Script To Screen: “Wag the Dog”
A key scene from the 1997 satire Wag the Dog, screenplay by Hilary Henkin and David Mamet, book by Larry Beinhart.
Plot summary: Shortly before an election, a spin-doctor and a Hollywood producer join efforts to fabricate a war in order to cover up a presidential sex scandal.
INT MOSS'S HOME, AFTERNOON.A GREENE AND GREENE BUNGALOW IN THE HOLLYWOOD HILLS, AMERICAN ART POTTERY
ALL AROUND. MOSS IN BLUEJEANS AND A HAWAIIAN HAT, PACING BACK AND FORTH,
SMOKING LIKE A CHIMNEY.MOSS
But at some point they gotta know.BREAN
Who?MOSS
The...
(HE GESTURES OUT OF HIS WINDOW,
MEANING, "THE PUBLIC")BREAN
"They Got To Know?" Stan...? Get with it. Who Killed
Kennedy...? I read the first draft of the Warren
Report, said he was killed by a Drunk Driver. You
watched the Gulf War. What did you see? Day after
day, the one "Smart Bomb" falling into a building.
The truth, I was in the building when they shot that
shot, they shot it in a studio, Falls Church Virginia,
1/10th scale model of a building.MOSS
Is that true?BREAN
How the fuck do we know. You take my point?MOSS
(SHAKING HIS HEAD)
...going to War...BREAN
It's not "war." It is a Pageant. It's a Pageant...
Like the Oscars... why we came to you...MOSS
I never won an Oscar.BREAN
N'it's a crying shame. But you staged the Oscars...MOSS
Yes. Indeed I did.
(PAUSE)HE LOOKS OVER AT HIS WALL FULL OF PLAQUES AND TROPHIES.MOSS
(CONT.)
You know, you're a writer, that's your script. You're
a director...
(HE GESTURES, ET CETERA.)
But if you're the producer ... what did you do?
(PAUSE)
What did you do? All you've got is the credit...
(PAUSE)
Some plaque on the wall...HE SHAKES HIS HEAD SADLY.BREAN
And if you never won an Oscar, How'd you like an
ambassadorship...
(PAUSE)MOSS
Hell, I'd just do it for the hell of having done it,
for a story to tell...BREAN
Well, no, well, you couldn't tell any...MOSS
Hey, I know that, hey, I'm kidding...
(PAUSE)
"It's a pageant"BREAN
...that's what it is.MOSS
(TO HIMSELF)
"The Country Is At War."
(PAUSE)BREAN
It's Miss America, N'you're Bert Parks.
(PAUSE)MOSS
...Yoha, Yoha... Yoha.
(PAUSE)
Why Albania?BREAN
Because.MOSS
They got to have something that we want.BREAN
I'm sure they do.MOSS
What do we have that they want?BREAN
"Freedom."MOSS
Why would they want that?HAKAN
They're Oppressed.MOSS
No, no, no. Fuck Freedom. No. Fuck Freedom.
They.... They Want... They Want To Destroy the Godless
Satan of the United ... They want to destroy our Way of
Life. Okay, okay, okay, could we ... okay: the
President is in China. He is dealing with a Dispatch
of the B-2 Bomber to Albania. Why?
(HE SHRUGS, HOLDS UP HIS HANDS, TO SAY,
"YOU TELL ME...")AMES
Alright, well, alright: geopolitically...MOSS GESTURES FOR SILENCE.MOSS
We've just found out They Have the Bomb. We've Just
Found Out They Have The Bomb, aaaand... No, No wait a
second, no, no, wait a second, No. The Bomb's not...
it's not there -- because they'd have to have a
rocket and that shit n'they're a buncha wogs-- it's ...
it's a suitcase Bomb. Ooookay. It's a suitcase bomb,
and it's .... in Canada! Eh? Albanian Terrorists have
placed a suitcase Bomb in Canada, in an attempt to
infiltrate the bomb into the USA.AMES
You know what? This is good. This is terrific, and
I'll tell you why: it's cost effective. This is....MOSS
(SHRUGS)
It's producing.
Here is the movie version of the scene:
Reminds you of Argo, doesn’t it? The actors pretty much stick to the dialogue as written. And when you have David Mamet as the screenwriter, that would be pretty much par for the course.
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.
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