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| Last updated: 16 June 2003 |
| The Verisimilitude of All Literary Endeavours Part 2 The question Stephen had to ask himself was simple enough, how does one express an embracing of literature in a film; it was the answer that was the problem. He knew that the personal vision project was not so much about narrative as about expression, and hence he didn't simply want to present the narrative story of a man who embraces literature, he needed something more symbolic, more ellusive, more personal. On a more practical level, Stephen knew he would be the only crew member on the shoot, that a cast would be hard to secure, and that shooting time would be extremely limited, so he had to keep things simple. It was with this in mind that he hit upon the concept of direct allegory. Admonition had essentially been an allegory for the integration of good and evil in modern man, so Stephen was familiar with how to make such a concept work in a film, and it was with this in mind that he developed the idea of 'Reader'; a man who, simply put, reads all day long, from the minute he wakes up to the minute he goes to sleep. He felt that if he was making a film which was supposed to show his love for literature, why not simply have a central character who takes that love to an extreme, who is seemingly addicted to literature; use a central character that would essentially be a charicature of Stephen himself. Furthermore, the audience would need to directly see his obsession with literature, they would need to experience the sheer force of his endless consumption of words. Thus, it would make sense to have the the film as a day in the life, and allow the audience to see Reader do normal things; things they do themselves and hence could relate to, such as waiting on a bus, making breakfast, waking up, returning home, having lunch etc, but he would do all of these things whilst reading. A series of such scenes would be presented as an allegory for complete absorption in literature. However, Stephen knew that, due to his love for literature, he was regarded as a pretentious snob among his classmates in DLIADT, and he felt that if he was to make a film which essentially dramatised that love, it was necessary to somehow dramatise that scorn also. Hence he hit upon the idea of 'Wanker', a man who follows reader around everywhere, and regards him with utter contempt. To visualy represent this contempt, Stephen once again decided to be blunt, and have this man make a wanking sign every time he sees Reader, essentially calling him a pretentious wanker. In terms of dialogue, Stephen had originally perceived a silent piece, but he quickly realised that this would not work, and he hit upon the idea of using lengthy monologues over the visuals, all recorded in post, with no use of live sound at all. As these monologues were to encapsulate the idea of literature taking over ones life, and as they were not required to perform a narrative function, rather than write them himself, and risk them failing in their task, Stephen thought it would be a good idea to compose them entirely of quotes from works of literature, as what better way to embrace literature than to actually quote from it. These monolgues would be presented as the direct thought processes of Reader, suggesting that he actually thinks directly through literature, yet another charicature. Furthermore, Stephen felt that at key points in the film, it would be necessary to interrupt the monolgues with specific quotes from specific works which would actually be foregrounded in some way by the visuals. Unlike the monolgues, which would shun grammar and make little sense, these specific quotes would be all important to understanding the piece. And so it was that with dialogue composed entirely of quotes from literary texts, Stephen decided that to write a standard screenplay would be a waste of time, hence he set about finalising the film through storyboards and through writing the dialogue as prose. The storyboard development proved quite important in a number of ways. Firstly, Stephen quickly realised that with a guy on screen reading all the time, and another guy following him around making a wanker sign, the film could very easily become comic, hence he decided to go with this concept, and enhance the comic aspects of the story. Key to this was the idea of never seeing Reader acknowledge Wanker's presence, as if he cannot see him, or he is so used to him that he just ignores him. Also developed in storyboards were 2 key scenes which give great depth to the film; the scene where Wanker begins to read Cliffs Notes (suggesting that Wanker is having difficulty understanding Reader's love of literature), and the scene where Reader wakes up to find himself covered in books (whereas earlier, he had slept on those books - a direct symbolic representation of the power literature has over Reader, and, by implication, Stephen). on to the verisimilitude of all literary endeavours page 3 back to verisimilitude page 1 back to products links page back to home |