[Quick Summary: In 1954, a news man reports on the case of a Japanese fisherman accused of killing another fisherman off the waters of San Piedro Island, WA.]
TWO THOUGHTS:
1) I was impressed by this adaptation because of its balance - tone, depth, conflict, layered, past, present. It is like a well constructed sandwich.
2) INCREASED STAKES. I don't remember being taught much about the Japanese internment camps in the US.
Even if I was, would I have paid close attention? Probably not.
However, this script did that by making the internment the reason the protagonist and his first love are separated.
Suddenly, there are STAKES and CONSEQUENCES, especially emotional ones.
In the scene below:
- As children, Ishmael (protagonist), fell for Hatsue, who was sent to an interment camp. She wrote him a letter breaking it off, but he never let go.
- Two decades later, he's a journalist and her husband is the accused.
- In flashback, we go back to when they meet again after the war (24 y.o.):
EXT. FLETCHER'S BAY - MORNING
ISHMAEL: Look, I want to forget you, I do. I think if you hold me, just this once, I can walk away and never speak to you again.
She just keeps looking at him. There is a bravery to her steady gaze. Her calm resolve.
ISHMAEL: Please? As one human being to another, just because I'm miserable and don't know where to turn. I need to be in your arms. If it's just for thirty seconds.
His pleading look holds her for a moment. In the silence...
HATSUE: I hurt for you. Whether you'll ever believe that or not.
Feeling behind her eyes. First time she lets it show.
HATSUE: I feel sick sometimes, with the guilt of what I've done to you. And I can't make it right.
She rises slowly. Brushes the sand from her skirt.
HATSUE: To hold you would be wrong and deceitful. You're going to have to live without holding me, that is the truth of the way things are.
She takes one step back.
HATSUE: Things end. They do. Get on with your life.
And turns away. She gathers her baby in her arms. Takes her blanket, her umbrella, her rake and her pail. He watches, never moving, as she gathers her things. Gathers them as if he wasn't there. And with her back turned...
HATSUE: Get on with your life.
She walks slowly away. Her baby cries.
WHAT I'VE LEARNED: Allow the characters to live with unpleasant consequences. It raises the stakes, adds reality and depth.
Snow Falling on Cedars (1999)(3/3/97 1st draft)
by Ronald Bass
Based on the novel by David Guterson
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