photo by creative endings
This week, my marvellous fiance introduced me to this TED talk by Brene Brown on the power of vulnerability.As I watched it, I was taken by how astute a description it is what I call "screenwriter emotional intelligence." By that, I mean the level of understanding a screenwriter needs of human behaviour to write a rounded character. For the last year I've been trying to figure out why I don't get any pleasure from some of the TV drama I watch and why many films leave me cold. The conclusion I've come to is that writers have become so wrapped up in plotting and the techniques of screenwriting, that they forget what the basic job is. In my opinion, the writer's job is to present the audience with interesting people and then through exposure to extreme circumstance, reveal their vulnerabilities. Let me put that another way... take someone interesting, show who they really are by giving them a hard time, ultimately let them transcend their troubles. To do this well the writer needs a well formed sense of screenwriter's emotional intelligence. Personally, I think this idea could be applied to all drama; that the ideas of vulnerability and connection are more important than conflict in creating drama. Where I think many scripts seem to go wrong is they attempt to apply a "faux" vulnerability to template plots. That is when the writer puts characters in an emotive situation in the belief that the situation itself will cause the audience to feel something. However, without a sense of connection or relevance, overly emotive scenes often just seem contrived, manipulative and frankly ridiculous. I feel pretty much the same about "save the cat" as a principle. The idea that you can contrive a humanising scene, where the character shows compassion, strikes me as a false economy. Sure, it is a handy slight of hand to avoid the graft of actually writing a rounded character with whom we may feel some empathy... but if you really believe screenwriting is about avoiding the hard work of creating a person with genuine human vulnerabilities, maybe you should consider doing something else! I guess what I am saying is that when a scene is lack luster, maybe instead of looking at whether there is enough conflict, or whether you've written enough action, perhaps instead you could look at whether there is enough vulnerability... not an out pouring if inner feelings, more a sense that something the character needs to keep secret and part of their inner life is at danger of spilling out. Of course the real trick is in developing that level of emotional intelligence and the bad news (or good news depending on how you feel about screenwriting gurus) is that you can't learn this at any screenwriting course. The only way I know of to understand human vulnerability is to actually accept and embrace your own humanity. Personally, I believe Brene Brown nails it in this talk. This isn't about book learning, it is about each writer's personal journey to understand the world by understanding themselves. keep writing, viva la revolution
Clive
Posted via email from Filmutopia's Sunday Morning Movie Blog
