Thursday, February 18, 2010

Challenge 19

Canned Film

Write a very short synopsis of an imaginary film, as if writing for one of those video anthologies - perhaps 10,000 Films in a Nutshell. Concentrate of images as much as you can in this summary of a plot or an interesting combination of images and time.

Word count: 300 (+/- 10%)

An Example (David Thomson's summarizing of Howard Hawk's career)

Men and women skirmish in Hawk's films on the understanding that an embrace is only a prelude to withdrawal and disillusion. The dazzling battles of word, innuendo, glance, and gesture - between [Cary] Grant and Hepburn, Grant and Jean Athur, Grant and Rosalind Russell, John Barrymore and Carole Lombard, Bogart and Bacall, [John] Wayne and Angie Dickinson... are Utopian procrastinations to avert the paraphernalia of released love that can only expend itself. In other words, Hawks is at his best in moments when nothing happens beyond people arguing about what might happen or has happened. Bogart and Bacall in The Big Sleep are not only characters tangled in a tortuous thriller but a constant audience to the film, commenting on its passage.

1 comment:

  1. Not sure what to do for this one lol -- will have to have a bit of a think...

    ReplyDelete