You're Kidding Me
I finally got around to seeing Changeling, Clint Eastwood's 2008 Oscar-bait film starring Angelina Jolie. It wasn't worth the wait. The screenplay, by J. Michael Straczynski, is based on actual events where Los Angeles cops in the 1920s tried to force the wrong boy on a woman who'd lost her son.
Unfortunately, the dialogue is stiff (always JMS's weakness), the characters simplistic and melodramatic, and the lengthy story (well over two hours) all over the place. Maybe this is how it really happened, but truth is no excuse for weak drama.
It also has an dull, muzaky jazz score, which happens to be composed by Eastwood himself.
Nice period look, though.
Unfortunately, the dialogue is stiff (always JMS's weakness), the characters simplistic and melodramatic, and the lengthy story (well over two hours) all over the place. Maybe this is how it really happened, but truth is no excuse for weak drama.
It also has an dull, muzaky jazz score, which happens to be composed by Eastwood himself.
Nice period look, though.
posted by LAGuy @ 12:04 AM
5 Comments:
J. Michael Straczynski is one of the most prolific scriptwriters of all time...
...but, as you noted, it comes at a price - namely, quantity over quality.
Here's a topic for discussion:
As a writer, if you could choose only one - quantity or quality - which would it be?
It's not, perhaps, as easy a decision as it might appear at first glance...
I really liked it. I like old L.A. period pieces, and the plot was truly scary (because I knew it was true). Angelina Jolie was not annoying like she usually is, and I found her rollerskating funny.
I think that JMS' plotting is often brilliant, but his dialogue is usually not.
LAGuy asserted: Truth is no excuse for weak drama.
If the film says upfront that it's nonfiction, I don't agree. Thirteen Days is an awesome movie about the Cuban Missile Crisis. Of course, it's more literally historical than Changeling -- it follows the missile crisis story almost literally, even including whatever actual dialogue the writers could find. Within the subgenre of historical dramatizations, I think it's nearly a perfect movie. The only glaring problem is Kevin Costner's attempt at a Boston accent.
But dramatically, the pacing of Thirteen Days is awful. The rise and fall of the tension level doesn't conform to any of the rules of drama. As a movie, that makes it slightly disconcerting. But I don't think that hurts it. It helped me to remember that real life doesn't match drama.
In a drama, the brave young man climbing the stairs to his fighter plane may be about to repel a Japanese attack, and he may be about to die valiantly. But in real life, he might also trip on the stairs and break his neck. It's worth remembering that from time to time.
Following truth does not require one to be boring. In historical drama, editing the story to show the drama is key. In addition, dialogue is rarely "historically accurate," given that no one probably knows exactly what was said. It can be written well or not.
If an historical story is dull, then either make it exciting, or don't do it. There is simply no excuse for making something boring.
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