The Writers: “Secrets exact grim toll”

The fourth of four Variety end-of-year articles on screenwriters, focusing on the duplicitous nature of movie characters… and why that’s a good thing from a dramatic standpoint. Quotes from several writers of notable 2011 movies:

Co-writer Peter Straughan [Tinker, Tailor, Soldier, Spy]: “Only gradually do you get the nightmarish sense that no one is who they seem, everyone is in on it and nobody can be trusted.”

Screenwriter Dustin Lance Black [J. Edgar]: “Hoover understood the power of secrets because he had such a big one of his own. Not only the ‘love that dare not speak its name,’ but the love he dared not speak even in his own home.”

Co-writer Glenn Close [Albert Nobbs]: “There are all kinds of different lies people live. There are secrets people are afraid to let out because it’ll affect their lives for the worse: They’ll lose their jobs, they’ll be frowned upon. … I approached this story as one about survival, and what masks people put on in order to cope.”

Co-writer/director Sean Durkin [Martha Marcy May Marlene]: “When she leaves, she can see that it was a lie, it was manipulation. But then she goes back to the world where she’s been told people lied to her, but she knows (the cultists) have been lying to her too. So she doesn’t know what to believe.”

Screenwriter/director Woody Allen [Midnight in Paris]: “…the tools of both drama and comedy. That’s what they do. … Lust, crime, deception, fraud, they’re the things that make up all the films that you see.”

Co-writer Alexander Payne [The Descendants]: “”The trajectory of the film, his quest, is simply wanting to know the truth.”

In stories, there is an External World and Internal World, and often our characters where masks to shroud the truth. That is a great starting point for any writer looking for drama, humor, tension and conflict.

For more of the Variety article, go here.