- (The action in the following scene is shown through reversed film.). - With those gloves you’ll go through the mirror as though it were water!. - Look at the time.. - Orpheus prepares to go through the mirror. - Orpheus walks forward, his gloved hands extended toward the mirror. - His hands touch reflected hands in the mirror.. - Orpheus walks through the mirror with his hands in front of him. - The mirror shows the beginning of the Zone. - Then the mirror reflects the room once more. - When Orpheus returns with his wife, Eurydice, after a series of adven- tures in the Zone, the clock is just striking six. - An image in Cocteau’s Beauty and the Beast, as breathtaking today as in 1945 when the film was first released, is described in the screenplay very simply. - The story is set in the 17th century. - Her two wicked older sisters are hanging sheets in the yard, one of many household tasks that used to be left to poor Beauty.. - In the first shot, Beauty hands the pearl necklace to her eager sister. - In the second, she hands Felicie the necklace of dried rags at the same pace, with an identical gesture. - splicing the first half of the first shot onto the second half of the second one at the instant Felicie touches the jeweled necklace. - Even today’s audiences, sophisticated in the ways of special effects, give a gasp of delighted surprise at the results: Cocteau indeed “proves” to us the reality of the world that his characters inhabit. - And he expresses this in the script by simply writing, “It turns into a bunch of dirty twisted rags.”. - These images and the way in which they are put together are the “language” of film. - So it makes good sense, when considering material for your short screenplay, to ask yourself early in the process the most important question of all: Will this story lend itself to being told prima- rily in images?. - What follows are detailed accounts of the openings of three short films regarded as classics. - Below, in the distance, we glimpse a wooden bridge, where a Union officer is bawling orders. - A brutal-looking sergeant carries a length of rope toward a man in civilian clothes who stands at the edge of the bridge, hands and feet bound. - In his mid-thirties, he is dressed in the fine. - He sees the sentinel above and the riflemen all around him, and then the rope breaks.. - In less than five minutes, through a series of powerful visual and aural images, we are able not only to grasp the main character’s terrible predica- ment but also will be able to identify with him in the desperate struggle to journey home that follows.. - He takes this off, wrings it out well, replaces it at a dashing angle, and checks his reflection in the mirror of the wardrobe.. - After a few turns, they stop and begin to warm up as if preparing to exercise: The dark youth does a som- ersault or two and the fair one some sketchy calisthenics. - In The Red Balloon (Albert Lamorisse, 1956), we see a cobblestoned plaza surrounded by tall, gabled houses, in which a little boy of about five appears, carrying an adult-sized briefcase. - A moment later the window is opened, and the balloon is thrust outside, where it hovers uncertainly. - There is a dissolve (indicating another time lapse), and the little boy emerges on the street, looking about for his friend. - Like the wardrobe in the Polanski film, the personified balloon in Lamorisse’s contemporary fairy tale is presented in a logical and convincing manner. - Unlike the wardrobe, however, the balloon is an object with the dis- tinct attributes of a character, much like one of the magical animals who befriend the heroes of fairy tales: it is the “stranger” in the ritual occasion structure. - “proves” to us, in Cocteau’s use of the word, how a spirited, lonely little boy, and the playful balloon he encounters, go about becoming friends in a provincial world that does not look with kindness on little boys or balloons.. - from the well-fitting dark suit he wears and the big leather briefcase he carries, we surmise that the child in The Red Balloon is from an upper-middle-class family and that he is expected to behave like a miniature adult.. - In Incident at Owl Creek, the face of the main character is the only pleasant one in the sequence—the sergeant looks brutal, and the officer and soldiers are as impassive as puppets. - In Two Men and a Wardrobe, both the look of the two main characters—ami- able and slightly goofy—and their innocent exuberance on the beach quickly endear them to us. - They treat one another and the young woman they meet with old-fashioned courtesy, and the wardrobe they lug about with respect- ful familiarity. - In The Red Balloon, the young hero is slight but wiry, with an elfin, dreamer’s face. - His outsized briefcase reminds us of the sort of small humiliations unfeeling adults can visit on children. - In the context of the film, it is not only the main character’s friend but his double, his secret self.. - After this, we witness the grim realities of the main character’s situa- tion, including the carefully detailed looping, tying, and knotting of the rope in the hangman’s hand. - The scene is shot and cut in a leisurely way, and the young men behave as though they had all the time in the world. - But as soon as they begin their journey through the streets and back alleys of the city beyond the beach, the rhythm and tempo of the film change. - We are bombarded with visuals in the editing style of an old- fashioned documentary, and the villainous inhabitants grimace and use broad, threatening gestures, as if in a silent comedy.. - In The Red Balloon, our first glimpse of the little boy is of a small figure enclosed by towering houses. - The images of a shadowy male figure watch- ing him from an upstairs window of the school, and of the equally shadowy female figure watching him from an upstairs window of his house, serve to emphasize the lack of freedom in his life.. - Its brilliant red color, besides being emblematic of life and courage, serves to accentuate the dreariness of the stone-colored world through which the little boy ordinarily moves.. - A FURTHER EXAMPLE OF SCREENWRITING IN IMAGES The opening sequence of the script for the feature film Dangerous Liaisons, written by Christopher Hampton, provides a fine example of how a writer can delineate aspects of environment, character, and conflict with images alone.. - or “master format,” the film script format most widely used in the United States at the present time. - DAY The gilt frame around the mirror on the MARQUISE DE MERTEUIL’s dressing table encloses the reflection of her beautiful face
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