So You Want To Direct

By Bill M
(Page 2)

2) GOOD MOVIES DON'T HAPPEN TO BAD SCREENPLAYS
If moving the camera around and creating beautiful pictures was the only thing you needed to make a good movie, Cimino's infamous HEAVEN'S GATE would've made millions instead of losing them. But the sad truth is, you do have to get yourself a script that works if you want to keep those asses in their seats.
Generally, a workable script is one that has credible characters involved in a compelling story with a satisfying beginning, middle and end. Neither Salle nor Longo managed to find one of those before they rolled camera, but let's put the real blame where it belongs. William Gibson, script based on his own short story, writes neat cyberpunk books, but the noirish fever-dream sensibility that gives his fiction its heat is precisely what's least translateable to the screen. Stripped of his strengths (inventive language and imagery), what Gibson comes up with in JOHNNY is a man without memory (i.e., a hero without character) being pursued by a bunch of guys who want to cut off his head (i.e., a chase instead of a plot). It's all premise and no development. It's not fun.
Salle fares only slightly better (for about half a movie) with an adaptation (Michael Almereyda) of Howard Korder's play. But what worked in the theatre once falls flat on film. Korder's faux-Mamet dialogue sounds... theatrical, and the disjointed surrealistic episodes that made the trip intriguing on stage lack any kind of coherent narrative drive on screen. The loser-protagonist played by bug-eyed Griffin Dunne never answers any story's essential question (why do we care?) as he bumbles from fiasco to disaster. SEARCH is about somebody we don't like doing things we wouldn't want to do (i.e., murder) to win the rights to a meaningless self-help book. Ironic! Absurd! Boring.
Helpful Hint: Read some good screenplays and see how they work, pick up one of the better how-to books on the subject or even enroll in a course - oh, wait a second, what are we saying, you're an artist you don't have time for this. Pay William Goldman a million dollars, if he's still alive (questionable, after MAVERICK) - that's what Hollywood executives do when they want a "bankable" script and they don't want to think. This will also supply you with the alibi they all use, if the film tanks ("Hey, don't look at me - I hired Bill Goldman!")