Script To Screen: “The Social Network”
The final scene from the 2010 movie The Social Network, screenplay by Aaron Sorkin, based on a book by Ben Mezrich.
Plot Summary: Harvard student Mark Zuckerberg creates the social networking site that would become known as Facebook, but is sued by two brothers who claimed he stole their idea, and the co-founder who was later squeezed out of the business.
The scripted version of the ending scene:
Here is the scene from the movie:
Trust me, the dialogue in the first half of the scene is virtually identical from script to film. Hey, who would think to futz with Sorkin dialogue.
The big addition to the movie version is The Beatles song “Baby, You’re a Rich Man.” Check out how perfect the lyrics are for the movie:
“Baby, You’re A Rich Man”
How does it feel to be
One of the beautiful people?
Now that you know who you are.
What do you want to be?
And have you travelled very far?
Far as the eyes can seeHow does it feel to be
One of the beautiful people?
How often have you been there?
Often enough to know
What did you see when you were there?
Nothing that doesn’t showBaby you’re a rich man
Baby you’re a rich man
Baby you’re a rich man too
You keep all your money in a big brown bag inside a zoo
What a thing to do
Baby you’re a rich man
Baby you’re a rich man
Baby you’re a rich man tooHow does it feel to be
One of the beautiful people?
Tuned to a natural E
Happy to be that way
Now that you’ve found another key
What are you going to play?Baby you’re a rich man
Baby you’re a rich man
Baby you’re a rich man too
You keep all your money in a big brown bag inside a zoo
What a thing to do
Baby, baby you’re a rich man
Baby you’re a rich man
Baby you’re a rich man too
Baby you’re a rich man
Baby you’re a rich man
Baby, baby you’re a rich man too (fade out)
The song takes the scene which is good on the page and makes it great.
What slays me is this line of scene description: “He’ll wait all night if he has to.” The Zuckerberg-Erica subplot is only four scenes, yet it lies at the heart of Sorkin’s take on the story: That the guy who creates the world’s biggest social network is himself a failure at social interactions. That the movie begins and ends with Erica’s absence in his life (1st scene: she breaks up with him and leaves / 2nd scene: he tries to friend her on Facebook) drives home that very point.
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 Go Into The Story series where we analyze a memorable movie scene and the script pages that inspired it.
For more Script To Screen articles, go here.
