the decade? The Littleton school massacre and the JonBenet Ramsey murder. California, sure, logic dictates that place, and New York, too. But not Colorado.
That riff having accomplished nothing, let's go to this story, it's one of those out-of-the-blue notions. Here's what it is.
As I write this, Littleton is still very much in people's consciousness. The usual shit, oh oh oh, violent movies did it--no, rap music--no, TV--no, the Internet--no, blank did it (fill in your own medium). My take, by the by? If those amazingly crazed young men had gone into that school, with the same murderous intent, but armed with knives and clubs, the incident would have been death-free.
Now understand, when I say Littleton, in a movie we would give it a different name, put it in a different place, etc. etc. What you keep is the massacre. And this: the media assault on the mistakes of the lawmen.
Here's the story--our guy, the good guy of the title, is the head lawman where the incident happens. Only it's a much smaller town, smaller school, smaller police department.
It would be nice if our guy was pretty much it. And he is terrific--honest, upright, and true, the kind of young man you'd want your own son to grow up to be. (Kevin Costner, say, just after Dances with Wolves, when the whole world was in love with him).
My story would be that he gets wind of the madness before it happens, tries like hell to stop it, is lied to by the parents of the loonies, breaks past their bullshit, realizes just exactly what is going to happen--
--and gets there just too late to stop it.
He rushes to the school, almost gets killed, but the kids are a step ahead of him. They blast their schoolmates, set off their bombs, and just as he finally corners them, they kill each other, leaving our guy shaken and alone to face the consequences.
Meaning, in this story: the media.
They descend on the town, take it over, cover the funerals as if it were Di all over again, do endless tear-jerking interviews, ask "Why?--Why? --Why?--How could this happen in our America?"
And make a villain out of our good guy.
Other law experts are brought in, they criticize him, why didn't he do this, that, the other thing.
They do their best to destroy his life.
And what is our good guy doing?
Trying to hold together, sure. Trying to hang in, of course. But he is also desperately trying to stop an even bigger slaughter from happening --because he has stumbled onto this fact: there were three crazy kids in Littleton, and the two who made the first invasion, they were nothing compared to the third kid, their leader and mastermind, who is way nuttier than the other two put together. And whose plan just might include this: blowing up the entire school.
Does our good guy get there in time this time?
You decide what you want, but let me throw in a curve.
Remember at the start I casually mentioned there had been two crimes in Colorado? Well, I was misdirecting you--I want to use them both.
Like this. In the middle of his desperate search for the third crazed kid, who has disappeared from his home but you know is somewhere nearby, waiting, in the middle of our good guy killing himself trying to find him, in the middle of the media calling for his resignation, he gets a phone call--
JonBenet Ramsey--who lives in Littleton--has been found strangled in the basement of the biggest house in town.
Our good guy pulls himself together, goes to the mansion to investigate. He is met by the man who called him, the child's shattered father. The mother is almost incoherent with grief and cannot be interrogated.
And what our guy does, brains fried, past exhaustion, is go through the house, checking the body, possible entrances by a stranger, all kinds of stuff--and here's the kicker--
He does it terribly--from lack of sleep. God knows, as we watch, he moves things, shifts stuff around--
Our good guy is destroying evidence. And we see him do it.
Now it's the next day, and the media shifts from Littleton High to the strangled beauty-contest winner. And snippets of her contest dances fill the channels--
Who could throttle a perfect child such as this!
As the media realizes that evidence has been damaged, they go into overdrive--our good guy should be hung.
But he tries not to pay attention because he knows that with all the attention on JonBenet, it's a perfect time for the third nut to attack the school--kill them all--
And he tries, but guess what--our good guy gets there, not a second too late but before the third nut blows up the entire school.
And he stops the possible carnage.
Yessss. This is the guy we have rooted for from the beginning, the guy who has killed himself for justice.
Even the media have to admit he pulled off a great thing, saving all those high school kids from death.
A press conference is called where he handles himself well, with modesty. Which he has to leave because JonBenet's parents are now in shape to be interviewed.
He goes back to the mansion. He talks to the wife. The wife is better. She has an alibi. She was with her husband at the time of the murder.
He talks to the husband now. "Will you find the killer?" the husband asks. Our Good Guy shakes his head. "Don't see how," he answers.
And then the two men quickly glance at each other, and it's one of those looks that tells everything. We now know why our hero destroyed the evidence--so the father will never be caught--
He and JonBenet's father are lovers.
Final fade-out.
Catch you by surprise? Hope so.
What do you think?
I guess more important is this: What do I think? Even though I've had the idea of the father and the lawman being lovers for a long time, I never put the two together till the morning I've written this.
My guess is it could make for a pretty decent flick. Different enough, a neat kicker for an ending. Star part, all that.
You know why I don't want to write it? Because I don't love it enough to do the legwork required, to find a town, go there, find some lawmen, talk them into letting me tag along, so I could learn what their life is really like.
That reality would be something I would have to have confidence enough to write, because it would add a crucial authenticity to a story that tends on occasion toward the operatic.
Maybe when I was younger, but not now.
If you have young legs, if you think you can make it wonderful, all yours ...
* * *
Two Kinds of Stories
In every movie, there are two stories: the story of the movie itself and the story of each of the individual scenes that make up the movie. And what you must realize is that if the individual scene does not logically advance and thicken the overall story, either rewrite it until it does or get rid of it. Hopefully Misery will show you what I
mean.
Scene one: typing.
The movie opens with Paul Sheldon (Jimmy Caan) in a hotel suite somewhere out west in the mountains and there is the sound of heavy wind. A storm might be coming. He pays no attention, concentrates only on what he is doing: sitting at a table, writing something. A neat pile of manuscript pages is visible on the table. A final typing flurry, he pulls out the last page, and we see these words:
THE END.
Then he takes the manuscript, holds it close, is momentarily moved.
In other words, it's a little scene, we see a guy finishing something, we're out west, it's windy.
Half a page, a little more.
Scene two: leaving.
Paul's packing, goes outside to his car, makes a snowball, rockets it at a tree, dead solid perfect.
Another half page.
Scene three: driving.
Paul's driving along in the mountains, a storm hits. (We had set it up, remember, in the typing scene where we heard the wind increasing.)
Another half page to here.
Scene four: the storm.
Paul is doing his best to stay on the road, a page and a half.
Scene five: the crash.
Half a page as Paul loses control, the car leaves the road, roars out of control, settles in the wilderness, upside down.
Scene six: the struggle.
Final half page as Paul tries to get out, can't, we leave him dying.
Okay, the first scene says somewhere there is this writer, not starving in a garret but in a lovely hotel suite in the mountains--and he has written something he is proud of. That pride is crucial to what follows.
Leaving scene. Two things aside from the necessary info that he is taking off. One, he is not the most mature guy around--I would not expect Bill Gates to heave a snowball after leaving a Microsoft meeting. Plus this: he is a jock. You can tell that from the power and the accuracy of the throw. (Needed to help set up some of the stuff he has to do when trapped in the wheelchair.)
That's enough, and I am not saying this is glorious screenwriting, but it is proper. It helps set up the big story we come into later, of Paul at the mercy of the only woman Hannibal Lecter should have married, Annie Wilkes.
This is not how King started the novel. He starts with Paul already in agony at Annie's mercy, and he already hates her. He was correct for his story, I think we did fine with ours. There is no right or wrong way to tell this tale. Both worked, I think well, for their particular forms.
Here's another scene--and I don't want you throwing the book across the room but, yes, it's from Butch Cassidy, and it's smack in the middle of the Superposse chase. Middle of the night. Butch and Sundance have gotten rid of one horse in an attempt to split up whoever is following them, and fight whichever half comes in their direction. The Superposse comes to the spot where Sundance jumped from his horse to Butch's, sent it off in another direction. The Superposse starts to split, which pleases the two guys. Then the posse comes back together again, all of them back together and dead on Butch and Sundance's trail. Tension is, as they say, mounting. Butch and Sundance are running out of places to run.
This is what they try next.
CUT TO
SHERIFF RAY BLEDSOE asleep in his bed.
He is in a small room connected to a small jail. One window looks out on rocky terrain. Ray Bledsoe is an aging hulk of a man, close to sixty.
CUT TO
BUTCH AND SUNDANCE, entering. Bledsoe stirs, glances up, then suddenly erupts from his bed clearly horrified at what he sees.
RAY BLEDSOE
What are you doing here?
BUTCH
Easy, Ray--
RAY BLEDSOE
(riding roughshod through anything BUTCH starts to say to him)
--hell, easy--just because we been friends doesn't give you the right--what do you think would happen to me if we was seen together?--I'm too old to hunt up another job.
(glaring at them)
At least have the decency to draw your guns.
(As Butch and Sundance draw, Bledsoe grabs a rope, sits in a chair and tosses the rope to Sundance, who hesitates a moment)
Come on, come on--take it and start with my feet. Just don't make it so tight I can't wiggle loose when you're gone.
Through the remainder of the scene, Sundance binds and gags Bledsoe while Butch paces the room, keeping close track of the view out of the window, always aware of whatever it is that is following, somewhere behind them.
RAY BLEDSOE (CONT'D)
You promised you'd never come into my territory--
BUTCH
-- and we kept our word, didn't we, Ray?
SUNDANCE
--we never pulled off anything near you--
BUTCH
--everyone in the business we told, "Leave old Ray Bledsoe alone."
SUNDANCE
--we been good to you, Ray--
BUTCH
--now you be good to us--help us enlist in the Army and fight the Spanish.
RAY BLEDSOE
You are known outlaws.
BUTCH
We'd quit.
RAY BLEDSOE
(exploding)
You woke me up to tell me you reformed?
SUNDANCE
It's the truth, Ray, I swear.
BUTCH
No, let's not lie to Ray. We haven't come close to reforming. We never will.
(He is desperately honest now)
It's just--my country's at war and I'm not getting any younger, and I'm sick of my life, Ray.
RAY BLEDSOE
(There is a pause. Then--)
Bull!!
BUTCH
All right. There's a certain situation that's come up and--it could work, Ray--a lot of guys like us have enlisted; we could too, if you'd help us--either fake us through or tell the government how we changed--they got to believe you; hell, you never done a dishonest thing yet and what are you, sixty?
RAY BLEDSOE
You've done too much for amnesty and you're too well known to disguise; you should have got yourselves killed a long time ago when you had the chance.
BUTCH
We're asking for your help, Ray!
RAY BLEDSOE
Something's got you panicked, and it's too late. You may be the biggest thing ever to hit this area, but in the long run, you're just two-bit outlaws. I never met a soul more affable than you, Butch, or faster than the Kid, but you're still nothing but a couple of two-bit outlaws on the dodge.
BUTCH
Don't you get it, Ray?--something's out there. We can maybe outrun 'em awhile longer, but then if you could--
RAY BLEDSOE
--you just want to hide out till it's old times again, but it's over. It's over, don't you get that? It's over and you're both gonna die bloody, and all you can do is choose where.
(softer now)
I'm sorry, I'm getting mean in my old age. Shut me up, Sundance.
CUT TO
SUNDANCE, the gag in his hands.
CUT TO
THE GLOW OF THE SUPERPOSSE, seen in the distance now.
CUT TO
BUTCH, reaching the rear door, opening it, going out. A moment later, SUNDANCE follows him.
CUT TO
BLEDSOE, gagged, staring after them. He is terribly moved. Camera holds on the old man a second. Then--
CUT TO
THE SUN AND IT IS BLINDING.
A lot of helpful stuff here. When Bledsoe says, "You're both gonna die bloody, and all you can do is choose where," I put that in to foreshadow Bolivia. Going into the Army to fight the Spanish had been mentioned before and scorned by Sundance before, so the fact that they are both pitching the old man to let them enlist indicated how desperate they have become. I always thought that was good material--outlaws hiding out in the Army; better because it was real.
And it's helpful for us to know they have a friend like Bledsoe who has yet to do a dishonest thing. And really helpful that Bledsoe likes
them. And it doesn't hurt our cause to find they never did rob in his area, their word meant something. And it's got a neat reversal--the sheriff insisting the outlaws draw their guns and tie him up--in order to give a standard talk scene some movement.
If you think I am pretty smart to have come up with this dazzler, here's a moment of truth. Do you know why that scene is there? Because I felt I needed someone, someone who we could believe, to tell us just how remarkable the heroes were, never a soul more affable than the one, more dangerous than the other. I felt I needed the audience to realize they were special.
Then.
Because zero people on the planet had ever heard of my two guys. If I were writing the movie today? Never would have written that scene. People know who they are today. Today it's just a stage wait.
The truth: I probably didn't need it then. Three minutes of chitchat in the middle of a chase to the death? If you had written the script and come to me for my opinion, I would have been laudatory, sure.
But I also would have said: lose that stupid Bledsoe scene.
Different Drafts
I wrote in Adventures in the Screen Trade that there were two different versions of the screenplay, the selling version and the shooting version.
That's still true and I'll get back to it, but those are versions. We are talking here of drafts.
When I finally suck it up and write the first draft, well, almost nobody sees it. I call this the "For Our Eyes Only" draft.
And it only goes to my readers.
I have a couple of people whom I give it to. That's all. Someone once said that a friend was someone you could say "Go to hell" to and it would be okay. Well, a reader is someone who can criticize your work. And it's okay.
Which Lie Did I Tell?: More Adventures in the Screen Trade Page 28