[Quick Summary: A rookie stock car driver gets his chance at the big leagues.]
Both last week (written by Walter Hill) and this week's (written by the late, great Robert Towne) scripts are ACTION films, but they're written very, very differently.
So WHY do they work so well? What can we learn?
1) FIT THE STYLE TO THE STORY. As we saw, Hill's single line, haiku style is well suited to the kind of stories he wants to tell, i.e., to the point, muscular, blunt.
Towne is writing about the stretch-and-pull of relationships in an action packed NASCAR season. He writes in paragraphs, though they are engrossing.
2) CONFIDENCE IS EVERYTHING. Though they have very different styles, why do I think Hill and Towne are confident writers? That I'm in "good hands"?
First, the scripts sets out early what they're trying to accomplish, and then delivers it. The writers clearly know what the brief is.
Second, the scripts are easy to follow with a light touch. It takes a lot of experience not to over explain or leave logic gaps.
Third, there is a panache, a showmanship that is unique to the writer.
An example from Towne is the scene below:
- Harry retired from building race cars, after getting unfairly blamed for a crash.
- Harry gets a second chance and build a new car.
- Note the visuals that Towne uses to unconsciously remind us of the stakes involved for Harry, ex. scythe over his head, "dreaded template."
- Note the logic is easy to follow. A busy shop = full of the energy and promise a new car brings.
- Note the last line. Instead of saying "MONTAGE," Towne gives us more literary flourishes: "impressionistic, like time-lapse photography," "birth of a living thing, opening of a flower."
INT. HARRY'S GARAGE (EARLY MORN)
Harry comes in and turns on the light. He looks up at the silver scythe hovering over his head and in a fuller view it can be seen as the dreaded template, the profile of the car he must now build.
Henry looks to the roll-cage and suspension bare bones, and the only thing on the floor beneath it.
Sunlight flashes through the window and hits the roll cage. It seems to set off the welding and pounding and grinding of shiny steel, the precision cutting and buffing and fitting of fiberglass moldings as Harry furiously works with at least half a dozen men. DISSOLVE through as CAMERA moves around the rollcage and it becomes progressively encased in its silver skin - the car becoming slowly recognizable.
Periodically the template is lowered and men painstakingly check to see the car fits into the template silhouette and swear when it's off a few millimeters. A mock engine is mounted to provide clearance for the hood differentials and gear-boxes fill the air, the pictures of fine southern ladies on the calendars change as the weeks go by and the work progresses. DISSOLVE THROUGH. The car is being painted a day-glo green and yellow with City Chevrolet painted in the primary sponsor's spot across the hood. This entire process of the car's creation should be impressionistic, like time-lapse photography - as though we're looking at organic growth, the birth of a living thing, the opening of a flower.
WHAT I'VE LEARNED: I particularly liked that last line. I understood Towne was approximating the scene to the best of his ability, but also felt like he was giving other crew permission to dream too.
That's confidence in the material, as a screenwriter.
Days of Thunder (1990)(11/20/89, 1st draft)
by Robert Towne
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