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Day 3 – What I learned …
Post the answer to the question, “What I learned rewriting my scene/character…?”
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8 Replies
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The Bagger Vance scene pushed me into thinking about racial cliches in films set in modern times. My script is an inverted whodunit that deals with racism in northern Canada. My protagonist could be the White non-racist who arrives in town and is shocked by the police racism—cliché. She could be a racist who arrives in town and is befriended by the First Nations, then becomes non-racist–cliche. She could come to town as woman whose philosophy is to remain steadfastly neutral but be forced to choose between the First Nations or the police. If she becomes friendly with both, she must consider the pros and cons of both sides. I’m leaning toward the last scenario.
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WHAT I LEARNED FROM REWRITING MY SCENE/CHARACTER
Another thought I had is that despite Junah’s loss of faith in himself, he is willing to give it a try for the person and community he loves and for the sport and his ID as a golfer he loves. Perhaps even willing to suffer humiliating defeat, if he goes thru with the tournament. His love and desire to help others (and himself come out of the dumps) makes this poignant to the extent that spiritual forces send him help.
I’m thinking this is my 2 protags (it’s a Rom-Com): Jim is “sent” to help Ellie blossom out and become a strong eco-leader. Ellie is “sent” to help Jim weather his uncle’s demands on him, which pull him in an opposite direction to where he wants to go, and finally help him break out of those demands.
I was able to bring this more into various scenes throughout my script (in the dialogue) — Ellie’s lack of belief in herself (like Sarah and Junah), and finally realizing her earlier life’s plan had simply been to hide out on her reclusive great-uncle’s ranch when her actual goal and desire was to help save the earth.
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As I continue to work on my main character, I know that I don’t want the villain or the supporting character to be Magical. That’s bullshit. My main character has a past, clear desires, hidden desires, and a future just like Junah.
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Bob Kerr
WHAT I LEARNED FROM RETHINKING/REWRITING MY SCENE/CHARACTER:
My script is based on a true story where a reigning World Champion Rower comes to Wichita, Kansas to start a rowing crew at Wichita State. The way I’ve originally written the character is as a one dimensional character driven by perfection and the burning desire to compete and win at everything in life. The breakthrough I have from this assignment is there are plenty of opportunities to show this character as being the change agent instead of the task master. As a change agent he offers more moments that build on the challenge of forging a crew and provides great scenes for character development.
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what i learned from rewriting my character:
From this exercise, I was a lot more aware of contrasts and complimentary traits in my characters, which heightened the dialogue in the scene I wrote – what one character lacks, the other can provide (without being so obvious about it)….it definitely helped define my characters further and why each character is in my story.
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My character’s past should definitely be a key component to where they’re at right now/ what they have to change/ move away from/ or what they have to learn from. It could also help them achieve something with their past experience.
As Hal said, my characters should also be perfect for that film so I need to strengthen the reasons why they are.
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This reply was modified 2 years, 5 months ago by Mi Lock.
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This reply was modified 2 years, 5 months ago by
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Right Character Homework scene – Dec. 8, 2022 – Lesson 3 –
“What I learned rewriting my scene/character was I needed to reverse the characters point of view in my scene and the conflict. I had made my main character to enthusiastic and not have any doubts.
Baggar Vance was a traveling angel movie. He comes to Junah when he is hopeless and at the end of the scene we see Junah has a glimpse of hope to live his life. The scene is about golf being a metaphor for life where you learn that life is about living with what you are given.
I thought this information I found out about the book the movie was written from is interesting. Thought I’d share it.
For the record, the character “Bagger Vance” is NOT a black man. The book, “The Legend of Bagger Vance” is a play off of The Bhagavad Gita. The character “Junuh” represents “Arjuna” (a light-skinned Indian warrior) and “Bagger Vance” represents “Krishna” (Arjuna’s dark-skinned friend and advisor). If you are unfamiliar with The Bhagavad Gita, “Krisha” is the incarnation of GOD.
The author, Steven Pressfield, had publicly written about this long before his book was turned into a movie.
And so, in The Legend of Bagger Vance, “Bagger Vance” is NOT a black guy. He is “God” who has taken the temporary form of a man (who happens to be black) in order to assist Junuh. That assistance, however, while superficially about “golf”, is actually about “life” in general, and specifically about “self-realization.”
“Winning a golf tournament” was just the mechanism the author used to convey a much deeper spiritual message (whereas the mechanism used in The Bhagavad Gita was “winning a military battle.”)
Therefore, Spike Lee’s criticism of this movie is very misguided. “Bagger Vance” is NOT a black man… he’s not even a man… he’s one of the unlimited incarnations of God. In fact, it is even suggested that this kind of “divine guidance” is provided to everyone (not just “Junuh”) at all times, if they only openminded enough to receive it. Therefore, complaining about “Bagger Vance” helping a white guy with his golf swing instead of black people who were being lynched is incorrect because the “divine guidance” represented by “Bagger Vance” would also be there to help black people with their problems… but that reality is beyond the scope of the book/movie.
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What I learned is to play on one character by having another character’s traits push the first one into self-awareness and out of self-doubt.
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