Thursday, January 30, 2014

Script vs Film


Michael Herwald
Script vs Film
            Reservoir Dogs, directed by Quentin Tarantino is about an armed robbery gone wrong. I would consider this one of Tarantino’s better movies, and an instant classic in my book. I first saw the movie when I was in 7th grade, and other than the violence I did not find it very entertaining, but when tasked with the assignment to re-watch the movie and compare it to its screenplay, I fell in love. What Tarantino is able to accomplish on the screen is truly unique and it makes him one of the most acclaimed writers/directors of our time. With that being said I first want to analyze the movie before it is in film, so I will take a look at the screenplay for Reservoir Dogs.
            One necessary part, perhaps the most important one, for achieving cinematic gold is to have a well though out and decisive screenplay. A screenplay is not like anything I have read before it is too dialogue based for a book and too bland with character description to be a play. When comparing a screenplay to a film I notice to key difference, one is in emotion and the other is visual appearance.
            Everyone has at least heard of the Twilight movies, and how one of the biggest complaints is that Kristin Stewart (the lead female) lacks emotion while she acts, unfortunately this leads to a crappy movie and horrible Internet memes. A screenplay does not convey any emotion directly like a film does that is mostly the job of the actors portraying the characters within the screenplay. How come some movies, with talented actors, are better than other movies, with talented actors? The reason is directly correlated with how well the screenplay is written and developed. An actors job is to read the script, but if the script is poorly written then there is not much even a good actor can do, in fact with a bad scripts the acting can seem phony and not sincere.
            The biggest difference between a screenplay and a film is one does not see what is happening in front of them while reading. Especially with Reservoir Dogs there is a lack of character description within the screenplay, which can be good because one does not want that to get in the way of the story. This is part of the reason Tarantino is so good because he writes and directs his own movies, so he already has an idea of what he wants his characters to look like and who his actors will be.
            What I have learned is a screenplay is not supposed to be this amazing work of art, it is supposed to be the anchor to a story. A screenplay is the steppingstone for the movie, and one cannot coexist without each other. It is the foundation to a work of art.
            As a side note I find it very interesting the varying levels of change between movies from screenplay to film.  I would most likely note that as director’s discretion, for example if he sees something that needs changing while filming there is no need to change the screenplay. 

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