Summer Reruns, Summer Not

by Christina Hamlett

By the time this column appears in print, yours truly will be teaching a film class to aspiring teen screenwriters at the Vermont Arts Institute, courtesy of Fledgling Films. This organization, which will be profiled in one of my columns next spring, graciously extended the invitation to represent the screenwriting division of their performing arts program after I had sent a courtesy copy of “ScreenTEENwriters” for the Institute’s library. No sooner had I offered to let them use any of my writing exercises in their summer curriculum than they wrote back and asked if I’d like to come and teach in person. Never having been to their neck of the woods, it’s a junket I’m looking forward to. Operators, of course, are standing by to take your orders for maple syrup…

Since summer is traditionally a time of reruns, I decided to merge one of my past columns regarding villains and heroes with the recently released list by the American Film Institute (AFI) of the 100 greatest movie villains and heroes of all time. Not only will this month’s content allow you to vicariously enjoy some of the course material I will be sharing with my aspiring film students but to learn a fun technique for developing eye-catching log lines that will grab a producer’s attention.

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Movie audiences have always loved a good showdown. Even more importantly, they love the kind of competition where—if only for a dire instant—it looks as if the champion they’ve been rooting for might actually lose. For a story to work convincingly on screen (or anywhere else!), your antagonists must always be as powerful—and enticingly charming—as the characters you have cast as hero material. If it’s an easy win, there’s just no challenge in watching it through to the finish.

I liken this to my stint in high school when I belonged to the junior varsity chess club. Yes, there really was such a group, comprised of kids who were brainy enough to make the honor roll on a regular basis but not socially savvy enough to ever get a date on Saturday night. Twice a week—and usually during the lunch hour—we’d get together in the designated nerds corner of the cafeteria to play chess.

I’ll never forget the satisfaction I felt on those rare occasions I managed to trounce the likes of Terry, David, or Arthur. They were the best of the best, a trio of chess strategists who had probably devoured every book that had ever been written on the game and who would routinely make observations about one’s opening moves such as, “Oh, I see you’re going with the 1922 Gerschenval advance this time.” Having nary a clue what this even meant, I’d blithely proceed to scoot my pieces around the board if for no other reason than to just maneuver them out of harm’s way. My opponents perceived it to be part of an elaborate, calculated plan. I knew the truth. It was just luck.

I remember equally well the complete lack of joy I felt in beating the pants off of lesser challengers. Granted, I was winning. But winning what? These were, after all, the kids who (1) had just barely learned the rules (i.e., yesterday), (2) were easily distracted (i.e., “Isn’t that Joel Carter talking to your girl-friend?”) or (3) were playing the game for the wrong reasons (i.e., to look really intellectual).

Apply these same principles to how easily Villain Subordinates get dispatched by the hero throughout the majority of today’s movies. Be they Medieval henchmen, Nazis, or intergalactic ghouls, they haven’t the vested interest in evil outcomes that the star antagonist ascribes to, thus, their lack of attention to critical detail and susceptibility to stooge-like diversions. This, of course, also accounts for the scatter-effect once the cruel leader has mortally fallen; with no one to oversee the payroll, anyone left standing may as well hightail it back to Thugs R Us for their next assignment. We have no respect for these flunkies, largely because their only perceptible quality at any given time is quantity—assemble enough of them together in one room and they look pretty darned intimidating.

In contrast, the hero (or heroine) always wages a lone battle, or at least a hugely outnumbered and grossly under-financed one. He or she is also encumbered with the onus of vulnerability, possessed of a single personal flaw which concurrently proves to be as endearing to us as it is angst-inducing. Will the protagonists we cheer for be able to summon enough inner courage in the final showdown to overcome the obstacles that have previously inhibited them? Will they emerge battered but better? Weary but wiser? Sadder but stronger for having stretched themselves to the absolute limits of cunning and endurance? As a screenwriter, you have a responsibility to make your heroes aggressively push the envelope, for only in doing so will audiences feel gratified that their faith was well placed.

The biggest difference to keep at the forefront of any con-frontation between heroes and villains is that the designated good guys in the plot still have something significant they need to learn about themselves in order to emotionally, physically, or spiritually grow. Villains, on the other hand, sport a self-satisfied gloat from the very first frame which reveals they are completely content with their badness; the world is their personal oyster, ripe for the seizing. Charismatic rogues such as these are much too caught up with marinating in their own testosterone to ever entertain the notion of self-improvement courses or a trip to the confessional.

“What if I should fail in my mission?” the hero constantly agonizes to those who have elected/volunteered/ordered him to lead. “What if I’m not man enough to do what must be done in order to right the world’s wrongs?”

The villain, of course, has no such worries. In fact, the villain probably spends a lot more restful nights than his counterpart, secure in the knowledge that all of his machinations up to this point will yield nothing less than success and world domination. Nor can this evil-doer be criticized for surrounding himself with minions who have the collective IQ of paste. It’s all part of the plan, you see. Minions are not only expendable to the ultimate cause but serve to tax the resources of the opposition. And certainly no self-respecting villain would ever recruit anyone smart enough to one day become a contender to the throne.

Just as you craft a credible and compelling background to account for your protagonist’s actions, so, too, must you have a solid understanding of what drives your villain to be so villainous. He cannot simply be rotten for the sake of being rotten. Even the Sheriff of Nottingham in ROBIN HOOD, PRINCE OF THIEVES offered up the excuse that a sad childhood can forgive a multitude of dysfunctional sins as an adult.

If you have truly captured the villain’s soul and made him a worthy adversary of your hero, audiences won’t be able to wait for each new dastardly scene in which he appears. They also won’t be able to wait for the definitive moment of victory, confident that you as the author have equitably equipped both sides with the wits, will and weaponry to make it a fight well worth watching.

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So how does AFI rank cinema’s best good guys and baddies in the last century? If you happened to miss the June 4th telecast hosted by Arnold “The Terminator” Schwarzenegger, the complete list is available at www.AFI.com. (Arnold, by the way, made both sides of the list for the very same role.)
In a nutshell, the Top 10 roll call looked like this:

Now whether or not you concur with the Institute’s choices, the existence of such an index makes for a creative mixing/matching exercise in crafting loglines that are sure to tweak curiosity. What kind of imagery is conjured, for instance, if you describe your latest project as “George Bailey Meets Darth Vader” or “Alex Forrest Hires Atticus Finch.” Would Indiana Jones’ mettle be tested against the head-spinning creepiness of Regan MacNeil? What if an injured Rocky Balboa were under the care of Nurse Ratched?

Moving farther down the list, could Lassie put the bite on Cruella DeVil? Could Dirty Harry get the goods on Michael Corleone? Would the combustible Gordon Gekko have formidable oppo-nents in Bob Woodward and Carl Bernstein? Furthermore, how would the enigmatic Mrs. Danvers of REBECCA handle FARGO's Marge Gunderson as the new mistress of Manderley?

Your summer assignment, should you choose to accept it, is to combine your choice of the best heroes versus the best villains for a brand new Hollywood blockbuster. The top 3 winners will be announced in a future issue, as well as receive a free script analysis worth $450. Entries should be submitted no later than July 25th to scriptingsuccess@cswebmail.com. Please indicate HEROES VS. VILLAINS in the subject line.

Former actress and director Christina Hamlett is a Pasadena script coverage consultant whose published works include 17 books, 101 plays and musicals, and several hundred magazine articles and columns that appear throughout the US, UK, Canada, Australia and New Zealand.