Week 2 - Initial Thoughts
Can't speak for the rest of my group but I'm not a big fan of O.Henry's writing style so settling on an idea has been tricky. I don't generally enjoy stories this didactic or heavy handed in their message, overuse of exposition is a pet peeve, twists are kind of overrated - it's just not to my taste.
Having said that, after reading a couple of synopsises I managed to find a story that kind of intrigued me: 'The Cactus'.
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Synopsis - A man comes back from his ex’s wedding remorseful of how their relationship ended. The brother of the bride sheds some light on the situation.
Initial thoughts:
Flashbacks to the relationship - perhaps from the main characters point of view, a biased, misremembered account of events, like an unreliable narrator
Idea of the cactus as a peculiar object which the narrative revolves around e.g like an episode of Inside No.9
Dysfunctional relationship, the protagonist has an ego problem, he’s too proud and this is his downfall
All the main characters are men, the women need to be less passive / have more agency in our adaptation
The misunderstanding revolves around language (the main character brags that he knows Spanish, he doesn’t, she responds to his proposal by sending a note in Spanish, he never receives the message) - how do we make this more cinematic? Maybe on-screen text?
Need to bring up to modern day and alter the locations to suit the time period/location e.g the characters meet to talk in a pub?
Could use a lot of close ups, make the cinematography experimental, led by sensory imagery, with lens distortion, unusual aspect ratio to enhance the whimsy in the story
Only 4 characters, could be narrowed down to 3 - Captain Carruthes and the Brother-of-the-Bride could be condensed into one character?
The name of Trysdale would be changed to something more current
Inspired by Wes Anderson - whimsical, ironic, a dry comedy (as opposed to a tragic drama, although it might still have notes of tragedy?)
Themes:
time / memory / reminiscing
plants e.g the cactus - reminds me of victorian flower language
miscommunication / language
narcissism / self-obsession / pride / vanity / ego
regret
The concept of responding to a proposal after a few days is outdated now so this plot point would need to be altered slightly
Could frame it as a story within a story? It feels like a story with a moral, it wraps up too nicely to be a straight forward drama, this world is different to the reality we recognise as our own therefore framing it with a story gives us more scope to have fun with it. Only question is who would be telling this story and why?
could use different aspect ratios, edit footage to look archival, or use actual archive
close ups of details e.g handwritten notes
could project 'memories' onto the characters face or explore similar experimental methods
how I'm currently imagining it (visually/stylistically/tonally)...
Deep focus, tableau style framing for the dialogue with cutaways to focus in on details - taking inspiration from the cinematography of Robert Yeoman (know for his work on Wes Anderson films) and Erik Wilson (specifically Submarine, The Electrical Life of Louis Wain, and the HBO series Landscapers).
Ironic, dryly humorous with attention to detail. Use of slow tracking shots and quick edits inspired by Edgar Wright's earlier filmography.
