James Hamilton

I watched this movie at the recommendation of a writer friend who told me I would like the ending.  I quickly tracked it down and, luckily, enjoyed more than just the ending.  First, it is always enjoyable to see a period piece done this well, especially one that takes place in a city to which I just moved.  Second, Saoirse Ronan is amazing.  Like, really, really brilliant.  I’m excited to see what the future holds for her.  Here were my takeaways to apply to my own growth as a creator and writer.

1) A good story, when it’s actually good, is universal. 

Yes, it’s a movie about post-WWII immigration.  Yes, it is a love story.  These things should make for a movie that is cliche, at best.  To a certain extent, Brooklyn was similar to other things I’ve seen, as the story is pretty straightforward, but it tells a universal story in a simple way and this is the beauty.  It was a story of making a new life and the space between where you’re from and where you are.  It was told so well, without any extra baggage of depicting the time period or attempts to make a point about the plight of immigrants, that I was able to see myself and my current changes in Ronan’s character.  It engendered deep, deep empathy.  A good story should do that.

2) Be restrained.

I won’t say too much about this because I’ve talked about this before with Mrs. Miniver, but this was my favorite part of the movie.  The best, most important parts of the movie were the pauses before Ronan’s character’s responses or the shots of just her face with no dialogue.  It felt like no word had gone unchecked.  Did it matter?  Did it convey something new?  Where it didn’t, I assume it was cut.  Where the words said less than the silent, brilliant acting of Ronan, I assume they were cut. 

I loved this movie.  It’s that simple.  A friend posted about it showing at MoMa and left an open invitation for anyone who thought it sounded interesting.  The group aspect was one of my favorites parts, being able to debrief and talk about different parts enriched the experience so much.  The talent on this film was noticeably immense, from the screenplay to the acting to the editing (which wasn’t great but was apparently the first film for the editor who went on to famously make Annie Hall what it now is).  I can only dream of being a part of creating things with this depth, heart, and intrigue.  Here are a few of my most important things I want to remember.  

1) Each character can have their own story-arc.  

This was one of my favorite parts.  The movie is based on a play that had already ran to great success, which shows in the way that each character was well-defined, compelling, had their own trajectory.  The depth of character made for significantly more interesting dynamics between characters.  You were never sure whether Murray, the main character played by the incredible Jason Robards, was actually good for his love interest, played by Barbara Harris, or his nephew, played by Barry Golden (who later went on to voice Donatello in the animated Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles).  It wasn’t clear whether it was good for them to actually invest in him but the depth of character meant that you wanted them to nonetheless. 

The story arcs of individual characters was never more evident than with the Chuckles the Chipmunk character, a sort-of early Krusty the Clown from the Simpsons.  The arc of seeing his role as an entertainer to his own dislike of kids to his deep struggle to be liked and successful was hilarious and heartbreaking at the same time.  It also served the whole of the film more than just having a funny side character.

This all leads me to my next point.

2) Relationships matter.

If you’ve made good enough characters, relationships between characters should matter and should invest the audience in the same way we expect of individual characters.  As comedians, I think relationships gets brushed aside, assuming that the heart and funny of a film comes from the individual characters.  This, of course, isn’t always true, but it is something that I want to remember and focus on.  I learned this in my scene for NBC Scene Showcase.  The scene was noticeably better once I considered how the characters related to each other. 

3) Leave room for performance.

I’ve been writing “Notes worth making” on things I want to take away and learn from the things I watch, read, or see.  I just finished reading Michelle Alexander’s “The New Jim Crow” and didn’t feel it made much sense to take away techniques on craft, though Alexander is an excellent writer.  It seemed to make more sense to use it an opportunity to reflect on three thoughts/questions it got me thinking about creating, writing, and performer.

1) What responsibility does comedy have to address social issues?

I don’t have an answer for this.  It’s just on my mind.  There is a huge part of me that is called to action as I read this book, one of the most compelling and most important books I’ve read in a long time.  Part of call to action is me thinking I should go back to teaching or I should go to law school.  My creative side wants to make something to bring attention to our racial caste system and mass incarceration.  I am aware, however, that I might not know enough about this topic to inject a new perspective into the world.  Isn’t that what comedy and writing should be in its most responsible, socially-conscious form?  That’s what Stewart’s Daily Show, Wilmore’s Nightly Show, Bee’s Full Frontal, and Oliver’s Last Week Tonight do so well.  They contribute to the conversation.  The inform the way people see important issues.  

The New Jim Crow is important enough that I will start with living a better, more aware life.  I want to be an ally.  I want to listen and learn from people’s experiences better.  I want to support the Black Lives Matter movement and stand against police brutality and mass incarceration.  I suppose, to answer my own question, I will have a new responsible on issues once I’ve listened enough and have something to contribute.

2) How can comedians responsibly address social issues?

I might have already answered this above.  This is a question that is also fueled by the fallout of a New York comedian being banned from comedy clubs following numerous rape allegations.  Seeing comedians stake claim on conversations, publicly iterate on angles, and play contrarian was, at times, appalling.  It was a time of pain and confusion and people were using it to push themselves and their perspective.  It felt like listening from many comics was painfully minimally.  It feels like there is a time to joke, a time to have your voice heard, and a time to just listen.  I want to be better at knowing when is better.  As a comedian, it means that what you end up saying will be informed, caring, and never reactive.

3) Be well-rounded.  Be well-round.  Be learning.

Last night, I watched the 1976 movie, Network.  The Writer’s Guild of America listed it as one of the 10 best screenplays of all-time.  The cast alone seemed worth watching and I’ve seen the iconic “I’m mad as hell” scene at countless sporting events.  Additionally, it was 650 degrees in my room last night.  There was no reason I shouldn’t watch this movie while I sweat through my whole mattress.

Network was brilliant, stimulating, and inspiring.  As a creator, I want to make things that evoke these same feelings and do so like Network, with a deliberate, bold balancing act between heart, literary scope, and intellectual concepts.  For now, I will take away the following points.

1) Push past the next thing.

There was a fearlessness in the writing that I admired.  I thought to myself, “What an eventful movie.”  It was only part-way through.  As creators or writers or improvisers, we often so hard to find something good.  We work so hard that, once we find something, we’re scared to let it go.  We work to design moments, ideas, and narratives around the thing we’ve made.  Network masterfully pushed past this.  The richness that came from is why it is such a remarkable piece of work.  

On one plot line, it asked, “What if a beloved anchor lost his job and then his mind?”  But it kept pushing.  “What if that anchor was vocalizing things that resonated with other people?”  “What if that anchor was given a chance to have his own show?”  “What if that show revealed something important?”  “What if that anchor’s lunacy was exploited to undermine the very thing he revealed?”  

This is just one line in the narrative (and described as to not give too much away).  This was the same with the network, with relationships, with other characters, and with the political point it was trying to make.  

When we decide on the one thing that is going to happen in something we’re writing and we spend more time on engineering the world around it to accentuate or justify it, we create things that are fat, slow, and plagued with unnecessary information.  Don’t be afraid to keep pushing once you have something you like.  If it’s so good, it should lead your characters to something even better.

2) Complex intellectual or political points are best made when they are delivered with so much more.

Network is clearly exploring television, technology, and capitalism’s effects on what we believe, who we are, and how we relate to one another.  These are points that more timely than ever, and, as such, are things oh which people often attempt to offer their opinions.  Yet, what sets Network a part is that the writer and director know it’s not enough to just make a point.  Anyone can make a point.  They deliver this point alongside beautiful human moments, like William Holden’s character talking to his wife in their kitchen, and a whole lot of self-awareness.  The movie, at times, seems to be referencing itself.  

I just finished the Usual Suspects, a 1995 movie that the Writers’ Guild of America ranked as having the 35th best screenplay of all-time.  Yesterday, my friend and writing partner, CJ, made a funny reference to the movie that I could tell was funny but I didn’t fully get.  I took this as reason enough to see it.  As its prominent place in pop culture and film history suggests, the movie was outstanding.  I particularly reveled in its usage of genre, viewer expectations, and really, really good editing to create such a good experience.  As a creator, I want to remember the following two points:

1) Give the audience the right materials and they’ll knit for you.

I used to make a storytelling show called Shipwrecked!  My co-producer, Sophie, and I would workshop nearly every story before it went on stage.  One thing that Sophie used to tell the storytellers was, more or less, telling a story is like knitting.  If you start the audience’s scarf off correctly and give the audience the right materials, they will finish it for you.  They want to finish it.  

The Usual Suspects did this incredibly.  I was reading original reviews from the film and came across this from the Washington Post in 1995:

The twist at the end is a corker, but crucial questions remain unanswered. What's interesting, though, is how little this intrudes on our enjoyment. After the movie you're still trying to connect the dots and make it all fit—and these days, how often can we say that?

This is the best part for me.  The Usual Suspects answers just enough questions and gives just enough time to catch up with it that you don’t mind unanswered questions.  In fact, they make the film better.  Part of the reason Keyser Soze, generally considered one of the greatest villains of all-time, is so terrifying is because our imagination, and just enough information at the end, makes him far worse than any single thing they could show us on screen.  A more specific example of this is my next point.

2) Genre is a tool.

The film’s use of genre is exceptional.  The use of genre is something my sketch group, Stupid Time Machine, loved and used to our benefit.  People recognize genres and this recognition gives you room to play with expectations.  This is true of impressions.  You create an expectation when people hear a voice they recognize and you mess with that expectation when you say something they didn’t expect.  The best written jokes work the same way.  You recognize the structure just enough that it lulls you and then it hits with something surprising.  The flip at the end of the Usual Suspects works so well because the flip before it feels like one we’ve seen before.  We connect the dots and they shake it up one more time, which leads me to my next point.

3) Endings should be surprising yet satisfying. 

The book, “The Devil in the White City” by Erik Larson, has been on my radar for years.  When I lived and worked at Atlantis Books in Santorini, Greece, I was surrounded by it.  There had been an error, either in ordering or shipping, that led to the store having far too many copies.  We packed them away on top of, underneath, and behind shelves, moved them around to mask the excess, and tried to creatively package them with other books to move as many as possible. Somewhere, I began to gain negative associations with it and soon came to conclude that it must be a very bad book, otherwise how could there be so many left.  

I held this belief, low-lying enough that I wasn’t explicitly aware of it, for years, despite many people telling me I would enjoy it.  It wasn’t until my oldest friend, Sean, recommended it while I visited him in Chicago (the setting of the book), that I finally stared my bias in the face and cracked the front cover.  It was instantly compelling and, just as Sean predicted, I tore through it.  

As a writer, I was inspired by Larson’s remarkable writing, which constantly balanced dense and thorough history with compelling and exciting storytelling.  I strive to gain this much control over my own work and to convey nuanced and complex sentiments without ever asking too much of a reader.  Of everything, I hope to carry these points forward into my own work:

1) Know your facts but don’t fall in love with your facts.

Larson’s research and knowledge is self-evidently deep.  He famously did all his own research and refused to look at primary sources on the internet, preferring to hold them in his hands in the magic confines of libraries and archives.  The web of knowledge about Chicago’s 1893 World’s Fair, including its lasting influence, its context with later 19th century Chicago, and all its players, is seemingly at his fingertips.  He sprinkles it throughout the book and, in turns, creates an rich sensory experience, probably similar to attending the Fair itself.  But he never once loses himself in relaying this information.  He never gets overly technical or minute to drive home a point.  The result is a book that is highly informative, highly intriguing, with a readability and excitement that leads us to the next point.

2) If you’re not telling a story, people aren’t listening. 

My mom has said for a while we should watch Mrs. Miniver, a 1942 film that takes place in England at the beginning of World War II.  Considering our nation’s current, troubled state, she said she wanted it for its depiction of the strength of a nation during hard times.  It has been a long time since I have been so moved and inspired by a film.  Every element, from the acting to the writing to the directing, was deliberate and powerful.  As a creator, I want to make things with this level of depth and heart.  At the very least, I hope to remember the following points.

1. Be restrained.

This film is one of the most restrained I’ve ever seen, and, in turn, it is one of the most powerful.  A creator’s greatest display of strength is satisfying an audience with as little as is necessary.  Mrs. Miniver is a war film made during the very war it is about, one that the 1942 original review from The New York Times said this about:

Perhaps it is too soon to call this one of the greatest motion pictures ever made; perhaps its tremendous impact is too largely conditioned by one's own immediate association of one's torn heart with the people so heroically involved. But certainly it is the finest film yet made about the present war...

Yet, the movie features zero battle scenes.  It is “without a cry for vengeance.”  And, above all else, it never once relies on emotionalism or sentimentality.  And, certainly, this stoicism is a major point of the film.  It is meant as a tribute to the strength and gallantry of the British during WWII.  But as a film, this is where it derives its power. 

The bombing of the families home is not seen.  We experience it by hearing bombs dropped while the family waits in their bomb shelter.  This is far more jarring and emotional than anything they could show us. 

When one of the most beloved characters, Mr. Ballard, dies, we don’t see it.  We don’t even see the main characters learn of it for the first time.  It is mentioned at the end in a way that implies the characters already knew.  The only display we see is Lady Beldon’s eyes welling up.  My heart sank immediately.  More than I imagined.  I didn’t need anything more.

The only explosion in the whole film is a plane crashing into a tree and setting it on fire.  Even this is used as one last misdirection in thinking that Vin, the oldest son, will die before we are shocked that the war takes his wife, young Carol.  

Even then, Carol’s death consists solely of Mrs. Miniver leaving the room, Carol taking one last breath, and Mrs. Miniver rushing back to her side and I was crushed.  

The next day, Vin arrives home and he has already heard the news.  What a bold piece of writing.  His parents are waiting to greet him and break his heart, certainly resulting in an on-screen breakdown.  But no.  He already knows.  He is directed to their room.  We don’t see him walk in to find her.  We see the shadow on the wall as he opens the door and then slowly closes the door behind him.  This is certainly more powerful than any scream the actor could have possibly let out.  

Watch this last scene.

This speech is the closest the film comes to explicitly saying it’s point.  It’s a well-written speech, apt to our times in just the ways my mom said it would be.  Yet, the heaviest emotional lifting in the scene is done simply by the looks exchanged by the characters.   Starting at 2:34, Vin’s look after the preacher’s last words is followed by the lock of love given to him by Lady Beldon which is followed by Vin’s parents, Clem and Kay, looking at each other.  Pain.  Resolution.  Relief.  Surprise.  Knowingness.  Helplessness.  Pride.  These looks say more than any words these characters could have exchanged.  This is some of the best acting combined with directing combined with writing that I’ve ever seen, which leads me to my last note.

2. If you’ve done your work in other places, the more restrained you can be.

I haven’t been to an open mic since the Bill Cosby allegations kicked up again. I haven’t joked about or tweeted about him. But I’m glad others are. Twitter and open mics provide the space to pore over and react to the events of the day, and to see other people’s better or more interesting or more i