Screenplays, method acting, 3:10 to Yuma

First twenty minutes of a movie

Set up characters, conflict, and setting

Blue velvet

Directed by David Lynch, starring Kyle Maclachlan and Laura Dern, we studied an atypical opening with theme

First twenty minutes of a movie

Set up characters, conflict, and setting

Blue velvet

Directed by David Lynch, starring Kyle Maclachlan and Laura Dern, we studied an atypical opening with theme

LA Confidential

Directed by Curtis Hanson, starring Russell Crowe; typical opening with characterization

Plot point #1

Turning point, usually negative; can be a series of events in close proximity (Jerry Maguire) or 1 event (Notting Hill)

Plot Point #2

Sets up the climactic sequence, which will take up the last 20 minutes of the movie

Stanislavsky

Created the modern version of acting (less exaggerated) called the system; channel things from your past and feel the emotions

Lee Strasberg

the method: relive things from one’s past

One Flew Over the Cuckoo’s Nest

Directed by Milos Foreman, novel by Ken Kesey; starring Jack Nicholson and Louise Fletcher; method acting the Nicholson’s conflict with Fletcher; one of the three Oscars Grand Slam films

3:10 to Yuma

Directed by James Mangold, starring Russell Crowe, Christian Bale, Ben Foster, and Logan Lerman

Music by Marco Beltrami

Edited by Michael McCusker

Common motifs in 3:10 to Yuma

Time (clocks) and fire

Mark (Dan’s son)

Symbol for Dan, has tuberculosis

3 sketches by Ben Wade

The bird (that flies away when Charlie Prince arrives), the naked woman in his bed, Dan Evans on the front cover of the Bible

Cinematographer of 3:10 to Yuma

Phedon Papamichael

Screenwriter of 3:10 to Yuma

Halsted Welles, Michael Brandt, Derek Haas

Original short story author for 3:10 to Yuma

Elmore Leonard

Dynamic symbolism in 3:10 to Yuma

Clock/watches, fire, drawings, biblical intertextuality

The Hand of God

Wade’s gun; cursed (everyone that touches it dies)

Ben Wade is a…

tempter (Satan), god-figure (Hand of God), man

Common theme with Ben’s murders

Throat trauma (choking, shot to the throat)— call back to the proverb he quotes about “keeping one’s mouth to keep one’s life)

The song that Tucker sings to Ben, which Ben sings later

“Hang me in the morning/I’ll never see the sun”

Common themes in 3:10 to Yuma

Disputed land/land being taken from each other; abandonment

200 dollars

Amount of money initially offered to Dan to help escort Ben; amount of money offered by Charlie Prince to whoever kills Wade’s captors; amount of money given to Dan for his leg so that they could walk away

Bible Study

name of the music that plays when Dan reveals his deepest secret (about his leg) to Ben

Getting Ben on the train

Setting him on the right path, making sure that Dan’s family receives the money that they need really bad

Visual storytelling in train scene

Shadow of the railroad on Dan’s family gone, leaves water tower in frame (showing that the drought will end)

Noose imagery

Framing of Tucker near noose (dies of throat trauma), Dan pushes Ben past noose