The blandest script... and scripticisms

Question

I've been reading a lot of spec scripts recently, and this is the blandest I have ever come across. Here's Page 1:
INT. HOUSE - LATE AFTERNOON
WALTER VALE, sixty-two, is standing by the window of his modestly furnished Colonial house. He is holding a glass of wine and peering out through the drapes.
After a few moments an OLD CAR pulls up. A slightly overweight WOMAN gets out of the car. She starts to walk up to the house.
Walter steps back from the window and waits. The doorbell rings. Walter takes a last sip of wine and sets the glass down on the end table. And then he goes to the door and opens it.
WOMAN
Mr. Vale?
WALTER
Yes.
WOMAN
Hello. I'm Barbara Watson. Nice to
meet you.
WALTER
Yes. Come in.
BARBARA
Thank you.
She steps into the house and Walter shuts the door. They both stand there awkwardly. Barbara is tightly wound and overcompensates with a forced pleasantness.
WALTER
Can I take your coat?
BARBARA
No, thank you.
WALTER
OK. Would you like anything to
drink?
BARBARA
No.
(Beat)
Shall we get started?
WALTER
OK.
(SNIP)
It can hardly get blander than that. She gives him a piano lesson and he asks her not to return. He is an economist who later goes to New York for a conference and finds an illegal immigrant couple living in his apartment. He befriends the couple and tries to help when one of them gets arrested. He has a brief romance with the mother of one of them and he learns to play the drums.
That's it. The characters are about as average and everyday as can be. The story is commonplace. There is nothing to make it stand out. Yet the script sold and got made into a movie, THE VISITOR.

So I ask myself: What is the secret of success of this unremarkable screenplay? (I'm assuming it sold on its own merits and not because of connections, and that it sold in its current form.)

Here I digress to invent a new word a "scripticism" which I define as "An arresting turn of phrase or convention designed to add vigor to a piece of prose but which has the effect of breaking the flow of concentration as the reader pauses to savor or deprecate it. Most often found in screenplays, particularly Shane Black's screenplays." The analogy is with with Americanism and witticism.
I'd like to cite, if I may, something from Paul Valois as an example: "He fumbles for an appeasement bomb... (placatory dialog)... Direct hit on Appeasement City." (Taken from his otherwise workmanlike first script, SCOUT'S HONOR.)
The convention of addressing the reader in a jocular way ("He lives in a house like the one I'm gonna buy when this script sells.") is also a scripticism.
Now THE VISITOR had no scripticisms whatsoever. It was a plain story told in plain prose, and that made it a very easy read. I started at the beginning and finished on page 106 with less effort than reading most 50-pagers.
And I think that was its secret of success. It was easy to read. It was also a linear narrative no flashbacks, no "meanwhile, back at the ranch"-es so it was very easy to comprehend what was going on.

I think sometimes in striving for effect we forget that it's not the words that are important, it's what's going on the reader's head that matters, and the most direct way of conveying ideas and images and sound from the page to the brain is probably the best. If you give the reader the verbal equivalent of a sugar high a direct hit to the brain, no digestion required you can compensate for a lack of chewy goodness.

Martin B

Usenet · Accepted Answer

If you give the reader
[nq:1]the verbal equivalent of a sugar high a direct hit to the brain, no digestion required you can compensate for a lack of chewy goodness.[/nq]
Those scenes were painful. Meanwhile, MC and I are on a sugar high - a producer is loving our pages and is telling us to press on. Now, what he likes is the scene work - original - and the language - never use a big word when a short one will do is our motto. We're keeping is readable and to the point, and so far so good. Keeping is brisk and Oh my *** is good, in a drama. Maybe in a comedy too.

Usenet · Answer

[nq:1]It can hardly get blander than that. She gives him a piano lesson and he asks her not to return. ... There is nothing to make it stand out. Yet the script sold and got made into a movie, THE VISITOR.[/nq]
And a very good film it was too. The lead actor was nominated for an Oscar.
I'm guessing a) this was never a spec, b) it was probably well connected before it got outof the gate, and c) that opening scene got written during development to show his character, and the MAJOR contrast between his life in the boonies and the life of his "tenants" in NYC.

In other words it did its job in a protected lane of the highway.

Whether it would have sold as a spec who knows? Nothing gets round-filed on the strength of the first scene. Most scripts get read all the way through, although the verdict begins to form by page 15 or so, and tne rest of that story is anything but bland. Low key, sure. But big forces are at work on defenceless individuals and it brings a lost main character out of the defensive shell he's built around himself.

Did you see it?

"Comedy is the art of making people laugh without making them puke." - Steve Martin

Usenet · Answer

"MC"
[nq:1]Whether it would have sold as a spec who knows? Nothing gets round-filed on the strength of the first scene. ... and it brings a lost main character out of the defensive shell he's built around himself. Did you see it?[/nq]
No, I didn't see it. IIRC it didn't get rave reviews here. I've just checked imdb and I see writer/director Thomas McCarthy's previous feature was THE STATION AGENT, which I enjoyed, so maybe I'll rent the DVD.

Writer/Director? There's a clue. So it wasn't a spec script. But it couldn't be more different from a Tarantino script, or writer/director Shane Black's KISS KISS BANG BANG, or a Carpenter script, or a Verhoeven script, all writer/directors, and whose scripts read like spec scripts, presumably because they have to excite producers.
checks imdb First production for Groundswell Productions. They go on to make APPALOOSA and MILK, among others. Opened on 4 screens and made 86k in its first week. They must have made it on a shoestring. Luckily Richard Jenkins gave them a standout performance. Gross 9.4M to date. Wonder if it's made money for them?

Martin B

Usenet · Answer

"MC"
[nq:1]Whether it would have sold as a spec who knows? Nothing gets round-filed on the strength of the first scene. Most scripts get read all the way through, although the verdict begins to form by page 15 or[/nq]
It's the "OFFICIAL GOLDENROD LOCKED 11/19/08" version, which presumably means it's not the original spec, but it's not a shooting script with numbered scenes either.
[nq:1]so, and the rest of that story is anything but bland. Low key, sure.[/nq]
I say the story is bland, but let's agree to differ. I specifically want to analyse the writing.
Let's look at another scene, the one where he discovers his "tenants":

INT. APARTMENT BUILDING, FOURTH FLOOR - CONTINUOUS

He arrives at the second floor and stops in front of a door. He unlocks the door and walks in.
INT. APARTMENT - CONTINUOUS
Walter steps into the apartment and drops his bags. He immediately notices that the kitchen light is on. Something is not right.
WALTER
Hello?
He turns on the living room light and crosses to the kitchen table and sets the brown bag down. It?s then that he notices some fresh flowers on the kitchen table. He looks slightly confused. He looks around the apartment. There is an UPRIGHT PIANO along one wall.
WALTER (CONT?D)
Hello?
There is no answer. He walks down a LONG HALLWAY and looks in the kitchen. Nothing. He walks over to the FIRST BEDROOM and looks inside. There are signs of someone living there. He looks in the SECOND BEDROOM. He sees nothing.
Suddenly he hears the sound of running water from the bathroom. He notices a light under the door. He walks to the bathroom and listens. A faucet is turned and the water stops running. He opens the door and looks in.
INT. WALTER?S APARTMENT, BATHROOM - SAME
A YOUNG BLACK WOMAN is soaking in the bath tub. She see?s Walter and screams.
INT. WALTER?S APARTMENT, HALLWAY - SAME
Walter screams too and then slams the door, stepping back into the hallway.
YOUNG BLACK WOMAN
Stay away from me!
She has a West African accent.
(SNIP)
To me this is very plain writing (and a case of apostrophe abuse). It is a straightforward description of what the camera sees. In real life, if you discover someone has been in your apartment, your reaction is a mixture of anger and terror (speaking from personal experience of having been burgled). Checking your apartment is extremely tense. You have no idea what you're going to find, or if bad guys are still there and they're going to kill you. This is the one moment of suspense in the whole movie and how does it play on the page?... Nothing. No attempt to convey fear or tension or anger. Just flat description of what's happening. It's like watching a movie with the sound off.

As Bill Martell points out, we're not in the motion picture business, we're in the EMOtion picture business, and in this case the writer made no attempt to convey the emotions inherent in this scene, or any other. Yet somehow he managed to get actors and producers to commit time and money to the project.
Making the perhaps unjustified assumption that this script is not too different in character from the one that circulated and got the attachments interested, the main thing going for it is that it is extremely well written in an unobtrusive way. As the saying goes, "Easy reading is **** hard writing," and I think this is the easiest-reading script I have ever come across, and I think one would do well to remember this script's success when pondering whether to include in one's script a bravura phrase that is designed to catch the reader's attention.

Martin B

Usenet · Answer

[nq:1]Here I digress to invent a new word a "scripticism" which I define as "An arresting turn of ... for an appeasement bomb... (placatory dialog)... Direct hit on Appeasement City." (Taken from his otherwise workmanlike first script, SCOUT'S HONOR.)[/nq]
Yeah, that one bothered a journalist/free lance writer friend of mine who read it for me. So I gave it out to a bunch of readers in the local college's creative writing group and most of them liked it.

I decided to retain it, not only as cheezy way to maintain a little reader interest, but also because I felt like I was conveying action concisely.
I suppose instead of writing that my hero "fumbles for an appeasement bomb" I could have (and perhaps should have) described his expression or actions, but I couldn't have done so in less than five words. Same with the effect- "Direct hit on Appeasement City".
So the question is whether or not it's worth distracting the reader by forcing such a pause.
I guess there's always a compromise between stone-cold visual description and literary license. I bet some readers are more receptive to a suggested literary image (a "scripticism") than others- and I think you are probably right in concluding that trait is a more American one.

Thanks for the criticism.

The blandest script... and scripticisms

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