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Jest in Literature - A Night at the Opera?
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Gunjan Saraf
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Jun 03, 2002 22:05 PDT
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JEST in LITERATURE
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3rd June 2002 # 010
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We in the industry know that behind every successful screenwriter
stands a woman. And behind her stands his wife.
~ Groucho Marx
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IN THIS DIGEST :
Introduction to the Introduction -
~ The Doc
Introduction
~ The Doc
The Crux of the Matter
~ The Doc
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====> INTRODUCTION TO THE INTRODUCTION
Hello.
This is our tenth issue of this newsletter already. It only seems like
about twice that many to the writer. Topics are a little difficult to
come up with. Other than that, once I get going, I have a pretty
good time. When I start thinking about an issue, I struggle with
whether to go with poetry, or something in the prose field.
There are assuredly other forms of "literature" as well. At some
point, maybe I ought to delve into one of the topic-specific types
of literature, like plumbing literature, or road-paving, or CAD,
or porn. Well, maybe any except porn. First, I'm ill-acquainted
with it as a genre of writing - I just look at the pictures. Second,
there seems to be a dearth of words to explain the acts. How
many times can one say "lubricant" before it seems worn out?
Writing a porn movie might not be so bad, I suppose. Intriguing
dialogue consists of learning to write "moans" and "Oh, yeah, baby,"
and maybe a few more things, but I wouldn't think it isn't the most
difficult thing to do. Again, though, the dialogue that is available
seems to wear out pretty quickly. I know that I, for one, tend to
ignore the dialogue and other sounds about five minutes into the flick.
I begin to ignore the film itself about ten minutes in.
I remember when "Deep Throat" came out. What a news item that
was. I finally got up the nerve to go see it in a downtown theater in
Riverside, California. Ten minutes into the movie, just as I was going
into a fog, the theater got busted. I was afraid there were going to be
television cameras rolling outside the theater and my folks would catch
me on the news, all smarmy and sleazy, keeping company with other
low-life's who frequented these dens of iniquity. But, nothing quite so
dramatic occurred. We didn't get our ticket money back, though, and
that seemed a bit unfair.
The real irony of it was when I happened to be traveling with my
folks some time later, and I casually asked my Dad (who is the last
person one might imagine going to such a place) if he had seen the
movie, "Deep Throat." My sister was riding with us also, and she let
out an unrehearsed squeal when he said, "Yes." I was beside myself.
I had been trying to be a little provocative, but he stole that away
from me. My sister and I stared at each other open-mouthed.
Our Dad! "Deep Throat!" Mom kept going, "Huh? What did he say?
What are you guys talking about?" I think the fact that Mom is often
not quite tuned in is one important factor in their being able to
celebrate their sixtieth wedding anniversary this past weekend.
That was one of the few times I've been caught with nothing to say.
I wasn't about to ask him what he thought about it. I didn't think I
could take whatever the answer might be.
Another touted porno movie came out just on the heels of "Deep
Throat.". It was, I believe, the first porn movie reviewed in Time
magazine. It was a little thriller called "Caf, Flesh." I happen to own
a vintage copy of that one. I don't recall who produced or directed in
it, or who stared in it, for that matter, but I do remember the plot.
Comments or Questions :
mailto:li-@workinghumor.com?Subject=opener
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====> INTRODUCTION
The movie was in the Science-Fiction genre. It was set in post-WWIII,
and it had an interesting twist. It seems that the nuclear fallout from the
"big one" had neutered most of the world's remaining population. Those
so affected could only watch as those few who could actually engage in
the sex act were put on stage. Rather than resulting in voyeuristic
slathering, those who made up the audience were more in pain than
pleasure as they watch those who could remind them of what they
couldn't.
The script centered around a protagonist named Johnny and his
girlfriend (whose name I don't recall). Johnny was everybody's
sweetheart; a genuinely nice guy marred only by a scar on his face
from some type of fallout. His girlfriend was true-blue. After suffering
through a showing of expertise by the performers, Johnny and his girl
would go home and try to copy one of the acts they had witnessed.
It seems they could get all heated up, but they couldn't waft the smoke
into fire. This peculiar impotence they suffered resulted in an odd type
of orgasm: right at the peak of excitement, each of them would get
violently ill. The only type of ejaculation they could achieve was
vicious vomiting.
I'm trying to keep this short, honest. The place they frequent for the
shows is called, "Caf, Flesh." Inside, not only do they torment themselves
by watching the stage acts, but they torment each other by shouting out
things like, "Hey, Johnny, I'll bet your girlfriend would like to have some
of that, huh?" and other witty things. Look, I don't know why they
continued to go there, okay? It was a masochistic thing, coupled with
voyeurism, and a lot of other "-isms" I don't even recognize. But, the big
thing that was going to happen was this guy, this "legend" in terms of
technique and the rumored size of his weapon, was going to be at
Caf, Flesh soon. It was all the customers talked about. The men were
intimidated; the women were coy, but titillated by their imaginings of
what this super-stud had to strut.
The stage show is probably not what you imagine it to be. Well, it is
that, but a whole lot more. Each show is a musical accompanied by a
liquid-mouthed Master-of-Ceremonies who specializes in breaking
Johnny's balls.
For each show, the emcee dresses differently and wears different make-
up. His introductions are actually quite glib and fanciful. As for the acts,
well, I won't detail them, but the first one, as I recall, has a housewife
attacked by a man wearing a rodent outfit with a quite large nose.
'Nuf sed.
The music is even fairly good, with lots of flashiness to go along with
it. The stage productions do culminate in two, three or more people
having sex, but it is entertaining.
To cut to the chase, the big day finally arrives and the "stallion" is soon
to be on stage. It is his habit to pick some woman out of the audience
for his finale. He has a nose for telling who's pretending to be impotent,
it seems.
You can probably guess this one: he picks Johnny's girlfriend. She tries
to refuse, but is eventually lured into going on stage with the king of
lovers. As she gives way to her wanton lust (sounds worn out, doesn't
it?), we watch Johnny slowly wither while the emcee batters him with
insults until one of the creeps who has been in the background all this
time throttles him, and slowly he fades away, Johnny fades away, and
his girlfriend's sighs fade away.
I cannot remember anything about the review that Time had on this
show, but for porn, which I said I wouldn't talk about, it ain't half bad.
I doubt you can find it, but if you have a video dealer who specializes in
finding the hard-to-find, it might be worth your while.
Comments or Questions :
mailto:li-@workinghumor.com?Subject=Opener
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
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====> THE CRUX OF THE MATTER
I got into this because I had decided to write about screenplays as a
genre of literature. If I can catch my breath (one of the side-effects of
having to remember that movie in such fine detail), I will show you a
quick diagram of how movies work on us by following a prescriptive
form, and why, when that form is broken, it makes us darned uneasy.
A movie that violates the form also usually has a rough time at the
Oscar's as well.
Screenplays follow a time-flow chart in determining the duration of the
acts. This in turn determines when there will be a shift in the direction of
the action. What I am going discuss is how a standard, normal,
Hollywood-type screenplay is laid out. The independent films sometimes
get to be known as such because they violate this time pattern. They
don't work on standard Hollywood-type audiences. Before you get too smug
about which group you are in, be aware that most of us are
Hollywood babies when it comes to comfort with form. That's okay,
though, because the form is solid and serves a purpose.
Simply put, a standard movie has three acts. The acts and the time
associated with them look like this:
ACT 1 ACT 2 ACT 3
15 - 20 min. 60 min. 10 - 15 min.
The first Act is critical in capturing the audience. Actually, a screenplay
is a lot like any other piece of literature in this, and many other
instances.
In movies, the rule of thumb is that it has to capture the audience's
attention, and also the protagonist has to capture the sympathy of the
audience, in the first ten minutes. Because it is a visual art form, and as
a result everyone is on the same page at the same time, a movie has a
much easier time of doing this than a book.
There is a standard method of capturing both attention and sympathy
at the same time that works incredibly well. The screenplay writer has
the protagonist suffer some undeserved misfortune right off the bat. That
will capture both attention and sympathy, and it never seems to get old.
I suggest that fully sixty to eighty percent of the movies produced follow
this procedure.
Another rule of thumb in writing screenplays is to make sure that the
protagonist is good at what he does. No matter what it is, make certain
he is good if not expert at it. An audience doesn't really have a lot of
sympathy for a complete buffoon.
At about the twenty minute mark, have some event occur which changes
the direction the action has been taking. Whatever route the action has
been following, it needs to make a tangential shift. This often occurs with
the introduction of a third character, often female. Sometimes, this third
character is already in the movie at this point, so it just takes an event
to
shift the thrust of the action. Whatever it is, it is noticeable, and it
introduces the second act of the movie. (Sorry, the first two characters
are in the form of the protagonist and the antagonist.)
The second act is a series of conflicts which the protagonist
overcomes one by one in an effort to reach his or her goal. These
conflicts build in intensity until we reach the point where the protagonist
has to either overcome a final conflict and achieve his goal, or fail and
not achieve his goal. If that sounds like a climax, it is. This final
conflict
of the second act is the moment when the two gunfighters draw their weapons,
and then they each fire simultaneously. That is the climax.
The protagonist will either reach his goal or fail.
In the old Westerns, this moment was prolonged by the camera panning
from one gunfighter to the other, keeping the audience on the edge of its
collective seat waiting for one or the other of the shooters to fall down.
Remember those scenes? Sometimes the bad guy would crumple,
sometimes the good guy, and now and then, both. Producers worked
that scenario to death over time, though. But that moment just before
someone falls is the climax. That is also the end of Act Two.
Act Three begins with one of the men falling down, and it usually
contains the resolution. This is where all the loose ends get tied up
nicely, and it usually takes about ten minutes, fifteen tops, not counting
rolling the credits.
That is the formula for a standard, ninety minute screenplay. Three acts;
ninety minutes in divisions of twenty, sixty, and ten. And most movies
follow this structure.
As an audience member, whether we recognize it or not, we are
conditioned to this structure. When a movie like Full Metal Jacket
comes around, most of us are initially uneasy, uncomfortable, or plain
distraught by it, because it violates the structure. That movie only had,
basically, two acts. The audience squirmed, wriggled, and wrestled with
whether or not it was a good or bad movie. The struggle was not a result
of the dialogue or the action. In fact, they are brilliant. But it was hard
to
see the brilliance because of the violation.
In recent, although dimming, memory, two movies, which are very,
very different from each other, follow the prescription to a "tee." They
are Terminator (One) and Tootsie. A person could almost set his watch
by either one of these movies. I picked those two because I figure most
of you will have seen one or the other of them. Think back at the action,
and you'll see the formula at work.
Some of you may be screenplay wannabe's. It's fun to think about,
and fun to do. You need a good ear for dialogue, because screenplays
follow another formulae which is expressed by this acronym: A.D.D.
Those letters stand for Action, Dialogue, Description. That is the order
of importance each plays in a successful screenplay.
Action is the province of the director. Dialogue is under the control of
the writer. Description is usually only a parenthetical notation, or it is
imbedded somehow in the dialogue. One thing about it, if you write
screenplays, you don't get too bogged down in describing how
something looks. Makes sense, doesn't it.
There is another standard feature that still creeps up in today's movies.
Often, the protagonist has a flaw. This flaw is something that he may
have to solve or fix or cure before he is deemed worthy of continuing
on to grasp the holy grail, whatever that might be. You can probably
think of more instances of this than I can, but the feature that is still
commonly used to denote and alert us when this change in the
protagonist has occurred, is the love interest.
The love interest is very common, and that role is usually considered
the third main character, or first minor character. The function of this
character, among others, is to let us know when the main character
has resolved whatever has flawed him.
At that point, the love interest, who has shunned him previously, now
accepts him. In other words, she says to us, "He's acceptable now."
With that, the main character is allowed by us (the audience is a
character too, you know) to go on to success.
In much the same way that short stories, novels, and plays have
prescriptive structures to accommodate both their production and
their respective audiences, so do screenplays. This structure is only
slightly different for writing television scripts, but that's a whole
'nother
ball of wax, and since I don't watch the stuff, I don't have to talk about
it either. (But, oh my my my my my, that's where the big bucks are.
Get on a successful series and you're rolling in dough, while it lasts.
In comparison, the standard rate for a movie script five years ago was
about $100,000. Not bad change, really. That may have changed up
or down since I last checked, but I doubt it, but that doesn't even come
close to what a writer makes on a successful television series.)
Stock, standard, formula stuff for writing a successful screenplay. No,
I take that back. This is the procedure to use to write a "correct"
screenplay. To write a successful one, you have to screw the producer. Nah,
just kidding. Right. No, really, just kidding. Really.
Next: "How to be a Producer!"
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Winding up Cartoons
Acupuncture
http://jokeworm.com/Cl27.htm
Belong to God
http://jokeworm.com/Cl28.htm
Awkward part
http://jokeworm.com/Cl29.htm
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Gunjan
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