Script To Screen: “Raising Arizona”
The 1987 movie Raising Arizona, written and directed by the Coen brothers has one of the most inventive openings I’ve ever seen, a delightful, yet efficient 10-minute preface.
Setup: Introducing the two main characters. This is an excerpt of the opening:
OVER BLACK:
VOICE OVER
My name is H. I. McDunnough…
A WALL
With horizontal hatch lines.
VOICE OVER
…Call me Hi.
A disheveled young man in a gaily colored Hawaiian shirt is
launched into frame by someone offscreen.
He holds a printed paddle that reads “NO. 1468–6 NOV. 29
79.”
The hatch marks on the wall behind him are apparently height
markers.
VOICE OVER
…The first time I met Ed was in
the county lock-up in Tempe,
Arizona…
FLASH
As his picture is taken.
CLOSEUP
On the paddle: “NOV. 29 79.”
VOICE OVER
…a day I’ll never forget.
A bellowing male voice from offscreen:
SHERIFF
Don’t forget the profile, Ed!
ANGLE ON THE STILL CAMERA
It is mounted on a tripod. A pretty young woman in a severe
police uniform peers out from behind it.
WOMAN
Turn to the right.
HI
What kind of name is Ed for a pretty
thing like you?
ED
Short for Edwinna. Turn to the right!
HI obliges, but still looks at Ed out of the corner of his
eye.
HI
You’re a flower, you are. Just a
little desert flower.
FLASH
On his eye-skewed profile.
HI
Lemme know how those come out.
LOW ANGLE CELL BLOCK CORRIDOR
As Hi is escorted away from the camera toward his cell.
At the far end of the corridor a huge con is sluggishly
mopping the floor.
VOICE OVER
I was in for writing hot checks which,
when businessmen do it, is called an
overdraft. I’m not complainin’, mind
you; just sayin’ there ain’t no
pancake so thin it ain’t got two
sides. Now prison life is very
structured — more than most people
care for…
INTERCUTTING
HI’S POV of the MOPPING CON, tracking as he approaches, and
the Mopping Con’s POV of Hi as Hi approaches.
VOICE OVER
…But there’s a spirit of camaraderie
that exists between the men, like
you find only in combat maybe…
The Mopping Con snarls as Hi passes:
CON
Grrrr…
VOICE OVER
…or on a pro ball club in the heat
of a pennant drive.
NEWSREEL FOOTAGE
A ballplayer connects — THWOCK — for a home run and the crowd
roars.
PRISON HALL
Panning a circle of men who sit facing each other in folding
chairs. The pan starts on Hi.
VOICE OVER
In an effort to better ourselves we
were forced to meet with a counselor
who tried to help us figure out why
we were the way we were…
At this point the pan has reached the COUNSELOR, an earnest,
bearded young man who straddles a folding chair with his
arms folded over its back.
He is addressing one of the Cons:
COUNSELOR
Why do you use the word “trapped”?
CLOSEUP BLACK CON
The huge muscle-bound black man with a shaved head is knitting
his brow in consternation.
CON
Huh?
COUNSELOR
Why do you say you feel “trapped” in
a man’s body?
CON
Oh…
He bites his lip, thinking; then, in a resonant bass voice:
CON
…Well, sometimes I get the menstrual
cramps real hard.
PAROLE MEETING ROOM
Three PAROLE OFFICERS — two men and a woman — face Hi across
a table.
CHAIRMAN
Have you learned anything, Hi?
HI
Yessir, you bet.
WOMAN
You wouldn’t lie to us, would you
Hi?
HI
No ma’am, hope to say.
CHAIRMAN
Okay then.
EXT. 7-ELEVEN NIGHT
A beat-up Chevy pulls into the all-night store’s empty parking
lot.
VOICE OVER
I tried to stand up and fly straight,
but it wasn’t easy with that sumbitch
Reagan in the White House…
Hi is getting out of the Chevy in a Hawaiian shirt, holding
a pump-action shotgun.
VOICE OVER
…I dunno, they say he’s a decent
man, so…
He primes the shotgun — WHOOSH — CLACK — and heads for the
store.
VOICE OVER
…maybe his advisers are confused.
FLASH
Full-face exposure of Hi once again in front of the mug-shot
wall.
ED
Turn to the right!
Hi obliges but shoots sympathetic glances at Ed who is
obviously upset, wiping away tears and snuffling behind the
camera.
HI
What’s the matter, Ed?
ED
My fai-ants left me.
VOICE OVER
She said her fiancée had run off
with a student cosmetologist who
knew how to ply her feminine wiles.
FLASH
On Hi’s profile. He turns back to Ed.
HI
That sumbitch.
SHERIFF (O.S.)
Don’t forget his phone call, Ed!
HI
You tell him I think he’s a damn
fool, Ed. You tell him I said so -
H.I. McDunnough. And if he wants to
discuss it he knows where to find
me…
As another police officer starts to lead him away:
HI
…in the Maricopa County Maximum
Security Correctional Facility for
Men…
CLOSE ON ED
Looking up through her tears as Hi is led away.
HI (O.S.)
…State Farm Road Number Thirty-
one; Tempe, Arizona…
BACK TO HI
Struggling to call back over his shoulder as he is firmly
led out the door.
HI
…I’ll be waiting!
The door slams.
Here is the scene in the movie:
Questions to ask to analyze the scene:
* What elements in the movie scene are the same as the script?
* What elements in the movie scene are different than the script?
* Regarding the differences, put yourself in the mindset of the filmmakers and speculate: Why did they make the changes they did?
* How did the changes improve the scene?
* Alternatively are there elements in the script, not present in the movie, that are better than the final version of the scene?
* Note each camera shot in the movie version. Which of them does the script suggest via sluglines or scene description?
* How does the script convey a sense of the scene’s tone, feel, and pace through scene description and dialogue?
* What ‘magic’ exists in the movie that is not indicated in the words of the script? How do you suppose that magic emerged?
I’ll see you in comments for a discussion of this terrific scene from Raising Arizona.
One of the single best things you can do to learn the craft of screenwriting is to read the script while watching the movie. After all a screenplay is a blueprint to make a movie and it’s that magic of what happens between printed page and final print that can inform how you approach writing scenes. That is the purpose of Script to Screen, a weekly series on GITS where we analyze a memorable movie scene and the script pages that inspired it.