The Best 3 Screenplays I’ve ever Read
You know how ‘photo dumps’ have been really popular on Instagram recently? Yeah, those albums that give college-aged individuals the chance to subtly flex how many friends they have, the quirky things they’ve done, and interesting experiences they’ve had over the past couple months. Well, I’m starting a blog today, with no particular theme in mind, except that it will emulate the energy of a ‘photo dump’ I’ve been seeing on Instagram lately. This blog will be a brain dump of topics I’m thinking about, stories that I’ve lived through and want to document, and everything in between.
Alright. First post. The Best 3 Screenplays I’ve ever Read.
Screenplays first piqued my interest when I met my mother’s friend, who happened to be a Movie Director in China. She had a fantastic career, and in conversation taught me that a movie takes a director AND producer AND screenwriter to make everything come together— she then explained that the producer was largely in charge of finances (and in that moment, a movie producer became my dream job), whereas the director and screenwriter combine their creative visions through writing and cinematography to execute the film. Once I found out that a director could take a screenplay and COMPLETELY turn it upside down by the time a movie was released, I was intrigued and wanted to see for myself what discrepancies exist between a script and its actual movie form.
My sophomore year at Cornell University, I took my curiosity a little further and took a Screenwriting class. My Professor, Austin Bunn, was a former screenwriter himself and had co-wrote a script called Kill your Darlings which was eventually made into a feature film with Daniel Radcliffe!! Wow!! The class had a strict schedule — we would read one screenplay a week, watch the film on Thursday night, then analyze it the next day in class and restart the cycle all over again each week. It is to this day, the best class I’ve ever taken in my life.
All this random context to say that I have read a lot of screenplays thus far. And I still continue to, when I have a movie I am intrigued by but don’t want to sit in the dark for 3 hours when I could be asleep… or ruining my attention span with short-form videos. Let’s get started.
The Sixth Sense by M. Night Shyamalan (http://www.screenplaydb.com/film/scripts/the_sixth_sense.pdf)
My favorite screenplay is none other than The Sixth Sense. I am NOT a Horror movie fanatic by any means, in fact the only horror movie I watched and had to pause halfway through is Carrie. However, Shyamalan’s ability to build suspense through writing and paint a visual picture of the film in his screenplay is absolutely unparalleled in other screenplays I’ve read. I could not put this screenplay down once I started reading— it also captured plot twists so exquisitely without even needing the dramatic effect of a soundtrack! I’ll give an example:
LIGHT, QUICK FOOTSTEPS AS ANNA CROWE moves down the stairs. Anna is the rare combination of beauty and innocence. She stands in the chilly basement in an elegant summer dress that outlines her slender body. Her gentle eyes move across the empty room and come to rest on a rack of wine bottles covering one entire wall. She walks to the bottles. Her fingertips slide over the labels. She stops when she finds just the right one. A tiny smile as she slides it out. Anna turns to leave. Stops. She stares at the shadowy basement. It's an unsettling place. She stands very still and watches her breath form a TINY CLOUD IN THE COLD AIR. She's visibly uncomfortable. Anna Crowe moves for the staircase in a hurry. Each step faster than the next. She climbs out of the basement in another burst of LIGHT, QUICK FOOTSTEPS. WE HEAR HER HIT THE LIGHT SWITCH.THE LIGHTBULB DIES. DRIPPING BLACK DEVOURS THE ROOM.Eerie, right? This was my introduction to Anna Crowe, a major character in the story. Shyamalan’s character development of Anna in one of the first scenes of the screenplay provide us with two things (1) We know the movie is going to be a scary one, as Shyamalan juxtaposes the innocence of Anna’s movement and beauty with DRIPPING BLACK by the end of her exit from the basement, and (2) We learn through Shyamalan’s description of Anna and context of the scene a general idea of the type of character Anna is — I envisioned a curious school girl that might find herself in trouble throughout the course of the movie. That unsettling feeling we were introduced to in this brief paragraph, Shyamalan sustains throughout the screenplay extremely well. It kept me hooked, but you’ll have to read the script to decide for yourself!!
Thelma and Louise by Callie Khouri (https://www.scribd.com/document/130397502/Thelma-and-Louise-Screenplay)
Thelma and Louise ranks second in my list because it’s the only screenplay that I’ve read that integrates a soundtrack within its script. Obviously there is no sound on a script, but Khouri incorporates lyrics in between moments to showcase a specific song playing in the background of certain scenes in the movie that added an entirely new dramatic effect to the screenplay I was reading. I’ll give an example:
EXT. DESERT - DAY Hal's eyes widen for a moment at what he sees, and then a sense of calm overtakes him and he mouths the word "alright."
B.B. KING SONG (V.O.) I've been around, I've seem some things, People movin' faster than the speed of sound, faster than a speedin' bullet. People livin' like Superman, all day and all night. I won't say if it's wrong or I won't say if it's right. I'm pretty fast myself. But I do have some advice to pass along, right here in the words to this song...
Hopefully this didn’t give any spoilers, but this is from one the final scenes in the movie— although this cut never made it into the actual film, this song matched very well with the emotions present in the characters at this point in time, as well as the actions they were about to take. What I find fascinating about this screenplay is (1) its ability to utilize music without sound, (2) the incredible and unique character development of the two main characters Thelma and Louise (3) the fact that this movie was one of the only films during its time where both protagonists are female. We love progressive films!
I would absolutely recommend reading this screenplay, but also watching the film to see the changes the director ended up making to the screenplay along the way. I thought both were phenomenal!
Shawshank Redemption by Frank Darabont (https://www.coursehero.com/file/89274285/The-Shawshank-Redemption-Scriptpdf/)
This screenplay took me a while, I will admit. I started this one once I reached the peak of a hike back home in Seattle, and was up there for a good 4-5 hours before heading down before sunset. Soooo worth it though. The screenplay told a fascinating story about Andy Dufresne, who is a banker wrongfully imprisoned for the murder of his wife. His goals are externally, to adapt and break free of prison life, whereas internally, he hopes to free himself from the guilt of his wife’s death. The crazy story arc is that (SPOILER ALERT) Andy starts as an inmate at the Shawshank prison and eventually becomes a free man who escapes to Mexico using years-worth of wisdom, friendship, and pain. The story is voiced over and entirely told by Red, another inmate, which is what makes the screenplay most captivating— the story is told through the perspective of Andy’s friend. His character development is one that is also subtle; one of the first moments where we see this is in Act II, where Andy refuses a beer offering from an inmate, saying that he gave it up when alcohol played a large role in his incarceration.
That being said, the plot was clearly the biggest drawing factor for me when reading this screenplay. The story was one that was unique, witty, etc. but what made the screenplay incredible was the way in which the story was told. It was as if I was watching the movie in my head through Red’s perspective due to its detailed descriptions. Here’s one:
Andy puts on a record, “Canzonetta sull’aria'“ from Mozart’s “Marriage of Figaro”, locks the door to the office he’s in, and broadcasts the song over the PA for the entire prison to hear.
Red (V.O): I have no idea to this day what those two Italian ladies were singing about. Truth is, I don’t want to know. Some things are best left unsaid. I’d like to think they were singing about something so beautiful, it can’t be expressed in words, and it makes your heart ache because of it. I tell you, those voices soared higher and farther than anybody in a great place dares to dream. It was like some beautiful bird flapped into our drab little cage and made those walls dissolve away, and for the briefest of moments, every last man in Shawshank felt free.
Few screenplays had brought me to tears by the end of the story, although most movies do if you ask anyone I’ve watched a remotely heartfelt movie with. The story of Shawshank Redemption was one I will remember forever, and the writing made it so.
Ok! I hope this gave you a glimpse of my favorite screenplays up to date. I found reading screenplays a great way to spend an afternoon alone or in quarantine, and I hope you will find the same joy as I do dissecting your favorite films or taking the time to see it from a new medium! :)
