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Love and 21 Grams
Sean Penn and Naomi Watts in 21 Grams
Fri, 5 Mar 2004
It's rare that a single film grips the whole of The Script Factory in quite the way that 21 Grams has. Like most film fans we spend hours arguing about the relative merits and flaws of the films we've seen, but rarely agree. We were all awed by the film's devastating beauty and the storytelling power that comes from its careful structure. So imagine our delight when Guillermo Arriaga, the film's screenwriter, agreed to join us on 14 February after a preview screening to talk about writing the screenplay.
What follows is extracted from this post-screening talk.
Benecio Del Toro in 21 Grams
The event is chaired by The Script Factory Co-Director, Briony Hanson
Screen on the Green, London
Saturday 14 February 2004
[Following a preview of 21 Grams, Guillermo takes the stage to rapturous applause – this is a brief extract from the discussion which follows]
Briony
I guess the most obvious place to start is with the jigsaw structure of the film. Can you talk a little bit about how it developed? Was it always like this at script stage, or did you write a more linear version initially and then was what we see added by director or editor later?
Guillermo
No, it was there in the script itself right at the beginning. I actually see this as my job as a writer, to think about these things, and I do think the writer is the ‘authorial’ voice of the film. I always try to find the way that each story needs to be told - each story has a natural structure. In this case, this seemed like a good way to tell this particular story. I also think that we often tell stories in this way on a daily basis, and that we are rarely linear – we don’t really begin at the very beginning…If I tell you how I met my wife, I might start in the middle and then go back - I dont start at the beginning and go forward. I think this is the natural way to tell stories.
Briony
What happens with this structure is that it pulls you in intellectually first while you are trying to figure out how the pieces fit together, but yet it’s actually quite distancing and disorienting (in the same way that the characters might be disoriented by what is happening to them) … then once it has you hooked, the emotional impact of the tragedy is severe, so it’s really affecting. Were you trying to disorientate the audience?
Guillermo
With this structure, I was concerned that we have an emotional narrative while also trying to balance every scene very carefully, and make them all contradictory. It was actually difficult when I was writing, but helped by the way I write: I don’t sit down and go through one full draft. Instead on the first day I write, say, pages 1-3, then the next day, I come back and write pages 1-8. The following day, I will write 1-20, then 1-25, and so on. I am actually re-writing while I write. I do this instead of writing draft after draft – this way my scripts only have one draft!
Briony
It’s hugely refreshing that the characters you’ve created aren’t conventionally ‘likeable’, but that they are complex and flawed, and again the structure really serves this well – a great example is the sequence where Sean Penn’s character wakes in the night to a phone call from Naomi Watt’s character after their relationship has clearly begun, and suddenly you realise that Charlotte Gainsbourg’s character is still with him. It muddies his character very convincingly...
Guillermo
Well…I think that’s how people really are. I learned very early as a writer that you can’t judge your characters. To make them truthful, you must try to understand their motivations. You need to love them to try to understand them. Human beings are by their nature contradictory, so the more contradictory a character is the more believeable he also is for me. Sean Penn leaves his wife? Well, these things happen. Jack runs over and kills a family, but it is an accident. What is most interesting to me is what this person does next in this situation. What choices he or she makes define them as a person. Life is not simple…
Briony
Was there any external pressure to try to lighten this story at all – at its bare bones it’s surprisingly unrelenting.
Guillermo
Well, at one point, I thought: ‘I must put some jokes in here’… I tried but it just resisted. Then the ones I did put in didn’t end up in the film. Like there was this one line where Sean Penn’s character says ‘this heart never stopped loving you’. It was supposed to be a joke, but Sean didn’t want to say it…
Briony
Can you talk a little about where the actual idea for the film came from?
Guillermo
One day I was very late home from work, and I knew that my wife – who is in the back of the cinema there - was waiting for me and would probably be worried. I was on my way home, I had to take a highway and on the way there was this patrol car beside an accident, so I stopped because it was a road a lot of my students used to use. When I pulled over there was a man dead - someone ran over him. A police officer pulled out his wallet and out of his wallet fell this picture of the man smiling with a woman and a little girl. I thought, this man’s family is waiting for him at home and now he's dead. Maybe his family is now laughing and having dinner, this woman is playing with the little baby, and this guy is never going to arrive home. I combined this with another tragedy: my sister-in-law’s child drowned in a pool about 10 years ago - it was awful of course, and the whole family was devastated. After the death, my young son Santiago - Jack is named for him in the movie - who was about 4 at the time asked me: ‘Daddy, if I died, could you ever smile again?’. In some ways, this film is my answer to his question.
Briony
Can you describe your relationship with Alejandro? When you are working on the script how involved is he - how do you work together creatively?
Naomi Watts in 21 GramsGuillermo
Well we are in love…[laughter]! He isn’t too involved at the writing stage - though we do have a good dialogue and a great working relationship. He does his job and I do mine, which is to write. But I can tell you that Alejandro is one of the greatest directors of his generation. He is a genius and completely brilliant and I think I understand what he wants and needs from the script. I think we are very complementary, and work well together and have a good dialogue, because we have respect for each other. As I writer, I will work with someone, but not for someone, and I do actually think it’s the writer’s job to write the screenplay, create the voice of the film, but it’s the directors’ role to realise its potential and take it on to the next level.
Audience
What advice would you give to us dreamers in the audience who want to make cinema?
Guillermo
What advice would I give you? Well, I think that you have to finish what you start. Writing is very hard work. Lots of people think they are writers but they say: ‘well I just don’t have time to write this film because I have to work all of the time’. If you have something to say then, then you will say it. When I first started writing Amores Perros, I was working as a full time TV producer where I would work each morning. I was also teaching at the University each afternoon and then I would come home at night and then stay up until about 4am writing. You just have to do it that way. Finish what you start.
Audience
And with Amores Perros, there was some talk that this was actually 3 short films which were then edited together. Is this the case?
Guillermo
No definitely not. That film was also written that way.
Audience
Thank you for the film – it is truly beautiful. I found it remarkable that all of the characters were so truthful. How did you do this? For instance, you are a man - how did you write Naomi’s character so well. Are your characters based on people you know?
Guillermo
Thank you, and thank you for noticing I am a man [laughter]. How do I do it? Well, it’s my job. I am a writer. I see it as my duty to be on the scene, to be present and really listen to what people say. When I go out, I must be there. This is what I do.
21 Grams will be released by Icon Distribution in the UK on 5 March
Read further extracts from Script Factory .