Christopher Riley, Screenwriter, Author, and Instructor: Somebody has said that
the job of the artist is to see and then to show others what they've seen.
Film Courage: Can we talk about moments that heal or repair a character?
Christopher: I love moments in film where there is restoration of some kind that happens in a
way that seems believable, that doesn't seem shangri-la. I think about the film Blood Diamond
in this regard. There's really two stories that happen in Blood Diamond.
We have the story of a South African diamond merchant played by Leonardo DiCaprio who is
trafficking in these blood diamonds (I think this the movie takes place in Sierra Leone)
and so he's on the hunt for this giant diamond that he's heard has been found out in the
mines that are run by the rebel military and the rebel military conscripts boys as child soldiers
both to fight for them but also to work in these mines. The other main character is played by
Djimon Hounsou and he's the dad of a boy who has been abducted and taken away from his village
made to be a soldier who commits atrocities so this young boy 10 years old maybe
has been made to do horrible things and his dad is determined to find his son and somehow
bring him back to the family and as he's doing that he gets forced into working
digging for diamonds for the people who stole his son from him and he finds this massive diamond
and he buries it out away from the camp and continues looking for his son
Leonardo DiCaprio finds out Djimon Hounsou's got this massive diamond hidden
and at gunpoint takes him to dig up this diamond and just as they're digging
for this diamond chime and Hounsou's son shows up and is holding a gun on both men
Leonardo DiCaprio alerts Djimon Hounsou's who's digging for the diamond that his son is here
and so this father turns to his son who now turns the gun to him and is calling out the sons calling
out for help and Djimon Hounsou's says you're not one of them you're my son and i'm your father
your mother waits for you your sister waits for you the wild dog who listens to no one
waits for you at home you're not a bad boy I know they made you do bad things but you are
going to come home to be me and be my son again and I’m going to love you and in the midst of this
the father is walking toward his son walking toward the barrel of the gun and the son
begins to cry and slowly lowers the gun and allows himself to be embraced by his father
that is written directed and acted in a way that you believe that
that is a moment of restoration and recovery that maybe shouldn't even be possible
that it would be that you could recover a child who has been put through those experiences
the film presents it with a kind of emotional believability that
certainly represents a defining moment for that boy and his father
that is going to be the pivot point certainly this kid's going to need
probably lots of therapy and lots of love over lots of years to completely emerge from
that awful darkness but in that moment you believe that there is real hope and that
this moment represents a before and after that they will look back 10 years from now and see
that is the moment that the healing began that the restoration began and that love began to eclipse
hate in the life of this boy I think healing's like that it doesn't usually come in a moment
usually it comes a little bit at a time but it it has a beginning and as storytellers as filmmakers
we have the capacity to aim the camera aim the attention of the audience at even the minutest
movements so that we are able to perceive the moment when a process of healing begins
and actually allow the audience to to see feel and appreciate what's happened
in a way that if we were on stage and we were looking at the proscenium
like you'd miss it you'd never know what was happening we we have the capacity to to zoom in
on these massively significant movements of character that are almost imperceptible
somebody has said that the job of the artist is to see and then to show others what they've seen
and for me this is an example of that of looking closely enough to see this
monumental thing that's happening in this tiny little frame and blow that up so that we see it
we understand it we we appreciate its meaning and we feel it and it seems that combination of
meaning and emotion are another of the things that we we just really crave from our stories
just out of curiosity what was the Leonardo DiCaprio character doing during that moment he was
he was standing and watching he had he had his assault rifle and
I think he was ready to shoot the boy if he felt he needed to but he was he
was also witness he was bearing witness to this miracle moment
so even I haven't seen the film but because his intentions sounds like they were not that
honorable either okay so he but he's seeing this and do you see a little bit of change
in that character at all yes yeah after that he he discovers that actually he's been shot in the
fire fight that happened just before this scene he ends up really sacrificing himself to help
father and son escape so yeah it does actually transform him to have witnessed this moment.