Dir: • Lewis John Carlino • Scr: Lewis John Carlino, Herman Raucher • Based on a novel by Pat Conroy • Cast: Robert Duvall (Lieutenant Colonel Wilbur ’Bull’ Meechum)
1980 THE BIG RED ONE
During the Second World War, an American platoon in Europe passes a war memorial.
PRIVATE JOHNSON
Would you look at how fast they put the names of all our guys who got killed?
SERGEANT
That’s a World War One memorial.
PRIVATE JOHNSON
But the names are the same.
SERGEANT
They always are.
Dir: Samuel Fuller • Scr: Samuel Fuller • Cast: Kelly Ward (Private Johnson), Lee Marvin (The Sergeant)
1986 PLATOON
Bunny has made his peace with his tour of Vietnam in a way that unsettles his platoon mate Junior.
BUNNY
You know, Junior, some of the things we done, man. . . I don’t feel like we done something wrong. But sometimes, man, I get this bad feeling. I told the Padre the truth, man. I like it here. You get to do what you want. Nobody fucks with you. The only worry you got is dying. And if that happens, you won’t know about it anyway. So, what the fuck, man.
JUNIOR
Shit, I got to be in this hole with you, man? I just know I shouldn’t have come.
Dir: Oliver Stone • Scr: Oliver Stone • Cast: Kevin Dillon (Bunny), Reggie Johnson (Junior)
1987 FULL METAL JACKET
A drill sergeant welcomes a batch of new recruits to the US Marines.
GUNNERY SERGEANT HARTMAN
Today. . . is Christmas! There will be a magic show at zero-nine-thirty! Chaplain Charlie will tell you about how the free world will conquer Communism with the aid of God and a few Marines! God has a hard-on for Marines because we kill everything we see! He plays His games, we play ours! To show our appreciation for so much power, we keep heaven packed with fresh souls! God was here before the Marine Corps! So you can give your heart to Jesus, but your ass belongs to the Corps! Do you ladies understand?
Dir: Stanley Kubrick • Scr: Stanley Kubrick, Michael Herr, Gustav Hasford • Based on a novel by Gustav Hasford • Cast: R. Lee Ermey (Gunnery Sergeant Hartman)
R. Lee Ermey had been a Marine instructor during the Vietnam War; Kubrick hired him as a technical adviser but Ermey wanted to play the role written for Hartman, the drill sergeant. To persuade the director he was right for the part, Ermey filmed an audition in which he improvised a torrent of expletives and insults while being bombarded by tennis balls. After he won the part, Ermey gave Kubrick 150 pages of suggested dialogue and was eventually permitted to improvise most of his own lines.
1992 A FEW GOOD MEN
US Marine Colonel Jessep challenges a liberal lawyer to weigh the value of one life against many. ‘Code Red’ is a military term for punishment by one’s peers.
LIEUTENANT KAFFEE
Colonel Jessep, did you order the Code Red?
JUDGE RANDOLPH
You don’t have to answer that question!
COLONEL JESSEP
I’ll answer the question! You want answers?
LIEUTENANT KAFFEE
I think I’m entitled to.
COLONEL JESSEP
You want answers?
LIEUTENANT KAFFEE
I want the truth!
COLONEL JESSEP
You can’t handle the truth! Son, we live in a world that has walls, and those walls have to be guarded by men with guns. Who’s gonna do it? You? You, Lt. Weinburg? I have a greater responsibility than you could possibly fathom. You weep for Santiago, and you curse the Marines. You have that luxury. You have the luxury of not knowing what I know. That Santiago’s death, while tragic, probably saved lives. And my existence, while grotesque and incomprehensible to you, saves lives. You don’t want the truth because deep down in places you don’t talk about at parties, you want me on that wall, you need me on that wall. We use words like honour, code, loyalty. We use these words as the backbone of a life spent defending something. You use them as a punchline. I have neither the time nor the inclination to explain myself to a man who rises and sleeps under the blanket of the very freedom that I provide, and then questions the manner in which I provide it. I would rather you just said thank you, and went on your way. Otherwise, I suggest you pick up a weapon, and stand a post. Either way, I don’t give a damn what you think you are entitled to.
LIEUTENANT KAFFEE
Did you order the Code Red?
COLONEL JESSEP
I did the job I...
LIEUTENANT KAFFEE
Did you order the Code Red?
COLONEL JESSEP
You’re goddamn right I did!
Dir: Rob Reiner • Scr: Aaron Sorkin • Cast: Tom Cruise (Lieutenant Daniel Kaffee), J. A. Preston (Judge Randolph), Jack Nicholson (Colonel Nathan Jessep)
1997 JACKIE BROWN
Arms dealer Ordell has perfected his own particular sales patter.
ORDELL
AK-47. The very best there is. When you absolutely, positively got to kill every motherfucker in the room, accept no substitutes.
Dir: Quentin Tarantino • Scr: Quentin Tarantino • Based on a novel by Elmore Leonard • Cast: Samuel L. Jackson (Ordell Robbie)
Despite the fact that Samuel L. Jackson’s character sells guns for a living the film contains the least violence and the lowest body count of any of Tarantino’s films; nine shots are fired, and only four deaths result.
FADE IN...
‘If I really considered myself a writer, I wouldn’t be writing screenplays. I’d be writing novels.’
Quentin Tarantino
Why is a screenplay not just a book with lazy punctuation and a clunky typeface? A good novel is an artefact as well as an inspiration, lying comfortably in the hand and stored carefully on a shelf among other favourites waiting to be revisited. It unlocks a different world for each reader, provoking and enlarging their imagination. It is a perpetual beginning, and an end in itself. A screenplay, really just a handbook detailing action and dialogue, is as likely to be used as a wedge for an unsteady video monitor as a notepad for taking orders for the make-up department’s lunch requests. Pages are torn out as sequences are completed and scenes are annotated with timings, continuity requirements and lens data. At the end of the shoot most will be thrown away.
A script, for all the love and attention the screenwriter has given it, is a tool. It will never be seen by its intended audience; what lies within exists to be shaped by directors, spoken by actors and visualized by cinematographers. Computer graphics departments may provide mountains, space ships, explosions and tears, and each will have a reality the audience is not invited to imagine for themselves. The editor will tell us when to look at our hero – and when to look away – and the composer will let us know whether we should laugh or cry.
Although the crew hope to do justice to the power and vision of the script, their primary task is to deliver around ninety minutes of material to a precise set of technical standards while dealing with changeable weather, cold-ridden actors, dogs barking nearby and tricky props. The writer may have spent whole days perfecting the closing dialogue but at the moment it will be spoken aloud the camera department is likely be more concerned with reframing a shot to exclude a traffic light in the distance or laying sandbags on the pavement to ensure the actor can stop at the correct point for the focus-puller.
Generally, writers find life on set either disappointingly slow or maddeningly complex. Although some have a close relationship with directors, it is usually because they are familiar with these realities and willing to view writing as a wider process which accommodates egos, rainstorms and tea breaks. Those who fight for the honour of every last word on the page are usually given a brief introduction to the cast and then hastily driven home.
Stories abound of writers being banished from the sets of ‘their’ movies; with production costs running into hundreds of thousands of dollars a day,
a disagreement with the director about the kind of car the actor would drive can cost as much as the car itself. Since everyone on the set is keen to avoid expense and delay, the typical writer’s contract will read as follows:
OWNERSHIP OF THE WORK: Writer hereby assigns to Producer the sole and exclusive ownership throughout the world and in perpetuity of all rights, title and interest of every kind and nature (including without limitation copyright and the right to create derivative works based on the Work) in the Work, and waives his or her moral rights in and to the Work.
1998 SAVING PRIVATE RYAN
A team of US soldiers is sent behind enemy lines to rescue a paratrooper whose four brothers have been lost in combat.
CAPTAIN MILLER
He better be worth it. He better go home and cure a disease, or invent a longer-lasting light bulb.
Dir: Steven Spielberg • Scr: Robert Rodat • Cast: Tom Hanks (Captain John Miller)
All the lead actors were made to undergo exhaustive military training with the exception of Matt Damon, playing Private Ryan, since director Spielberg wanted the other soldiers to feel a genuine resentment towards him.
2000 GLADIATOR
MAXIMUS
Five thousand of my men are out there in the freezing mud. Three thousand of them are bloodied and cleaved. Two thousand will never leave this place. I will not believe that they fought and died for nothing.
MARCUS AURELIUS
And what would you believe?
MAXIMUS
They fought for you and for Rome.
MARCUS AURELIUS
And what is Rome, Maximus?
MAXIMUS
I’ve seen much of the rest of the world. It is brutal and cruel and dark. Rome is the light.
MARCUS AURELIUS
Yet you have never been there. You have not seen what it has become. I am dying, Maximus. When a man sees his end, he wants to know there was some purpose to his life. How will the world speak my name in years to come? Will I be known as the philosopher? The warrior? The tyrant? Or will I be the emperor who gave Rome back her true self? There was once a dream that was Rome. You could only whisper it. Anything more than a whisper and it would vanish, it was so fragile. And I fear that it will not survive the winter.
Dir: Ridley Scott • Scr: David Franzoni, John Logan, William Nicholson • Cast: Russell Crowe (Maximus Decimus Meridius), Richard Harris (Marcus Aurelius)
The two horses depicted on Maximus’s breastplate are named Argento and Scarto – Silver and Trigger (literally, Lever).
2000 RULES OF ENGAGEMENT
Hodges — now a lawyer — tries to convey what life was really like as a young marine.
COLONEL HODGES
I’ll make you a deal. If you can tell me right now what the life expectancy was for a second lieutenant dropped into a hot landing zone in Vietnam in 1968, I’ll tell you everything I remember about Ca Lu.
MAJOR BIGGS
One week.
COLONEL HODGES
Negative. Sixteen minutes. Sixteen fucking minutes. That’s all I remember about Ca Lu.
Dir: William Friedkin • Scr: Stephen Gaghan, James Webb • Cast: Tommy Lee Jones (Colonel Hayes ‘Hodge’ Hodges), Guy Pearce (Major Mark Biggs)
2001 BLACK HAWK DOWN
A Special Forces sergeant explains the fierce camaraderie of combat.
HOOT
When I get home people will ask me, ‘Hey Hoot, why do you do it, man? Why? You some war junkie?’ You know what I’ll say? I won’t say a goddamn word. Why? They won’t understand. They won’t understand why we do it. They won’t understand that it’s about the men next to you, and that’s it. That’s all it is.
Dir: Ridley Scott • Scr: Ken Nolan • Based on a book by Mark Bowden • Cast: Eric Bana (Special Forces Sergeant Norm ‘Hoot’ Gibson)
The film was scrupulous in its attention to detail and factual accuracy, even including some authentic satellite imagery and radio transmissions from the battle. Director Ridley Scott only betrayed the realism by insisting that soldiers had their names painted on their helmets as he worried that audiences would be unable to distinguish between actors in otherwise identical uniforms.
2004 TROY
Odysseus, King of Ithaca, is under no illusion how the Greek battle for Troy will unfold.
ODYSSEUS
War is young men dying and old men talking.
Dir: Wolfgang Petersen • Scr: David Benioff • Cast: Sean Bean (Odysseus)
2009 INGLOURIOUS BASTERDS
An SS Colonel suspects a French farmer of sheltering a Jewish family.
COLONEL LANDA
So, Monsieur LaPadite, let me purpose a question. In this time of war, what is your number one duty? Is it to fight the Germans in the name of France to your last breath? Or is it to harass the occupying army to the best of your ability? Or is it to protect the poor unfortunate victims of warfare who cannot protect themselves? Or is your number one duty in this time of bloodshed to protect those very beautiful women who constitute your family?
The Colonel waits.
That was a question, Monsieur LaPadite. In this time of war, what do you consider your number one duty?
LAPADITE
To protect my family.
COLONEL LANDA
Now, my job dictates that I must have my men enter your home and conduct a thorough search before I can officially cross your family’s name off my list. And if there are any irregularities to be found, rest assured, they will be.
He pauses.
That is, unless you have something to tell me that will make the conducting of a search unnecessary. I might add also that any information that makes the performing of my duty easier will not be met with punishment. Actually, quite the contrary; it will be met with reward. And that reward will be that your family will cease to be harassed in any way by the German military during the rest of our occupation of your country.
The farmer stares across the table at his German opponent.
You are sheltering enemies of the state, are you not?
Ashamed, the farmer knows he is beaten.
LAPADITE
Yes.
COLONEL LANDA
You’re sheltering them underneath your floorboards, aren’t you?
LaPadite is crying silently now.
LAPADITE
Yes.
COLONEL LANDA
Point out to me the areas where they’re hiding.
Slowly, the farmer stands and indicates.
Since I haven’t heard any disturbance, I assume that while they’re listening they don’t speak English?
LAPADITE
Yes.
COLONEL LANDA
I’m going to switch back to French now, and I want you to follow my masquerade. Is that clear?
LAPADITE
Yes.
Colonel Landa stands up from the table. He speaks in French now:
COLONEL LANDA
Monsieur LaPadite, I thank you for milk and your hospitality. I do believe our business here is done.
He opens the front door and waves for his troops to approach the house.
Mademoiselle LaPadite, I thank you for your time. We shan’t be bothering your family any longer.
The LaPadite women watch the Nazi soldiers, machine guns at the ready, enter the house. Colonel Landa silently points out the area of the floor the farmer showed him.
So, Monsieur and Madame LaPadite, I bid you adieu.
He motions to the soldiers with his index finger. They tear up the wood floor with machine-gun fire.
Dir: Quentin Tarantino • Scr: Quentin Tarantino • Cast: Christoph Waltz (Colonel Hans Landa), Denis Ménochet (M. LaPadite)
Millionaire recluse Howard Hughes, a successful film producer in his early career, was romantically linked to many of his stars.
Cabaret (1972): nobody could have played Sally Bowles more perfectly than Liza Minnelli, daughter of Hollywood royalty Vincente Minnelli and Judy Garland.
Rocky (1976): a h
eroic image for a heroic film. Written by Sylvester Stallone and shot in twenty-eight days, its success was as unexpected as that of its protagonist.
Heroes
1934 THE THIN MAN
Nick and Nora have successfully solved a murder mystery.
NICK
I’m a hero. I was shot twice in the Tribune.
NORA
I read you were shot five times in the tabloids.
NICK
It’s not true. He didn’t come anywhere near my tabloids.
Dir: W. S. Van Dyke • Scr: Albert Hackett, Frances Goodrich • Based on a novel by Dashiell Hammett • Cast: William Powell (Nick Charles), Myrna Loy (Nora Charles)
1936 MR DEEDS GOES TO TOWN
Longfellow Deeds hopes to use his fortune to protect those less fortunate than himself.
DEEDS
From what I can see, no matter what system of government we have, there will always be leaders and always be followers. It’s like the road out in front of my house. It’s on a steep hill. Every day I watch the cars climbing up. Some go lickety-split up that hill on high, some have to shift into second, and some sputter and shake and slip back to the bottom again. Same cars, same gasoline, yet some make it and some don’t. And I say the fellas who can make the hill on high should stop once in a while and help those who can’t. That’s all I’m trying to do with this money. Help the fellas who can’t make the hill on high.
Dir: Frank Capra • Scr: Robert Riskin, Clarence Budington Kelland • Cast: Gary Cooper (Longfellow Deeds)
Capra, famous for his warm-hearted but intelligent films during the 1930s and 1940s, said in an interview towards the end of his life: ‘I made mistakes in drama. I thought drama was when actors cried. But drama is when the audience cries.’
All the Best Lines Page 23