Film – Page 97 – On Screenwriting and Media with Dr. Rosanne Welch

Everyone should watch “Friendly Persuasion” [Film History]

In the course of writing a chapter surveying the portrayal of women in Civil War films (for a book called Blue And Gray In Black And White And Color) I’ve had the fascinating opportunity to watch two films I had never seen – one brilliant, one awful. Funny how that goes.

The brilliant one is so good I may add it to my film list for next year’s History of Screenwriting III (from 1950-1980) because of how well done it is and because it was written by Michael Wilson, one of the lesser known, blacklisted writers of the era though he also wrote The Bridge on the River Kwai, A Place in the Sun and Planet of the Apes (not a bad CV for a screenwriter).

In fact, the Wilson film that I loved didn’t even have his name – or the name of any screenwriter – or the Screenplay By credit on the opening credits at all. Because the studio wouldn’t put out a film by a blacklisted writer, director William Wyler wanted to put his brother’s name on the film – but the WGA said no. And Wilson didn’t want to use a pseudonym, so the film has no screenwriting credit. What it does have, that was built into the structure by the author of the novel on which it is based, Jessamyn West, is a wonderful chance for all the major and minor characters to do the most dramatic thing of all – to choose how to behave when the world’s activity doesn’t match your personal beliefs.

The film (and novel) is Friendly Persuasion, about an Indiana Quaker family in the path of Morgan’s Raiders during the Civil War. The mother is the local Quaker minister, her husband supports her to the best of his ability (though he’d like to buy an organ for their home because he doesn’t understand why music is wrong), and her son (played by Anthony Perkins in an Oscar nominated role) is the one who struggles with whether or not to pick up a guy and fight the Confederates as they have begun burning the barns on their friends’ local farms. It’s such a beautiful piece of drama because every character has to make a decision – and a tough one – about what they believe in – and then live with the consequences of that decision. While the opening of the film was a bit slow (as films from the 1950s tended to be – they gave you time to know the ‘world’ of the film that was about to be overturned by the events of the story) it all culminated beautifully.

On the other hand, for this research, I also watched a 1971 gothic horror film (also written by a formerly blacklisted writer, Albert Maltz) and also based on a novel (written by Thomas P. Cullinan) called The Beguiled. A lousier, more annoying piece of claptrap I have never watched. I wanted to turn it off several times but since I was studying how Civil War women were portrayed in films, I couldn’t, since the story is of a wounded Union soldier being cared for by the residents of a Southern girls boarding school. I get that gothic plus horror doesn’t equal true – and yet, horror is all the more horrific if it is based in some, small reality. This film is nothing more than a collection of sex kittens clamoring to lose their virginity to this representative of the enemy, the guy who was shooting at their loved ones yesterday is not my idea of the perfect man and yet these women fall into awful displays of coquettishness which I could never bring myself to believe.

I’ve read that Sofia Coppola is writing a remake. Part of me considers seeing it in hopes that she will find the reality that will make the story more palatable – but the other part of me never wants to wallow in that stupidity again. Despite how nice Clint Eastwood looked with his shirt off in those days, watching 12 year old girls try to have sex with him was far too icky for me. Then, again, perhaps that’s what classified the film as a horror film in the first place?

So if you want to take my advice, never rent The Beguiled but do make time in your viewing life for Friendly Persuasion.

Charlie and the Chocolate Factory from A History of the Art of Adaptation [Video] (0:54)

You Can Please Some of the People Some of the Time… None of the People All of the Time: A History of the Art of Adaptation in Movies like Dune, The Godfather, Harry Potter and More!

Dr. Rosanne Welch speaks on A History of the Art of Adaptation in Movies like Dune, The Godfather, Harry Potter and More! at the California State University, Fullerton Library

Part of the program series for Dune by Frank Herbert: A 50th Anniversary Celebration.

Watch this entire presentation

Transcript:

What I love about using Patricia Neal, is that she leads us into Roald Dahl, because she’s married to him. Most people, not everybody knows she was married to Roald Dahl, who gave us — Charlie and the Chocolate Factory. Which some people did read as children or perhaps they didn’t read it, they instead saw — from the book — Willy Wonka. And noticed how that changed. It’s “Charlie and The Chocolate Factory”. The movie is “Willy Wonka and the Chocolate Factory.” We’ve entirely changed the focus of who’s the important character in this book and — if you saw this as a child, — you will remember that we fell in love with Gene Wilder. This book — who’s read this book? Not a soft fuzzy little children’s book at all, because that’s not what Roald Dahl did. At the time this movie was made, the early 70’s, that’s what we’re looking for. Nice families. Good kids. Everything is safe. It’s all going to be fine in the end.

About this talk

Dr. Rosanne Welch (RTVF) speaks on the craft of history of film adaptations from the controversy of the silent film Birth of a Nation (protested by the National Association for the Advancement of Colored People in 1915) to Breakfast at Tiffany’s (to which author Truman Capote famously said, “The only thing left from the book is the title”) to The Godfather . Naturally, the behemoth in adaptation – Harry Potter (which depended on the relationship created by adapter Steve Kloves and author J.K. Rowling) will be discussed, as will the subject of this month’s celebration: Dune.

Date: Wednesday, October 14, 2015 Time: 1:00pm – 2:00pm

About Dr. Rosanne Welch

Dr. Rosanne Welch is a professor in the Low Residency MFA in Screenwriting Program from Stephens College, California State University, Fullerton, Mount San Antonio Community College and Cal Poly Pomona. In 2007, she graduated with her Ph.D. in 20th Century U.S./Film History from Claremont Graduate University. She graduated with her M.A. in 20th Century United States History from California State University, Northridge in 2004.

Welch is also a television writer/producer with credits for Beverly Hills 90210 , CBS’s Emmy winning Picket Fences and Touched By An Angel . She also writes and hosts her own podcasts on 3rdPass.media, her first one titled “Mindful(I) Media with Dr. Rosanne Welch.”

Her upcoming book, “Why The Monkees Matter: Teenagers, Television and American Pop Culture” will be published in Fall 2016

Three Ring Circus: How Real Couples Balance Marriage, Work and Kids and The Encyclopedia of Women in Aviation and Space are two books she has written. Los Angeles Times and the Journal of Screenwriting hold some of her published articles.

Dr. Rosanne Welch Web Site and Blog

Follow Dr. Welch on Twitter

Dr. Rosanne Welch on YouTube

Podcast: Play in new window | Download

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A Lesson in the Power of One Line – Leigh Brackett [Essay]

Watching a rerun of The Rockford Files the other day I noted 2 interesting things – things that came up in conversations with writers, producers and development execs who gave guest lectures at our Stephens College MFA in Screenwriting over our last workshop session. Particularly, what came up was the idea of what execs and showrunners look for when they read a spec script. Several producers and show runners said they look for solid scenes and one or two spectacular lines of dialogue – lines that stood out as well-written and never strayed away from character.

So watching a first season Rockford episode called “The Four Pound Brick” I noted a line of dialogue that stuck with me over a few days. An older woman was walking away from the cemetery plot for her 26 year old son. She was commenting on the (then new) policy of not allowing headstones in favor of flat stones that allowed lawnmowers to ride over and therefore keep the whole area neater. She said, “I think cemeteries ought to be a bit messy. Like lives.” A very nice line that struck me as something that would make me want to read more of that writer.

Then I used IMDB to get the writer’s name: Leigh Brackett. You might (or so I say you should) recognize her name from a number of successful hard-boiled, manly-man detective and western films such as The Big Sleep, El Dorado, and Rio Bravo. She also wrote a slew of science-fiction/fantasy books and often collaborated with Ray Bradbury.

I don’t like the fact that this is a compliment, but it was then and still is: Director Howard Hawks thought Leigh Brackett was a good writer because – according to him – she wrote “like a man”.

For my fellow Star Wars fans, you will recognize Brackett for her co-screenwriting credit (shared with Lawrence Kasdan) for Star Wars: The Empire Strikes Back. Long-time fan of her writing, George Lucas, wanted her and only her to write the sequel to his blockbuster film once he’d figured out he liked directing and world-building more than the nuts and bolts of executing those big dreams on the big screen. He wanted Han Solo to be a combination of Humphrey Bogart and John Wayne – a manly man with a sensitive side – and hired the woman who could do that. But she died of cancer after writing the first version of the script so Lucas did some work on her draft before asking Lawrence Kasdan to finish the screenplay. Both men respected and admired Brackett so much – and kept so much of her characterizations and structure – that her name remains on the final script. Apparently, there was only one copy of her version at an archive but eventually it made its way onto the internet where you can read it:

The Empire Strikes Back – Brackett Draft (PDF)

I like Han Solo’s line about Hoth: “I doubt if God even remembers where he hung this star.” I wonder how many rewrite drafts it survived until either Lucas or Kasdan decided not to mention gods of any kind in their alternate universe…

But it was interesting to see that the advice of current showrunners helped me pick out a quality writer in the midst of her career. I haven’t researched how she came to write a Rockford episode but many screenwriters of the 40s and 50s turned to television for a while since it was such a lucrative market.

As a final note, the IMDB trivia page tells us that the character “Sheriff Leigh Brackett” in John Carpenter’s independent horror film Halloween (1978) was named after her. It’s a nice tribute, but a nicer one would be that more of us recognize her name more often.

Leigh Brackett on Wikipedia

Leigh Brackett on IMDB

Books by Leigh Brackett at Amazon.com

From Breakfast at Tiffany’s to In Cold Blood from A History of the Art of Adaptation [Video] (0:26)

You Can Please Some of the People Some of the Time… None of the People All of the Time: A History of the Art of Adaptation in Movies like Dune, The Godfather, Harry Potter and More!

Dr. Rosanne Welch speaks on A History of the Art of Adaptation in Movies like Dune, The Godfather, Harry Potter and More! at the California State University, Fullerton Library

Part of the program series for Dune by Frank Herbert: A 50th Anniversary Celebration.

Watch this entire presentation

Transcript:

the one they adapted much better is “In Cold Blood” which is one of those books that if I start reading the first page I have to shut up and go read the rest of the book. It’s quite a brilliant book and this one they followed almost to the letter. Obviously you can’t include everything in an adaptation, but they didn’t make any real changes because the story was so well known and it was based on a true serial murder. So, he (Capote) was happy with that and he actually got very involved with the actors in that. He hated this movie (Breakfast at Tiffany’s).

About this talk

Date: Wednesday, October 14, 2015 Time: 1:00pm – 2:00pm

About Dr. Rosanne Welch

Her upcoming book, “Why The Monkees Matter: Teenagers, Television and American Pop Culture” will be published in Fall 2016

Dr. Rosanne Welch Web Site and Blog

Follow Dr. Welch on Twitter

Dr. Rosanne Welch on YouTube

Podcast: Play in new window | Download

Subscribe: RSS

Gay, but not gay, in Breakfast at Tiffany’s from A History of the Art of Adaptation [Video] (1 min)

You Can Please Some of the People Some of the Time… None of the People All of the Time: A History of the Art of Adaptation in Movies like Dune, The Godfather, Harry Potter and More!

Dr. Rosanne Welch speaks on A History of the Art of Adaptation in Movies like Dune, The Godfather, Harry Potter and More! at the California State University, Fullerton Library

Part of the program series for Dune by Frank Herbert: A 50th Anniversary Celebration.

Watch this entire presentation

Transcript:

The characters exist, right? They are true. However, in real life George Peppard’s character, Turman Capote, in the book, the character’s gay. That’s why the 2 of them never end up together. It’s not a love tory. It’s a friendship. It’s a buddy story between a gay man and a woman. This is “Will & Grace” before there was “Will & Grace.” The problem is, you couldn’t do that onscreen. So, how can we show he’s doing something wrong sexually that isn’t being a homosexual. Oh! He’s a gigolo. Just like she makes her money from rich men, he makes his money from a rich woman who “keeps” him and buys him suits and that’s the perversion that he’s allowed to have onscreen and it’s with Patricia Neal, a famous actress back in the day. And I always thought that was so sad because they make her out to be this little old lady. She’s not that much older than he is actually at this moment. So, that’s kind of funny. So, that’s a huge change and to Truman Capote a huge loss in his particular story.

About this talk

Date: Wednesday, October 14, 2015 Time: 1:00pm – 2:00pm

About Dr. Rosanne Welch

Her upcoming book, “Why The Monkees Matter: Teenagers, Television and American Pop Culture” will be published in Fall 2016

Dr. Rosanne Welch Web Site and Blog

Follow Dr. Welch on Twitter

Dr. Rosanne Welch on YouTube

Podcast: Play in new window | Download

Subscribe: RSS

More on Breakfast at Tiffany’s from A History of the Art of Adaptation [Video] (1:03)

You Can Please Some of the People Some of the Time… None of the People All of the Time: A History of the Art of Adaptation in Movies like Dune, The Godfather, Harry Potter and More!

Dr. Rosanne Welch speaks on A History of the Art of Adaptation in Movies like Dune, The Godfather, Harry Potter and More! at the California State University, Fullerton Library

Part of the program series for Dune by Frank Herbert: A 50th Anniversary Celebration.

Watch this entire presentation

Transcript:

But more importantly, change wise, we have George Peppard — who some of you will remember in childhood as part of the A-Team — but he’s a huge movie star in this period. He’s a leading man and he’s a write in this piece. He rally stands in for Truman Capote. This is really a story about Truman Capote’s first time in New York getting his first novel sold. So, George Peppard in the movies, this is a love story and they fall in lovd with each other in the end even though she’s a free spirit. She’s never going to fall in love with anybody. She doesn’t want to be tied down by a man. Becomes a lovely romance. By the time we’re done, the cat is a symbol of how she won’t commit, because she never names her cata and at the very end of the movie — to prove she doesn’t need anybody — she dumps the cat out of a taxi int eh rain and it goes sauntering off and gets all soaking wet and the proof that she’s changed and grown is that she jumps out of the taxi and chases down the cat and she saves it. Then she names that cat and we’re like “Ok. She’s grown. She’s changed. What a beautiful love story.” There’s a small problem with that adaptation. even Truman Capote himself said “The only thing they took from my book was the title.”

About this talk

Date: Wednesday, October 14, 2015 Time: 1:00pm – 2:00pm

About Dr. Rosanne Welch

Her upcoming book, “Why The Monkees Matter: Teenagers, Television and American Pop Culture” will be published in Fall 2016

Dr. Rosanne Welch Web Site and Blog

Follow Dr. Welch on Twitter

Dr. Rosanne Welch on YouTube

Podcast: Play in new window | Download

Subscribe: RSS

Breakfast at Tiffany’s from A History of the Art of Adaptation [Video] (0:53)

You Can Please Some of the People Some of the Time… None of the People All of the Time: A History of the Art of Adaptation in Movies like Dune, The Godfather, Harry Potter and More!

Dr. Rosanne Welch speaks on A History of the Art of Adaptation in Movies like Dune, The Godfather, Harry Potter and More! at the California State University, Fullerton Library

Part of the program series for Dune by Frank Herbert: A 50th Anniversary Celebration.

Watch this entire presentation

Transcript:

Breakfast at Tiffany’s, which is a gorgeous movie and a gorgeous novel and a nice little slim novel. People should read it over the weekend, really, it’s brilliant. Of course, written by Truman Capote who was, at that time, an out-of-the-closet, homosexual and that was just a shocking thing. Nobody quite understood what that meant and nobody was sure they liked it, but Breakfast at Tiffany’s. Most people remember this as a brilliant performance by Audrey Hepburn, which it was. It became the film with her. Notice she’s the thing we focus on in this thing. Really, it not just her story though. This is the story of this young woman — unexplainably in the city making money because she’s friendly with a lot of rich men, but we’re not really going to discuss what that friendship entails. Right? So, we don’t say what she does for a living. She just always has rich men hanging around her. So we’ll just kind of slide that under the rug.

About this talk

Date: Wednesday, October 14, 2015 Time: 1:00pm – 2:00pm

About Dr. Rosanne Welch

Her upcoming book, “Why The Monkees Matter: Teenagers, Television and American Pop Culture” will be published in Fall 2016

Dr. Rosanne Welch Web Site and Blog

Follow Dr. Welch on Twitter

Dr. Rosanne Welch on YouTube

Podcast: Play in new window | Download

Subscribe: RSS

Hays Code Prohibitions in Film from A History of the Art of Adaptation [Video] (0:51)

You Can Please Some of the People Some of the Time… None of the People All of the Time: A History of the Art of Adaptation in Movies like Dune, The Godfather, Harry Potter and More!

Dr. Rosanne Welch speaks on A History of the Art of Adaptation in Movies like Dune, The Godfather, Harry Potter and More! at the California State University, Fullerton Library

Part of the program series for Dune by Frank Herbert: A 50th Anniversary Celebration.

Watch this entire presentation

Transcript:

These are the many things you can think about that weren’t shown. Miscegenation is interracial romance. That was disallowed for all this time. Notice, you’ll remember from the early days of watching the I Love Lucy show — married couples, twin beds. That went all the way through television. The Brady Bunch — the two, Carol and — what’s his name — I can’t remember Mr. Brady’s first name. Mr Brady! They were the first couple on television to sleep in the same bed — to be seen to be having a double bed in their (living) bedroom. That’s hilarious. So all of these things are rules that now we have to apply to the novels we buy, whether or not we can show those things and I’m particularly going to look at #4 Sex Perversion, which is just their code for homosexuality, which they weren’t going to allow on screen. So this is going to force changes in a couple of very, very important pieces of business.

About this talk

Date: Wednesday, October 14, 2015 Time: 1:00pm – 2:00pm

About Dr. Rosanne Welch

Her upcoming book, “Why The Monkees Matter: Teenagers, Television and American Pop Culture” will be published in Fall 2016

Dr. Rosanne Welch Web Site and Blog

Follow Dr. Welch on Twitter

Dr. Rosanne Welch on YouTube

Podcast: Play in new window | Download

Subscribe: RSS

Adaptation, Decency and the Hays Code from A History of the Art of Adaptation [Video] (0:56)

You Can Please Some of the People Some of the Time… None of the People All of the Time: A History of the Art of Adaptation in Movies like Dune, The Godfather, Harry Potter and More!

Dr. Rosanne Welch speaks on A History of the Art of Adaptation in Movies like Dune, The Godfather, Harry Potter and More! at the California State University, Fullerton Library

Part of the program series for Dune by Frank Herbert: A 50th Anniversary Celebration.

Watch this entire presentation

Transcript:

In this early period of films, right out of the sound — right out of the silent era. What makes us change novels? What’s one of the biggest reasons? Well, it’s the Hays Code. Now, the Hays Code was put together because there was a fear that in silent movies there was a lot of nudity and women were getting divorced helter-skelter and having sex with men whenever they want. It was very — and the idea was films were art and there are naked pictures at the museum. So, shouldn’t there be naked people in the movies? It should be ok. Right, But, many groups ot together and were very worried about it. They were going to ask the government — they were asking the government to come up with a list of things that shouldn’t happen in the movies and the movie companies are like “No, no, no, you’ll destroy us if we have to follow your rules. Will create our own office and will make up the rules that we can follow and the government let then do that and that became the Hays Code. These are the things you could not show in films and this is going to go all the way up until 1968.

About this talk

Date: Wednesday, October 14, 2015 Time: 1:00pm – 2:00pm

About Dr. Rosanne Welch

Her upcoming book, “Why The Monkees Matter: Teenagers, Television and American Pop Culture” will be published in Fall 2016

Dr. Rosanne Welch Web Site and Blog

Follow Dr. Welch on Twitter

Dr. Rosanne Welch on YouTube

Podcast: Play in new window | Download

Subscribe: RSS

How “The Clansman” Affected Racist Culture from A History of the Art of Adaptation [Video] (2:02)

You Can Please Some of the People Some of the Time… None of the People All of the Time: A History of the Art of Adaptation in Movies like Dune, The Godfather, Harry Potter and More!

Dr. Rosanne Welch speaks on A History of the Art of Adaptation in Movies like Dune, The Godfather, Harry Potter and More! at the California State University, Fullerton Library

Part of the program series for Dune by Frank Herbert: A 50th Anniversary Celebration.

Watch this entire presentation

Transcript:

What i wanted to mention about it is a couple of things. First of all, yeah it’s very incendiary right and the
scary thing is, this is a quote from President Woodrow Wilson in his own History of the United States.

So first of all — mmm — all right that’s a little scary, but because of the material, thank goodness the NAACP protested when this film opened. It didn’t stop people from seeing it sadly and in fact Wilson showed it at the White House and the power of movies — he actually said “it is like capturing lightning in a bottle” and he was very impressed with the power that movies had from watching that particular film which kind of sad.

Now what strikes me as interesting as the power of how you change a story and you change culture. We all know , sadly, that what Ku Klux Klan does is they burn crosses in people’s yards when they don’t like them. They didn’t do that before this movie came out. The actual Ku Klux Klan did not do that. Right?

In the novel what uh what they have happen is that when the men get together to go do a terrible you know lynching, they write the names of their families on little wooden crosses they’ve made and they toss them into a big bonfire and that shows the unity of all these men together and this is apparently based on a Scottish ritual that scottish clans will do when they come together for events, not for killing people but for regular
events. So we adapt a Scottish ritual into an idea in the book. DW Griffith gets a hold of it and he’s a
Steven Spielberg of his day, right? We cannot have little tiny crosses being thrown into a big fire on screen , no, we’re going to make a big cross on the mountainside. Isn’t that wonderful? That’s so visual oh that’s a great special effect. The actual Ku Klux Klansmen go to the movie, see the giant cross and begin burning
giant crosses in people’s neighborhoods.

They actually learn from the movie a ritual that wasn’t theirs to begin with. So I find that really fascinating, but I think it’s a sign of how powerful what we see in the movies can be.

About this talk

Date: Wednesday, October 14, 2015 Time: 1:00pm – 2:00pm

About Dr. Rosanne Welch

Her upcoming book, “Why The Monkees Matter: Teenagers, Television and American Pop Culture” will be published in Fall 2016