What makes an award-winning screenplay?
A commentary on screenplay in movies, illustrated with examples from Midnight in Paris and Forgotten (no spoilers)
After watching two movies this week, Midnight in Paris and Forgotten, both which struck my heart, I suddenly think — why does the former get an Academy Award for Best Original Screenplay, yet, the latter get nothing? There is nothing inferior in the plot. It is more witty, suspending, and twisting, in my opinion. Why does a fantasy love story excel in the screenplay, then?
Firstly, I thought it is the ambiguity in the possibilities of things. For Midnight in Paris, the viewers and even the main characters don’t know how they have travelled from the present to the earlier times, to the golden times of their dreams, respectively. Other than that, though, the story is pretty much straightforward. The main character goes through a series of events and has an epiphany. The only ambiguous mystery is how it all happened.
Whereas in Forgotten, viewers will later learn about the truth of the events and piece the puzzles together with the help of the character’s narration and the viewers’ brains. Some may argue that the narrative is a bit blatant, yet, is that so bad? In that circumstance, there is no better way for the truth to unfold. The main character can continue to run around, but will it do any good? It just chooses a different way to tell a story.
Thinking of it, I realized there are not many award-winning thrillers. The only ones I can think of are Black Swan and Parasite. I concede that might be because some believe that thrillers are like action movies; they are a relatively inferior genre. They lack artistic values that draw “ahhh” and “ohh” (not the kind of sound people make when they are scared, but when they understand something) from audiences and critics. For the general audience, good plots and good acting can already satisfy them, but not for critics. It seems to me that a lot of them stress the “depth” of a film. A good movie should tell a relatable story, should be conveying something deeper, etc.
While they are not wrong, these thought-provoking movies are becoming the norm. No longer do people watch movies to relax, but they watch them to think, to pounder. Perhaps that’s the difference between an award-winning film and a film merely for entertainment. No matter how witty it is craved, if it fails to tell a more in-depth story, if it fails to solicit a deeper feeling from its viewers and especially critics, then it can never be award-winning. That conflicting, astonishing moment of an epiphany, the irony buried deep in a film, these are the elements that put depth in a movie.
Well then, isn’t that blatant itself too? Blatantly making viewers reflect, blatantly giving the characters in the movie moments of epiphany. If a movie reflects a social phenomenon, reflects stories in the society that are forgotten, aren’t they also doing a good job in planting depth in a story?
In my opinion, the worst kinds of movies are those with no apparent plot, no background, no believable characters, no good shots. And Forgotten is far from that.
So, even when Forgotten didn’t win anything, it will remain as one of my favourite movies, so is Midnight in Paris.
