Dispatch from The Quest: Brandon Cohen
Last week as we did here on GITS, the Quest writers focused on the subject of Theme. Today’s dispatch: Brandon Cohen muses about porn stars, solar systems and themes… not necessarily in that order:
I have an emotional connection to all of my favorite movies. I can’t tell if they feel the same way about me (I might have come on too strong). It’s kinda weird to me that I haven’t cried in real life for years, but without fail, every time I watch Bubba die in Forrest Gump or the Big Fish scene where Will Bloom rushes his father to the water, I absolutely lose it. Even my therapist doesn’t get it, saying things like “you’re emotionally shallow” and “this is Verizon customer support, not your therapist, please stop calling.”
People watch movies to escape, but they also watch movies to feel something. A good movie is supposed to elicit a reaction from you. Not necessarily tears — it might be weird if people are bawling in your comedy (although I was when I saw Grown Ups and realized my childhood comedy heroes were dead …), but there should be some type of visceral reaction. I remember when I saw the movie The Girl Next Door, which is, at face value, a silly teen sex romp about a guy losing his virginity to a porn star, but there was something about it that really affected me. I was a senior in high school when it came out, and was already starting to get nostalgic about leaving my childhood behind. I walked out of the theater feeling like I needed to take advantage of my youth. Not by banging a porn star per se, but by seizing all the opportunities that being young had to offer.
It’s pretty rare for me to leave a movie that makes me reflect on my life, but when it happens, it’s a truly memorable experience and it makes me want to revisit that movie over and over again. People will see a movie because of a director, actor, interesting hook, etc., but they’ll return to it for the emotion associated with their viewing experience.
I know it just took me three paragraphs to establish the pretty obvious point that movies with some depth to them have emotional longevity with viewers, but I think from a writing standpoint it’s definitely something you have to be conscious of. We learned all about themes last week in the Quest, and while I don’t think I ever really thought about it from an academic standpoint, on a subconscious level I’ve always known that my favorite movies have pretty deep and universally human themes that account for their appeal.
Also, forget about the viewer for a second. As a writer, I think it’s exponentially easier to write when you actually have something to say. I’ve found that even when I think I’ve come up with a killer hook, if it’s not something that I have a point of view on, my lack of enthusiasm will come across on the page. And, I don’t think a theme is something you can just throw in during the rewrite. “Hmmm — he’s fighting lizard men throughout the movie, lizards are kinda like snakes, snakes were in the Garden of Eden, okay cool yeah it’ll be a metaphor about original sin and how we must reject sin in order to be swept up in salvation.” I like to think of theme as the sun that the solar system of your story world revolves around.
As much fun as it is to write scenes about fighting flying lizard men, audiences are smarter now than they ever have been, and I think that while we definitely go to the movies to escape, we also go to be moved. So, who needs a girlfriend when I get all the emotional support I need from my movies! Also, movies don’t have the ability to have sex with older guys who played football in college and then not even have the balls to tell you about it to your face but make you find out through your friend, Erica, you coldhearted bitch!
“I like to think of theme as the sun that the solar system of your story world revolves around.” Now there’s a new metaphor you can use for theme. And you can add a dollop of “it’s exponentially easier to write when you actually have something to say” to the mix, a double shot of writerly wisdom.
Tomorrow: Another Dispatch from The Quest.
About Brandon: NYC native, fan of all things comedy. I cry every time I watch Big Fish, Forrest Gump and Marley & Me. Don’t judge me. Twitter: @brandandco.