Tuesdays with Tom Benedek: Reboot of the Year/Fourth Wall in TV
Screenwriter Tom Benedek (Cocoon) is back with another guest column today:
Long ago, I watched The Three Stooges on TV after every school day. A new feature film version of this epic comedy entertainment of my youth was not something I really cared much about. I finally watched it on pay per view over the weekend. Farrelly Brothers, once again I salute you! It is a movie for kids and everyone else who ever truly appreciate The Three Stooges — evoking perfectly the sounds, rhythms,emotions and passions (yes — emotions and passions) of the original one-reelers. Larry David has his best film role to date as Sister Mary Mangela. Just like an original Three Stooges one reeler, there is nothing to learn from the movie or from this blog note. I do firmly believe, though, if you liked the originals, you will enjoy seeing Moe, Larry and Curly as babies, teenagers and adults in what passes for the real world in this film. Thank you, Farrelly Brothers, for your dedication to this pursuit, for waiting to make this film until you had the concept right. That is the takeaway — no script idea before its time. Understand your intention, the kind of film you are creating before you write the script. It may evolve. But try to start with a concrete set of parameters.
On another side of the comedy spectrum, I read the Modern Family pilot script this week. It is a thirty page powerhouse of its realm. One notable aspect for screenwriting is its use of the fourth wall — the documentary style confessionals of the adult protagonists. It’s use of this fourth wall is not something which is done very frequently in feature films. Notably, fourth wall is used more and more often in many high quality feature scripts.
With this technique, Modern Family presents a constant tension between how characters view themselves and how they really are and/or how they are viewed by others around them. The use of the confessional documentary camera adds this dimension to the structure of the series scripts. This explicit Internal Throughline with multiple protagonists presenting their internal needs, internal story, carries great weight in the show. It is used for comedy and character development as much as the actual plots of the episodes. As resolutions of story conflicts are achieved, sometimes characters have moments of clarity and self-revelation in these fourth wall pieces– when they are able to adjust their behavior to fulfill their ideal of themselves or just understand themselves a little bit better. Their humanity, their internal throughlines, are exposed again and again with the help of this fourth wall dialogue.
If only Moe, Larry and Curly had been able to tell us how they were feeling about things in once in a while. Hmmm. No, thanks. I don’t think I want to know.
You can work with Tom through Screenwriting Master Class in his new session of Prep: From Concept to Outline which starts today, a 6-week workshop to figure out your story before typing FADE IN.