Three Movies EVERY Writer MUST See

There are a LOT of great movies out there…but which ones resonate with you so much that you want to take what you’re “learning” on screen and put it into your own manuscript? In this episode of the Writing Momentum podcast, Chris, Gena are joined by Rene Gutteridge to talk about their favorite movies–and what you can learn from them as an author.

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Links:

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• Write with us! Join Chris, Gena, and Rene each Wednesday at noon Central and let’s get our writing DONE! https://www.writingmoments.com

Episode 63 transcription:

[00:00:00].000] - Chris
Hello and welcome to the Writing Momentum podcast. I'm Christopher Maselli and I'm here with my wife, Gena, and favorite guest of the show, Rene Gutteridge. How are you all doing today?

[00:00:10].740] - Gena
I'm doing great. How are you doing?

[00:00:12].040] - Rene
 I'm also doing great.

[00:00:14].790] - Chris
All right. Been a while since we've all been together on here. I'm glad that we all got back together. I love the energy we have when we're all talking about writing because it's something we all love and we could just dive into it all the time.

[00:00:28].090] - Gena
I agree. And I'm pretty excited about the topic today. I think this is going to be a fun one. I think it'll be fun for... It's fun for us, but it's also hopefully fun for any listeners or viewers out there.

[00:00:39].850] - Chris
That's right. So when we talk about writing, which is something we talk about all the time, there are so many different things that you can write. You can write books, you can write children's picture books, you can write non-fiction books and fiction books. But one of those things that a lot of people love to write are movies, screenwriters. And Rene is a screenwriter, and she can talk a little bit about that, and she has on here before. But as we got talking about some of our screenwriting experiences, we started talking about, man, there are some movies that we think every writer need to see for one reason or another. Now, these aren't necessarily our favorite movies, though they might be. They're not necessarily the Academy Award winners of their year, though they might be. But these are movies that we think everyone ought to see for one reason or another. And I think we just need to go around the room. We need to make this like a powwow and say, everyone share what your favorite movie is and maybe why and we can talk about it. Gena, do you want to start? Because I know yours is a classic.

[00:01:38].670] - Gena
It is. Okay, so my favorite movie that I wanted to share today is been one that I have loved since I was a kid, since the first time I saw it many years ago, and that is Casablanca. It's the 1942 release. It was the, won best picture Oscar that year, and it starred, or it stars Humphrey Bogart, Ingrid Bergman. And the other person is, I'm hoping I get his name right, is.

[00:02:09].300] - Gena
Paul Henried. And it's just a great movie set in World War II in Casablanca. Morocco, where.

[00:02:17].430] 


[00:02:18].940] - Gena
The main character, Humphrey Bogart's character owns a bar there. And he's a man who's given up on life. And finally, the person who destroyed him walks through the door, which is Ingrid Bergman. And so it's a love story. But it's also just this great story about this man who comes back to life and comes back to his true calling and his true passion. Fabulous movie. And I watched it recently. I've watched it many times. It really is one of my favorite movies. I recently watched it with a young friend of our family. She's 17 years old. And sometimes with my own kids and even with other people's kids, I'll say I just have to introduce you to something great, whether it's a book or a movie or a TV show or something, or even music, where I say, I just can't turn you loose on the world without you having this input. And so we sat down and we watched Casablanca again. And I was struck by the fact that there's nothing extra in that movie, whether it's the characters, whether it's the scenes, whether it's just every line in the movie. It all plays such a vital role.

[00:03:31].200] - Gena
And we've talked about that in our other podcast. And for those who are part of our Writing Moments group, we have talked about just trusting your words to do their work. And every time I watch this movie, that's what I see is that every word has a part to play and a reason that it has been chosen, and it is doing its job beautifully.

[00:03:54].440] - Chris
It's like intentionality, isn't it? Every scene has a reason to be there. It's like we talk about picture books. Every word must count. It's like every scene has to be there for a reason. There's nothing that shouldn't be there. It seems like it's a very tight movie. Every single thing. And of course, from a directional standpoint, I think every shot was very intentional, too.

[00:04:17].420] - Gena
Would you say that? I would say that. And I'm not a screenwriter, so I'm looking at this just from the fan perspective, and I'm listening to it just from the writing perspective of how the person who wrote it just wove the words together. But I know you have said, Chris, there are studies on Casablanca just from a screen writing. Rene, you could speak to that, just why it is so valuable for us to watch for those who are interested in screen writing.

[00:04:49].330] - Chris
I know Robert McKee uses it in his story writing courses. I think in the book story that he has, it's a staple of the screen writing and even book writing world, he talks a lot about Casablanca. So yeah, definitely a must see.

[00:05:02].470] - Chris
Okay, who's next? You're jumping into it, Rene. What's yours?

[00:05:06].770] - Rene
I'm going to actually say The Hunger Games, and there's a reason why. One of the reasons is because for most screenwriters, 95 % of their work will come from adaptations work. Very few screenwriters sell their screen plays, what we call spec screen plays, which is their original screen plays. There are some, but most are adapted from books, from articles, things that are already published. One of the hardest things to do is adapt a script from a beloved book series. Could you imagine the pressure? As those of us who love to read books know, hardly ever do you walk out of the movie going, boy, that movie was as good as the book. You just feel a little empty. People who haven't seen or read the book usually are, Wow, that's a great movie. But if you've read the book...

[00:06:02].540] 


[00:06:02].970] - Rene
You've been able to be immersed in something more than just what the movie can provide. So one of the things that the Hunger Games did so well was to do both. You read the book and you're like, Well, that's great. Of course, there's lots of things that you get from a book that you can't get from a movie. But when you went and saw the movie, you just felt they nailed it. They nailed it. They did change a few things. They, I don't know, changed some of the character motivations and stuff, but some of that has to be done. There are reasons for that. But I just thought it was a great adaptation. One of the things that my friend Cheryl McKay talks about is if you want to become a screenwriter, the first thing you need to study is adaptations because that's where you will be working. That's what you will be working on. Those will be your first jobs. Anyway, they were just well done movies. I think all of us can agree if you've seen them that we still talk about Katniss, we still talk about President Snow, we still talk about the Capitol.

[00:07:04].400] - Rene
That would be my recommendation for today.

[00:07:08].460] - Chris
There has to be a big challenge to that to create a series of movies that's so beloved in its time because it's like the Lord of the Rings movies came out, but those were so far removed from the time of the writing of the source material that you had a whole new generation that hadn't read the source material and they just went and loved the movies. But with Hunger Games, you had kids who were literally reading that book and then turning around in the next day going to the theater. It's the same thing with the Harry Potter movies. You can't let that audience down because they are so immersed in that material that they know if they go, you better hit all the points. It can't just be a loose adaptation or the people will be disappointed.

[00:07:53].020] - Rene
Absolutely. The Harry Potter, in particular, they were such long books. It was incredible challenges in that regard. That's a little unique twist on a movie recommendation. Chris, what about you?

[00:08:06].160] - Chris
For me, I have to go with the trilogy also. Mine is the Back to the Future trilogy with Michael J. Fox, Christopher Lloyd. Back in 1985. That's a good year. I really love this trilogy because of the plotting of the whole thing. If you're wanting to study plot, this is a great trilogy to study plot with and to study each individual movie in the trilogy and see where the plot is very much the same because they follow some formulas in it and then where they diverge because the third one's Western and the second one's in the future, the first one's in modern time. And so you see that they use some devices that are the same and then some that are completely different. What I love the most, I like a few things. I like that there are some universal themes in the movie. It's got themes of destiny, right? You've got parental and child relationships, and you've got a great villain in Biff. And there's also all these continuous time locks in the movie where everything has to be done within a certain amount of time. Otherwise, the world is going to end as we know it.

[00:09:14].780] - Chris
But what, especially all the callbacks you'll see throughout, not only the individual movies and the payoffs in the individual movies, but all throughout the series. There are things that happen in the first movie that are called back again in the second one, called back again in the third one, and that's really rewarding. I think that if you just take the first movie as an example, the things that happen in Act 1 give you something to look forward to immediately. There almost isn't a beat in Act 1 that doesn't have a payoff later in the movie. Hearing how the parents met from their perspective is completely different than the way it actually happens later in the movie. The relationship of the dad and Biff, of course, you get to see why that is what it is, and then how that changes because Marty changes the future. What Marty's mother feels about him being out with girls and then to find out the way she lived her life when she was a teenager is another payoff. There's even a neat payoff in the beginning when Marty is sitting on a bench with his girlfriend. This is before he ever goes through time.

[00:10:24].810] - Chris
And he gets a flyer for the clock tower, which is busted, right? A lightning bolt hit it, and so they're asking for money to fix the clock tower. That becomes a major plot point later in the movie because they need a lightning bolt to fuel the Delorian. And that pay off, it's like everything that happens seems to have a reward. I think that as we write our books, whether they are picture books or they're full fledged novels, having payoffs like that happen is so rewarding for the reader because you feel like there's nothing wasted as you went. And it goes back, Gena, to what you were talking about with the intentionality of all those scenes. Everything is there for a reason. And it just makes you feel like, Wow, there wasn't a moment in that movie that I could have gotten up and gotten popcorn because I would have missed something. You know what I mean? And that's the way I think we want people to feel when they're reading books, too. There's not a page or a scene that they read that they could have skipped or skimmed over. Otherwise, it would have completely unraveled.

[00:11:26].110] - Chris
Do you all agree?

[00:11:27].920] - Gena
I would agree with that.

[00:11:29].400] - Rene
Yeah, great analysis there.

[00:11:31].350] - Chris
These are three movies. Let's go through them again. Mine is the Back to the Future trilogy. Gena, what was yours? Casablanca. Casablanca. 1942. So we're expanding a lot of years here, too. And then Rene, yours was...

[00:11:43].830] - Gena
It's totally worth it.

[00:11:45].070] - Chris
Yeah. The black and white is... I think a lot of times it's hard for people to get into black and white movies because we're so used to color anymore. But really, some of those black and white movies are just fantastic. I love all the Alfred Hitchcock movies. A lot of those are in black and white. Some of them are not. But they also have that. They compel you just to watch. And Rene, yours was...

[00:12:06].040] - Rene
Mine is The Hunger Games

[00:12:06].570] - Chris
Yes, The Hunger Games, which is more of a modern trilogy. So we span several decades and generations. Very good. So if you're looking for something to watch this weekend, go down to your local Blockbuster, which has not been around since about 1985, and get these movies, get the Hunger Games, Casablanca, get Back to the Future. And I think that you'll find that these are movies that you can learn in your writing from and become even better writers. Yeah?

[00:12:32].780] - Gena
Yeah.

[00:12:33].290] - Chris
All right. Until next time, don't forget what, Gena?

[00:12:39].050] - Gena
Together we have writing momentum.

[00:12:41].360] - Chris
That's right. All right. See you all later. Bye.