Links in Thematic Styles of Writers and Filmmakers

So I like to think I'm a budding writer, which means, of course, that one of my greatest talents* is procrastination. I'm no amateur; I don't just watch videos of cats, I spend all my time and energy reading about writing, reading about filmmaking, reading books and watching films so that I can stay convinced that I'm not procrastinating.

So pro.

Anyway, the point: I've done a lot of meditating (well, procrastinating) on the thematic styles of writers and filmmakers, particularly directors who aren't writers. Sometimes, it's extremely painfully hard to find; Sidney Lumet, for example, has a vast and intriguing filmography that seems to avoid any kind of coherent overarching thematic style. At least, on the surface. Maybe there's a distinct link between all his films, or maybe everything is exactly as it seems, I'd be lying if I told you I knew.

But, upon examining a decent selection of filmmakers, I'm inclined to believe there's something there, if only because many of these filmmakers seem to be doing this by accident. In some cases it's the director's personal style and how they approach different stories, and in some cases it's a writer-director simply rehashing the same plot points. In some cases, though, the writers/directors simply write or choose stories that resonate with them on some deep, subconscious level, which produces thematic links in a director's filmography despite even attempts to vary their work.

One example of this I like is Danny Boyle, who has some very clear thematic links through his work even though the genres and types of stories he's telling, even the formats, are so completely different, ranging from a rowdy stylistic take on the harrowing addiction movie to his stark, realistic, and humanity-driven view of the post-zombie outbreak; to his quiet contemplative marriage of hard sci-fi and spirituality to his gripping true story of man versus the elements, isolation, and his own self; to his kids' Christmas movie to his foreign film to his dark comedy and so on.

It seems silly to think all his work has a common thread, but it does. I'd go into that, but then what am I going to write new blog posts about?

What I CAN go do is present a few more examples. Some of these filmmakers are really obvious: Guy Ritchie movies almost always consist of the everyman-petty-criminal, character with street sense and a slightly more reasonable set of morals than most of the cast, who nonetheless screws up and ends up in debt to a big intimidating mob boss. To get on the right side of said mob boss, they come up with a great plan that inadvertently ends up a perplexing situation that ends in a lot of death, and the ultimate success of the protagonist, often through sheer luck and the efforts of all the other characters over their own.

...that's an oversimplification, but you get the idea. The point is, anyone who has seen some of his movies can pick out Guy Ritchie's style from a mile away, both in the way he directs and the way he writes. Tarantino is similar, though certainly a bit more nuanced and varied with his writing style.

On the other hand, some directors seem attracted to certain arcs, thematic elements and internal conflicts. This is readily apparent in Darren Aronofsky's work: He gravitates towards character studies, and particularly the effects of being absorbed or destroyed by their passion. However, the details and style can be radically different, as between The Wrestler and Black Swan, which share major themes and arcs, but are otherwise completely different in nearly every way.

So between and during whatever my other blog posts turn out to be, I'm going to be attempting detailed analyses of whichever filmmakers or writers that happen to strike my fancy. I'll probably start off with obvious directors with tiny filmographies like Ritchie, Tarantino and Aronofsky, but eventually I'll move up the ladder until I get to directors like Scorsese, Ridley Scott, Spielberg, and hopefully, eventually, Lumet.

Okay, clearly I've only been thinking about directors, cause to be completely honest, I find it more interesting when a non-writing director has these thematic links through his or her work. But I'll certainly take into account screenwriters (Aaron Sorkin, Charlie Kaufman, Paddy Chayefsky all come to mind) and writers of prose (Douglas Adams and Kurt Vonnegut spring immediately to mind, but that's because I've been on a them-binge). But for now I'm focusing mainly on filmmakers. 

The only problem in my way is that I need to actually watch every one of their movies, or at least most (I'd like to think I can ignore widely-regarded shite like Ritchie's "Swept Away", or films where the studio held far more sway than the director, like Fincher's "Alien 3", but I'll nonetheless go for all of them, cause even bombs have something useful to say). I'm also gonna keep a minimum three movies, partly so I can justify looking at Edgar Wright and Tom McCarthy, but also just because when you have so few movies, it might seem easy to find links that tie together movies when, in reality, their larger filmography over time will end up looking nothing like that. Tarantino is a good example of this, since his first two films are much more similar to eachother than they are to the rest of Tarantino's work, and looking at those films alone, one would likely paint a much more specific picture of his style. 

It may seem silly and easy to have to cut out directors with only one or two movies, as opposed to cutting it at four or five or six, but it's a lot more painful than it looks. Duncan Jones and Rupert Wyatt are both intriguing, talented directors I wouldn't mind looking at, and there are a number of recent first-time directors who have caught my attention (such as Joseph Kosinski, for his extremely undervalued work on Tron Legacy). But I won't touch on any of them, especially not the first-time directors. Maybe I'll take a look at Jones and Wyatt in some form in the future, but not to any huge extent.

To top all this off, if all goes according to plan, I'm going to use this as a way to break out of my procrastination. That's right, ending where I started, I'm so clever.

More specifically, I've been working a little on a series of projects which are likely too expensive to actually implement, but writing words costs me no money, so I can at least write them. Essentially, once I've come to a clear understanding (at least, as clear as it can get) of a director or writer's style, I'm going to attempt to apply this style to an original story. Chances are, most of these will dance the thin line between parody and love letter; an already in-progress Aronofsky-fueled story, for example, is, despite his heavy dramatic tone, a positively goofy concept, if a bit less silly in practice.

So there's that. Tune in for more, or log in, or whatever the reading-a-blog equivalent is. If you're wondering why you should care, you don't necessarily have to. I'm doing this for my own improvement and simply offering my findings on the internet.

So.


*Not my greatest talent, because that is Diddy Kong Racing. If people still played it I'd be a world champion, I swear.