The role of restraint in a good screenplay
iView Author: scriptlarva
Email: turn360degree@hotmail.com
City/Country: New Delhi/ India
The role of restraint in a good screenplay
Subtlety is a word that we hear often. When we go through our screenplays we often face the question- Should I put that extra line of dialogue just to make it more clear? Should I make the character a little more prototypal so that audience identify with him more easily? Should I make the situation more comical though unbelievable because I will be able to hold audience attention more? The temptation to add something extra is often too much.
I will give you an example: Consider this situation in a movie. Two commandos are escorting terrorists in a bus to a point of transfer. Terrorists realise that one of the commandos is a Muslim after seeing a thaveez or something in his neck. Consider that you are writing this script. How will you write this scene? Are you sure an argument and a rhetoric about Indian Muslim didn’t come into your mind? Are you sure that your commando didn’t raise his voice about terrorists misinterpreting religion? Are you sure your scene didn’t end with the terrorist and commando clutching at each other’s throats?
Ok lets see how Neeraj Pandey does the scene in ‘A Wednesday.’ (I am writing this down after watching the movie. I have not seen the script)
Terrorist stares at the thaveez in his neck. Commando is looking out at a distant point. Their eyes meet in between and commando realise that terrorist is staring at his thaveez. He tucks it inside. Terrrorist smiles.
Terrorist : Kya naam hai aapka?
Commando: Zaroori naheen hai.
Terrorist: (smiling) Waqi.
That’s all. Discussion flits on to other issues. That’s what I call subtlety. To write that you need to realize that if you are not careful you would end up writing the mirror copy of hundreds of other similar scenes. Except for the end where Nasirudheen Shah goes into the status epileticus of a speech I think ‘A Wednesday’ is a movie in recent times in which writer has been able to hold on to the reigns.
What is the real temptation behind adding that something extra? I think its because of underestimating the sensibilities of the audience. You feel that if you don’t spell everything out, the audience will not get one particular nuance of the situation currently existing only in your mind.
Now lets take another example. Raaj is proposing to Gaayathri in ‘Bachna Ae Haseeno’. Gaayathri is saying no because she wants to remain independent. How will you write it? This is how its in the movie.
Gaayathri: I am sorry. Shaayad meine thumhe wrong impression diya.
Raaj: I don’t understand. Gaayatri mein tumse shaadi ki baare mein baat kar raha houn aur tum…
Gaayathri: Mein tumse pehle hi keh chuka hoom. Mein shaadi mein believe hi naheen karti.
Raaj: Par…
Gaayathri: Par thumne socha voh sabh baatein thi. Mein seedhi baat karti hoon raaj. Maine kabhi thumse jhoot naheen bhola. Yeh meri zindagi ka savaal hai or voh mein apni dhang se jeena chaahti houn. Tum mujhe bataao tum meri MBA keliye taxi chalaane dhoge? Naheen na. Roz restaurant mein kaam karne dhoge? Naheen na. Shaayad aaj thum kah behi dhoge ki haan gaayatri mann mein tumko jobi aayegi kiya karo. Mein naheen rokoonga. But lets get real. Par kabhi na kabhi tum zaroor kahoge ki mein itna kamata hoon. Mein tumaari fees pay kar deta hoon. Yeh sab karne ki kya zaroorat hai. Roz late aane ki kya zaroorat hai. Zaroorat hai raj. Mujhe vaise jeena hai jaise mein jeena chahti houn. Mujhe joh karne hai khud karna hai. Apne dham pe karne hai. Kisi aur ki soch mein apne aap ko naheen khona chaahti houn.
Believe me. I don’t have any problem with the volume of dialogue. But I feel that its just ordinary. I have seen those lines before and am going to see it again. Dialogue is exposition of character. And one is not intrigued by the character of Gaayathri coming across with these lines. She may be bold but gives the impression of who is getting carried away by one’s own talk. Consider especially the last 5-6 lines of dialogue. It’s poor repetitive lines. By that place the horses of ideas has toppled the writer from his chariot and he is hanging on for real life.
Now when we talk about restraint its not limited to the dialogue. Consider this situation.
It’s the climax. Protagonist is avenging the murder his wife and child. For that he had to suffer many hardships. Mainly because his target is the son of his godfather who is the most influential criminal lord in the whole city. Protagonist has killed off the godfather realising that as long as he is alive he wont get to kill the son. With that act the focus of power shifts. All the criminal associates now want to get rid of the arrogant son. They negotiate with the protagonist. And he gets the nod to go ahead. Bump him off.
Now how will you write on? Saving the finer details we have seen this situation in lots of our movies. 2 hours culminating in execution of a revenge.
If a writer reaches up to this point he will lick his lips in anticipation. Lot of hard work has been done. Now comes the juicy part. Lot of options. An half hour ballet of action while the villain waits on the balcony.(Remember Lucy Liu in Kill Bill 1?) and after 1/2 an hour he will tell the blood drenched hero, ”Now comes the real fight.”(And slowly removes the coat). If you are more intellectually oriented towards convincing rationalisations, villain can give a lecture on why he had to do what he had done and why everything is linked to karma. He would also point out that he knew from the beginning that his end is going to be this way. Another option (one favorite for our writers) is the villain giving a clap and the side kick emerge with the protagonist’s dear one who is kicking and streaming. Then villain gives an all knowing smile. Or you can add a twist here. A gun appears behind the protagonist while he is about to kill the villain. Oh Ho. Isn’t it the protagonist’s buddy with a malicious grin? Now both villain and buddy(villain) is laughing. Suddenly you have another flashback. It appears that things are not how they appear to be. Buddy has been a real son of a bitch.
Now see how it happens in ‘Road to perdition’. Again I am writing from recollection.
After the scene where godfather is killed we see the associate who is protecting the son talking on phone.
Associate: All I want is a guarantee that all this will end after that.
Cut to next scene: protagonist walks into the lift where associate’s goons are waiting. No one says a word. Protagonist gets out in to a corridor of hotel rooms. He walks through the corridor taking out his gun slowly (beautiful image!). He opens the door of a suite without making noise, walks to the bathroom, opens it. And through the partially opened door we see him emptying the gun towards ground level. He walks out. The glass door of the bathroom swings giving a reflection of the son lying in his own blood in the bathtub. And that’s it.
I am not saying that we should be after such kind of brevity every time. Length works well for Tarantino. Its because he is able to write good, witty, quirky, eccentric dialogue. But if your characters are just exchanging obscenities without any point, I don’t see the point either.
Its not about the number of pages or the screen time. Its about simplicity of your expression. You use 10 pages to explain the motivations of the hero. You explain why he becomes a criminal. You make it a point to establish that he started stealing because of bad life experiences.(more simplistically stated- because of a villain). He resorts to a speech to show his girl that his heart is made of gold. But are those things really needed?
See the deceivingly simple scenes from Oye lucky, lucky oye.
Lucky never talks about why he steals. He has no philosophical/sociological/personal explanations for that. His girlfriend specifically states that she never takes stolen money from him. But asks him to put it on top of the fridge. She isn’t either surprised or overtly concerned about his stealing at any point. Lucky doesn’t steal diamonds from laser beam protected vaults. He is happy with TVs and cars. He never jumps from helicopters or get into car chases. He doesn’t get into personal vendettas with old godfathers. He doesn’t challenge the police by informing about the robbery before hand. He doesn’t use sci-fi technology or elaborate plans to rob. Sneaking up the fire exit is good enough for him.
The writer should be writing like a liquor bottle with a tight cork. The trickle, however small it is, is crude and intoxicating. The trick is in the self awareness regarding being in autopilot while writing a script. According to Aristotle there are only 36 dramatic situations. Naturally when you sit to write a situation there are hundreds of movies with similar situations revolving in our head. When we unknowingly copy one of those, the fat and the mud also get inside your script.
The usual dictum regarding writing is that when in doubt, write. If you doubt whether a particular scene or dialogue is required or not, write it down. Its easier deleting a scene than writing it. But no one can help you if never had that doubt.
Good writing is not only about what to write. Its also about what not to write. Yeah, if our film makers were aware of that we would have been saved from lots of melodramatic chunks of dialogue and scenes. And at times even from whole movies.
Tags: A Wednesday, bachna aye haseeno, Oye Lucky Lucky Oye, road to perdition, Script Writing
Anurag Kashyap
Abhay Deol
Dibakar Banerjee
Hansal Mehta
Khalid Mohamed
Kundan Shah
Anish Kuruvilla
Jaideep Verma
Manish Gupta
Navdeep Singh
Bhavani Iyer
D. Santosh
Onir
Ashvin Kumar
Ramu Ramanathan
Sudhir Mishra
Pankaj Advani
Revathy
Saurabh Shukla
Shilpa Shukla
Sujoy Ghosh
Suparn Verma
Santosh Sivan
Shashank Ghosh
Shivajee
Pavan Kaul
Partho Sen-Gupta
Prroshant Naryannan
Sam Langoria
Satish Kasetty
simply awesome write.
But to reinforce such subtlety, the director must be visually stong. The writer without the complete idea of shot composition can only write the event(particularly your Road to perdition example). It is the director who brings those visual subtlety to a piece of subtle writing.
Thanx for the post. I learnt something
Dude, loved your article. I guess I imbided the world subtelity by watching Pulp Fiction. Tarantino just leaves those lines, almost abandons it. Awesome. Every line is there becasue it has to, it so goes in wit hthe character and makes them consistent at the end of the day. That is how, so many conversations are carried out in daily life, we don’t kaunch into lecute here and there. A chuckle, a crooked smile, some stifled words under the breath. And didn’t read your Road of Prdition waala thingie, because I wanted to watch the movie. Rest all was nice read. Also, I feel that Naseeruddin Shah’s speech was necessary, because that was a parcel that came along with the conversation with Kher(Cop), could be almost seen as an answer to the question: Why are you doing this? Also, before Pulp Fiction, I never really thought that subtelity was worth in gold, that there can be no greater in joy in concealing than it is showing. And I’m sure it becomes trickier than hell for the writers to execute(the newbies!). A thin line, as you said. Nice one, dude, once again!
Typos in my comment..should be subtlety!
awesome shit man.
Huh…. at last an article which i read completely without missing a word.
Welcome!
Brilliant! Really Brilliant!
I have been reading PFC for the last six months, and this should go as one of the interesting and informative articles i read. After this article i mite have different perspective of watching several scenes. Great Job.
Offtopic :
Can some one please tell me any good sites for downloading hollywood movie OST and BGMS.
@scriptlarva;
Nice writeup,
“Good writing is not only about what to write. Its also about what not to write”
well said.
@jaiganesh
I agree with your comment. Still director cannot shoot something which is not written.
@
Tarantino introduced a different kind of subtlety in that his characters talk a lot but never about what they are actually going to do. Look at Samuel L Jackson and Travolta talking while going to get the kids. They talk about madonna and all such shit. It’s only when they take out the guns from the boot we are really floored. Similarly in the beginning of ‘Reservoir dogs.’
@ Balaji
try the following sites: simply scripts, drew’s script o rama, imsdb.
@ravptor
I am sincerely grateful for your support here and in my blog.
And thanks to all others for your appreciation. Will definitely try to write more regarding scriptwriting.
sorry. the second comment was directed at Tanul Takur.
A well composed and meticulously written article!! but dont you think its better to be writer-director, it gives you more visuvalization fredom and better command on whole film and characters!!
Great post. Loved A Wednesday for all its subtleties.
@ AKS: I kompletely agree with your point. that way you own the car as well as the steering wheel! Point taken.
Great article SL. I can recall some other such instances.
In Swati Mutyam, directed by K.Viswanath, Kamal after marrying Radhika, is beaten up by his uncle, when he asks him for a share in the property. Radhika till then, a mute spectator, is disgusted with this. She stops Kamal from being beaten up and then asks him to go ahead. That scene works out like this.
Radhika, steps in stop’s Kamal’s uncle.
She helps Kamal to his feet.
She hands over the stick to Kamal, and then with just a gesture, motions him to go ahead.
Kamal goes on to thrash the daylights out of his uncle.
This was a routine scene, seen in many Ram Aur Shyam kind of movies, where the victim turns against his oppressor. But the beauty here is that K.Viswanath, uses minimal dialogue and just expressions.
Radhika says nothing here, but just one look, which conveys everything from anger to sheer disgust, gives more impact, than if she had given some fiery screaming dialogue.
K.Viswanath was one guy who is a master of subtlety.
I also remember the climax scene in Sagara Sangamam, as Kamal again watches Sailaja’s dance program on stage, he is satisfied, he feels nothing else now to live for, and just mentions his friend, Sarat babu and Jayaprada, to take him outside. As the dance is going on, Kamal slowly slumps to one side. We understand he is dead. But the way KV scripts that scene is brilliant.
wonderful write up. intelligent and informative. need not say anything more
oh! by the way, hope to see more of you. cheers!
@scriptlarva
All the sites you mentioned are for getting hollywood movie scripts
..i had asked for downloading movie soundtracks and back ground scores…guess you read my post in hurry
@AKS and Magik
Yes I agree. being the writer- director is the best deal. all writers will eventually gravitate towards direction of his script. history says so. its because no writer will be 100% satisfied with the interpretation of his script on screen.
@ Ratnakar
yeah Virumandi and Anbe sivam also did well in that aspect. but he lost it in the climax of Hey ram.
@ Medha
Thanks. definitely will try to write more. but i wont be able to post that prolifically. i feel guilty if i spent more time analysing scripts rather than actually write one.
@ Balaji
sorry. you can search in the bit torrent search engines. btjunkie, mininova to name a few.
Hmmm… i prefer Writer/Producers… there are very few, I know but I see practicality in Writing & producing…
I want to be in control but I want to learn where to draw the line. Writing and directing is complete indulgence, its difficult to stop.
Some of the most bizzare indi films I have seen has a common attachment – Written, Edited & Directed by one guy… that spells ruin!
Editors should be your worst friends… ppl you cannot have a beer with… its bad for u i know, good for the film…
SL – Writing these helps, it will open perspectives, trust me… selfish but it helps!
@SL, reading your blog, lots of stuff to read, will get back to you in 2 hrs. Thanks for the great discussion here.
SL-thats a very well written article.Yes subtleness is something that not many directors and scriptwriters adopt.Sometimes there’s a lot that can be conveyed with minimal dialogues, silence or just communication with the eyes.
Kamalhaasan & Manirathnam are two examples of people whom I can think immediately as people who respect subtleness & bring in restraint when required.So Nayagan,Thalapathy,Virumandi,Anbe Sivam are all good examples.K.Balachandar’s
Rudra Veena/Unnal Mudiyum Thambi also has a lot of wonderful moments where restraint has been shown- music taking the place of dialogue.
Decent article. Just one thought though. Isn’t uniformity while choosing the quality and genre of films most essential? How can films like Bachna and Road to Perdition be analysed in the same breath?
Can you pick up a Truffaut film and looks at its content alongside Manmohan Desai?
Guess we can!
fantastic write-up! keep up the gr8 work
cheers …
super ! can mr.kashyap throw some light on this topic…are you ther? it wil b intrstng to hear wat he has to say…since his satya & kaun were most subtle films…watsay???
There was a time when Priyadarshan knew the art of subtlety….the final scene in Doli Saja ke Rakhna, and many scenes in Gardish and Virasat…..
@ ravptor
I guess if had the money to produce I would never have submitted myself to this head hitting, hairsplitting routine of writing. So no question of being a producer- writer.:lol: Just joking. And yes analysing definitely helps your writing.
@Tushar
don’t take my blog too seriously. Its just an attempt to procrasinate actually writing my script.
@ Biswadeep Ghosh
Never was my intention to compare. I just wanted to give some illustrations for every case. And to drive down a point you will have to go to the extremes. In ‘Road to perdition’ I could have given some dialogues in the penultimate encounter between Tom Hanks and Paul Newman as examples for going overboard. But that would be too mild. Because there isnt a lot of losing control there. Obviously because it’s the same writer. Similarly for ‘A Wednesday.’ I myself know that the speech in the end is not a good example of going overboard. Only thing is that it doesn’t go with the character depicted. ‘The common man’ has been a doer rather than talker through out the movie. It doesn’t sync that he would enjoy talking so much. His issue is not with the police . Then why should he explain it in such detail to the police? In the end all that had to be conveyed by the director to the audience could have been conveyed with half the dialogue. Still I know that I wont be able to convince most of you people regarding that example. That’s exactly why I needed ‘Bachna Ae Haseeno’ as an example along with ‘Road to perdition’ and ‘A Wednesday.’
And thanks to all for the support.
I went through your blog, it was nice going through your mental process through writing the scripts, you have great amount of commitment and unidirectional vision. liked your Amer/Jaipur thing, I am from there.
@scriptlarva
loved it. i am trying to write a short film screenplay (for fullmarx), after writing it keeping in mind a particular location, half-way through i felt there is no excitement, no appeal whatsoever. i scrapped it immediately, and began from scratch. location changed, dialogues changed, basically the means to the end changed. i so related to the topic yaar. thanks.
Great article – that scene in A Wednesday caught my eye as well when I saw the film. Another interesting tangent to your article would be to look at the role of a visual language in cinema – doing away with the need for so much dialogue. Hindi cinema tends on the whole to be full of talk instead of speaking through images – interesting when you compare it to any of Satyajit Ray’s films or Sofia Coppola’s work.
Good point Ammu. I often strive and hope for breaking this language barrier, esp our so-called multiplex cinema has become quite a slave to similar themes and language. As a writer, I can’t write in hindi yet, so my scripts need a different environment to work in.
@ Tushar
thanks. the question is when ‘unidirectional vision’ should be called adamant behaviour? Would love to visit Amer Fort again. last time i had to rush through it.
@Amit Mishra
happy to know that i rang a bell somewhere. what differentiate great writers from the lesser ones is the ability to judge one’s own work objectively.
@Ammu
visual language is derived from both how a writer writes the scene and how the director shoots it. simple editing can change the look and feel of a scene.why still our cinema is so dialogue oriented? so many reasons. the target population, influence of drama, plain ignorance of the possibilities and simple habits from the past which we dont want risk breaking.
@scriptlarva, IMO, we can’t control everything, commitment is good enough and you have it. As of Amer Fort, you can check some of my pics I did on my last visit there.
http://www.flickr.com/photos/humanprojector/sets/72157606826053607/
But, don’t you think that masala Bollywood does NOT survive on subtlety and, hence, Bachna or any such film is completely out of place?
Just felt that a loosely written example from an otherwise comparable film would have driven the point home in a much more emphatic manner.
Very interesting article. More food for thought for me.
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Umm, I sorta thinking on the same lines as Biswadeep. You mentioned about Naseer’s character a doer and not a talker so does not make sense for him to go out of character in the end.
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In a similar fashion, are Deepika’s dialogues out of line for the character even though they are too verbose?
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Take the example of Usual Suspects, it had lot of dialogues and subtlety may not be there in all. As long as dialogue are in sync with the character, its all good, no?
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Sorry, this was nit-picking so you can say in minimal dialogues in a subtle way to me to STFU :-)
@ Biswadeep Ghosh
We cannot generalise that Bollywood doesnt thrive on subtlety. Ram Gopal Varma has been subtle and successful. Though his subtlety has become loudness now due to self repetitiveness.
As some one mentioned what is behind the success of ‘Dil Chahta hai?’ The subtlety of the friendships. Friends who were pulling legs rather than crying on shoulders or taking oaths. And many movies. Even ‘Rab ne bana di jodi’ had its share of subtlety. Though in patches.
I wont prefer to put movies like ‘A Wednesday’ or ‘OLLE’ in an edifice describing them as incomparable to a ‘Bachna Ae Haseeno’ or ‘Dostana.’ Because some one had sweated on those scripts also. And I think that the difference is mainly in terms of technical perfection of script rather than content per se. Can we say with conviction that ‘A Wednesday’ is not escapist? What is the difference between ‘DDLJ’ and ‘Bachna Ae Haseeno’ in terms of content, intention? The difference is in the punch lines, plot points, characterisations, how the events arc out. Other wise they are all Bollywood Masala movies.
@ Vishesh
Yes I think that Deepika’s dialogues are out of line because I dont think the writer actually wanted her character to appear shallow and exhibitive.
And regarding the example of Usual Suspects, I think you are equating abundance of dialogue with lack of subtlety. Kevin Spacey talks a lot. But is he really talking about himself? Does it ever appear that he has become a read and worn book?
As I said about Tarantino, though the characters talk a lot still we have a lot of figuring out to do because they never talk about whats really happening.
Consider the example of ‘A Wednesday.’
If the commando and the terrorist at that point of time continued to talk about some old city or may be a historical mosque or how the thaveez ended up on his neck there will be lot of dialogue. Still there wont be loss of subtlety.
@ Tushar
Thanks. Enjoyed the photos.
Bollywood has subtlety, but there is very little doubt that too many words tend to smear its identity more often than not. As for the theory that RGV’s ’subtlety’ has become ‘loudness’ due to ’self-repetitiveness’, this is something I simply did not understand. Many great makers have a style that qualifies as repetitiveness, but that does not mean that their subtlety flies out of the window. Also, RGV’s Company is as different from Aag as chalk and cheese. What does one have to say about the latter therefore, and RGV in general? Won’t it be fair to say that RGV is a classic case of someone trying to do too much too fast? The consequence of that approach has been disappointing inconsistency.
Also, this thing about escapism that you have spoken about. If one believes that a writer is an architect of moments, whether or not the film is escapist has nothing to do with the subtlety conveyed by a few seconds of meaningful restraint.
Subtlety is closely related with repetitiveness. In my example of ‘A Wednesday’ why the dialogue is subtle is that it doesnot follow the usual norms that is it doesnt follow repeated formulas.
I agree with your second paragraph.
You nailed it on “A wednesday”. I saw it yesterday – after a lot of hype from friends/family. I liked it till a certain stage – technically a good movie, but then the subtlety got lost when naseeruddin takes of like a shankar movie ( or any social injustice movie in india ). subtlety is like in “the terrorist”. i still didnt understand the role of the “hacker” and the last scene where shah meets the dcp. Also they had a sketch artist do a pretty good description, the voice etc. Or was it that kher knew who he was meeting and let him go ? Something went missing in the last 15 minutes…it went from hollywood to bollywood…
if the character is really well developed, you will end up with good dialogue. Read “Good Will Hunting” screenplay…just awesome dialogues…