Interview with Syd
Field
Interview by
Michael Geffner
You could say
that Syd Field wrote the book on screenwriting. His longtime classic,
Screenplay: The Foundations of Screenwriting, if not something of a bible in
the industry, has sold more than 600,000 copies, been translated into 17 languages, and used in
nearly 400 colleges and universities around the country. He's also written the
internationally acclaimed best-selling books, The Screenwriter's Workbook,
Selling a Screenplay, Four Screenplays, and The Screenwriter's
Problem Solver.
The Los Angeles Times Magazine once referred to him as the "the first prophet
of writing for the screen."
Field has collaborated with top Hollywood writers, directors, and producers, such
as Roland Joffe (The Killing Fields), James Brooks (Terms of Endearment,
Broadcast News), and Joe Eszterhas (Basic Instinct, Jagged Edge), and been a
special consultant to 20th Century Fox, the Disney Studios, and TriStar Pictures.
His former students include Anna Hamilton Phelan (Mask, Gorillas in the Mist),
John Singleton (Boyz in the Hood, Poetic Justice), Randi Mayem Singer (Mrs.
Doubtfire), Laura Esquivel (Like Water for Chocolate), Michael Kane (The Color
of Money), and Kevin Williamson (Scream, Scream 2).
Here is my exclusive interview with Mr. Field:
Who were your early influences in film?
I had three, all great directors.
Jean Renoir, the filmmaker who directed two of the greatest
films ever, Grand Illusion and Rules of the Game. He was, without
question, my mentor, and I was lucky enough to spend a couple of years with him
at the University of California at Berkeley. It was an extraordinary experience.
He taught me everything I now know about film. How to look at it. How to
approach it. And what the art and craft of it is. On the subject of characters,
he once told me it's more effective dramatically to portray an SOB
than a nice guy. It's worth thinking about.
Michelangelo Antonioni, Italian filmmaker who directed the
masterpiece La Notte, about a disintegrating marriage. He showed me
exactly how to tell a story more with pictures than with words and explanations,
about the emotional arc of the character underneath the level of dialogue and
overall tip of the storyline.
Sam Peckinpah, the notorious American filmmaker who
directed The Wild Bunch. I spent a summer with Sam while he was
co-writing The Wild Bunch. And we talked about everything, from
screenwriting to directing to Westerns. I learned a lot just by being around
him.
Where did you get your start?
At David L. Wolper Productions. In the four years I was there, I worked my way
up from the shipping department to writer-producer, working on, in one way or
another, 125 documentaries, including National Geographic, Biography, Jacques
Cousteau. There was a ton of great talent scattered throughout that company.
Naming just a few, William Friedkin (director, The French Connection and
The Exorcist), James L. Brooks (writer, director, producer, Terms of
Endearment and As Good As It Gets), Walon Green (co-screenwriter,
The Wild Bunch), and Alex Haley (writer, Roots).
Were you shocked by the success of Screenplay?
Yes, but I knew that people were hungry for it. When I taught screenwriting at
the Sherwood Oaks Experimental College in Hollywood, my students would always
ask me, "What book can I read about screenwriting?" And the only one I knew of
was The Art of Dramatic Writing by Lajos Egri. And that was about
playwriting and written in the mid-1940s. So I knew there was a need for a book
like mine. I based Screenplay on my teachings and my two-year experience
in the 1960s as a reader for a movie company called Cinemobile, where I read
more than 2,000 scripts. The thing is, of those 2,000 or so scripts, there were
only 40 that were memorable to me, that really worked well. It got me thinking
[about] what makes a great screenplay. I was determined to find out what made
those 40 better than all the others. So I broke them down, analyzed them. The
book is an outgrowth of the conclusions I ultimately came to.
So what makes a great screenplay?
The two big answers: Strong characters and strong action. But what I've found
with most young screenwriters, they try to tell their story through dialogue,
through words, and not with action. What they don't understand is, film is
behavior, creating an emotional situation that the character reacts to. When the
story is told more with words than visuals, it makes for a bad, talky-talky
screenplay, where the main character becomes very passive. The main character
must always be active. He has to initiate the action.
Which screenplays would you suggest studying then, the ones to model?
For action and character, Thelma and Louise, written by Callie Khouri, is
by far my most significant teaching film these days. Also The Shawshank
Redemption, written by Frank Darabont. For character, Alan Ball's
American Beauty is wonderful. And, of course, Robert Towne's Chinatown
is a masterpiece of film noir.
What's the best piece of advice could you give an
aspiring screenwriter?
To write from your heart and don't be afraid to write shi**y pages. You can't
change something from nothing. Get it down on paper first, no matter what it
looks like.
Please visit his outstanding website:
www.sydfield.com
Michael P.
Geffner has been a writer/journalist for nearly 30 years, appearing in hundreds
of publications, including the USA Today, Details, The Sporting News, The
Village Voice, FHM, Texas Monthly, The Writer, and Los Angeles Magazine. He was
awarded first place for magazine profile writing in 2000 by the Society of
Professional Journalists (NJ), voted Best Sportswriter in New York City in 1990
by New York Press, and has been acknowledged for notable writing six times by
the annual anthology, The Best American Sports Writing.
Mr. Geffner is
also a private writing coach, publishes a monthly newsletter for aspiring
writers of all genres, and hosts two very popular online writing forums:
http://groups.yahoo.com/group/mikeswritingworkshop/
http://groups.yahoo.com/group/newyorkcitywriters/
He can be
reached at: mgeffner@earthlink.net
