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October 25, 2005
August expectations: John likes Clooney's writing
Over at screenwriter John August's online journal, there's only good words for George Clooney and Grant Heslov's screenwriting.
"I liked it a lot, not only for its strong performances, but also its complete disregard for anything approaching traditional narrative structure. The screenplay... is full of good dialogue — much of it apparently drawn from transcripts. What it doesn’t have are other Syd Field essentials, such as character arcs, reversals, and clear motivations. Stripped of such niceties as backstory and personal lives, the characters are left only with The Issue: challenging Joseph McCarthy and his destructive campaign against supposed Communists. Much like The Crucible can be read as an allegory about McCarthyism, Clooney’s movie draws parallels with the current between the media and the government (replace “Communist” with “terrorist”...). But to the script’s credit, it works without this “meta” aspect. Execution matters, and it in this case, it’s executed terrifically well." [A couple more notes at the link on his swell blog.]
Posted by pride at October 25, 2005 05:38 PM
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