Voices
guy says to the operator, “Shit,
he’s running.”
WRITER: Right.
HEAD WRITER: I don’t understand.
He’s running? Running from
what? He didn’t do anything, so
the only thing the kid would be
running from would be the guy?
WRITER: Hmm. Maybe that’s
not clear.
The Head Writer thumbs
forward a few pages.
HEAD WRITER: Then somehow, out
of the blue, the kid has the man
on the ground, a struggle ensues,
and the man pulls out a gun and
shoots him in the heart?
WRITER: The guy had no choice.
It’s self-defense.
HEAD WRITER: I don’t understand.
The guy on the ground is yelling,
“Help, help.” And then the guy on
the ground screams? And right
after he screams he shoots the kid.
WRITER: Exactly.
HEAD WRITER: You ever see a
scene in a movie where a person
screams and then shoots someone? It’s normally the other person who screams and then gets
shot. This is just too illogical.
WRITER: Okay, I’ll finesse that.
HEAD WRITER: Why doesn’t the
BARRY
LEVINSON
guy just shoot the kid in the arm?
Or the leg? Or the stomach?
WRITER: It was a struggle.
HEAD WRITER: Yeah, but when I
read the script it’s not credible.
It’s more like a shoot to kill.
WRITER: No, it’s a self-defense
scene.
HEAD WRITER: I don’t buy it. It’s
much easier just to shoot the kid
in the arm or the leg. It would take
more effort to raise the gun up. The
guy aims for the heart. Therefore
he knows he’s going to kill him. It’s
too illogical. Change it.
WRITER: But this is what
happened.
HEAD WRITER: It doesn’t have the
credibility to be a dramatic episode. Unless we want to chase the
ghost of Paddy Chayefsky and get
into absurdism. You know, like he
did with Network. Unless you want
to make a satire on how screwed
up the legal system is, show me a
script that makes sense.
So you can see the dilemma
of trying to write a script based
on this tragic event. The logic
evades us. And the reality
haunts us.
Barry Levinson is an Academy Awardwinning film director and screenwriter.
HUFFINGTON
07.21.13