As you may remember, last year I got rather ticked off over Argo winning Best Picture (especially compared to Life of Pi). This year when I watched the Oscars I had only seen one of the Best Picture nominees (Captain Phillips -- it was good but I wasn't rooting for it) and I was mostly just watching to see Benedict Cumberbatch. I was hoping 12 Years a Slave would win because it seemed like a really important movie and I, like the rest of the world, had developed an infatuation with Lupita Nyong'o:
There. Now you have an infatuation with her and her perfect face too.
So I was thrilled when she won for Best Supporting Actress and her speech was beautiful, really, the best of the night.
But last night I finally watched the movie, and I back up my assertion that it deserved to win. This is an important movie in what it makes you feel. That is, slightly sick to your stomach, most of the time. Film should be affecting, like this. 12 Years is -- incredibly affecting. So much so that I don't think I ever really need, or want, to watch it again.
There were certainly parts that were hard to watch, but they should be. This is a movie that needs to be difficult to watch in order to be worth anything at all. I'm not going to do a full-fledged review, but I want to talk about my experience with it.
After being completely drained by the graphic whipping scene, there's a short scene in which Solomon destroys his violin, letting the wooden splinters fall to the ground at his feet. And I don't know -- I just started crying. Sobbing, actually.
The tears returned at the end, but in a far more pleasant way, when Solomon is finally reunited with his family.
12 Years leaves unsettled feelings in your stomach and thoughts in your head for days after it's ended. It will really get you to think -- the ultimate goal of art, of storytelling, right? And what I've thought is this:
The film did a fine job of portraying the extent to which slaves were truly not viewed as real people -- the entire reason why slavery could and can ever happen in the first place. This is clear in of course the scenes of abuse, and of buying and selling slaves in an open-house-like setting (complete with refreshments and live music), but was most striking to me in one single line. Toward the beginning of the movie a woman is separated from her two children and arrives at the plantation she was sold to. The planter's wife sees her crying and says something along the lines of, "Your children will be forgotten soon enough." Slaves simply weren't humans to their masters -- not intellectually, not emotionally, not in any way fully human.
However, the one thing I think could have taken this film to a whole new level is in the portrayal of the slave owners. This is a problem that plagues a lot of slavery films. There are virtually only two types of slave owners that are shown: the kind, benevolent, gentle man -- and the sadistic, maniacal, evil man. Benedict Cumberbatch's role was type A and Michael Fassbender's was the epitome of type B. Type A is problematic in that -- hey, these men still owned slaves. He can be as kind as imaginable, but there's still the fundamental problem that he doesn't see slaves, and by extension an entire race of people, as human. He may not wield a whip but he is still racist and that should be shown.
Type B is more problematic though in that it doesn't allow the issue of slavery to be viewed as what it was -- humans being unfathomably cruel to other humans, instead simplifying it into good versus evil. The slaves are shown to be completely human -- we understand and empathize with the victims. But we're missing that other piece, the piece we don't really want to think about: slave owners weren't evil villains, but real people as well. Depicting that could have made 12 Years even more disturbingly realistic.
I'm not asking to be shown a sympathetic character mercilessly beating innocent people, but I am asking to be shown evidence of that character's humanity -- that's, after all, what makes slavery so tragic. We are the only ones to blame.
This weekend, I re-watched what has been frequently called the greatest episode of Breaking Bad, "Ozymandias" (5.14), and I have to agree wholeheartedly with everyone who has called it such. (Including me, as it so happens.)
Let's start this in-depth analysis by looking at the title. "Ozymandias." Interesting title. Where does it come from? Classical poetry, of course. Here's Percy Shelley's sonnet, "Ozymandias":
I met a traveller from an antique land Who said: 'Two vast and trunkless legs of stone Stand in the desert. Near them, on the sand, Half sunk, a shattered visage lies, whose frown, And wrinkled lip, and sneer of cold command, Tell that its sculptor well those passions read Which yet survive, stamped on these lifeless things, The hand that mocked them and the heart that fed. And on the pedestal these words appear -- "My name is Ozymandias, king of kings: Look on my works, ye Mighty, and despair!" Nothing beside remains. Round the decay Of that colossal wreck, boundless and bare The lone and level sands stretch far away.'
It's a fantastic poem, as you can probably tell (that sibilance, though), and not only was its name borrowed by Breaking Bad, but the entire poem was used for promotional purposes prior to the final season:
So what is the poem about? Well, a statue of a king, now long-gone; his tribute has crumbled as well, bearing a now-ironic statement. At first glance the poem seems to tells of the inevitability of all people falling into oblivion, no matter how powerful in life. And yet -- the king Ozymandias is still well known. There are stories of his wrecked statue spreading to far away lands, apparently. But we can bet these stories have been distorted: hence, the role of the "traveller." The speaker in the poem hasn't seen the statue himself, so we're getting at least a second-hand account. So I think the more accurate reading (at least in relation to Breaking Bad) is that people will be remembered for a long time after they're gone, but the memory will not accurately portray how the person was in life.
Let's talk about the inscription: "My name is Ozymandias, king of kings: Look on my works, ye Mighty, and despair!" It's ironic on several levels. First, the king is dead. His statue has crumbled. His kingdom is long gone, as well ("Nothing beside remains"). Yeah, some king of kings. That's the oblivion part. The distorted memory part, as I'll call it, comes from the double meaning of "works" and "despair." In the king's life we are meant to look on his "works" (his vast and powerful kingdom) and "despair" because he is greater and more powerful than we could ever be. At the time of this poem, his "works" refer to his now-destroyed kingdom and we "despair" because of the tragedy of it all. The king is remembered not for his once-powerful kingdom, but for whatever disaster befell it to bring it to its knees.
This is already started to sound very Walter White, isn't it? Now we make a smooth transition to modern television...
Walter White is often equated to a king. The promo pics for Season 5 and the Final Season do it explicitly:
We'll come back to 'Remember My Name' in a bit, so keep that in mind.
Walt compares himself to a king when he says to Jesse in "Buyout" 5.06: "You asked me if I'm in the meth business or the money business. Neither. I'm in the empire business." This is the second most honest thing Walt has ever said (next to, of course, "I did it for me") and it's basically Walt's entire psychology in a nutshell. So Walt is clearly the king in the poem. What is his downfall? The events of the episode "Ozymandias."
Breaking Bad is a novel in television format. The first season is primarily exposition. Each season ratchets up the plot, and it's always moving forward and always toward a conclusion. This is television in its noblest form. Every novel has a climax and Breaking Bad's climax is "Ozymandias." To be specific, the third act of "Ozymandias." To be even more specific, the seven seconds from the time Walt yells, "What the hell is wrong with you, we're a family!" to the time he whispers, "We're a family." But we'll get to that. Let's start at the very beginning with the teaser.
The teaser is absolutely beautiful. It's a flashback to the first season (and the last thing they shot for the entire series which makes me ridiculously emotional) and shows Walt and Jesse (younger, more hair on their heads) cooking in the RV. Walt walks off to call Skyler, tell her he has to stay late at the car wash -- his first lie, as it were. He says it, she buys it. She mentions that she likes the name Holly for their not-yet-born daughter. They say "I love you" and hang up. First Walt fades out, then Jesse in the background, then the RV.
Um, can you say poignant?
As it happens, this is the exact spot where we left off last episode, and where we pick up present-time in the first act.
What's the major event of the first act? Oh, yeah, Hank is shot and killed. This is the beginning of the end for Walt and his empire. The moment the statue falls. Like, literally.
The important part is the last 30 seconds. Watch how Walt falls after Hank is shot. This is not the natural movement of a human -- it's rigid, the way a statue would fall. First to his knees (remember in the poem how the legs were the one part left standing?) and then straight over onto his side. Look closely when his head hits the ground -- see the earth crack under his head and the puff of dust that flies up? This is the fall of Ozymandias right down to every last detail.
But this isn't the realization moment yet: Walt convinces himself that Hank's death is Jesse's fault. That's why he's so nasty to the young man who's "like family to [him]." Well, nasty is putting it lightly. This is the full extent of Walt's descent to villainy. Turning over his partner to torture and death is one thing, but adding betrayal to betrayal by viciously admitting that he watched Jane die... well. The "Scarface" transformation is complete to say the least.
But this final season was surprising to me because even though we did see Walt turn fully evil as we were promised, it didn't stop there. In the last two episodes he redeems himself as much as he can. (I went into this more in my review of the finale.) Apparently turning a protagonist into an antagonist wasn't ambitious enough for Breaking Bad. They brought him back from the edge a little bit in the last two episodes, ensuring that his transformation was not only complete but also believable and realistic. Walt is still human in the end, not a caricature of pure evil. We are forced to question the role of motives versus actions when we evaluate his morality.
Hmm what an interesting shot. A bullet hole right on Walt's forehead. And the exact spot where Hank was shot earlier. I interpret this as foreshadowing that Hank's death will lead to Walt's, as we will see it does. Then there's the "dung beetle" sequence as Walt rolls his barrel through the desert to yet another perfect song choice. And he passes his pants, lying in the sand. You know, the ones from the pilot. They're piling on the nostalgia thick.
This is a little bit of a tangent here, but next thing I want to talk about is the way Marie and Skyler are dressed in this episode:
Marie, who always wears purple is wearing all black. Whenever she doesn't wear purple it's important. (Remember that time she wore yellow and Hank found out who W.W. was? Yeah.) This is after Hank has died; Marie's a widow now. She doesn't know yet, but she's already in mourning. Skyler, on the other hand, is wearing all cream/off-white. Of course this creates a really awesome contrast between the two sisters, which is further accentuated by their hair. Lovely, really. But off-white has also been Walt's color of choice lately. Skyler's clothes visualizes her loyalty to Walt, which at this point is still strong. She's taken a surprising turn to become his conspirator of sorts during this season. But her loyalty is about to end completely for the first time since the pilot. Which brings us to...
The third act. Otherwise known as the best thing ever on television ever.
So it goes down like this: Skyler, Walter Jr. and Holly arrive home to find Walt (who they have just been told has been arrested by Hank) at home, covered in dirt, with a strange pick-up truck parked in the driveway (barrel containing $11 million in the back). He's packing their bags, telling them they have to leave right now. Skyler's having none of it. She demands to know where Hank is. Walt lamely says that he "negotiated" his release. He's always been a bad at lying to Skyler. She says, "You killed him. You killed Hank." Walter Jr. starts freaking out, and Walt yells, "No, no, no! I tried to save him!"
I must say, of all the lines Bryan Cranston has said, I think his delivery on "I tried to save him" might just be my favorite.
Walt continues trying to get his family to pack, but Skyler's done. She goes to the knife block, foreshadowed in the teaser, and picks out a nice, big one. She puts herself between her husband and her son and tells Walt to leave.
Walt tries to take the knife away from her, ends up getting his hand sliced. Then it gets real. Really real. Husband and wife fight for the knife, knocking down pictures and rolling on the floor, both getting Walt's blood on them. The Walter Jr. jumps in to fight his dad (who he always looked up to so much, oh my god, don't talk to me about this because I will cry). Finally Walt gets out on top, with the knife, and screams at them, "What the hell is wrong with you, we're a family!" And this is what he looks down on:
His wife and son, the family in question, cowering on the floor before him as he holds a bloody knife. It feels as bad as it looks. As I mentioned before, about seven seconds pass before he whispers the same words: "We're a family." And this is it, the climax of the entire series. This is when Walt realizes that everything he's done, telling himself all along it was for his family, has been for naught -- has, in fact, destroyed his family. And it's all on him. He can't run from this anymore or blame it on anybody else.
This is a really important moment and it's what the series has been building toward. It's why Walt can later admit that he "did it for [him]."
But for the time being, he's still the same irrational, dramatic Walt so he kidnaps his daughter and makes a run for it. And how about this shot:
Skyler falls to her knees in the street, the picture of desperation and despair. There's lots of falling to knees going on in this episode. The parallel between her loss (Hank and Holly and husband) and Walt's is strong. Perhaps another reason for their similar color schemes; their worlds are simultaneously crashing down around their ears. Nightmares are coming true. This is riveting television.
In act four, Walt comes to his senses. His phone call to Skyler is painful to watch and the acting is just... beyond belief really. Walt's voice is harsh as he blames Skyler and (importantly) tells her (and the listening police) that she never did anything but try to stop him. He effectively clears her of all suspicion and also makes their relationship sound incredibly abusive, so she can't be blamed for knowing and doing nothing to stop him. To top it all off Walt uncharacteristically calls her a "stupid bitch."
(Comparing the phone call in the teaser to this one makes me sad.)
But Walt is not just being awful. When we see his face, it's in stark contrast to his voice. He's crying and looks pained beyond belief. He's doing what he can for his family before he disappears. I don't think he's even sort of taking the opportunity to say what he really means. It's all there on his face. He's not angry. He's sad. Really sad. He's becoming what is expected of him -- putting on that mask -- in order to protect Skyler. He even implies that he's the one who killed Hank, saying, "He crossed me. Think about that. Let that sink in," as tears pour down his cheeks.
I saw somewhere that Bryan Cranston plays four different characters: Walter White, Heisenberg, Walter White pretending to be Heisenberg, and Heisenberg pretending to be Walter White. This phone call conversation is a clear example of Walter White pretending to be Heisenberg.
Then he returns Holly, and goes off with the Disappearer.
Let's bring this back to the poem.
Walter White has always been obsessed with his reputation. Going back to the final season's tagline, "Remember My Name," let's talk about Walt's legacy. He'll be remembered, that's for sure, but how?
In the third season, in the episode "Fly," Walt tells Jesse, "I've lived too long. You want them to actually miss you." (Them, being his family.) He's lived to the point where his death will be a relief. He knows that Skyler is "waiting for [him] to die" -- he says as much to Jesse during "Buyout." His empire is all he has left. This is why he drags that barrel around with him, his $11 million, but the money quickly becomes useless in a one-room cabin in New Hampshire.
But Walt won't fall into oblivion any time soon. He's talked about on the news, as he witnesses in "Granite State." However, he won't be remembered the way he wants to be.
During the first season, in the episode "Cancer Man," Walt makes an argument for why he won't pursue cancer treatment: he doesn't want to be sick from chemo for his last few years, unable to enjoy life. "And that's how you'd remember me. That's the worst part." It turns out, though, that in the end his family won't remember him as a sick, dying man.
Walt has faced the inevitability of his death since the pilot. (Two years. The doctor was right.) And he has always had an obsession with how he would be remembered: what he would leave behind. But just like Ozymandias, he left behind a fallen empire -- and a broken family.
"Ozymandias" is not about oblivion; it's about becoming a story. A tragic hero. A villain. A legend. And that's what makes it perfect for Breaking Bad. Ozymandias was a real person (the Egyptian pharaoh Ramses) who lived and ruled. In the world of Breaking Bad, Walter White was a real person, too: one with complex motives who made difficult decisions and felt guilt and remorse (to an extent). But he won't be remembered for his nuances. He'll be remembered as the meth kingpin who killed people and eventually got what was coming to him. Television audiences will look on his works and despair for years to come.
There's a lot of advice for screenwriting out there that isn't actually that helpful. But there are a few tips I've received that are actually great advice and relatively easy to implement.
Nothing should ever be easy for your characters
Unfortunately for your characters, stories are built on conflict. So whether they're trying to accomplish their dreams or trying to drive to the store, nothing should ever be easy. Make your characters suffer. Keeping this fact in the back of your mind while writing will help you naturally work in both humor, plot and character development.
Never tell your audience the same thing twice
You'll notice if you look for it, that all the pros follow this rule. If we see a character die, you never have a scene where another character tells someone else this information. Often you get the walk in, take off the hat, eye contact and boom, cut. Or, the aftermath, and the audience fills in the rest. They're not stupid -- challenge them to pay attention and they will. Treat them like idiots and they won't much like your story.
Have your characters speak in distinctive ways
Okay, okay, that's hard to do -- but I have some cheats! Formulate a list of speaking patterns. Things you do, things your friends and family do. Words they overuse. Maybe they ramble a lot. Maybe they're, like, teenagers, or whatever.
Think about great characters on great shows and their distinct ways of speaking. Using Breaking Bad as a reference as always, there's Jesse (yo, he, like, swears a lot, bitch), Saul (think colorful metaphors), Hank (off-color jokes), and Walt (super dramatic and preachy about everything -- lots of hyperbole). Characters having distinctive dialogue leads to you having a quotable show. Ideally, a different writer would write dialogue for each character to have inherent differences, but unfortunately, we don't live in a perfect world. So it's your job to keep the speaking habits of all your characters straight. Which will come pretty naturally because writers are just insecure actors, right?
Pay attention to the flow of action within each act
The most important action and plot points should come at the end of an act. Keep long stretches of dialogue, exposition, etc at the beginning of an act. Ideally, at the beginning of act one. Your scenes in the first act might be longer than scenes toward the end.
An easy way to rearrange scenes within each act is to put them on note cards and just mess around with them. There's always a better way things can be organized.
Give your hero a speech or two
Typically it's good to avoid long paragraphs of dialogue, but there's one exception and that's speeches.
Every actor wants a speech, and every good character deserves one. Again referring to Breaking Bad, Walt's got dozens of speeches, everything from the "I Am The One Who Knocks" speech to an audience of one to the "People Move On" speech in front of a few thousand. Not to mention Mike's "No More Half Measures" speech and Jesse's "Problem Dog" speech. These speeches are all parts that you want to rewatch that showcase the actor's talent and the character's distinct speaking patterns.
It's worth noting that a speech only works if the character does a have a distinct way of speaking.
Action paragraphs should be just that -- action
This is stylistic but also really important. Write action in an active voice. It's not description. Find ways to squeeze in description using action if necessary.
Don't be afraid of a little rewrite
Or a big one. There's not a single line of dialogue or action from my first draft that's been carried over to the current draft of my pilot script. And I'm still re-working it constantly. If you've got the time for an overhaul, use it. Make a list of what you want to change. Even if it's not very specific (my lists usually start off as: make it better, make it less bad, make it less boring...) you can find specific ways to accomplish those things once you know what you want to you.
Get screenwriting software
I have Final Draft. I don't mess around. Go big or go home.
Writing is really, really hard. Screenwriting is no exception. But these little tips can really help you get off on the right foot. And the number one tip for anyone who wants to write is, as always: write. I know it's not that easy, but you've got to start somewhere.
