Movie Analysis: “Straight Outta Compton” — Themes
Another in our bi-weekly series in which we analyze movies currently in release. Why? To quote the writing mantra I coined over 5 years ago: Watch movies. Read scripts. Write pages. You will note which one comes first. Here are my reflections from that post about the importance of watching movies:
To be a good screenwriter, you need to have a broad exposure to the world of film. Every movie you see is a potential reference point for your writing, everything from story concepts you generate to characters you develop to scenes you construct. Moreover people who work in the movie business constantly reference existing movies when discussing stories you write; it’s a shorthand way of getting across what they mean or envision.
But most importantly, you need to watch movies in order to ‘get’ how movie stories work. If you immerse yourself in the world of film, it’s like a Gestalt experience where you begin to grasp intuitively scene composition, story structure, character functions, dialogue and subtext, transitions and pacing, and so on.
Let me add this: It’s important to see movies as they get released so that you stay on top of the business. Decisions get made in Hollywood in large part depending upon how movies perform, so watching movies as they come out puts you in the same head space as reps, producers, execs, and buyers.
This week’s movie: Straight Outta Compton, screenplay by Jonathan Herman and Andrea Berloff, story by S. Leigh Savidge & Alan Wenkus and Andrea Berloff.
Our schedule for discussion this week:
Monday: General Comments
Tuesday: Plot
Wednesday: Characters
Thursday: Themes
Friday: Takeaways
For those of you who have not seen the movie, do not click MORE as we will be trafficking in major spoilers. If you have seen Straight Outta Compton, I invite you to join me in breaking down and analyzing the movie.
In some ways, SOC traffics in some quite traditional story themes: Creative struggle leading to financial success leading to division and strife. This is the arc of many musical acts as well as non-musical sagas such at The Social Network. These themes weave their way through the bio-pic backbone and substance of the narrative.
However the movie really soars when it hits on a theme laid out upfront in the band’s anthem “Fuck tha Police”:
Fuck the police coming straight from the underground
A young nigga got it bad cause I’m brown
And not the other color so police think
They have the authority to kill a minority
Police are present in several scenes and sequences: Compton, Los Angeles, Torrance, Beverly Hills, Detroit and elsewhere. And always they are a threat. They swagger with that very “authority to kill a minority”. Every time the story focuses on the confrontation between cops and the “minority” as represented by members of N.W.A., the scenes bristle with tension, conflict, and energy.
There is a moment thick with irony in which the guys watch the famous video of the Rodney King beating. At least he lived. How many instances have we seen in the last few years, video of police shooting and killing an African-American youth?
This theme — “police think they have the authority to kill a minority” — is to me the most powerful one in the movie as it speaks to a situation in our country which is likely worse today than three decades ago when N.W.A. leaped onto the scene.
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