Thursday, March 02, 2006

Screenplays that go for the heart

Write wing
This year's unflinching screenwriting nominees go straight for the heart.
By Anne Thompson

When it comes to landing an Oscar screenplay win, several forces come into play, but the most crucial is passion.

In addition to the strong emotions that shape a script's creation, the way that a movie makes 5,798 Academy of Motion Picture Arts and Sciences voters feel is as important to them as it is the average moviegoer. That's why the screenplays favored to win on Oscar night March 5 are the same ones that won the recent Writers Guild Awards: adapted screenplay "Brokeback Mountain" and original screenplay "Crash." While these two films go straight for the heart, they, like many of the other nominees, sidestep easy sentimentality to tell hard-edged stories filled with loss, regret and suffering. These two films, especially, move audiences to tears.

None of the nominees took an easy road. As these writers crafted grown-up movies about grown-up issues, they often threw Hollywood screenwriting rules right out the window. In fact, the only reason that many of this year's contenders -- none of which are overtly commercial -- got made was the power of their scripts to lure top talent.

READ THE REST OF THE HOLLYWOOD REPORTER ARTICLE

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