On Film-Making

I’m reading this book by Alexander MacKendrick, who directed some of my favourite films including The Ladykillers and The Sweet Smell of Success.  He talks about how the fact a script must be written with words makes one think about it verbally, which is a handicap to mastering the pre-verbal structures of narrative cinema.  We automatically equate thought with reading and writing, rather than visuals.

I think it’s true for theatre too.  You write plays with words.  Writers are also encouraged not to put in too many stage-directions - it can be seen as treading on the director's or the actors' toes - so I tend to stick to dialogue.  In the past I’ve written clever stuff and I've written funny stuff, but what’s engaging about a play isn’t what people say to each other, it’s what they’re feeling as they say it.

Writing Dad’s Money, I’m burying deep into the emotional journeys before I write any words.  Dialogue comes naturally to me, and it’s very hard to hold back from it, but I hope it’s going to make a deeper, more brutal, more beautiful piece when the words finally come.