hecklongtree

I let a couple of people read my screenplay "Jilted", and, while they both liked parts of it, they felt that the script, as a whole, didn't work. One reader criticized the script for not "fitting into a solid enough category" and for containing too little fiction and too many "actual facts." The other reader, who seems to have thought the script fit the category "romantic comedy," criticized the story for failing to conform to the rules of that genre:"boy meets girl; boy loses girl; boy gets girl back." I'd like now to respond to these criticisms, criticisms which. I believe, say more about the critics than they say about my work.

"Jilted" does fit a solid enough category, but that category is not "romantic comedy." Rather, it is the screenplay equivalent of a bildungsroman (novel of formation), recounting the formative experiences through which a young man comes to discover his true vocation. "Jilted" actually fits into a subset of that genre, the knstlerroman (from ein knstler, German for artist), in which the young man comes to discover his vocation as an artist.

In "Jilted," a young man, Jim Rudin, goes through a series of experiences involving rejection. Jim is "jilted" not only by a girl, but by his parents who won't accept him for who he is, an audience that is hostile to his standup act, and the law school that kicks him out (or the law, in general, if you want to look at it that way). Jim comes to terms with these experiences by writing about them and, in the process, comes to discover his true vocation: to be a screenwriter.

After leaving New York, going to Los Angeles, attending law school, and performing standup, Jim returns home. He gets his old job back, and moves back with his parents. Then, one day, he returns from work at his old job, goes to his old room, sits down at his old desk, and writes the screenplay for "Jilted." At this point, Jim has a satori (Japanese, loosely translated, an insight).

Jim who has always listened to other people (his parents who wanted him to go to law school, the people who wanted him to change his standup act) is now able to shut other people out. At the very end, Jim gets in his car and, as his father continues to yell at him and tell him what to do, he rolls up the window, shutting out his father's voice, and heads out on his own with his screenplay on the passenger seat.

As to the charge that the screenplay contains too many actual facts, I plead nolo contendere (I will not contest it). I choose to draw on the facts of my life, rather than to rehash movies or other works of art. As to the more general charge, that my work does not conform to established dramatic rules, I will not contest that either.

In "Jilted," there is a scene in which a law school class is engaged in the discussion of a "case of first impression" (one for which there is no precedent in the court's jurisdiction). To reach its decision, the court drew on various sources including the Institutes of Justinian. Jim, perplexed as to why a 19th century American court needed to look to ancient Roman law to resolve a simple hunting dispute, asks the obvious but rather impertinent question: Why couldn't the court just come up with its own law? So I now ask, when it comes to screenwriting, why can't we just come up with our own rules?

I guess, what I'm saying is this: Listen to criticism and accept the criticm that makes sense to you. But, at a certain point, you have to shut other people out. At that point, you have to roll up your car window and head out on life's highway--alone.