Comic Relief: Who Needs Dialogue?

When I am around my youngest grandchild, I can't help but laugh at her facial expressions. I've never seen a more expressive face. Calla (named after the calla lily) turned two years old a week ago, and doesn't talk much. She knows how to speak, sure, but doesn't need to… her face says everything.

It makes me think of the famous line from Sunset Boulevard (1950) when the character Norma Desmond, a former silent-film star, exclaims:

We didn't need dialogue. We had faces!

Comic Relief: Answers to Rhetorical Questions

I came across something I saved from Reader's Digest:

Answers to Rhetorical Questions Posed by Movie Titles

by Ethan Ryan, from mcsweeneys.net

• Judge Doom framed Roger Rabbit
• Your car's behind that mail truck, dude.
• Yes, they shoot horses to put them out of their misery.
• Fine, bring Bob.
• The stress of caring for his obese mother and developmentally slow brother is what's eating Gilbert Grape.
• Baby Jane grew up and became an alcoholic.
• I'm afraid of Virginia Woolf.

(Film titles:  Who Framed Roger Rabbit; Dude, Where's My Car?; They Shoot Horses, Don't They?' What About Bob?; What's Eating Giblert Grape; Whatever Happened to Baby Jane?; Who's Afraid of Virginia Woolf?)

Comic Relief: The Mind of a Writer

Yesterday, as I worked on a screenplay re-write, the most (and probably best) writing I accomplished was to delete an entire scene. Only this slug-line remained…

INT. RESTAURANT -- EVENING

My mind went blank. I had nothing.

I stared at the empty space. No ideas. I felt twinges of panic. What do I do with this scene? Do I really need this scene? Inadequacy washed over me. Maybe I don't have what it takes.    

Time to procrastinate that section of re-write. Soak in the tub and think about it, I told myself… tomorrow. I was onto something. Sounds good. I answered. Maybe check Facebook now.

Ah. Social network distractions. I scanned down the status updates, pausing longest to adore some pictures of my grandchildren, then my eye fell on a post regarding the Oscars.

Oh yeah! I had forgotten all about recording the Academy Awards.

Screenplay gleefully abandoned, I scampered, that's right… scampered, to the television and DVR. I rationalized that I wasn't procrastinating, I was putting my finger on the pulse of the industry, right?

So, for me, the funniest moment of the Academy Awards was when Robert De Niro introduced the best screenplay nominees:

The mind of a writer can be a truly terrifying thing. Isolated, neurotic, caffeine-addled, crippled by procrastination and consumed by feelings of panic, self-loathing and soul-crushing inadequacy. And that's on a good day.

That was laugh-out-loud painfully true!

And I agree with his co-presenter, Penelope Cruz:

Yes, but if everything goes well, in the end there is a screenplay.

Comic Relief: "Anybody want a peanut?"

I am studying the screenwriting style of William Goldman.  His screenplay for The Princess Bride (1987) is a treasure of humorous scenes and dialogue.  In the following scene, humor comes through incongruity: two supposed "thugs" share the gift of rhyme as a way to sooth the giant's feelings after being insulted.

INIGO

(softly)

That Vizzini, he can fuss.

FEZZIK

…fuss…fuss…

I think he likes to scream at us.

INIGO

Probably he means no harm.

FEZZIK

He's really very short on charm.

INIGO

(proudly)

Oh, you've a great gift for rhyme.

FEZZIK

Yes, some of the time.

(He starts to smile.)

VIZZINI

(whirling on them)

Enough of that.

As they sail off, we hear their voices as the boat recedes.

INIGO

Fezzik, are there rocks ahead?

FEZZIK

If there are, we'll all be dead.

VIZZINI 

No more rhymes now, I mean it.

FEZZIK

Anybody want a peanut?

As Vizzini screams we

DISSOLVE TO

THE SAILBOAT RACING ACROSS THE DARK WATERS.

Here's the scene with their rhyming.