Before I get to today’s blog…

Thinking about doing more with your writing? Why not join me in Paris June 2-7 for my Masterclass in Screenwriting? Come be part of a dynamic community of writers and literary agents to learn, to write, to network, to energize your literary goals—and just to have fun in the City of Light!

The Paris Writers Workshop is the longest running literary program of its kind. This program offers 6 masterclasses by renowned authors, each a specialist in their field—and I’ll be teaching the Screenwriting Masterclass—in English, of course.

The workshop will be held at Columbia University’s beautiful Reid Hall campus in the heart of literary Paris—Montparnasse.

Registration is now open: https://wice-paris.org/paris-writers- workshop

We’ll have a great time getting your story ideas off the ground!!

Movies from the Heart—Two for the Road

As we look at movies from the heart, let’s agree that these love stories and heartwarming relationships the movies portray aren’t always perfect. Some of the best movies that look at relationships and how they work portray couples who aren’t always super happy.

Two for the Road [1967] by Frederic Raphael is the gold standard of those kinds of films.

I have to confess upfront that this is one of my favorite films of all time. It goes into delicious depth as it takes us through years of the relationship between Joanna and Mark.

Take a look at a trailer for the film.

The marketing folks who wrote that trailer repeated the line 3 times that they wanted to get across: “Audrey Hepburn and Albert Finney make something magical out of being alive.”

Huh?

Did they watch the movie???

Because the point of this movie is NOT that it’s fun to be alive - it’s that marriage is tough. As most people who are married can attest to. But what’s particularly special about this film is the WAY it tells this story.

It’s not linear. It doesn’t show us the two of them as they meet, marry, have problems as the marriage goes on… no. Instead, it shows us snippets of their marriage at various points in their lives.

We see these five timeframes in their lives:

1. How they meet traveling through France one summer.

2. Young—rather poor—marrieds on a car trip through France.

3. A business trip for him where we hear the letter he’s written her but SEE the affair he has with an attractive blonde.

4. A car trip through France with an old girlfriend of his, her husband and their young daughter.

5. The two of them with their young daughter on a working trip [for him] in France where we see the pressures of the marriage testing their love.

6. As he works on a project in France, she has an affair. He finds out, goes to find her, but she won’t come back—though eventually she does.

7. They fly to France—with their car on a private plane and having left their daughter home with the nanny—for the housewarming at a house he’s designed.

These timeframes span about 10 years of their lives and they all take place in France. We never see their life in England.

This film is one for study for the serious screenwriter. Look at how the writer transitions from one timeframe to the next. It’s genius.

Study how he combines the timeframes in a way that helps us understand their marriage and what it’s like.

And study the dialogue to see how this relationship grows and changes.

Take your time and rewatch this film. I swear, every time I see it I notice something else the writer did that was interesting/different/thought-provoking.

Next week, we’re off to visit Love Among the Ruins.

Copyright © Diane Lake

31Mar24

Email Diane a question to Diane@DianeLake.com