In a screenplay, events play out like they do in our world. We see and hear information—pictures and events imply, and we extrapolate, fill in the gaps, and make connections, just as we do in real life, without the benefit of a first-person or omnipotent narrator describing every thought and motivation.
To some writers this inhibition is too restrictive. But Tony Harrison was once asked if the necessity to rhyme was restrictive on his poems; and he said no, on the contrary, it opened up new and exciting possibilities he may not have thought of otherwise. That's the joy of the screenplay form, too, if you choose to embrace it.
"I spend a lot of time, maybe too much time ... relating to scripts as something of an object, making the prose in them solid, and sound, to make them beautiful...” says Tony Gilroy (Michael Clayton, Dolores Claiborne) in a recent interview. “I like it when the prose is well-worked, not over-worked, but when the extra effort and energy has gone into it, even though no one's ever going to see it. I become incapable of moving on from a scene, unless it's completely switched-on, on point. Poetically accurate."
That's a writer. And, to be blunt, plenty of novelists I've read don't give their work that extra mile Gilroy demands of himself.
Here, because we're a largely unknown breed, off the cuff and without too much deliberation, are some screenwriters I've admired over the years. Paul Schrader (Taxi Driver), Nigel Kneale (Quatermass), David Webb Peoples (Blade Runner, Twelve Monkeys), Guillermo Del Toro (The Devil's Backbone, Pan's Labyrinth), Alan Ball (American Beauty, Six Feet Under), Richard Matheson (Duel, The Incredible Shrinking Man, Last Man on Earth), Joseph Stefano (Psycho, Outer Limits), Bill Condon (Gods and Monsters, Kinsey), Paul Haggis (Crash, In the Valley of Elah), Ronald Harwood (The Diving Bell and the Butterfly), David Milch (NYPD Blue, Deadwood). To me, their skill and imagination is the equal of many a novelist, in fact they leave most standing.
Do me a favour. Instead of mentally noting the name of the director of the next movie you like, note the writer. Look him or her up on the internet: seek out their other works (David Peoples also wrote Unforgiven, by the way), as you would a new and exciting novelist you come across. Open that door a little bit and see what you find.
And instead of us getting into a pissing contest between page and screen, let's applaud and enjoy and try and understand and value both forms. Who cares about the spacing? The columns? The tabs? Writers are writers. We have enough enemies without each other.
Copyright © 2008 Stephen Volk
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THE SENTINELS—Tony Richards
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* * * *
Tony Richards in the author of seven books, more than seventy short stories, and is a Bram Stoker Award nominee. He is currently working on a series of novels set in the imaginary town of Raine's Landing, Massachusetts, which will be published by HarperCollins US—the first, Dark Rain, is due out in November. A full-time freelance writer these days, he lives in the north of London with his wife.
* * * *
They looked almost like giant human beings, though they were not that.
Saguaro. It is a Spanish word originally. It is pronounced ‘sahwarro'. It means ‘sentinel', and comes from the phrase ‘los saguaros del desierto', ‘the sentinels of the desert'.
The desert in this case being the Sonoran Desert outside Phoenix, which Rick had found himself trapped at the heart of out of his own pain and shame and vulnerable stupidity. There were about a dozen of the giant cacti, each of them some twenty feet tall, clustered around him in the fading light.
And had they gathered around him to harm him, or protect him? He just had time to groggily wonder that before the last scrap of the sun, on the distant, uneven horizon, finally winked out.
* * * *
What had brought him to this place? Long story. Things that change your life for good are never usually short in the telling.
He'd been living in LA for the last three years, working sound-effects for one of the big studios. All computers these days, which was no problem to him. He was single. Still in his twenties, and therefore free and easy. Had been through a whole string of girlfriends since he had arrived in the big city, most of whom had turned out to be flakes. He inhabited an only vaguely messy apartment at the back of a private house just off Mulholland. Had owned a dog for about a year, until it had got run over. And himself? He drove one of those trendy little four-wheel drive Toyotas.
All pretty typical for a reasonably prosperous guy of his age then, which was no problem to him either. Except that, just a few weeks ago, he had ambled casually into his regular bar of a Friday night, sat down next to an extremely pretty redhead. Began chatting to her only half-way idly and...
His surroundings started coming into proper focus right around that point. Where the hell was he? What did he imagine he was doing?
He was quite alone, which seemed entirely appropriate. The desert, filled with scrub and big pale rocks, stretched away from him to the horizon in every direction he looked, and there was no sign of habitation, no roofs and no masts. A pair of pale grey doves sprang up from the undergrowth and flapped away when he faced back ahead, but there was no other life. It was too hot in the daytime for very much to be abroad, he now remembered.
The sun was at its four o'clock position right in front of him, and was still very large and bright. Thank God he'd had the presence of mind—though he didn't remember doing it—to switch on the air-conditioning.
Rick glanced at the fuel meter. The needle hung between a quarter full and empty. For heaven's sake! He'd loaded up the tank before he'd left the city, but had driven here the whole way without stopping.
And he'd lived here long enough to understand the kind of risks that faced him by this time. He had no food, no water. Had no gun. His cell-phone was on his night-stand back in Los Angeles. These were not the circumstances to go running out of gas.
"You're from Phoenix? Jesus, me? I'm from Glendale, just up the freeway from you!"
Her name was Lucy. She was here for ten days on vacation, didn't know the place at all and, yes, she'd be delighted if he would show her around.
It had taken far less than ten days for Rick to fall in love with her. His first time.
He squinted at the sun again and then decided that he should head north. Except the track? It only took him westwards. With luck though, it would curve around before he got much further down it. Turning round and heading back the way he'd come was not much of an option.
So he stuck with it for the next ten minutes, slamming and bouncing and grating, listening to the chassis protest as though it were in actual pain. And the whole while he tried to stop thinking about Lucy. Tried to concentrate simply on getting himself out of here.
And it almost worked. The track began curving to the right after a while, taking him back northwards. And the tightness in his chest? It eased off slightly. He was going to make it.
Till he reached the ledge.
* * * *
When she'd finally gone home, she had promised to call, promised to email, even write. And she'd done none of those things. And, because he still had her address, the first available weekend Rick had packed a light bag, jumped into his car, and driven east to find her.
And ... he hadn't. He'd found somebody quite different opening her front door to him, albeit somebody with the same face and the same red hair. He'd understood the truth of the matter in that first awful moment, from her body language and the sheen across her eyes. He had simply been a fling. He'd been part of her vacation, nothing more than that. And his heart had started beating so terribly heavily that nothing they said to each other, for the next ten minutes, could be properly heard above it.
And now here he was. Out on his own. And trapped. Exactly why?
When he'd been much younger, still living in Glendale with his parents, when he'd found himself unhappy or otherwise heavy of spirit, he had always had an antidote. He'd borrowed the keys to his father's beaten-up old Silver
ado, driven out into the desert, sat alone there on the warm hood till the sun went down.
So he tried to do that this time. Almost by instinct. Without even being quite sure what he was doing. It was different in the Toyota, though.
He ought to have known better, except that he wasn't thinking straight. This car wasn't a proper off-roader at all. Nothing like the Silverado. It was a cute, well-equipped, wholly urban vehicle, its outer shell designed to cash in on a current fashion. It couldn't even begin to cope adequately with the long procession of huge ruts and even vaster pot-holes that laughingly gets called a ‘track’ out here in this desert. It took an hour of mindlessly being smashed around and listening to the suspension groaning till that finally sank in.
Rick eased down on the brake and stared ahead at the damn ledge. Thought half a dozen obscene words in quick succession.
For eighty or perhaps a hundred yards ahead of him, the track narrowed so much that he'd never have gotten dad's old Silverado down it. It was rutted and pot-holed to an extent that made the last hour or so's drive look like a cruise along a skating rink. And it gave way abruptly, on its left-hand side, to a steep slope of shingle that went down some twenty feet. There were tall cacti at the bottom of the slope, but Rick barely noticed them at this point. All of his attention was focused ahead.
Turn back, something inside him said rather more fiercely than before. But no, he was now heading the right way. This track, however treacherous, was his only real passage out of the desert.
He glanced at himself a moment in his rear-view mirror, as though to gather his resolve. Took in the sight of his own face. His eyes. Still so very childlike. Still so damp, despite his circumstances. All filled up with inner pain, betrayal, and abandonment.
He blinked and pursed his lips. Ignored all that and pressed on.
And only got a quarter of the way along this section, before one tyre slipped over the edge. And then another...
* * * *
The light was already fading by the time that he came to again.
He was aware of a sticky, ripping noise as his forehead pulled free of the steering wheel. And there was something holding his right eye shut that it took him a while to recognise as dried blood too. Thank all the gods that, however upset he had been when he'd set out, he had still put his seat belt on. Thank the lord for reflex actions.
Christ alive, but his head hurt.
All the windows in the car were shattered and completely gone. Both the doors were burst wide open, and he doubted that he'd get them shut.
Rick—his legs like rubber—stumbled out.
Turned around in an unsteady circle, thinking, for a moment, there were the shadows of people all around him.
There were not. It was the shadows of the giant cacti, the saguaros, straight out of a Western movie. Far too tall to be people, and each with a couple too many limbs. He took in their presence more completely than he had before, then turned his attention to the car.
It was standing there on all four tyres, as though he had parked it there. Except that, apart from the damage he'd already taken note of, the roof was crumpled, half-way busted in. It became slowly obvious to his numbed mind the vehicle had rolled completely, at least once, on its way down the slope.
A large dark stain on the ground beneath the grille told him the radiator had burst open. Other, smaller stains were oil and braking fluid. So, his car was going nowhere.
Rick leant against its hot shell, feeling violently ill by now, and tried to take stock of his situation.
He was on his own, with no means of protection or communication. At the bottom of a slope he could not climb. In one of the most dangerous environments you could hope to find in the United States. Appropriate reaction? Whoopee?
His best hope was that somebody, some horse-rider or desert tour guide, might just happen by.
Except the light was already vanishing quickly. Anyone who knew the score out here would have already turned around and be half-way home.
He looked again at the saguaros.
The closest of them? It could only be some twenty feet away, so very large that it looked closer.
And the dozen or so other massive plants? They were clustered around him more tightly than he'd ever seen saguaros grouped before. Almost like a huge and heavily-spiked fence.
To protect him from the hostile desert? he now wondered. Or to hem him in and overwhelm him?
Just what kind of stupid thought was that? His head was still swimming from the impact it had taken. Just how badly, he enquired next, had his brain been rattled around?
They did so look like the overly-large silhouettes of people, though. He supposed he should be grateful for their company.
He was still gazing at them when the last of the light disappeared. The temperature began to drop abruptly.
* * * *
As though taking its signal, a chirring noise began from somewhere, a chitinous squeaking. Then a humming, caused by insects too. Rick understood. The desert only truly came alive at night.
He rubbed at the goosebumps forming on his upper arms—he was only wearing a T-shirt, and had no jacket—and thought about what that meant. There were all manner of things coming awake now that could cause him varying degrees of harm.
Tarantulas for a start. Scorpions.
Moving up the size scale, he knew for a fact that this whole area was seething with rattlesnakes.
Then there were coyotes, a pack of which could be genuinely dangerous to a lone human being.
Moving up the size scale further? God, he didn't even wish to contemplate that.
The moon—a full one, and so pale that it was smoky-looking—started coming up. It was directly behind the saguaros, so that they all cast a faint shadow now. The optical effect of which was that they seemed to move a little closer to him. No, they couldn't do that, he told himself. Just plants.
He thought of getting back into the car. Except that what good would that do? The windows were all gone. And when Rick attempted to push the passenger door shut, it wouldn't budge more than a couple of inches. The same with his door. The hinges must have jammed when the roof had been compacted.
So he ended up climbing onto the hood and squatting cross-legged there, the same way he'd done when he had been a troubled teenager. So are you happy now, Lucy? Making me revert like this?
It was slightly warmer up here, at least. The motor was only half-way through the process of losing its heat.
His head was rather clearer, though it still hurt pretty badly. Rick peered at the cacti, almost envying them now.
They didn't notice the encroaching cold. It was precisely the same thing to them as midday heat. Their skin was too solid for extremes of temperature to make any difference.
They barely needed anything. Water. Nutrition. Were entirely self-sufficient. And their arsenal of huge spikes meant they had no natural enemies.
The only thing that could really damage a saguaro? Lightning. Which meant, if you were at all religious, they were only vulnerable to God.
He was nothing like them. There seemed no end to the list of things that could hurt him. The heat. The cold. Collisions. Falls. Scorpions. Coyotes. And Lucys. The list seemed to march away towards the far horizon.
Rick found himself remembering the look in his own eyes, the pain trapped in them, when he'd glanced at his reflection for that last time before going down the slope. Goddamn.
He'd be all right, he told himself now. If he stayed up here then he'd be fine. Somebody would find him come the morning. Or he'd even head back on foot, once there was sufficient light to see by.
There was a sudden noise, somewhere off in the distance, and his head came sharply up. He recognised it. It had only been the briefest sound, but terribly distinctive. Like a rock breaking open and releasing gas at the same time. A combined crack and hiss.
It was hard to tell out here which direction it had come from or how far away it was.
But he knew, fully well, what had ju
st made it.
Perhaps he should rethink getting back into the car.
* * * *
The doors still wouldn't shut, however much he pushed at them. And Jesus, the amount of noise he had to be making! But if he simply wedged himself in the Toyota's compact interior, then wouldn't its unnatural odours, metal and plastic and spilled oil, put off a predator?
He already knew what the answer to that was. It depended how hungry said predator was. If not too much, then probably. But if it was genuinely famished, then a large wild beast might just conceivably claw its way through razor wire and sewage to get to a source of protein. Which was what he represented to it.
The combined cracking and hissing noise? Had been made by a mountain lion.
In other regions of the States, pumas were like ghosts. They were there, but almost never made their presence felt. But that was not so round these parts.
Around these parts, mountain lions took dogs from back yards on a regular basis. Took kids occasionally. And, a couple of times a year, would maul or kill a full-grown human being.
Rick gave up on the doors and looked back round at the sentinel cacti. Mightn't they protect him? They were grouped closely enough that any creature would think twice before approaching their long spikes, surely? The moon had risen higher above them now, and they appeared completely black.
Their arms were raised ... as though in prayer? No, not quite that. They reminded him more of the people he watched sometimes practising tai chi in the park near where he lived. Focusing internally. Refining their inner strength. Was that what the plants were doing? Making themselves stronger just by being, existing? Standing there?
He wished he could learn the trick. He felt so incredibly fragile at this moment. So helpless and very weak.
Black Static Horror Magazine #3 Page 7