Book, Film or Website?

A choice and a decision…

Adapting into a feature film

Teacher: Your task is to decide how to tell the story of someone famous, or maybe someone not so famous. The story of their achievements, and their failures. The twists and turns in their life.

Margaret: Is it about their work or their character?

Teacher: Both. The character of a person is reflected in what they accomplish.

__________

Voice-over

How best to tell a story of a person and their work? Why?

(a) By writing a biography.

(b) By adapting the story into a novel.

(c) By making a documentary film.

(d) By adapting the story into a feature film.
(e) By making a website about the person.

...

Quotes in biopics

100,000 English cannot control 
350 million Indians.

Directors weigh in on using quotations…

David: Biopics are a reconstruction of a person’s life. So the dialog is also a reconstruction.

We are governed by people who care more
 about feelings than thoughts or ideas.

Stephen: So Gandhi didn’t actually say, “100,000 Englishmen simply cannot control 350 million Indians, if those Indians refuse to cooperate."

David: Sometimes a good scriptwriter can summarize a hero’s thoughts.

Stephen: And sometimes the hero, or heroine, is a source of direct quotes. Margaret Thatcher actually wrote, “We are governed by people who care more about feelings than they do about thoughts and ideas.” So in Iron Lady, we had Meryl Streep say that.

__________

Voice-over

A quote can be disputed (there is an argument over whether the speaker actually said or wrote it). Or it can be misattributed (somebody else actually said it or wrote it).

The Gandhi line is a quote we might wish he’d said, even if he didn’t.

And the Thatcher quote can be found in her autobiography. It is not disputed, misattributed or a line we might wish she’d said or written.

...

The Imitation Game: Subtraction simplifies, addition amplifies

After two biopics in two days...

Alan: Hawking and Turing.

Stephen: Both mathematicians. Both brilliant. Both great biopics.

Alan: And both more about relationships than reality.

Stephen: Well, the Hawking relationship seemed to be realistically acted.

Alan: But the treatment of Turing by bringing in the relationship with the spy… that episode was gratuitous fiction.

Stephen: Balanced the complexity of explaining code-cracking though.

________________

Voice-over

Biopics are exercises in subtraction and addition.
Subtraction simplifies the story, addition amplifies the action.
But in life we deal with diversions, to tell a story well we cull and control.

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