![]() The result was to bring multiple perspectives into play, to create (as if journalistically) an ample world of incident on which the movie would be based-and to which the director could then respond as immediately and as critically as if to the world itself. And it wasn’t just Hollywood: many of the classic works from the age of Italian neorealism (such as “ Open City,” “ Bicycle Thieves,” and “ Chronicle of a Love Affair”) had many cooks on the screenplay broth. One of the best things accomplished in classic Hollywood was the separating of the work of the screenwriter from that of the director-although some, such as Orson Welles and Joseph Mankiewicz, were equally adept in both realms, and although, credits be damned, the strong directors inevitably had a strong hand in making or changing (or discarding) the script. ![]() They’re those of the sludgy middle ground of earnest dramas and so-called art films, whether produced here or in other countries-and the first sign (although in no way a definitive one) is in the credit: “Written and directed by…” The paradox, however, is that the most appalling examples at hand aren’t those of the ostensible purveyors of cinematic fast food. or for live-action films, is a sort of cyborg cinema, a prefabricated simulacrum of experience and emotion that feels like the nexus of pornography and propaganda. And just as the marketing of a variety of processed foods turns the ostensible foodstuff into a delivery system for its additives, the story-processing that the Pixar list outlines turns movies into a delivery system for a uniform set of emotional juicings, and the result, whether for C.G.I. I’ve gone down this road before, suggesting that the story is the equivalent of a musical melody or an architectural framework: a basis, not a goal an element that may either be charmingly memorable or ingeniously conceived, but that is merely a starting point for a significant work, not a result. But the fulsome orthodoxy of the twenty-two rules goes far beyond a single company’s flavor spectrum to a crisis that is endemic to the modern cinema, that is, in fact, one of the strange, unintended consequences of cinematic modernity: the very notion of “storytelling” and the obsession with characters and whether they’re admirable or likable. Pixar films make me feel as if I were watching the cinematic equivalent of irresistibly processed food, with a ramped-up and carefully calibrated dosing of the emotional versions of salt, sugar, and fat. What happens if they don’t succeed? Stack the odds against.”) What are the stakes? Give us reason to root for the character. You admire a character for trying more than for their successes” “16. If it’s not working, let go and move on-it’ll come back around to be useful later.”) And some are utter hucksterism, intended to start the writer off with premises so bland that the results would have to be… well, a Pixar movie. If it stays in your head, a perfect idea, you’ll never share it with anyone” “17. ![]() Putting it on paper lets you start fixing it. How d’you rearrange them into what you DO like?”) Others have to do with practical aspects of writing and have no apparent impact on results. Exercise: take the building blocks of a movie you dislike. What you like in them is a part of you you’ve got to recognize it before you can use it” “20. Some of the rules are psychological exercises that don’t relate to composition but to a writer’s self-knowledge. Emma Coats, a former storyboard artist at Pixar, sent out a list of the company’s “ 22 Rules of Storytelling.” I confess, I thought there was just one-“whatever works”-though it’s no surprise to learn that Pixar, a Disney subsidiary, has codified its process to a programmatic uniformity. The kind of recipe for success that a soft-drink company might guard with fierce vigilance, a movie company puts online for all to see. ![]()
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