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Lecture 12:Lecture 12:Poetry of the ScreenwriterPoetry of the Screenwriter

Professor Daniel Cutrara

Chinatown (1974)

Written by Robert Towne

Previous LessonPrevious Lesson

• Point of View

• Adaptation

• Assignments

This LessonThis Lesson

• Poetry of the Screenwriter

• External and Internal Imagery

• Chinatown

• Assignments

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Poetry of the ScreenwriterPoetry of the Screenwriter

Lesson 12: Part I

Chinatown (1974)

Written by Robert Towne

• According to McKee, poetry means an enhanced expressivity. Whether a story’s content is beautiful or grotesque, spiritual or profane, quietistic or violent, pastoral or urban, ethnic or intimate, it wants full expression.

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PoetryPoetry

Enhanced ExpressionEnhanced Expression

• Enhanced expression is created through image systems.

• An image system is a strategy of motifs.• These motifs are a category of images

embedded in the film.

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Image SystemsImage Systems

• According to McKee, these motifs repeat in sight and sound from beginning to end with persistence and great variation, but with equally great subtlety, as a subliminal communication to increase the depth and complexity of aesthetic emotion.

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Audience ReceptionAudience Reception

• Audiences react to visual or auditory cues as part of a symbolic system.

• We sense that each object has been selected to mean more than itself so we have a connotation to every denotation.

• Examples:– When we see Mercedes, we think rich.– Harley-Davidson, dangerous.– Red Trans Am, problems with sexual identity.

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Image Systems in ContextImage Systems in Context

• Like all works of art, a film is a unity in which every object relates to every other image or object.

 

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Chinatown (1974)

Written by Robert Towne

CategoriesCategories

• Category means a subject drawn from the physical world that's broad enough to contain sufficient variety.

• For example: – A dimension of nature-- animals – The seasons-- light and dark– A dimension of human culture-- buildings,

machines

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Categories - 2Categories - 2

• According to McKee: This category must repeat because one or two isolated symbols have little affect.

• Variety and repetition drive the image system.

• Most important, a film's poetics must be handled with virtual invisibility and go consciously unrecognized by the audience.

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Two Types of Image SystemsTwo Types of Image Systems

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• External Imagery• Internal Imagery

Rocky IV (1985)

Written by Sylvester Stallone

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External and Internal ImageryExternal and Internal Imagery

Lesson 12: Part II

ExternalExternal• According to McKee, External Imagery

already has symbolic meaning outside the film. This meaning is brought inside the film.– Crucifix, religious meaning– Spiderweb, entanglement– American flag, patriotism

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External - 2External - 2

• Rocky IV, Rocky wraps himself in an enormous American flag after defeating the Russian opponent.

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Internal ImageryInternal Imagery

• According to McKee, Internal Imagery takes a category that may or may not have symbolic meaning and brings it into the film to give it an entirely new meaning appropriate to the particular film in that particular film alone.

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ChinatownChinatown

Lesson 12: Part III

Chinatown (1974)

Written by Robert Towne

Chinatown - The StoryChinatown - The Story

• In Chinatown, Jack Nicholson plays Jake Gittes, a private detective. He is hired to spy on what appears to be an adulterous husband. It turns out that he’s been used. Stakes are raised when the husband is found dead. Jake’s investigation uncovers corrupt business dealings, and an incestuous father.

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Four Image SystemsFour Image Systems

• According to McKee, Chinatown has four image systems:

• Two external• Two internal

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Chinatown (1974)

Written by Robert Towne

Internal SystemsInternal Systems

• Primary internalized system: Motifs of blind seeing– Windows, rearview mirrors, eyeglasses,

particularly-broken spectacle, cameras, binoculars, eyes

– If we're looking for evil out in the world we’re looking in the wrong direction. It is in here, in us.

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Motif ExamplesMotif Examples

• Pause the lecture and watch the clips from Chinatown.

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Motif Examples - 2Motif Examples - 2

• The first clip- seeing and binoculars• The second clip- windshield and rear-view

mirror• The third clip- photography, the lens

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Secondary Internalized SystemSecondary Internalized System

• Political corruption becomes social cement– False contracts, subverted laws, acts of

corruption

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External SystemsExternal Systems

• First externalized system--water versus drought

• Second externalized system--sexual cruelty versus sexual love

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SubliminalSubliminal

• An image system must be subliminal.• Symbols touch us and move us as long as

we don't recognize them as symbolic.• Awareness of a symbol turns it into a

neutral, intellectual curiosity; powerless and virtually meaningless.

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Screenwriter as PoetScreenwriter as Poet

• The screenwriter should begin the film's image system and the director and designers finish it.

• The writer first envisions the ground of all imagery- the story’s physical and social world.

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AssignmentsAssignments

Lesson 12: Part IV

Chinatown (1974)

Written by Robert Towne

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E-Board Post #1E-Board Post #1• Describe the image systems you have

put in place or would like to put in place in your script.

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E-Board Post #2E-Board Post #2

• Choose at least one of your peers to offer suggestions or ways to create their image system.

End of Lecture 12End of Lecture 12

Next Lecture:

Sacrifice, Nothing is Wasted

Juno (2007)

Written by Diablo Cody

(Frame from a deleted scene)