Film Courage: What is The Truth Behind The Lie?
Mark W. Travis, Director/Author/Writer/Instructor: The Truth Behind The Lie…okay in autobiographical
storytelling one thing we are very strict about to a point is we are telling the true
story.
We are sticking to the truth of the characters, sticking to the truth of characters, sticking
to the truth of events.
We are not making up stuff.
But there are times when we actually fictionalize the truth (fictionalize the truth - in other
words lie) to get closer to a deeper truth.
In other words, I’ll give you an example.
When I was developing A Bronx Tale about young Calogero and his father and the gangster (Sonny).
And I said to Chazz [Chazz Palminteri] I need a story about your father.
We need some kind of story or event with your father that actually shows how he is dealing
with the conflict that you have with this gangster and how he is dealing with the gangster.
And he said “Well there isn’t any story.
There isn’t any story like that."
There isn’t any event (he said) where they got together or they confronted the boy.
I said “Well then we have to create one.”
And what we did is we created a story so we could get closer to the truth of how the father
felt about this.
Chazz knew how he felt about this but by creating a story that really didn’t happen, in a
scene it didn’t happen and in the film these scenes are still there that didn’t actually
happen because they are there to serve a purpose.
The purpose of these fictional scenes or these fictional exchanges and sometimes it even
comes down to we will put words in a character’s mouth that they never said but those words
reveal the truth of the character.
That is when we will fictionalize to get closer to the truth and that’s allowed.
Film Courage: How do writers feel about this?
Mark: Well you are talking about the autobiographical part?
First of all the writer is the character who lived through this.
Usually they feel fine about it because many times I will say okay in this situation if
your father said this…let’s say it’s a little boy (this is not from A Bronx Tale),
a father and a mother.
Let’s say an argument going on between the little boy and what happens if the mother
was in that scene or heard that scene, what would she have said?
It would have been awful.
Really?
What would she have said and he would tell me.
And he would say give me an idea of what she would have said?
She would have been horrified and furious.
He said fine, let’s put her in the scene.
But she wasn’t in the scene.
But we are trying to get closer to what the dynamics are and if we put her in the scene
we will try and experiment and many times the writer (getting back to your question)
will go Wow!
That’s good, that’s good.
That’s what would have happened.
That’s who they are.
And if I can get to that point where the writer says that is really who they are, that is
the truth of who they are then I feel fine and they feel fine because they have honored
the truth of the characters, maybe not the truth of the events.
Film Courage: What is a gap?
Mark: The gap!
Film Courage: The gap?
Not the store and not a ‘gap year.’
Mark: I like the t-shirt…not the t-shirt.
I used to have a t-shirt.
In London at the tube “mind the gap.”
When I started to realize something very important, this was long ago when I was doing these autobiographical
pieces.
I was working on one or two of them.
I forgot which one.
It doesn’t matter.
When I realized that I knew what the events were, I knew what happened.
They told me this is what happened.
But then I realized that something was missing in the telling of the story.
What was missing was from the protagonist (the main character, the autobiographical
character).
I wasn’t hearing what they really wanted to have happen or hoping would happen or expecting
to happen.
In other words if it’s a confrontation.
Let’s make it very simple, it’s a guy telling a story and it’s a story about asking
a beautiful young woman to the prom with him.
He tells me what happens and what she said.
I realize what is missing in that story was what he thought was going to happen.
What he hoped would happen.
What he fantasized would happen.
Now in other words his pursuit is to ask her to the prom and he wants her to say yes.
Prior to telling the whole story we need to know what he thinks is going to happen.
How he is going to pursue that so we are writing with that character inside his belief, inside
his expectation, inside his desire so we are writing with him.
If he leaves this out and he just says I am going to ask her out then we don’t know
how important this is, we don’t know what is riding on it.
We don’t know what he is expecting if he says yes.
We don’t know what he is expecting if she says no.
If we don’t know that, half of the scene is gone, half of the energy is gone.
What will happen…what I realize when I started exploring this is this is the we we ALL go
through life.
We all go through life no different than this interview.
All of us in this room (the four of us in this room) had an expectation of how this
interview would turn out.
And I can tell you right now we were all wrong.
It has turned out differently.
That’s all, just different.
Just different.
If we look at life as we move through life, this is life, we have a pursuit we are going
to do.
We talk about going to lunch, we will have this meal.
Immediately we have ideas about what it is going to be like.
Then I have to deal with life as it happens.
It is going to be different.
The thing you order will not be on the menu.
The restaurant will not look like you wanted it.
You will have to serve yourself.
There is no waiter…whatever.
Things are different.
So the gap, to put it in the simplest of terms is expectation versus result.
What does the character expect and then what is the result?
And how is that different?
The truth is we all live with the gap every single day.
Every single day as part of our daily experience this is what is going to happen.
All of us in this room now because we are in the middle of the afternoon have an expectation
of what is going to happen for the rest of the day.
I can tell you right now it won’t work out the way you think it’s going to.
Something different will happen.
That’s life.
So I realize in constructing these stories, these autobiographical stories, I needed to
expose to the audience through the storyteller what the character wants and needs and why
it is so important and what they are expecting, very specifically with that naive narrator
talking to the audience saying I am going to go ask her for the date.
It’s going to be great because she is not going to expect that I’m going to ask her
at all and she is going to be so thrilled because I know she likes me.
I am just giving you a lot of information as to what this character is imagining and
dreaming will happen.
And as that story goes along it gets to the point of asking her, he gets to the point
of are you going to go to the prom?
She says oh yes I am.
Oh great.
Do you want to go with me?
Now we are at that point where he thinks that she is going to be thrilled.
And what does she say?
Why would I do that?
Now BIG gap, right there!
If we don’t know how much he is invested in this the response will mean less.
We have to be carrying his investment into the scene with him and so we are hit by those
obstacles as he navigates through that scene.
Film Courage: It reminds me…I had a college professor that wrote on a chalkboard “Expectations
= Disappointments.”
Now this sounds a little negative but I think in some ways.
Mark: It’s true.
Film Courage: Yes, if you approached it this way, then maybe you wouldn’t get your hopes
dashed?
I put that saying up on a little paper on my desk at an old job I used to have and someone
said “Oh that’s so negative?”
And I thought maybe it’s being more of realist?
Mark: Flip it around.
Imagine Karen that you have expectations for something, something you want, something you
are going to do, a pursuit, and maybe it’s the simplest thing…I’ll make it very simple.
You are going to cook a meal for you and David.
It’s a meal you have never cooked before.
Film Courage: Uh-oh.
Mark: But you have the recipe, you have all of the ingredients, your expectation is it’s
going to be fantastic.
It’s going to be gourmet.
You make the whole thing and it’s all great and it looks good and it smells good and you
serve it and it is gourmet and it’s exactly what you wanted.
Is that interesting?
Film Courage: No.
Mark: The thing is if we always get the expectations or the characters always get what they expect
it’s not an interesting story because it has no relationship to life.
Film Courage: That’s true.
It’s too perfect, too planned.
It probably wouldn’t happen.
Mark: But the thing is if you are fixing this gourmet meal a and it looks good and it smells
good and David’s coming home with take out “Ah!
I got dinner.”
There is a gap.
Film Courage: There is.
Mark: Then you go “Oh no.”
Disappointment.
Film Courage: Right.
Mark: So I think the disappoint thing and that is what we live with every day.
It’s not a negative, it’s a reality.
Things do not turn out.
And it doesn’t mean things are worse, it just means they are different.
It could be better?
A gap is just if you were making that gourmet meal and you’re going “Why am I doing
this?”
Now your expectation is it’s going to be a disaster, you’ve never made it before
and you don’t have quite the right ingredients and you are using olives instead of grapes
and it turns out wonderful, well there’s a gap?
Film Courage: It’s true.
Expectations equal disappointments.
Mark: So there is the gap.
It’s very important in not just autobiographical I think in any…to me as I look at a screenplay
every scene there is a gap.
Sometimes line to line there’s a gap.
Someone asks the question, do you want to go out tonight?
The answer is where did you put the cheese?
There is a gap.
Do you want to go out tonight?
I am expecting an answer.
I didn’t get an answer.
I heard the question about where is the cheese.
In fact I never get to ask that question, so those are little gaps.
Life goes like that.
We keep navigating and working our way through a world that won’t give us exactly what
we want because that is just the way it works.