Christopher Riley, Screenwriter, Author, and Instructor: Individually we can have defining
moments, families can have defining moments and certainly characters if they are lifelike,
we'll have moments that define them as well.
Film Courage:
Can you tell us why the movie Ordinary People was a defining moment in your life?
Christopher: I think when I saw Ordinary People I was about 17 years old and it was the first
really serious movie I had seen after Chitty Chitty Bang Bang and
it also really spoke to who I was as a kid. I was
kind of a socially awkward lonely kid and so I felt whatever discomfort went with with that and
Ordinary People showed this main character who looked on the outside like he had everything
together and like he didn't experience the kind of pain that I experienced but then the film
because it's a beautifully told story reveals his secret life and in his secret life he's actually
just come out of treatment after a suicide attempt and he's going to high school, he's singing
in the choir, he looks to everyone like he's one of the ones who's really got it all together
and for the first time as I sat in the audience I realized oh it's possible that what's on the
surface isn't what's really going on underneath that's I guess something adults know I didn't know
that as a 17 year old and so that film showed me that I wasn't the only one so that was that
was the first thing that made a huge difference to me and then the second thing was I realized
oh so the people around me might actually be in pain even though it's not obvious I
need to treat people differently and that is something that has continued to shape me
decades later I look at people differently because of what that film taught me about
other human beings and then the third thing for me was I saw for the first time what a movie could be
and so I thought this is what I want to do I want to tell these kinds of stories
that reveal characters and that move people that provide meaningful emotion so for me
seeing Ordinary People became a dividing line in my own life on multiple levels and so for me
that is a defining moment and I assume you saw it in the theater I did I saw it in the theater
I owned the dvd it's still wrapped in cellophane because I can't bear to go
back and watch it I'm afraid it either is not as good as I remember or it will be
I don't know I don't want it to disappoint me and so I just keep it under wraps yeah yeah I can
agree with doing something it's almost like it's frozen in time there's something special there
that's exactly right yeah and I don't want to disturb that memory because that memory is vivid
and is kind of a bedrock of the person I've become and how were other people leaving the theater
after watching that film I think other people were powerfully moved by it Mary Tyler Moore delivers
fantastic performance as the sort of cold-hearted mother who is the whole time she's on screen
you fear she's driving her son to suicide and I remember wanting to like take my shoe off in the
theater and show it at this throw it at the screen when she was on screen which is what a testament
to to that performance so I think other people were really moved I'm not sure how many people
would point back to that experience as a defining moment in their lives it's one of the things
about film I think that is fascinating to me that we all have different responses
to it that are partly shaped by the film itself but partly shaped by us and what we bring to the
film who are the characters and Ordinary People so you've got the dad played by Donald Sutherland
the mom played by Mary Tyler Moore and then the 17 year old son and then there's a there's another
brother who's really absent from the movie because he drowned before the events of the movie that was
a defining moment for that family and each one of these characters responds in a different way
Mary Tyler Moore's mother character kind of makes it clear to her surviving son that she wishes that
the other brother had survived and that becomes the seed of his misery is that sense of being
rejected by his mother and his dad is trying to figure out how to put his family back together
after the tragic loss of the one son and the just the terrible chemistry that's going on between
mother and the surviving son played by Timothy Hutton and they're all doing the best they can
but it feels so real at least to me sitting in the theater it felt like this is a real family
I didn't feel like I was watching a movie and and I think that that's also informed
even the way that I approach writing as a screenwriter that's the tone I go for I love
naturalism I don't write big bombastic comic book kinds of material because that's not what speaks
to me it is that sense of I've gotten lost in a dream and this feels in some ways more real
than reality because a great film reveals more of the characters than sometimes I'm able to discover
of the people that I actually know and I find I really crave
understanding who's really there and so a film that shows that to me I really love and I strive
to do that as a storyteller as well to really peel back the layers and reveal who the characters are
that we're dealing with I'm just curious when did you purchase the dvd to Ordinary People I probably
bought that something like 10 years ago I think I just came across it on a shelf somewhere and
when I first had that thing in my hands I thought well I should I should watch this
and that I just kind of felt resistance in myself to that and so then it ended up on
my shelf of DVDs and now it's even hard to find a dvd player in the house if I wanted to watch it
can you give us a general explanation of what a defining moment is Kathy who's my co-author and my
wife and I first encountered the idea of defining moments through a mentor of ours a television
writer producer named Coleman Locke and he was mentoring us through a rewrite of a feature film
that we we had written early in our careers called after the truth and Coleman made us work really
really hard he told us we would come to hate him and I thought that that was hyperbole but
he was right he pushed us so hard we didn't come to hate him we have a tremendous respect for him
but I remember foolishly asking him at one point do other writers really work this hard
and I've come to find out yes they do the good ones do but he he had this idea that he shared
with us and the idea was all of us have a handful of experiences that have profoundly shaped us so
we live through lots of moments every day in our lives but not every moment is equal
in terms of its impact on shaping us and Coleman believed that there were about maybe a half dozen
moments that each one of us could point to that account for much of the person that we are today
and his idea was that the same would be true of characters and if we wanted to deeply understand
our characters what drives them how that broken character got broken or how that broken character
eventually heals that we would locate that half dozen or so moments that have defined
those characters and that that would actually be more valuable than understanding how much
change is in the character's pocket or so many of the infinite number of details that we could know
about about a character Coleman's thought was it is these moments that define the character that
tell you more than anything else you could possibly know
and so Kathy and I began doing that work with our characters looking into their pasts to
discover the moments that it shaped them and then looking into the time of the story the
time that's actually unfolding in a movie or television episode and saying what are the the
moments that happened live in front of our eyes that not only have formed a character but now in
in real time before us transform the character into who they're becoming
so for us what we discovered about defining moments that helps us to
locate them is they always tend to create this boundary between before and after
we talk about the time before the house burned down and the time after the house burned down
all of us on this planet will talk about the time before the pandemic
and please god the time after the pandemic at some point so the planet can have a defining moment
individually we can have defining moments families can have defining moments and certainly characters
if they are lifelike we'll have moments that define them as well how many defining moments
are there in Ordinary People boy in Ordinary People because it's been so many decades since
I saw the film that I can just say off the top of my head there was the moment of the drowning so
when the oldest brother dies tragically that is a moment that defines the whole family
and then also and so that happens before the movie begins and then another defining event
is when Timothy Hutton's character attempt suicide and that creates another before and after moment
for purposes of the film the impact of that attempted suicide is that
we as the audience as soon as we know about that are on the edge of our seats because we fear that
he's going to complete the act that he's going to take his life and we like this kid
and we view that that would be tragic and so we are rooting for that not to happen
we are infuriated by his mother's coldness to him every time he tries to connect with her
she pushes him away and we just want to scream at her don't you see what's happening don't you
see how much he needs you can't you put your arms around your son all of that is rooted in
that defining moment of the suicide attempt which is made known to the audience so that we we get
the good out of it we get the emotional juice that flows from that and then there's a defining moment
of a kind of connection if I am remembering the movie correctly that happens between Timothy
Hutton and his dad Donald Sutherland that makes you believe that maybe they're going
to make it and so it creates this other turning point a kind of a kind of provisional healing
there may be more in there those are the three that that remain in my memory
so it's a film of a lot of pain and grief but it's also a hopeful film
but it's bittersweet because the mom's character doesn't get to participate in that reconciliation
and again if I go back and never crack open that dvd I may find out I'm remembering wrong
but in my memory those are the three key defining moments that immediately come to my mind.
What movie/TV show was a defining moment in your life?