TODAY'S NUGGET: Altered States (1980) - Dialogue + Rhythm = Building to a Specific Emotion

[Quick Summary: In his search for the Ultimate Truth, a scientist becomes obsessed with a little known drug that brings his altered state of consciousness into reality.]

I had difficulty getting my mind around this script. The story is odd:

- The ambivalent scientist agrees to marry another scientist, who loves him.
- She accepts that he's not sure what love is.  He says it's the only way to keep her.
- Seven years and two kids later, they divorce.
- She still loves him, but he sees his life as a sham.
- He leaves her and the kids to search for Self.
- He finds a Mexican hallucinogen that regresses his mind.
- He travels through time and space to his past human origins.
- He takes the hallucinogen home for research and unleashes results so scary that his colleagues and ex-wife try to intervene.

However, my interest in these characters did not diminish despite other distractions.*

Why?  I think it's because Paddy Chayefsky knew how to wield words to build clear emotions.  In the scene below, he used dialogue + rhythm = feels like bursting out.

A few suggestions as you read:
- Don't be afraid of the length and dense black print.
- Try skimming for content.  Focus on HOW he says the words, not WHAT.
- Notice that each paragraph is actually one thought.
- Notice the rhythm is fast, unfettered.
- Each thought (one per paragraph) are verbose BIG ideas + Fast rhythm = Three Big Ideas squashed together in a small space makes it feel like an explosion.

Prior to the scene below:
- Jessup, the protagonist, has just announced to his friend Rosenberg that he is divorcing Emily.
- Jessup then suggests all his friends go to dinner with him and Emily.

ex. "INT. DOM'S RESTAURANT

...If we can make anything out of all this esoteric jabber, it will be Jessup's discourse to Sylvia Rosenberg, sitting at his right. Jessup, who is having a lot more wine  than he usually does, is loaded and talking loudly -

JESSUP (to Sylvia Rosenberg): -- As a matter of act, the year I spent in India was disappointing. No matter how you slice it, yoga is still a state-specific technology operating in the service of a n a priori belief system, not much different from other trance-inducing techniques. Of course, the breathing exercises are effective as hell. The breathing becomes an entity in itself, an actual state of consciousness in its own right, so that your body breathing becomes the embodiment of your breath. But it's still a renunciatory technique to achieve a predetermined trance state, what the zen people call an isness, a very pure narcissism, Freud's oceanic feeling. What dignifies the yogic practices is that the belief system itself is not truly religious. There is no Buddhist god per se. It is the Self, the individual Mind, that contains immortality and ultimate truth -

EMILY (interrupting her  own colloquy to shout from her end of the table): What the hell's not religious about that? You've simply replaced God with the Original Self!

JESSUP (shouts back): Yes, but we've localized it! At least, we know where the Self is! It's in our own minds! (he stands, not too sturdily) It's a form of human energy! Our atoms are six billion years old! We've got six billion years of memory in our minds! Hell, our hydrogen atoms are even older! (he has begun to weave a bit in and out of his place at the table) Memory is energy! It doesn't disappear! It's still in there! (he wheels to Rosenberg, ignoring the nervous interest he is causing at neighboring tables) There's a physiological pathway to our earlier consciousnesses! There has to be! And I'm telling you it's in the goddamned limbic system! -

PARRISH (roaring happily): Jessup, you are a whacko!

JESSUP: What's whacko about it, Mason? I'm a man in search of his true self. How archtypically American can you get? Everybody's looking for their true selves. We're all trying to fulfill ourselves, understand ourselves, get in touch with ourselves, face the reality of ourselves, explore ourselves, expand ourselves. Ever since we dispensed with God, we've got nothing but ourselves to explain this meaningless horror of life. Well, I think that true self, the original self, that first self is a real, mensurate, quantifiable thing, tangible and incarnate, and I'm going to find the fucker -"

WHAT I'VE LEARNED: I was impressed that Jessup's emotional life was so strong that I stayed interested, despite the copious scientific gobblety-gook. 

Altered States (1980)(undated 1978 draft)
by Paddy Chayefsky
Based on his novel.

* ex. Length (141 pgs.), dense narrative, long scientific exposition, etc.

TODAY'S NUGGET: Altered States (1980) - When Emotional Change Takes a Back Seat

[Quick Summary: A Harvard physician experiments with an isolation tank and a little known drug that regresses him into a primitive state.]

If The Hospital was a crazy script in a good way, Altered States was crazy in a bad way for me.

Dr. Jessup has a deep need to ferret out the science behind altered states of consciousness. [Fair enough.]

He seeks out a Mexican drug that regresses him into an ape, and even into goo. [Ok, I can buy that.]

I could stomach the extreme, far out psychological visions.

I managed the bizarre physical transformations

However, no amount of flash, sparkle,  SFX, & violence in the script could make up for the fact that Jessup has little emotional change until the end.

I soon got tired of the spectacle because I felt very far from Jessup.

He does not regret eliminating everything in his life - wife, daughters, friendships.  

He is so focused on his experiments that there is less and less story.

As the experiments got wilder and weirder, I cared less and less.  Yikes.

WHAT I'VE LEARNED:  The difference between The Hospital (great) vs. Altered States (so-so) was emotional change vs. less emotional change.

Altered States (1980)
by Paddy Chayefsky

TODAY'S NUGGET: The Hospital (1971) - Order Only in Hindsight

[Quick Summary:  One night at the hospital, a chief of staff on his last straw faces several crises, including  intertwining staff deaths, and an odd young woman.]

This is a crazy-assed script.

I honestly had no idea where the story was going.

First, I worried about Dr. Herbert Bock, the crotchety doctor with every reason to be suicidal. 
 
Then I got upset when the deaths of various hospital staffers interrupted Dr. Bock's story.

(It was like commercials interrupting your favorite soap opera.)

I didn't care as much that the hospital had run amok.

I just wanted to know if Dr. Bock was going to make it.

Here's kicker #1: I didn't even like Dr. Bock.  But I still worried.

Here's kicker #2: The various staff deaths are important in the end to Dr. Bock's final decision.

Chayefsky did it again:

1) He made me care about a character I did not like.
2) He brought order out of what looked like chaos on the page.
3) It was a surprising journey.

WHAT I'VE LEARNED: This is a technically difficult script.

To keep the chaos going while leaving clues and also not lose the audience? Very thin line.

The Hospital (1971)
by Paddy Chayefsky

TODAY'S NUGGET: The Americanization of Emily (1964) - Blow & Pop of Satire

[Quick Summary: A cowardly American Naval officer & "dog robber" falls for a patriotic, female British chauffeur but their opposing views on the war is problematic.]

Paddy Chayefsky came up with the idea of writing this as a black satirical comedy on a plane to NYC.

What is satire? Glad you asked.

Satire (n.): A literary work holding up human vices and follies to ridicule or scorn.

Easy enough, but how do you actually write satire?

Chayefsky did it by juxtaposing ridiculousness with reality.

Let's see how he ridicules the hype of war:

ex.  EMILY'S HOME, LIVING ROOM

MRS. BARHAM: Emily, well, I must warn you. Charlie's picture is in all the papers, and they're going to build a monument on his grave.

[Reality: Charlie, the coward, is being celebrated as a hero.]

EMILY (studying the Globe): What on earth for? All he did was die. Dear me, we shall be celebrating cancer and automobile smash-ups next.

[Ridiculousness: This is stupid.]

CUMMINGS: He didn't just die, Emily! He sacrificed his life!

[Reality: Charlie is the war's next poster boy.]

MRS. BARHAM: Well, that was very pagan of him.

[Ridiculousness:  Who does that help? Warmongers?]

CUMMINGS: He was the first American to die on Omaha Beach.

[Reality: This is a PR dream!]

EMILY: Was there a contest?

[Ridiculousness: What kind of contest are you running?]


WHAT I'VE LEARNED: One recipe for satire is to blow up a balloon with human vices, then pop it with ridicule.

The Americanization of Emily (1964)
by Paddy Chayefsky
Adapted from the novel by William Bradford Huie

TODAY'S NUGGET: The Goddess (1958) - Take the Punch

[Quick Summary: To ward off loneliness, a young unloved girl grasps at a career as an up-and-coming Hollywood starlet, but it's never enough.]

Emily Ann Faulkner, who transforms herself into Rita Shawn,just can't understand why no one loves her enough.

I mean, after all, she's made all the "right" decisions for her career:

-  Like leaving her child with her ex-husband
-  And getting married to a 2nd guy who tells her he'd be a terrible husband
-  And sleeping with producers as bribes for parts

But this isn't a story about career vs. personal life.

It's about a woman who angles, schemes, begs, guilts, and STILL can't fathom what is wrong with other people...when the real problem is her.

Chayefsky allows his characters to make decisions, then suffer the consequences each time.  It's real life.

There's no pulling the punch, which I see too much in spec scripts. 

WHAT I'VE LEARNED: It's nice to see characters take the punch.

If they learn from it, they will have earned their victory at the end.

If they don't, then they don't deserve it anyway.

The Goddess (1958)
by Paddy Chayefsky

TODAY'S NUGGET: Marty (1955) - Hey, That's Me!

[Quick Summary: Marty the butcher can't get a date to save his life, until one night...]

Paddy Chayefsky was an award winning playwright, tv and film writer for a reason.

He sure knew how to introduce a character with actions instead of words.

The script opens and a female customer peppers Marty the butcher with questions about his brother's recent wedding. Then she basically needles him with "Why aren't YOU married, Marty?"

Marty is polite, but exasperated.

Why? Because the next female customer is exactly the same: "I heard about your brother's wedding. So why aren't YOU married, Marty?"

We get the idea that this happens ALL day long and instantly, we know all about Marty...and he's said very little.

WHAT I'VE LEARNED: Chayefsky writes beautifully flawed but identifiable characters.

Who's Marty? Marty is me.  That awkward situation? I've been there too.

Now that's a great introduction!

Marty (1955)
by Paddy Chayefsky