What makes it work is that the scene is not about the information.
It's about the relationship.
Hi, I'm Chas Fisher.
And I'm Stu Willis.
And welcome to DraftZero, a podcast where two Aussie filmmakers try to work
out what makes great screenplays work.
And in this episode, we are going to be talking about the emotional event.
We are joined by Judith Weston, a teacher of directors, actors,
and writers, and she has been teaching since 1985.
Her students include Taika Waititi, Alejandro Gonzalez Inarratu,
Ava DuVernay, Boots Riley, and Alma Harrell. Her books, Directing Actors and
The Film Director's Intuition, are absolute classics.
They are books that I read very early on in my career and I still reread.
And not only have they influenced my career, I would say they've influenced
just the way I live my life.
So welcome to the show, Judith. We are so very excited to have you here.
Thank you so much for inviting me.
So good. So the kind of overall thing that we're going to be talking about is
the emotional event, which is an idea that in the 25th anniversary edition of
directing actors, you kind of brought a little bit more to the forefront.
It's been there in your work. And we're going to be talking about scenes from
Oppenheimer, Casino Royale, and past lives.
So the idea of the emotional event is something that struck me as a director,
but I think it absolutely applies to screenwriters as well.
And look, it's very common for people to talk about like a scene scene needing
to have a plot event, that the scene needs to turn,
and the idea of looking at your scene, and not looking at it from a plot perspective,
but looking at it from an emotional perspective, what is an emotional event,
is a really useful one for screenwriters, I think, but actors and directors as well.
So, can you kind of give us a little bit of an introduction into what you think
of as an emotional event?
Okay, I will try. The thing is, what actually really excited me about doing
this podcast with you is that the best way to describe it is through examples.
People find it abstract somehow or hard to grasp.
And in fact, that's why I wrote this 25th anniversary edition of Directing Actors,
because in the original Directing Actors, I referred to emotional events.
But all that time After that, I was teaching. I've been teaching for 35 years.
And as I taught, and after the book came out, I would require it.
People had to read it before they took the workshop, Acting for Directors,
which was my flagship workshop for a long time.
And when I would ask them what they were hoping to learn, they would say,
you know, I'm a little bit confused about emotional event.
And everybody said that. They said it over and over. over.
And I also taught classes that had directors and actors in them,
and that sometimes they would rehearse outside of class and bring in the scene.
And then at the end, I would ask people, you know, how the rehearsal went and what they worked on.
And then I would say to the directors, so what's the emotional event?
They would all sort of hit their heads and go, oh, I knew she was going to ask
me that, but they hadn't been able to figure it out.
And so I just always knew that I had to make this clearer somehow.
So I really tried to do that in this 25th anniversary edition.
And then also my other book, Film Director's Intuition, just this past fall,
I was asked to do an audiobook version.
And that's coming out April 30th. That's going to drop on April 30th.
But I did a lot of rewriting on the Film Director's Intuition because that was
was already 20 years old too.
And, you know, like really, really trying to delve into this,
because I do believe that an understanding of emotional event is the thing that
makes a person a director instead of just a person who points a camera at something.
And certainly Mike Nichols talks about it all the time.
And Sidney Lumet, you know, all the great directors who were also Also teachers
who also had an interest in mentoring younger directors.
They always talked. Another way of thinking of it is what the scene is about.
I think what's interesting, because we have talked about the idea of scenes
having a thematic question, which is what is the scene about?
But on a thematic level, and I think what is the emotional event is another
is like, what is the scene about emotionally?
And that is different from a scene being thematic, which can be a little bit
more intellectual. You know, what strikes me about your work and the way you
think about directing actors is it puts so much emphasis on relationships.
And I think that is such a powerful tool for writers to go, because it's very
easy to get caught up in thinking of your characters as individuals,
as opposed to people within kind of a web of relationships.
And I think what's really useful of the emotional event is, from my understanding
of it, I always think of it as, what is the relationship change between these two or more characters?
Exactly. How is the relationship different at the end of the scene than it was at the beginning?
That's the simplest way to put it. you know
what changes in the emotional temperature and it
could be a very small change and it could
be a change in power change in power status and
it could be a change in intimacy i mean
those are two usual changes either it's a change in intimacy they become more
intimate or they become more estranged or a change of power relationship those
are kind of the usual ways and every scene has to to have one if it doesn't
have it it's got to go yeah.
And that's where it's it's going to be hugely
valuable for writers and not just directors and actors like sue and i have done
100 odd episodes now and we have looked in at discrete character tools like
what's the character question of a scene usually looking at the protagonist
of the scene how to best dramatize character character motivations from a writing perspective.
And we've done what we call status transactions and tactics and all those things
were different, I guess, dials or aspects that I was reading in your book,
especially the chapter on the emotional event.
But I don't think we've ever just taken this big step back and gone,
all right, in a scene, how does the relationship between these these characters change?
You know, having read your book, I'm now like, that's a really obvious question to ask.
But I was not asking it really beforehand, unless Stu, who had read your book, was forcing me to.
I mean, I think your comment about every scene should have it.
This will help transition a little bit towards talking about Oppenheimer.
Right. Because I think what you're talking about, like, what struck me,
and I've used an excerpt in one of my, I occasionally teach,
and in my class in exposition, I actually play a little clip of you talking
about every scene needs an emotional event.
I don't think you use the word especially, but the emphasis I'm putting on it
is especially scenes that you think is expository.
If you think the scene is just there to give the audience information,
then you need to look into it further and find out what the emotional event is.
And what struck me in prepping for this when we decided to do Oppenheimer is
it's a film that it's got so much information.
So much information.
And makes it emotional. Like it was more successful for me in that regard than, than Chaz.
I mean, we, he still liked it. I just really liked it. And part of it was like,
yeah, it takes so much information and makes it emotional.
And I think that's why it somehow resonated with a lot of people because of
the emotional quality, not because we're listening to a lecture from Oppenheimer
about physics, but the fact that somehow there's this emotional subtext to what
he's saying about physics.
We polled our patrons in selecting the films, but when we came to actually selecting the the scenes.
You were part of those initial emails back and forth, Judith,
where we were going, do we do three scenes from each film, five scenes from each film?
And finally, reason prevailed and we picked one scene from each film.
This is a perfect one. This is just fantastic. I'm so glad you chose this one. I love it.
I had so much fun preparing for this. I really did. I read it over and over
and I watched the the movie again.
I should say, I come to Oppenheimer with some baggage because I had watched,
there was a TV series back 10 more years ago called Manhattan.
So I came to that feeling like that was the real Los Alamos.
And the first time I watched Oppenheimer on the big screen, I was a little bit
distracted because when I got to Los Alamos, I was thinking,
That's not the way it was.
You're describing an experience that Chaz and I call, that's not how time travel works.
Because you're so used to the rules of another film that you can't help and bring that baggage.
That's not what happened at Los Alamos.
Yeah, yeah. So we're going to, at your request, we're going to be reading the parts of the script.
Let me put it my way.
Yeah, yeah, yeah.
I asked them if they would mind reading the script aloud. loud.
And then I asked them not to prepare.
I asked them to decide among themselves who's going to read which,
but not to read it in a monotone, you know, not to read it, you know, with deliberately,
uninflected, but to read it like they're two men talking, not like it's a colonel
and a physicist talking, but a little bit slower than usual conversation.
And I just find that very useful to go a little bit lower at first,
because you can let the words hit you a little bit.
Yeah. I mean, I'm just going to discuss this a little bit before we dive into it.
Yes. Okay.
Because Chas and I had a script reading for one of our projects on Monday.
One of my friends is doing their master's.
And I was like, oh, a bunch of film students might be excited to do a feature read-through.
and we sent them the script and with some
notes but said look we don't expect you to prepare it's really just
there if you're feeling anxious
and want to prepare but we'd prefer you didn't because
we just basically wanted them to be in the experience in real time as the characters
because it's really about us sitting back and listening to it and going oh that
lands that doesn't land and if they're prepared they might be overselling something
or underselling something link or playing a moment as informed by a moment in the future,
if that makes sense. So it's not emotionally true to the moment.
But I was curious about your reasons for doing it because we found it very valuable
and it was interesting that basically at the same time, you had said something similar about us.
So what is the kind of the thinking, you know, is it just to let the words hit you?
What are some of those usefulness if people are doing their own reading?
Well, when I'm doing it in a class, I say, you know, just let the words live in the air.
That's the only way that I think of it, you know, because I don't want to intellectualize
it. And OK, I'll be honest.
It's to get away from thinking about result, you know, to think about whether
you're doing a good job of performing.
Yeah, great.
Amazing. Thank you.
And also, you know, it's for the audience here so they can hear it.
I'm assuming some people listen to your podcast in their cars, right?
Some crazy people listen to it at three times speed.
Oh, okay.
We had one listener going, I finished this in the episode. And we're like,
it came out half an hour ago. And he's like, yeah, listen to it at three times speed.
All right. Well, then they will defeat me with my little plan here.
But yeah, they won't have the script in front of them. So in order for me to
talk about it and to hear it out loud.
All right. So just before we go to the reading, you've also asked us for Oppenheimer
and Past Lives to not read the big print or stage directions,
as you call them, or action lines.
We're just going to be focusing on the dialogue in terms of the read.
If I see a stage direction that I think needs to be read, I will read it.
Oh, great.
But most of them don't.
All right. So Oppenheimer? Oppenheimer?
The Nazis have a bomb.
They have a 12-month head start. 18. How could you possibly know that?
We've got one hope. All America's industrial might and scientific innovation connected here.
Secret laboratory.
Keep everyone there until it's done.
I mean, it's obviously the best picture winner and a lot of people saw it,
But this is the story of Oppenheimer's role in the development of the atomic bomb in World War II.
And specifically, we're looking at a scene where the US Army Colonel Leslie
Groves, who's played by Matt Damon, effectively is recruiting Oppenheimer to
be the director of the Los Alamos Laboratory.
So this is the scene where they meet for the first time. and
maybe this is a little bit too early to say this but when it struck me reading
it was that mike nichols line about you know every scene's like a seduction
or an interrogation and i felt like this scene was a little bit like a seduction
but that's the that's kind of the scene is is groves coming in and talking to um oppenheimer all.
Right fire away steve.
Dr oppenheimer i'm I'm Colonel Groves. This is Lieutenant Colonel Nichols. Get that dry cleaned.
If that's how you treat a lieutenant colonel, I'd hate to see how you treat a humble physicist.
If I ever meet one, I'll let you know.
Ouch.
Heaters of combat all over the world, but I have to stay in Washington.
Why?
I built the Pentagon. The brass likes it so much they made me take over the
Manhattan Engineer District.
Which is?
Don't be a smartass. You know damn well what it is. You and half of every physics
department across America. That's problem number one.
I thought problem number one would be securing enough uranium ore.
1,200 tons. Bought the day I took charge.
Processing?
Just broke ground at Oak Ridge, Tennessee. Now I'm looking for a project director.
And my name came up.
Nope. Even though you brought quantum physics to America, that made me curious.
What have you found out?
You're a Dylan Dante, womaniser, suspected communist.
I'm a New Deal Democrat.
I said suspected. Unstable, theatrical, egotistical, neurotic.
Nothing good. Not even he's brilliant, but...
Brilliance is taken for granted in your circles, so no.
Only one person said anything good, Richard Tolman.
He thinks you've got integrity, but Tolman strikes me as someone who knows science better than people.
Yet here you are. You don't take much on trust.
I don't take anything on trust. Why don't you have a Nobel Prize?
Why aren't you a general?
They're making me one for this.
Maybe I'll have the same luck.
A Nobel Prize for making a bomb.
Alfred Nobel invented dynamite.
So how would you proceed?
You're talking about turning theory into a practical weapons system faster than the Nazis.
Who have had a 12-month head start?
18.
How could you possibly know that?
Our fast neutron research took six months. The man they've undoubtedly put in
charge will have made that leap instantly.
Who do you think they put in charge?
Werner Heisenberg. He has the most intuitive understanding of atomic structure I have ever seen.
You know his work?
I know him. Just like I know Walter Both, von Beisacker, Diebner.
In a straight race, the Germans win. We've got one hope.
Which is?
Antisemitism.
What?
Hitler called quantum physics Jewish science. Said it right to Einstein's face.
Our one hope is that Hitler's so blinded by hate he's denied Heisenberg proper resources.
Because it will take vast resources. Our nation's best scientists working together.
Right now they're scattered.
Which gives us compartmentalisation.
All minds have to see the whole task to contribute efficiently.
Poor security may cost us the race. Inefficiency will. will.
The Germans know more than us anyway.
The Russians don't.
Remind me, who are we at war with?
Someone with your past doesn't want to be seen downplaying the importance of
security from our communist allies.
Point taken. But no.
You don't get to say no to me.
It's my job to say no to you when you're wrong.
You've got the job now?
I'm considering it.
I'm starting to see how you got your reputation. My favorite response,
Oppenheimer couldn't run a hamburger stand.
I couldn't, but I can run the Manhattan Project.
Such a long scene. Let's stop for a second. The one thing that I try to do first
is break it into beats, okay?
You know, when I'm trying to understand a scene, it helps me,
you know, start to get a handle on it.
And I think what you've just said is, oh, it's the end of the first sub beat of the third beat.
So let's go back again and read the first beat.
I'm going to say that I think that the first beat goes until Oppenheimer's line,
Alfred Nobel invented dynamite. Okay.
And I'm going to say that's the first beat of the scene. You know,
I'm glad you brought up Mike Nichols' suggestion that the emotional advantage
of a scene is either a seduction, a negotiation, or a fight.
You could see this as a seduction, but I sort of see it as a chess match.
I see them both making points. I certainly think Oppenheimer wants the job.
And his line when he says, oh, what's the Manhattan Engineer District?
You know, of course, he knows very well what it is.
And so certainly he wants the job, but, you know, there's something about this
first beat where they, they spar with each other.
It's more like banter or sparring, or I thought of it as chess match.
And then when I went back and looked at the scene again, I saw,
you know, Groves comes in the room and sits down and Oppenheimer pulls up a
chair across from him. It's about five feet.
It's big enough for a chess table in between them.
It is.
So it's not getting too close. It's not invading somebody's personal space,
but it's face-to-face on the same level.
It's what in fencing we would call being in wide measure.
So it's far enough just to be able to touch the person, but not too close that
you're really putting yourself too much at risk.
Okay. Okay. Great. But they each get wins. They win back and forth.
And Oppenheimer lets him win sometimes.
So let's read this first beat again and just see how that goes.
And I will read the stage direction about tossing his uniform jacket to the...
That does matter, so I'll read that.
Dr. Oppenheimer, I'm Colonel Groves. This is Lieutenant Colonel Nichols.
He pulls off his uniform jacket and tosses it to Nichols.
Get that dry cleaned.
Nichols leave.
If that's how you treat a lieutenant colonel, I'd hate to see how you treat a humble physicist.
If I ever meet one, I'll let you know.
Ouch.
Okay. Win for Groves, and Oppenheimer lets him have the win. Ouch.
But Groves gets the win. Oppenheimer jumps right in. I'm going to be equal to you.
I'm going to call you on how you treat people.
And then Rose calls him on that no physicists are humble. And also,
that's a mysterious line.
If I ever meet one, I'll let you know.
I think it suggests, I think it's a clue to the fact that he's been meeting a lot of physicists.
He's been meeting a lot of people who have been pitching themselves for this job.
Okay? And he doesn't like a single one of them. He hates physicists.
Okay. And I think that's something that he brings in here, you know,
eat another jackass who's going to try to pitch himself. And anyway.
Yeah. Ouch. Theaters of combat all over the world, but I have to stay in Washington.
Why?
I built the Pentagon. The brass likes it so much they made me take over the
Manhattan Engineer District.
Which is?
Oh, don't be a smartass. You know damn well what it is. You and half of every
physics department across America. That's problem number one.
Yeah, just another thing. Problem number one. Problem number one is I have to
spend time with all these jackasses.
Yeah.
Okay.
It'd be so much easier to run the Manhattan Project without physicists.
Well, it'd be so much easier for him to be in combat.
Yes. Yeah, theaters of combat all over the world, yeah.
That's what he's saying. Theaters of combat all over the world.
I'd much rather be in the Philippines.
I'd much rather be in Guam. I'd much rather be in- Europe.
Yeah.
Preferably Europe, okay? So that's where he wants to be.
He doesn't want to be doing any of this Washington stuff at all,
and he definitely doesn't want to be meeting with jackasses,
all trying to tell him how smart they are.
Which is Oppenheimer's almost telling him how smart he is with the,
I thought problem Problem number one would be securing enough uranium ore.
And I love just from a writing perspective that it's kind of done what we've
called hook and eye, which is basically Grove says problem number one.
And then Oppenheimer's dialogue starts with using the same words.
It kind of connects it. So he's picking up on the problem number one and saying,
actually, are you sure it's not uranium ore?
Well, Oppenheimer takes his first win. And, you know, in terms of emotional
event, that's how I'm seeing it. Oppenheimer takes his first win.
He's saying, you know what?
Our personalities are not the problem. The problem is beating the Germans.
And then Groves has to respond to that with, well, actually,
I've got it sorted. We've already got 1,200 tons.
Bought the day I took charge. I love the use of the I there because it's him
establishing his bona fides in front of Oppenheimer.
It's not that they have 1,200 tons. It's that he got them to do it the very
first thing. Him saying to Oppenheimer, I'm not an idiot.
So now Groves is starting to approve his bona fides.
Okay?
Okay. Oppenheimer has put him in the position of proving his bona fides.
That's why I say it's a win for Oppenheimer.
Yeah. Here's an interesting question, and I'd have to rewatch the scene.
Do you think Groves is coming in here going, I think Oppenheimer is the best,
but I need to see if he's someone I can work with?
Or it's him actually assessing whether or not he's capable of the job?
Wait, what do you think?
I mean, I phrased it as a question, but as I'm reading through this,
I'm like, feels like Groves has basically almost said that he's met a whole bunch of physicists.
He knows all of them are probably quite capable of doing the science,
but he needs someone that's more than that.
He needs someone who's actually going to solve the bigger project.
I think he is testing the waters to see if Oppenheimer is that person,
but he also needs Oppenheimer to approve him.
I thought that's what was interesting about the 1,200 tons bought the day I
took charge, is it's much about making Oppenheimer impressed by him.
He needs Oppenheimer's approval.
Because if Oppenheimer is the right person, if he goes in there knowing that,
it's like, I actually need Oppenheimer to feel like we can be equals and work on this project.
I think he needs to find out if Oppenheimer is someone he could stand to be around.
Whoever this person is, they're going to be spending a lot of time together.
And that's what I think the emotional event is, is that they discover they can work together.
They discover they can tolerate each other or even like each other.
Okay. That's why I say it's emotional.
But they take all the steps along the way, you know, in this little fencing
match, chess match, where they're getting little hits on each other. And they like that.
They like to have a good sparring partner.
I really like in Judith, you identified the Nobel Prize being the first major beat in the scene.
I feel like there's a minor sub beat in the next line that we're about to talk
about where Grove says just broke ground at Oak Ridge, Tennessee, full stop.
Now I'm looking for a project director. They both knew coming into the scene
that that's what this is. they.
Both know that he knows that that's what this is about.
But finally it's been said out loud that that's
what this is so the to me the initial section of
the scene is like you say the sparring this back and forth establishing of bona
fides and now they're actually going to talk it comes out of subtext into text
we're now going to talk about why we're here but i agree with you fully that
that there's a beat next because i feel like oppenheimer doesn't change his
approach to the interaction,
to the relationship until that Alfred Noble line, because it's interesting,
a lot of his lines, you can just see it visually on the page.
Groves has got lots of chunks of text, multiple sentences, you know,
statements, and Oppenheimer has lots of very short questions.
Why? Which is processing.
And my name came up. What have you found out? Like he's just,
Just, you know, to Stu's point, is he trying to get information?
Is he trying to, to your point, Judith, like surrender a little bit of power?
There is definitely back and forth, but I feel like he's still not pushing as
hard as he can yet, that he pushes a lot harder after that Alfred Noble.
dynamite line?
Well, here's the way I put it. And that doesn't mean that it's right.
You know, the way that I talk about things, I don't mean that this is the only
way to talk about them, the only way to think about them, the only way to do them.
And I definitely don't mean that if Christopher Nolan didn't think of them this
way, he should have. I definitely don't mean anything like that.
But to me, I thought this whole, this whole beat, you know, it's a It's a getting-to-know-you
beat, but with very high-powered people that want to do things fast.
And so they're going to test each
other. They're testing each other to see what the other guy is made of.
And why I think the first beat ends with Alfred Nobel invented dynamite,
because that is a definitive win for Oppenheimer. That's his definitive win.
And at that moment, he has the job.
He's not trying to get the job anymore.
At that moment, he has the job. That's the way I see it. And then the next bead,
Groves says, so how would you proceed?
And so the next bead, I think, is strategizing. You already have a job.
They're strategizing together.
I think it's actually the first time Groves asks a question.
Oppenheimer is not trying to prove anything at all anymore. He's saying,
okay, let's get to work. They're 18 months ahead of us.
And you're right. It is the first time Groves is asked a question.
In a way, it's not every line, but there's a lot in that first beat of Oppenheimer
asking questions, right?
He's pulling information out of Groves, right?
Nothing good, not even he's a brilliant but.
I mean, sometimes he's choosing to make statements, you know,
and my name came up. I love that that is a statement and not a question.
Oppenheimer's like, well, of course my name came up. And so Groves says.
No.
It's like a nice little bit of win for Groves. But it is largely Oppenheimer
pulling information from Groves.
And as you say, part of that shift is after that definitive read from Oppenheimer,
Alfred Noble invented dynamite is, so how would you proceed?
Part of the reason we know it's a job is because Groves is actually interested
in what Oppenheimer has to say.
Right?
And that is an emotion. That is a change in relationship. Even just going from
making statements to someone to asking them questions is a bit of an emotional event.
How would you proceed is really interesting for that reason.
They're strategizing, but it's Groves interested in what Oppenheimer has to say here.
The other thing is when I went back and watched the scene again,
I roughed out where I thought the beats were, you know, just from the page.
Then I went back and watched the scene again.
And at this point, when Groves says, how would you proceed?
Oppenheimer stands up. And that's a very smart directorial way to mark a beat change with blocking.
It's physicalized, face-to-face at wide measure, and they're testing each other.
I think they're both testing each other. I think, you know, Oppenheimer wants
the job, but he knows that Groves wants somebody who will test him. They want the friction.
They like the friction. They both work best with friction.
I mean, poor Nichols, you know, he takes the coat and walks,
takes it to the dry cleaner.
Groves has no respect for Nichols. He wants somebody who's, that he can learn from.
They both want to be around somebody that they can learn from,
that they can sharpen their knives against. And that's what they find in that first beat.
And they get to work. Now they are working.
So let's just read that beat again. So how would you proceed?
And just remember, in the movie, now Ebenheimer is standing up.
And he's not exactly pacing, but he's got a sense of activity and movement to his body.
So how would you proceed?
You're talking about turning theory into a practical weapon system faster than the Nazis.
You have a 12-month head start.
18.
How could you possibly know that?
Our fast neutron research took six months. The man they've undoubtedly put in
charge will have made that leap instantly.
Who do you think they put in charge?
Werner Heisenberg. He has the most intuitive understanding of atomic structure I've ever seen.
You know his work?
I know him. Just like I know Walter Boeck, von Weissacher, Diebner.
In a straight race, the Germans win. We've got one hope.
Which is?
Anti-Semitism.
What?
Hitler called quantum physics Jewish science, said it right to Einstein's face.
Our one hope is that Hitler's so blinded by hate, he's denied Heisenberg proper resources.
Because it will take vast resources.
Okay, right now I think it switches to the third beat. That can happen mid-speech, by the way.
Oh, really? Yeah.
So, because it'll take vast resources. Okay, new beat. This is B3.
Our nation's best scientists working together. Right now, they're scattered.
So I'm going to say B3 is his pitch for Los Alamos.
I just love the arrogance of a guy to pitch his ranch as well.
Yes. The Manhattan Project shouldn't face itself.
Exactly. I happen to know a place that would be perfect.
So right now, he's the best minds. He's talking about the Jewish brain drain
from Europe. because of the persecution and the Holocaust.
And he says, we have got them, but they're scattered, and we've got to put them in one place.
And then Groves brings up this compartmentalization.
So let's start reading that. Our nation's best scientists working together. Just start from there.
Our nation's best scientists working together. Right now they're scattered.
Which gives us compartmentalization.
All minds have to see the whole task to contribute efficiently.
Poor security may cost us the race, inefficiency will.
The Germans know more than us anyway.
The Russians don't.
Remind me, who are we at war with?
Someone with your past doesn't want to be seen downplaying the importance of
security from our communist allies.
Point taken. But no.
You don't get to say no to me.
It's my job to say no to you when you're wrong.
You've got the job now?
I'm considering it.
I'm starting to see how you got your reputation. My favorite response?
Oppenheimer couldn't run a hamburger stand.
I couldn't, but I can run the Manhattan Project.
Okay, now there's a shift. Now, this line, I'm starting to see how you got your reputation.
Another mysterious line. I mean, it looks like he's a little bit of a put-down
of Oppenheimer, but no, he likes that about him.
Because he's talking about both the reputations, because Groves has a reputation for arrogance, too.
And we've seen it in the scene when he throws the jacket at a lieutenant colonel,
that he has a reputation for arrogance.
He comes in there, he loosens his tie, he puts his arm up on a bookshelf or
another chair, saying, you have a reputation for arrogance, just like me.
That's a bonding moment.
I actually think what's really interesting is about the you don't get to say
no to me in a way to use colloquial terminology.
It's kind of a bit of a shit test from Groves. He actually likes that Oppenheimer
is able to speak his mind, but it's actually a bit of a test to see if Oppenheimer
is going to wither a little bit.
like in in my interpretation grows need
someone who's going to speak his mind and because they need
the win like they're fighting a war and trying to beat the
nazis they don't need someone who's going to necessarily follow the
party line in in a way so him saying you don't get to say
no to me and i would say yes i do um he's actually a win grow saying so you've
got the job now question mark it's actually you've definitely got the job now
yeah right like it's like that's the The emotional event there is that acceptance
of like, that's a good thing.
And then the third part of the third beat is when he goes to the blackboard.
That's the stage direction here. He goes to the blackboard, and that's how it's
staged. He goes to the blackboard.
There's a way to balance these things.
So that's where we stopped when we did the big read-through,
because you said that this is kind of moving into the last part of the… Yeah.
This is like, I was thinking beat 3C.
But in terms of the is there any more emotional event
in this third part or is the
reason we instinctively stopped because we actually had reached
the emotional event you know they they started out sparring and then groves
opens a window like opens a door for oppenheimer to pitch and then this third
bit is them going like actually still sparring but agreeing essentially essentially,
that he's got the job, that they're going to work together.
I'm just looking for what happens. The first beat, they're sparring.
They're fighting. They like to spar with each other. In the second beat,
they're strategizing. That's different.
They're strategizing. I do. It was great that you noticed that I hadn't noticed
this, that in the first beat, Oppenheimer is asking the questions and the second beat, Groves is.
I mean, because Oppenheimer knows physics and Groves doesn't, right?
But Groves knows strategy. they're actually starting
to work and so groves is asking him
questions and oppenheimer is not saying look at what he's not saying he's not
saying well i'll tell you that if you give me the job he's not saying that he's
getting to work but then the third thing which has been on his mind from the
beginning is he wants to get all these scientists and he wants to bring them to los alamos yeah.
And my interpretation chas of your point about the is this the end of of the
emotional event in the scene.
No, I mean, I just see that the next section is actually ending from a page,
a scene numbering count at the top of scene 67.
As he pitches the idea, we start seeing it being built, right?
And then it ends with Oppenheimer saying, welcome to Los Alamos.
And they're there. So the emotional, like the end of that kind of beat is the
success. Like the pitch worked.
The change in relationship is they built it, right?
For me, the scene doesn't actually end until where, you know,
we physically move space.
But it's the way it's written is it's like it's a continuation of the dialogue.
And as he talks and pitches the idea, we kind of see it being built.
And so we're beginning to see what he's talking about as actually happening.
And then we see the success of it.
Judith, I just wanted to know, you said that line about Oppenheimer couldn't
run a hamburger stand wasn't a put down.
And I agree. And it's that line that gives me the feeling that you said about
what is Groves coming into the scene trying to achieve?
Steve, because if he had heard from someone Oppenheimer couldn't run a hamburger
stand and believed it, he wouldn't be in that room.
Well, the roast doesn't like people who try to get a job by saying negative
things about their competition.
He doesn't like that kind of man at all.
So those guys that say, oh, you know, he asked him about Oppenheimer and say,
oh, he couldn't run a hamburger stand.
That guy's out of the running. all.
It's telling him is that obviously up and high if everyone is putting down oppenheimer
then he is obviously the best one it's like.
Yeah that's it if everyone is saying he's neurotic he's a womanizer he's a jerk
that then that means he's the
guy that they all have to beat so that's the guy i really have to see i'd.
Just like to note that in this scene we're talking all about the the relationship
between the characters and how riveting it is and how much it's actually moving.
Like the scene is only three pages long, but it moves,
back and forth so quickly and there's real shifts, but the amount of backstory
and exposition that they've worked in there is huge.
We've worked out that they've told us that Groves built the Pentagon.
They've told us that the biggest problem engineering-wise is how much uranium ore they need to get.
The issues around compartmentalization.
Security, that they're concerned as much about Russia.
We've got the scientific, scientific, even though they don't really go into
the science, because none of us would understand it.
Let's read this last bit, which is really lots of exposition, too.
And I actually do, I'm going to
bore you, Chas, but I do actually want to read to the bottom of page 50.
Yeah, sure.
Because it does a really interesting, because I think part of it,
that the emotional event stuff that you're talking about and keeping us interested
is the change in the rhythms of the dialogue that reflect the kind of the changing
in the relationships between these two men.
Please believe me, I'm not bored. I was just interested why we instinctively stopped at that point.
I think it's a big bit. I think at this point Oppenheimer probably has won,
but there is a difference between just winning the point and getting the job
and actually seeing what we're about to see. All right.
Now he's at the blackboard. And again, you know, I watched the scene again a
few times and then in Grove's moves, he comes closer to the blackboard.
He takes a chair, turns it around, and sits it in front of the blackboard like a student.
I mean, this is brilliantly, brilliantly blocked and brilliantly written scene.
Anyway, so let's read the rest. There's a way to balance these things. Starts there.
There's a way to balance these things. Leave the rad lab here at Berkeley under
Lawrence. Met lab in Chicago under Sillard.
Large-scale refining, where did you say? Tennessee. to see?
All America's industrial might and scientific innovation connected by rail focused
on one goal, one point in space and time coming together here.
Now, here's what I have to tell you. I think this conversation all took place in that room.
Nolan made a very smart, I think, cinematic choice to show us what they're talking about.
But in fact, this is all taking place in that room a.
Secret laboratory in the middle of nowhere self-sufficient
secure equipment housing the works we keep everyone there till it's done it'll
need a school stores a church why if we don't let scientists bring their families
we'll never get the best you want security build a town and build it fast where,
Welcome to Los Alamos. There's a boys' school we'll have to commandeer and the
local Indians come up here for burial rites.
Other than that, nothing for 40 miles in any direction.
And southeast, hundreds of miles of desert, enough to find the perfect spot.
For?
Success.
It's funny that he says success. It's for, you know, pissing bombs.
Blowing up. And I didn't think we would be getting into this section,
so I didn't put the next page in our writing, but the next page is the button
on the scene, which is Grove saying to Nichols, build this man a town.
Success also works as a button in its own interesting way, you know? It's like...
Well, they're not going to use
the word bomb. They're using euphemisms for the word bomb all the time.
They call it the gadget, they don't call it... Anyway, that's a lot of exposition, right?
But what What makes it work is that the scene is not about the information,
it's about the relationship.
It's about two men discovering that they love working with each other.
And actually, this relationship takes us all the way through Act 2 of the whole movie.
This relationship is the centering string that takes us through all of Act Two,
which is a lot of exposition.
But the reason that it works is because it's about one central relationship,
which is Oppenheimer and Groves.
I'll just throw in my theories about Act One and Act Three, that Act Three is
the relationship of Oppenheimer and Strauss.
And then I have this kind of crazy theory. We should move on to the next thing.
But I have this kind of crazy theory about Act One, which is it's kind of competing
strands, two competing groups.
They're the great men of science who he idolizes and also sometimes resents or fears.
There's a group of them and he meets them all.
So that's one group. And then women.
and his compulsion, his inability to collect women notches in his belt and to
pick the most difficult ones he can, you know, rainy, disturbed,
unloving women, one after another.
And both of those sort of as a group, women as a group, great men of science
as a group, those are the relationships of the first act.
And here's where I get all Freudian, that mother and his father.
Yeah.
Even though we never meet them and they're never spoken of, they are implied.
Yeah. I was going to say, you get a sense that they're somewhere in there.
Well, he was sent away to school. So, you know, it's the absence of them that,
you know, drives that first act.
Just a few quick straight observations for me.
The connecting on that, I think that's actually as much as we were looking at
the emotional event as on a scene level, right? The idea of looking at an act,
looking at a sequence and going, what is the core relationship here?
How does that change? I actually think it's a really useful tool for screenwriters.
It's an important delivery system for plot.
Yeah, but it will help connect emotion. And as we've talked about with stakes,
Chas and I, we did an episode on stakes and we started realizing that stakes
are about what people value and what people value is their relationship to things.
So it's going to be connected to your stakes as well. All right.
All right.
Speaking of relationships that not only drive a whole act, but as Chas was pitching
before, I'm stealing your thunder here, Chas.
It's about time. I keep stealing your observations that you make off mic, so go for it, G.
Well, you're just saying that the relationship in Casino Royale between Bond
and Vespa absolutely drives the Daniel Craig Bond films for most of them,
if not the whole series. What happens in this first film?
And they realized the strength of that relationship was enough to kind of keep
a character that was largely an unemotional, for lack of a better word,
character in previous films had no attachments and were able to realize the
power of using it to drive a whole film.
How did he die? Your contact? Not well. You needn't worry. The second is...
Yes.
Considerably.
The man was Le Chiffre, private banker to the world's terrorists,
which would explain how he could set up a high-stakes poker game at Casino Royale in Montenegro.
if he loses this game he'll have nowhere to run you're the best player in the service,
the treasury has agreed to stake you in the game but if you lose our government
will have directly financed terrorism i will be keeping my eye on our government's
money and off your perfectly formed house you noticed.
So casino royale
is the the first daniel craig bond film the
writer writing credits uh i was amused to see now this is we've got a script
that was available online that has i'm not going to say the person but it does
have a watermark on it so it is very clear who got this script out but the the
credits on this version are a screenplay by neil purvis and and Robert Wade,
and then second set of revisions by Paul Haggis in 2005.
And the- I lobbied quite hard for these scenes to be in part of the homework
because these two scenes, they're the two scenes- Bond and Vesper have just
been engaged in a pretty brutal fistfight,
which has ended with Bond killing a man by strangling him, in which Vesper was involved.
And Vesper is an accountant, she was not a character of violence until this point in the movie.
And then I just remember so strongly, and I still remember these two scenes
in the bathroom after that fistfight.
And we were looking for, Judith, just so you know, when we try to pick our homework,
we try to pick a range of films, genres, stories, so that we can try and see
the same tool working in different contexts.
And it was so clear to me that these two scenes were there for emotional purposes.
I couldn't enunciate better than that why. why and hopefully you can tell me i.
Didn't watch the whole movie again i mean i saw it when
i came out but i thought well maybe it's on youtube and
you know i put casino royale and that's just the first thing that comes up oh
really yeah oh wow yeah so it's a real emotional center to the movie anyway
i i'm going to read some of the stage directions and you know you've just mentioned
the writers and i don't mean to brag on them but i don't care for them very much,
and i don't think that the actors followed them okay and that's the point that
i want to make with this one i.
Love a bit of controversy.
But i gotta say i loved the character vesper i loved how she was written you
know their first scene where they when they meet i thought oh gosh finally a
bond girl who's really smart and really is his match you know so so i think
they did a a great job writing Vesper for the most part.
But, well, I'll say it right away. This is an example of a scene that's written from the male gaze.
Definitely.
But not performed that way. So, I don't know, you know, whether it was the director
or the actors, but those actors were so strong and they were so connected to
each other that I suspect that they got together and figured some things out together.
Because some of the lines are left out. So anyway, uh,
Bond lets himself in on doing his tie to reveal a creased shirt.
Shadow bus, he sees Vesper's gown on the floor, empty wine bottle on the table.
Here's her shower running.
Tired and jaded, he doesn't think too much of it, pulls off his shirt.
Yes, he has been sweating.
He glances back at Vesper's suite, listens to the shower running,
senses something's wrong.
Vesper's bathroom, he enters, can't see her, now is becoming concerned.
He sees a leg protruding from the shower.
He turns the corner and finds her sitting in bra and panties.
That's the male gaze. I'm sorry. She's wearing a dress in the movie.
She's sitting there in a cocktail dress, and it's much stronger.
Yeah. It's a stronger indication that she's in shock.
Yeah. Clutching one knee to her chest, oblivious to the pelting water,
James drops to the floor of the shower, throws his arm around her,
and pulls her to him, letting the water run over both of them.
Bond, shh. Vesper, you're all wet. Shh. That was all cut. But Vesper,
I couldn't get the blood off.
It's still under my nails. That line was changed to, there's blood on my hands. I can't get it off.
Bond looks at his fingers, not a trace of blood. He puts each finger in his
mouth and turn, not sexually, but as if to clean them.
And of course, the non-sexual aspect of it is incredibly sexy.
Okay, that's what I'm talking about, the male gaze.
When done, Bond says, better. Vesper says, thanks.
In the movie, she doesn't say thanks. she just gets
closer to him bond you cold and
then he turns the hot water on and then
she appreciates the unusual and charming choice that he
fails to acknowledge anything odd about her behavior she
rests her head on his shoulder to sit there in the warm rain not saying a word
anyway so they the actors played it not about sex but about love the emotional
event is that these two are falling more deeply in love.
So that's what I would call the emotional event. But putting it a different
way to say what it's about, some of the writing makes it feel like it's about sex.
And it's not about sex. It's about love.
Yeah. I mean, even like she appreciates the unusual and charming choice.
It's like this character is charming.
But I think that is interesting, the love thing, because I also,
for me, the emotional emotional event is about shared vulnerability,
you know, she is feeling vulnerable and he,
He's being vulnerable with her, you know, and I think shared vulnerability is
a key part of being in love, I guess.
Yeah.
I think also I agree with you. It's about love. But to me, like the how does
the character relationship change?
They obviously do grow closer as a result of the scene. And that's kind of the
importance of the scene existing.
And to Stu's point, it's definitely about shared vulnerability.
But it's the first time Bond has shown like a non-romantic form of love.
Like an asexual form of love, a love that is about caring and nurturing.
And that's why the big print probably feels such a smack, like such a contrast
to the final film, is in the film you're saying it's asexual love,
it's tenderness, where in this they can't keep on pointing out,
oh, it's non-sexual, but that's actually what makes it really sexy.
That makes it sexier than ever.
Oh well.
Well, and it's funny, I have to mention, you know, when I saw him put his fingers
in his mouth, I hadn't heard a line about there's blood on my hands because the audio wasn't good.
But the gesture reminded me of when I was a child and I grew up in a cold environment
in New England, back east in the U.S.
And, you know, in the winter, little kids' hands would get cold.
Sometimes my mother would, if my hands were cold, she would take them and put them under her arms.
you know to warm them and that's that's what it made me think of that that he
was warming her there is a you know protective you know i'm going to take care
of you even if you feel like a child and there is something like that but rather
than saying it's not sexual mind up what it is.
Yeah, imagine if it said, not sexually, but in a nurturing way.
As soon as you're saying it's non-sexual, you're drawing people's attention
to the ways in which, which is possibly why they've done it.
I've had producers' notes about making stuff.
Oh, this moment could be sexier. Can you make this moment sexier? And you're like, ugh.
But I think, to your point, and in your books, you've talked about the magic
of the as-if and how that's useful for direction.
We've read, obviously, over 100 episodes, We've read a lot of different people's
scripts and we've looked at so-called unfilmables.
And sometimes lines like, he,
you know, warms a hand, like he's a parent comforting a child is actually really
effective in a screenplay as well, because you're giving the,
you're engaging the imagination of the actor rather than just simply describing
what you see. You're giving them something to play with.
And I think that can be a really powerful tool.
Again, I mean, this is me just plugging your book, but it's like,
that's one of the reasons I think the book is really useful for actors because
you sit there and go, in a way, the script is the first director of the actors.
Sometimes actors will read a screenplay before they even have a chance to talk to the director.
So the words the writer is using are going to inform how an actor is potentially
going to approach the role.
And so using some of these things that you've talked about as words on the page
can be really quite powerful.
I do know that the line, she appreciates the unusual and charming choice in
that he fails to acknowledge anything odd about her behavior, if they just-
the charming bit out.
Just take that line out, but just take the whole sentence out.
I was, I was going to say like to Sue's point, like you don't need it.
You know, you could just have her leaning on his shoulder and that says everything
about the emotional event.
They have come closer, but I do think what it is that Bond has actually offered
her that allows her to be closer to him is his complete absence of judgment
of her, of she's wearing a dress in the shower.
Well, but let's see, He got her into this. He got her into this.
She didn't sign up to be an assassin.
He signed up to be an assassin. She didn't. He got her into this.
Okay? That's the basic fact.
And he's obligated to take care of her.
She's getting the emotional fallout. And he has to take some of that on for her.
I mean, I certainly read that into the symbolism of him taking her fingers into
his mouth is to me him kind of being,
for lack of a better word, like a bit of a sin eater i mean except it's his
sins but it's like this isn't the blood on your hands this is this is blood
that i put there that that is something that i i read into it.
There you go okay at the sin eater but yeah oh wow.
But i think that's why it's such a powerful gesture because it's got a degree
of like there's a physical intimacy to it so you can kind of read it just on
a level of of physical intimacy between two people but you can read the gesture
as having kind of a symbolic meaning beyond that,
but it doesn't try to dictate it to it.
So I actually think it makes it powerful because people can fill that gap.
Could we possibly throw the writer's a bone here and say that the emotional
event that they have put in this scene through the dramatization,
through what the actors are actually doing, has survived the possible producer pass of make this sexy?
Well, sure. Sure.
Well, anyway, I think that Daniel Craig and Ava Greene had a lot to do with
saying it's going to be stronger if she's just gotten into the shower without
taking off her cocktail dress.
I mean, it makes more emotional sense anyway.
She walks into a room, she tries to pour a glass of wine. And the thing is that
it's not an empty wine bottle.
There's a glass of wine that's broken. broken so to
me she's tried to pour a glass of wine and but her hand is shaking and the glass
breaks and then she just stumbles into the bathroom and gets under the water
and she gets under cold water because she feels she deserves to be punished
so i'm going how did this scene come about and.
That's a really powerful example i think if you using
what i would call given circumstances uh you'd probably think you'd kind of
call it the big fat facts or you know you just looked at what's written in the
scene and going this is that she's used cold water and you've kind of built
the emotional understanding of that based on the very simple facts of the scene.
Yeah but i also imagine how would a real person get it how would this happen to a real person real.
Person yeah shall we move on to past lives.
Okay okay there's.
A word in korean Korean, inyeon, it means providence or fate.
Do you believe in that? That's just something Koreans say to seduce someone.
childhood sweethearts who reconnect 20 years later and realize they were meant
for each other in the story i would be the evil white american husband standing in the way of destiny,
shut up he's just this kid in my
head for such a long time i think he just missed him did he miss you all.
Right this is very clearly in three sections right uh the first section the
three of them are talking.
The second section, Nora and
Hyesung are talking together in Korean with Arthur still sitting there.
The third section, Nora has gone to the bathroom and Hyesung and Arthur speak
to each other. So we'll stop after each.
I mostly want to talk about some amazing interviews that I read with Celine
Fong that I think are very useful, but shall we read it Would that be fun?
Yeah. I'll just, for the sake of the record, give a little bit of introduction
for those who haven't seen it, though you should.
It's a fantastically beautifully directed, beautifully written film. Yeah.
It's a written, directed by Celine Song.
And it follows, on one level, it follows two childhood friends over the course of 24 years.
But really, it's about Nora. She emigrates to America when she's 12,
and she kind of leaves a boy behind in Korea. And then we follow her as an adult,
and she ends up marrying an American called Arthur.
And then Haesung, her kind of, I'm going to use the word crush,
but there's, you know, he's important to her.
And I think it is more than a crush, but he comes to visit her in America.
And that's kind of the setup. And this particular scene is the three of them
going out to dinner as a group. is that a fair enough summary at least enough
to kind of get us into the kind of context into this scene i.
Think so they're actually at a bar though they're not at a table i didn't think
it matters yeah but the bar is sort of curved it's very interesting that the bar is sort of curved and,
nora's in the middle and arthur on one side and and haisung on the other.
I mean that's talk about powerful blocking even just that choice to put them
in a bar where she sits in the middle with one on either side and they could
have put it the choice to put them at a table where she and her husband are
on one side and Haesong's on the other.
No, they've deliberately put them in a line with her in the middle.
Now I should say about this first one, I'm going to read Nora and sometimes
I'm repeating things because I'm translating.
Would you like to read the stage directions or not? We're happy to skip stage
direction for this read, but I think Stu and I both have,
Some that we will call out afterwards.
Okay. I just assumed skip them, but.
Yeah.
Yeah, let's skip them for the read. Because I think what's interesting is this
is a good example is I think the dialogue is doing the work and they've made
sure that you don't miss it in the stage directions.
Yeah. Well, stage directions, I think I've said this in all my books,
the stage directions are for the agents and the producers and the financiers
and the executives. They need them because they're reading, you know,
stacks of scripts every day.
So they need the shortcuts to be spoon-fed some of the subjects.
But the actors don't. You know, the actors want to do the work.
But sometimes the big, as you guys call it, the big printer.
We've converted you.
Sometimes there are important clues there. You know, sometimes there are emotional events.
We often use the word scaffolding to describe the kind of big print that explains
the emotional aspects of the...
Boring narration.
All right. We'll start from there. Already a few drinks in? Yes. Okay.
When I was 24 year, I...
Military service?
Yes.
Military service.
Right.
You know, Korean men have mandatory military service.
Of course. Your dad talks about it. How was it? Did you like it?
How was it? Did you like it?
No. But military work, it's same.
Same?
Yes.
Same how?
You have boss. There's overtime pay, stuff like that here, right?
Yes.
In Korea, you work overtime all the time, but there's no overtime pay.
There's no overtime pay in Korea. Really?
Yeah. You have to do all of your
boss's work first, then you do your own work, and then you can go home.
Late at night?
Yeah.
That's so hard.
Yeah. It's very hard.
Hard physically or mentally?
Physically or mentally.
Both. Definitely physical, hard, and...
Mentally?
Mentally, I strong.
You're strong mentally.
Yes. Right.
That was very hard to do, wasn't it? To read it, you know, and some of it's
in Korean and some of it's translated, but Haesang does have a little bit of
English and sometimes he's speaking in English.
But I actually think that what you just said, it's difficult to do,
is kind of what the scene is about on some level.
Right?
Like having to translate between these two people and be in the middle of them
is kind of difficult and awkward.
And I think that actually comes across in the read without us actually even
pointing out when it says awkward silence in the big print.
Well, you know, that's an interesting way because a big part of understanding
emotional event is understanding it as cause and effect.
So you could say that the emotional event, as you just said,
is that this is uncomfortable and that trying to talk, all three of them,
is that they're reaching an impasse.
And because they've reached an impasse in the three-way conversation,
and that causes them to turn to a two-way conversation with Haesung and Nora.
That can be a way to think of it.
I am going to read the big print that happens just after the end of this beat.
Because what is interesting, we're stopping here because we feel like it's a beat change.
Yes. Well, definitely. I mean, it's definitely.
Yeah. Celine. And she comes from theater. So I think she's going to be very
conscious of this stuff.
She's written in big print for the beat change. And she's written, awkward silence.
Haesung and Arthur stare at each other for a moment. They cannot read each other's
expressions. They are still mysteries to each other.
Beat. Haesung downs his drink. Haesung smiles. as he turns to Nora.
So she's put the physical action that will dramatize to the audience what the
beat is, but she's, as a writer, kind of just given us a little bit,
you know, as you say, for the executives and everyone else who's trying to read
it and may not be fine attuned to this stuff,
she still kind of explained what that beat is or,
and it's kind of indicated that it is end of the beat just by her choice of,
of interrupting the dialogue.
Maybe it would be interesting for me to mention right here that this line in
the big print line, they are still mysteries to each other.
She translated that into, I don't know if you've read any interviews with her,
but she did a lot of interviews.
And in one interview that I just was fascinated by, and I'll send this to you
so you can put it on the podcast, but, you know, because she comes from theater,
she did theater-type exercises.
And she did not allow the actors playing Arthur or Haesung to meet each other
before the first scene where they meet on camera, okay?
Beautiful. Now, that's actually something you couldn't do in theater,
because you have to have rehearsals in theater.
You couldn't do that in theater. And she also instructed Greta Lee to tell each
of her two male scene partners when she was rehearsing with the other one,
you know, tell them, oh, I'm rehearsing with John next time,
or I'm rehearsing with Teo next time.
And to tell each other what it was like filming with the other one before they met.
And that was, you know, and Celine Tsang said that, you know,
in order to have that, so that mystery would build up, the mystery of each.
So they would be imagining each other before they ever met. So she puts that
in, that line of stage direction.
Instead of telling that to the actors, she created a situation where that could happen.
But she throws that in, again, for the producers or the executives.
The skim raters. Right.
She actually translated that line into a physical and emotional reality with
these sort of theater style exercises that you wouldn't have thought,
you know, like most people would say, right?
Well, you know, I'm an actor. You don't have to trick me. But everybody believed
in her vision so deeply that they would do anything for her.
And I think a lot of people can respond positively to that.
I mean, I'm not Celine, but I'm far from it.
But on one of my own projects, which was a little bit of a sci-fi film about
a man, it's like a body swap thing, but there's two of them.
And one of the characters wants to get back to his family.
And with all the stuff we were shooting with his family, where he's not present,
I actually invited the actor to come and just be on set right
and watch everyone else doing the stuff
and he he took that invitation and he found
it really useful because he's like i'm watching these other people you
know it takes something that's an intellectual idea of i want to be back
with my family and makes it something tangible as he sees
everyone else having fun but he's separate from it so
i do think these are things that you know i like i'm
using your terminology now the language of permission you know i i
will be like is this something that you're interested in doing because i'm
open to it and then the actor can decide whether or not they feel it's useful
i don't want to force people to do stuff but it's amazing when you phrase stuff
as questions you get people thinking about whether or not they find it useful
you know they might come back to you tomorrow and go oh actually yeah i think
i will do that actually because you know whereas if you say you should do this
or you should do that can be,
accusational i guess for like a bit of a word yeah.
Yeah that's great and i love the word word tangible that was helpful.
I think that's the word I was searching for when I said physical,
tangible, you know, that with
those exercises, she created an emotional situation that was tangible.
All right. So let's do this little section.
Second section.
Haesung and Nora. Yeah. It's just them together now talking together.
And they're talking in Korean. Arthur is excluded.
Gets out his phone and begins scrolling through it. That's it.
Yeah.
Haesung smiles as he turns to Nora.
It was good that you immigrated.
Yeah, I agree.
Korea is too small of a country for you. It's not enough to satisfy your greed.
Well, let's stop for a second. I mean, I think that's amazing,
you know, because it says they laugh.
It's such a mysterious line. It's not enough to satisfy your greed.
It's such an interesting choice of word. and it makes her laugh because she
doesn't have a kind of self-importance about anything and she's sort of saying, yes, I am greedy.
I was greedy and Korea wouldn't have done it.
Well, they have a running joke throughout the film as to whether she's going
for a pool at Surprise or a Tony or...
Oh, right, right. That's true.
It is established that they have this...
But it could say satisfy your ambition.
Yeah, sure.
Satisfy your potential. You
could have said something else. It creates an intimacy is what I'm saying.
So the emotional event, the tiny emotional event there is not an accusation
or a cruelty. It's an intimacy.
Yeah.
All right.
Let's go on.
So at this point, Arthur is excluded from the conversation while they're speaking
Korean. So he gets out his phone and begins scrolling through it,
Facebook, Twitter, et cetera.
Thank you for introducing me to your husband.
Of course.
It seems like he really loves you.
Yeah.
Are you happy?
Of course.
I didn't know that liking your husband would hurt this much.
Yeah.
Yeah. When we stopped talking, I really missed you. Did you miss me?
Of course.
But you met your husband then.
You met your ex-girlfriend then, too.
Sorry.
It's okay.
I don't know. Seeing you again and being here makes me have a lot of weird thoughts.
What kind of thoughts?
I had found my first love after 12 years and I shouldn't have let her go.
Thoughts like that. What if I'd come to New York 12 years ago?
What if you could have come to Seoul?
What if you had never left? If you hadn't left like that and we just grew up
together, would I still have looked for you?
Would we have dated, broken up, gotten married?
Would we have had kids together?
Thoughts like that.
But the truth I learned here is you had to leave because you're you.
And the reason I liked you is because you're you. And who you are is someone who leaves.
The Na Young you remember doesn't exist here.
I know.
But that little girl did exist. She's not here in front of you,
but it doesn't mean she's not Ria.
Twenty years ago, I left her behind with you.
I know. And even though I was only twelve, I loved her.
You psycho. I think there was something in our past lives.
Otherwise we wouldn't be here together right now.
Why would we be here together right now? But in this life, we don't have the
inyon to be that kind of person to each other.
Because now that we're finally in the same city for the first time in almost twenty years….
We're sitting here with your husband.
In this life, you and Arthur are that kind of Inyan to each other.
You two have the 8,000 layers of Inyan. To Arthur, you're someone who stays.
Arthur looks so. We're just talking about you.
Who do you think we were to each other in our past lives?
I don't know.
Maybe an impossible affair between the queen and the king's henchmen, something like that.
Or maybe we were forced to live together in a political marriage and we were awful to each other.
Cheat on each other a bunch.
Say hurtful things to each other.
Or maybe we were just sitting next to each other on the same train.
Why?
Just because that's what our tickets said.
Maybe we were just a bird and the branch it sat on one morning.
Oh, okay. Following section, she's gotten up and gone to the restroom.
But one thing that I think is interesting is, you know, she keeps saying, of course.
Of course, I love my husband. Of course, he loves me. of course,
until he says this thing about seeing you again and being here makes me have a lot of weird thoughts.
And then to me, this next line, when she says, what kind of thoughts?
She doesn't have to say that. What would happen if she didn't say that?
If she didn't say that, she could stop this tete-a-tete and bring Arthur into the conversation.
But that seems really really significant, like a key line.
You could call it a mysterious line, but it's also a key line.
It's key to this scene that she says, I'm going to let you tell me things that
are going to be hard to hear.
So, Celine Song has said about this scene, it's okay with me if people want
to think of this as a love triangle, if they think it's about a love triangle.
But that's not what it is for me. That's not my intention.
To me, she said, this is a quote, to me, the movie really is about taking the
moment to say our proper goodbyes to parts of ourselves.
ourselves and to me it takes me even further it's
like to do that you've got to do the work
you know and it's it seems to say
something really deeply that not just about leaving
our past behind but about doing the work of every relationship because that's
something that people don't usually do so to me it's completely significant
that she says what kind of thoughts thoughts because later she breaks the mood
by saying, laughing at him, you psycho.
You know what I mean? At some point, the mood has to be broken.
It can't just go into this drunken sob story indefinitely, right?
And she could have broken it when he says, seeing you again and being here makes
me have a lot of weird thoughts.
And of course, actually the first thing that he said was, I didn't know that
liking your husband would hurt this much.
So that's the first, sorry, I'm jumping around, but that's the first key.
And that's when she stops saying, of course, up until then, she said,
of course, to everything.
And in a way, that's like, yeah, I'm okay with everything.
I'm taking this all easy and light. I'm totally fine with all of this.
And then he says that, you know, this soul bearing thing, this incredibly hard thing to say.
And at that point, she stopped saying, of course, and they have a little fight
over, you know, where he says, you know, you, you met your husband is,
you know, when you stopped writing to me and she said, well,
you met your girlfriend, you know, they have this little fight.
And then he takes it even further. First time he takes it further with,
I didn't know it would hurt so much husband.
And then, you know, she almost tries to get out of it by picking a fight with him.
And then, but then he takes it even further seeing you here and being here makes
me have a lot of weird thoughts.
Well, she knows what he's going to say. We should have gotten married.
It might not be very pleasant to hear it, but she lets him say it.
She says, what kind of thoughts?
And she sits there while he says all these things.
But that's what's called doing the work, is asking people what's going on,
telling people what's going on, listening to them. And then she gives them this
beautiful gift where she says, that little girl did exist.
She was real. And 20 years ago, I left her behind with you.
That's a very beautiful gift to give somebody.
It is. And it's interesting, like, just even the kind of metaphor of gift strikes
me as an emotional event.
Yeah. You know, giving someone a gift is a way you could describe as this event.
Yeah.
And I think it's her kind of acknowledging what he feels, right?
And she's being honest, but she's also, I think it works because she's acknowledging,
something, like she's acknowledging the validity of his feelings.
Well, she's listening to them. So that, let them be valid. But she keeps a boundary.
She keeps a boundary. When he goes, he's saying, even though I was only 12, I loved her.
He's about to say, I still love you. She's not going to let him say that.
You psycho. And she does it with a joke, which is a great disarming.
With a joke, yeah. And then she objects to this, you know, what about our past lives?
And we don't have that in Yun to be that person to each other.
You know, she's explaining, I have to put a stop to this now.
And he's accepting it. And this line when he says to Arthur,
you're someone who stays.
Yeah. It's him acknowledging that. I mean, this is all, almost every line feels
like an emotional event.
Like every exchange feels like them negotiating their relationship and their
relationship is shifting.
But it is, to me, the climax, the emotional climax of the film is the goodbye at the end.
But it feels like this scene is, for lack of a better metaphor,
like this is the big fight that you would get in the third act. But it's not a fight.
This is them kind of renegotiating their relationship.
Yeah.
I think what is interesting is that she has chosen to use these moments of emotional
scaffolding to make it easier for those people who aren't necessarily actors
to understand the emotional events.
So you get a line after, I didn't know that liking your husband would hurt this much.
Yeah, yeah. I love the exchange of the yeah, yeah.
Like her just going, yeah, and him saying yeah is them in terms of dialogue
acknowledging how stunning this revelation is. but also this kind of permission
for the conversation to continue.
But in terms of the action lines, she writes, everything stops and like a magical
spell, something opens up between them.
And she is actually bolded, something opens up between them.
She's indicating in the big print that this is a beat change and that we're
going to go to something that is more kind of confessional.
And there's a few of those moments throughout. So you've got when they're having
their fight, but you met your husband, and you met your ex-girlfriend too.
The scaffolding, I'm going to use this terminology because I think it's just
my way of understanding.
There's big print, which describes action. There's big prints that helps mood.
This is kind of emotional scaffolding. It's helped us to understand what's happening emotionally.
It is tense for a moment. Are they really being jealous of each other sitting
at the same table as Arthur?
Again, I think it's absolutely correct for her to put that in to the script that gets sent around.
but it is also something that the actors can you know take very lightly they
can even cross it out with a single line if they have to look at it later but not take it literally.
Yeah no i think the reason part of the reason we've been using this term is
that we did that little script read the project we mentioned at the beginning
and we're going to be doing another read with actors right so we're going to
have there's a few people that we're inviting and we want and we like Like there's
a bunch of stuff in that script that we could take out because once you hear actors saying it,
it's actually going to be interrupting the flow and the scene and it's going to spoil the mood.
So we actually might make a version of the script where we cross out some of
these lines just for the purposes of a table read.
I think that's an excellent idea. Yeah, I think that's an excellent idea.
And so we kind of have to go, that line is really useful for when someone is reading it.
And look, this stuff can be really informative for someone like a cinematographer
who's like, oh, this feels like a beat change and maybe we do this to the,
you know, and it might be something they then offer up to the director as an
idea because it helps them understand what's going on.
But when you're sitting down listening to actors read something,
hopefully, hopefully our dialogue is good and the emotional reality that we've
constructed will help the actors do the work, you know, and communicate those emotional events.
It's just interesting to me that she's reinforcing what some of these emotional
events are and the beat changes are.
If you were doing a table read, that would be one of the lines that you do not read.
I mean, there's lots of them. Like, Nora begins speaking from her heart as openly
as she can. I mean, that is the same thing.
As I say, it's perfectly correct that it gets sent around to people.
But when you're doing a table read, it just gets in the way.
You know, if you want to hear what things are like, a reading of the stage directions
won't help you. It will help you to read the stage direction about Colonel Groves
throws the jacket at Nichols. That will be helpful.
Yeah. And some of these little moments where they take a drink or Arthur being
on his phone, I think is useful because it's Arthur choosing.
What I like about Arthur as a character in this film is he's emotionally intelligent.
And I think him looking at his phone isn't him actively being disinterested.
It's him knowing that they're having a moment and he will just keep himself
occupied without expecting any obligations to be included. That's my interpretation of it.
Well, we're talking about two different things though, right?
We're talking about whether those useful for in the script that you send around
to people or whether it's useful for the table read. So those are two different things.
Yeah, yeah, absolutely. Absolutely. I'm just saying that that's like an interesting
example of something that I think is really useful, both for the table read
and for the script, because it indicates.
You'd be surprised, though, you know, an actor's going to take out his own phone
and just do it. They don't need handholding that much.
Yeah. All right.
Yeah. Should we try and...
So anyway, you know, she and maybe Haesan has been drinking too much and he's
getting into a kind of a sob story kind of thing.
And he's going to start telling her that he still loves her.
And and she's she's going to put a stop to that. You don't get me,
but you get to know that I left my childhood with you.
And then they're going to, you know, riff around about, you know,
what were we, you know, a bickering couple and, you know, a political couple.
And ending with the bird sitting on a branch, which is just so gorgeous. Just such a nice image.
And then she leaves to use the restroom. That's it. You know,
she cuts it off. That's it.
And so now let's read this last little bit with Hyacinth and Arthur.
Arthur is still kind of on his phone, but he looks up.
I'm sorry we speak alone. We will stop.
It's okay. You haven't seen each other in a long time. I never thought I'd be
part of something like this. Sitting here with you.
Do you know what... Inyan?
Yes. Nora told me when we first met.
You and me?
Yes. You and I are in Inyan, too. do.
I'm really glad you came here. It was the right thing to do.
Okay, so I don't remember what happened. There's a lot of big print here about
Haesung becoming very emotional and starting to cry,
and then it says here Arthur is not sure what he's supposed to say or do in
response to that, so he just looks away and pretends not to notice. It's an act of kindness.
So, again, I'd have to go back and look at the movie to see how they actually handled that moment.
But I just question it all. I just question this whole paragraph.
You know, like something important happens.
But I take this clue that Haesung starts crying is that he's had too much to drink.
That's how I take that. that he's had too much to drink and he wanted to tell
Nora he still loved her and that he wanted to take her back to Korea.
And he's disciplined himself and he's taken the cues and is not going to do that.
But he's had too much to drink, so he's starting to cry.
But I don't know if they went that direction so much. I don't remember it being like that.
I think for me part of the clue at this moment is that it hurts so much to like
your husband i think that is then reinforced what's interesting to me is that
kind of structure is that's brought up a little bit in the beginning and at
the end arthur does showing him kindness i'm glad you came here it was the right thing to do that's.
The kindness as far as looking away when his son starts crying i i don't know
if that's an act of kindness maybe but but the act of kindness is what you just
said i'm glad you came here so that's part of the emotional event of the scene
as an act of kindness and an end to their relationship.
I think just leaving this moment here, I think what is the power of an emotional
event is that when you see it on screen, the emotional power doesn't need all those words.
I mean, you could say that both Nora and Arthur protect Hy-sun from making the
big mistake of crossing the line and saying, I still love you and I want you
to come back to Korea with me.
Thank you.
So, I will, just to kind of wrap us up, I think the stuff that really has struck
me over these three discussions is,
I mean, this could be my bias as someone who came to writing from directing,
that just sitting and listening to the dialogue without the big print is actually
a really good way to test whether the emotional events are working.
Right?
It seems, it should seem obvious. I think thinking of every scene and looking
for the emotional event. And I mean, that's what I came into this and going,
looking for what the emotional events are is really useful and challenging yourself.
But it was when you were talking about Oppenheimer, the idea of thinking about
what the core relationships are and the bigger movements of the story,
you know, over scenes and acts or sequences is really useful and what the emotional events are.
I wouldn't be surprised if we went back and when the second act ends with an emotional event,
right, in Oppenheim or any of these stories, that there is a big enough emotional
event that is actually what spins the story into a new direction.
Sometimes, but sometimes the emotional event is a long thing, not just one moment.
You know, sometimes the emotional event is happening over the whole scene.
Sometimes they're arguing during the whole scene or the whole beat.
It's not that cut and dried, like just one thing that puts the button on a scene.
I believe, I've got to tell you what I believe about writing.
You've got to love these characters and you've got to imagine them very, very deeply.
And you've got to put yourself in them and you've got to see what they do, not just.
Manipulate them. Oh, here's the other thing I was going to say,
is that when have you been in a situation where you had a difficult emotional
thing and you took the chance and did the work instead of sweeping it under the rug?
That's what they don't do. None of them do that. So that's the next thing that
I think everybody should do, the actors for sure,
and the directors directors and the writers is to think about,
what do I know about this? When have I done this?
Now, for the writer-director of this particular movie, Helene Song,
this was based on an actual thing that happened to her.
She did do the work, and she is sort of telling us how to do it.
It's very generous of her.
And if you're starting something new,
it's not that everything has to be autobiographical. I don't believe that.
But boiling it down to the emotional event or the emotional situation and saying,
when have I been in this situation?
What was it like? Or when have I seen somebody? Or how is it?
Like the Oppenheimer scene, that's such a male scene.
That's not something I've ever done, negotiate getting a job in that particular way.
But I still, I know enough about men, I think, that I can really get into their,
that these are people, They're hungry.
What are they hungry for? They're hungry for someone to trust and respect.
And that's a hunger that everyone shares.
That's something that happens to all of us. Now, not all of us are going to build an atomic bomb.
And not all of us are going to be in the military.
But all of us have known that craving for a relationship of trust and respect.
Somebody who's as smart as we are.
You know, that's a real human need. So that's the value of, it's like boiling it down.
You know, you don't get stuck in the plot because the plot didn't happen to
you. I mean, in this case, it happened to Celine Song.
But generally speaking, the plot didn't happen to you, but the emotional event did at some point.
And so that's part of what I call script analysis, is to do that kind of work.
That's the right place to end.
It is.
Thank you.
And for those who are interested in more on script analysis,
directing actors obviously does some breakdowns, but the film director's intuition
really goes into script analysis.
Like when I'm breaking down a script, I often put my printed copy of the book
of the director's intuition next to me, just like a kind of a mindfulness technique.
So the expanded audio book version coming out shortly.
April 3rd.
It will be part of my toolkit. It will be the kind of thing I listen to in the
car driving to set, you know, just to kind of get my brain firing, which it stopped doing.
It stopped doing a few minutes ago. This has been a fantastic couple of hours. Thank you so much.
Breaking down these scenes and looking through the emotional event.
It's addictive, this stuff. It's addictive, isn't it?
Oh, yeah. And look, it just shows you, Like we just spent hours going through a handful of scenes.
It shows you how, if you want to do script analysis on a feature,
how thorough and time consuming, you need to set aside the time to do the work.
You need to set aside the time.
Yep.
And thank you so much, Judith. I mean, you'd listened to a couple of our episodes
and said, hey, I hear you guys go quite long sometimes.
I think we should try and keep this to about an hour. And we're like,
yes, absolutely. Let's do it.
I know, I know. But I also knew that I wouldn't be able to keep myself to an hour either.
Well, thank you very much for meeting Draft Zero.
It was great fun. Thank you so
much for inviting me and for picking these wonderful scenes to talk about.
Oh, such great scenes. And I look forward to listening to the new audiobook.
I hope you all feel like arguing with either Stu or myself.
About anything on this episode or anything in general. And you can find many
ways of getting in touch with us at our website at draft-zero.com.
At the website, you'll also find the show notes for this and all our other episodes.
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