The Count of Monte Cristo
The Count of Monte Cristo come pretty close to my quest for the Holy Grail of screenwriting: what is a story? But, it comes with a few reservations.
I know what this movie is about. I know what the story is. I can tell you the story in a few sentences. I know what the subject is. I know what the theme is. I know what the premise is.
But, the reason I know these things is because it’s a classic tale, and it is from classic tales that all these story ingredients are born. So one reservation is the telling of a classic tale vs. a modern tale.
This is a bit confusing, because telling a modern story doesn’t mean telling a story that takes place currently, but a modern structure to story telling contrasted with the structure of classic story telling.
It might also be an issue of reinventing the wheel. Maybe there are things that just can’t be improved on, regardless of technological advances or changing times.
An innocent and naive man is falsely accused of treason, betrayed by a best friend, is in love but loses the girl, sent away to prison, escapes, seeks revenge and wins back the girl. It’s a story about revenge. However, the best friend theme was created by the screenwriter. In the original Dumas story, the two men were jealous rivals who hardly knew each other.
It’s commonly believed revenge is a form of cancer that will eat you up inside and is something not worth the effort. But this story–the premise–proves otherwise. Revenge IS sweet. Revenge is right.
In the theory of screenwriting, a premise does not have to be a universal truth. It just has to be true in the story.
It is the classics that gave us the art of storytelling, at least storytelling in novel form. Telling stories in art, music and dance is altogether different.
And movies borrow from all these forms of story telling to tell a story in an even grander way than the literal telling of a story found in classic novels.
Do movies tell stories better than what the imagination can conjure? Well, it’s apples and oranges.
All the ingredients of good storytelling are here: action, adventure, intrigue, mystery and love. Character arcs are clear. Sets and costumes are exotic, extraordinary and exciting. Direction and editing is fast pased without losing storyline.
We have a classic sidekick: Jacopo, played by Luis Guzman.
We have a classic ally: Abbe Faria, played by Richard Harris.
Sidekicks and allies are considered important components of good screenwriting.
Dialog is clever and befitting, although some critics thought it a bit pretentious to update dialog for younger modern audiences–a valid criticism.
We have a classic damsel in distress, which bothers me. It’s a man movie with a classic love interest. One thing more modern stories do now is turn women into more heroic and stronger characters (but not enough).
The male ego is far too fragile yet for a movie about a woman who rescues a man and not the other way around. There are movies like this, I just can’t think of them at the moment.
Classic story structure: a flawed character overcomes insurmountable obstacles to reach a desired goal.
Jay Wolpert knows how to tell a story, BUT, as in Pirates of the Caribbean, he gets a lot of help from the classic story telling of Alexandre Dumas. However, it is two different worlds between novels and movies.
Wolpert is riding high on the Pirate series but I look forward to anything he does in the future.
