I'm playing a little catch-up here. This is one of last year's Oscar noms, but I still feel I should get through last year's before I can get on to this year's. In any case, A Serious Man definitely fits in with the Coen Brothers' style of really strange comedies (see Burn after Reading). It isn't so much laugh-out-loud funny, but it is so bizarre that it can't help but be charming.
Having not yet seen the movie, I'm going to stay technical here. The first thing that struck me stylistically about this screenplay (and in fact, all of the Oscar noms I've read so far) is a complete divergence from the standard code of formatting. There were no INTs or EXTs, no DAYs or NIGHTs, no CONTINUOUSes, no (V.O.)s, and above all, no (CONT'D)s. The latter intrigued me most. When a character spoke over half a page, interspersed with action, there were no additional character headers to announce the return of dialogue. It was just a steady flow throughout. On one hand, this improved flow dramatically, and I can only imagine how much space this saved (despite the script being 133 pages long). On the other hand, there were moments when I found this a bit confusing in rooms of multiple characters. Still, the technique is worth considering. To paraphrase my roommate, "Write a good script. Then worry about formatting."
I enjoyed the patterns of humorous repetition (e.g. Uncle Arthur's "Out in a minute," Sarah's "I'm going to the Hole," and Danny's endless whining about the picture quality for F Troop). These completely apathetic, self-obsessed meshuggenehs built up a delightfully awful, apathetic, self-obsessed world... and it was funny!
As with many of their films, the Coen Brothers are masters of ambiguous, unfulfilling, and debatable endings. They take, in the purest sense, a slice of life with no beginnings or conclusions, and present it for the audience to speculate on its meaning (see No Country for Old Men or aforementioned Burn after Reading). Is ambiguity the key to being nominated for an Oscar? I have as yet to see the new True Grit, but if it ends as ambiguously, there may be the answer. Good read. Check it out.
Having not yet seen the movie, I'm going to stay technical here. The first thing that struck me stylistically about this screenplay (and in fact, all of the Oscar noms I've read so far) is a complete divergence from the standard code of formatting. There were no INTs or EXTs, no DAYs or NIGHTs, no CONTINUOUSes, no (V.O.)s, and above all, no (CONT'D)s. The latter intrigued me most. When a character spoke over half a page, interspersed with action, there were no additional character headers to announce the return of dialogue. It was just a steady flow throughout. On one hand, this improved flow dramatically, and I can only imagine how much space this saved (despite the script being 133 pages long). On the other hand, there were moments when I found this a bit confusing in rooms of multiple characters. Still, the technique is worth considering. To paraphrase my roommate, "Write a good script. Then worry about formatting."
I enjoyed the patterns of humorous repetition (e.g. Uncle Arthur's "Out in a minute," Sarah's "I'm going to the Hole," and Danny's endless whining about the picture quality for F Troop). These completely apathetic, self-obsessed meshuggenehs built up a delightfully awful, apathetic, self-obsessed world... and it was funny!
As with many of their films, the Coen Brothers are masters of ambiguous, unfulfilling, and debatable endings. They take, in the purest sense, a slice of life with no beginnings or conclusions, and present it for the audience to speculate on its meaning (see No Country for Old Men or aforementioned Burn after Reading). Is ambiguity the key to being nominated for an Oscar? I have as yet to see the new True Grit, but if it ends as ambiguously, there may be the answer. Good read. Check it out.
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