"Notting Hill" by Richard Curtis, Discussion on Screenwriting- American Writers vs British Writers

On this episode, our host Larry Wilson delves into some of the differences and nuances of screen writing between American writers and British writers. Using the very successful writer Richard Curtis's "Notting Hill" as an example, Mr. Wilson breaks down the unique types of language utilized in screen writing. He also comments on Directors vs Writers vs Producers...all quite interesting! 

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Transcript

Larry Wilson 0:02

Hi, this is Larry Wilson and this is How to Talk to Humans. This is the podcast that shows you how to improve your communication skills. Are you looking to get a better job? Are you looking to find a relationship? Are you trying to do things in your life that have frustrated you and eluded you so far? I can show you so easily how to change that. Now, I can only do it with humans. If you're looking to deal with vampires or zombies extraterrestrial, this is not the show for you. But if you're really looking to improve your communication skills, I can show you what I've learned for 40 years in the show business working with the biggest celebrities and superstars in the world, and their secrets are unbelievable. What I'm going to be teaching you during the course of this podcast every week are tools that you can use to communicate toward success. Thanks for joining me again for another episode of How to Talk to Humans. Many of you who are regular devotees of this podcast know about my love of film and of storytelling, of course. I mean, they're one in the same, as far as I'm concerned. And I was thinking particularly about the difference between British films and American films and the way they handle things, particularly as it involves language. I couldn't help but focus on this. I have a tendency to re-watch films that I like all the time. And sometimes, you know, I have the opportunity to introduce someone to them who's never seen them before. And it's fun because if it's someone you like, you know, oh, they're about they're in for a rare treat. And I was thinking about there's so many different things to approach here about the British screenwriter Richard Curtis. Now, I wouldn't be at all surprised if Americans don't know that name. But you know his films, you know the films he's written, you know Love Actually, and you know Four Weddings and a Funeral, you know Bridget Jones' Diary. The one that always comes to mind is Notting Hill. I think Notting Hill is almost a perfect film. It's flawless. It's so incredible. Now, I have to jump back and tell you why I was thinking about this so much as regards this podcast. Because there's a funny disparity between the Brits and the Yanks. In Hollywood, California, which at one time was, you know, the movie capital of the world. I don't know if it is anymore. But in Hollywood, the director was king, always. And there'd be jokes often made, you can even see them in films, popular films, jokes made about how the screenwriters who produce the material, if you don't have a screenplay, you don't have a film. There's a number of people who've tried to disprove that theory by shooting without it, and they've learned the hard way. Nothing good comes of it. But in the UK, the United Kingdom, there seems to be another tradition which is so fascinating to me. I don't know why, but the screenwriter is considered preeminent. The screenwriter seems to be more important than the director or the producer. Now, this is anathema to Americans in Hollywood. Oof. It's all about them. And maybe in a certain way, if you're just talking about business, you're right. If they're the ones who are making sure that things, they're able to raise financing, they're able to use powerful connections they have to bring certain pieces together, then perhaps you're right. But the Brits seem to have a different feeling about it, I think, where they're not as concerned. Um I don't know, having never been involved in the industry outside of the United States, I couldn't say for sure, only by what I see and what I read and what I hear from people, that uh screenwriters are accorded great respect there and I think great power that rightfully, in my mind, it makes perfect sense, because of course I'm all about the language. So I would think, of course, the screenwriter should be the most important person involved in the project. But it doesn't seem to be that way here. But there, so it's very interesting to me that Richard Curtis has created some incredible films, just fantastic films. And I know you must know a great many of them, maybe you know all of them. Uh he's created some hostage, usually comedy is involved, uh hilarious television series. There's a series, I I don't know how old it is, it's going way back there, with a Rowan Atkinson, I think before Mr. Bean ever surfaced. This is also Mr. Bean, of course, is also Richard Curtis, writing. But uh Richard Curtis, my understanding is chose Rowan Atkinson for this television show, Black Adder, which is hilarious, but distinctly not American. You might look at it and go, I'm not sure I get this. It's not that the jokes are hidden or confusing, it has to do with their communication. There is a British cultural element, uh, there's a number of them that are very different from the way we communicate in America. Uh boasting about things, braggadocio is very much discouraged, I think, by the British. It's considered improper, it's considered uh crass. It just you just don't do it. And so a lot of times when the British are talking about things or referring, now this is not hard and fast, because so much of British culture, I'm sure, is influenced by American culture, and vice versa. You know, um, you read stuff about the Beatles, and they say, oh yeah, we were raised on Chuck Berry and Little Richard, that's who we wanted to be. Well, it's wild if you think about them saying that, then you listen to some of the Beatles, you think, oh, I can hear that. Of course, of course, this is what they wanted to be. So I'm I'm sure that transference of culture goes back and forth both ways. But uh I think sometimes Guy Ritchie's movies maybe, some of them may reflect more uh American gangster culture. I'm not sure, maybe that's completely authentically British, I'm not sure. But I know that Richard Curtis's writing, and part of what makes it so great, not only is he just a splendid writer, but he is able to bring forth comedic elements, sometimes hilarious, by underplaying something that we would never do in American films or television. American film television, boom, we want to give it to you, Sacco. We don't want there to be a chance you could miss it. Whereas the Brits, sometimes it's just an aside. Sometimes it's someone just raising an eyebrow. Everything is very underplayed. And, you know, one of the first things that comes to mind, uh, the reason I love this film, Notting Hill, so much is, like I say, I would think it's almost perfect. And it's a very simple story. When I tell you the story, if you don't know the film, you're gonna think I've lost my mind. The story is a guy who lives in this little neighborhood called Notting Hill, by accident meets a very famous American movie star and is attracted to her, and she's attracted to him. And then they have a falling out, and he's heartbroken and loses her, and then tries to win her back. That's the whole film. Like you're thinking, well, that's just boy meets girl, boy loses girl, boy. Yes, that's all it is. Well, that's kind of the sign of what a great writer can do, a fantastic storyteller. And this should be encouraging to those of you following this podcast, hearing me talk about the power of storytelling as pertains to business. Because storytelling shouldn't be complicated, it shouldn't be difficult. If someone like Richard Curtis, who admittedly is gifted, if he can take a simple boy meets girl story and make it into this fantastic film, and filled with uh incredible, hilarious moments, but so memorable moments again and again and again, um, then surely you should be able to take any story that you're crafting to promote your business, what you sell, what you buy, all those sorts of things. There's hope for you yet. Uh I was going to give you an example from Notting Hill that uh if I watch the film, and I I seem to watch it maybe every couple months, I watch it again. Because I see things in it I've missed before. Leading man is Hugh Grant, and the leading woman is Julia Roberts. She's the famous American movie star. I won't give away too much, I don't want to spoil I if you've never seen it, you should really treat yourself. You'll be so delighted. It's so charming, it's so winning, it's so human, it's really fantastic. So at one point, after they've just sort of gotten together, he says, Oh, uh, he knows she has a new movie coming up that she's going to be shooting. And he says, Would you like me to take you through your lines of practicing the script? And she says, Oh, would you? And he says, Of course. And so we see sitting on his rooftop there in London, we see him helping her with the script. And it's it's terrible, you know, it's awful American action, dumb stuff. And she's having trouble with the dialogue because it's it's all talk, talk, talk, talk, talk. And she says, Oh, alert to GH1 that we have to have Blackhawks by O1700. And if you tell me how many mistakes I made there, I'll pelt you with raisins. She says, How many mistakes I made? He says, uh, 11. She's like, oh, and it's all that kind of stuff, right? And she says, Do you think this is terrible? He says, Well, it's not Jane Austen, but it's gripping. Now, clearly he's being sarcastic. He doesn't think it's gripping. But the way he says it is so funny. But the American movie star, all she hears is, Do you think I should be doing Jane Austen? And he says, Well, uh I and he he's been looking at the script, and he says, uh, he says, Well, uh, you know, I I think this is the work of a talented writer, and he looks at the cover of the screen and says, Oh, uh, writers. Now, this is the kind of joke that goes right by most American audiences. But of course, the point is, on American films coming out of Hollywood, there may be a dozen writers involved. And there are all these different peoples whose fingerprints are all over the script and changing it and doing all this stuff. And that character, in a film, he's poking fun at the fact. Richard Curtis, I think, writes all his own stuff. So if it's a Richard Curtis film, then he wrote it. But he realizes he's he's gently poking fun at a Hollywood film where there's all these names on him. I once um, I'm not gonna name drop on you, but I was invited to a screening of a film with some very famous people who knew film very, very well. And a big, big celeb saw me coming in and knew a little bit about me, said, You know film, you come sit next to me. I said, Okay. And then everyone looked at me like they'd like to strangle me, uh, because of course that's the joy of Hollywood. So we were sitting there, and I won't tell you what film this was because I don't want to spoil anyone else's day, but the film started and the credits came up. The credits came up for the editors, and there were like six names for the editors, and this big shot leaned over to me and said, That's a bad sign. I said, Yes, it is. And of course, he was right. It was a bad time, the film was terrible. But that's the kind of thing that Curtis is making fun of in that little tiny scene. I I left my own devices. I'd probably try to act out the entire film for you here. That's how enjoyable it is. But one thing that came to mind, and uh, you know, it's funny, I don't always talk about my personal life, um, but I know in a recent episode I mentioned my wife, and I have to give her credit again here. She's a very, very smart woman. She picked me, so right there, you know. Uh, but she's uh is also a writer, and she also loves Notting Hill. And as she was watching it when it was over, she said, I just sort of realized, she said, this is all very mechanical, this writing for film. I said, yeah, it's a pretty clear structure how to tell the story. She said, but it's even more mechanical than that. She said, you have uh this guy and this girl who like each other. So to make the story work, we have to come up with problems that keep them apart. I said, yeah. That's pretty much it. She said, it's so simple. I said, yeah, that's all it is. You're just creating barriers that they have to somehow surmount. They have to somehow get over. And Curtis, Richard Curtis, knows it so well that he drops things in the script that you could say, why is that in there? It's in there just to heighten that tension. At some of the most uh highly charged dramatic parts of Notting Hill, something will come up that interrupts the two, the man and the woman, who we want so much to be able to get together and live happily ever after. The silliest thing sometimes. Something will pop up at one point towards the finale, which is very dramatic, and you really don't know what's gonna happen. And the Hollywood big star woman is trying to talk to the little bookshopkeeper guy, and we're thinking, What's he gonna say? And his assistant comes in from off-screen and says, Oh, there's a phone call for you. And he goes, Not now. And he goes, It's your mother. And he says, Tell her I'll call her back. He goes, She said you said that last time, and now the foot that was purplish is sort of turning black. And it ratchets up the dynamic tension of the scene so much, and he goes off camera to go talk to his mother, and he leaves his assistant, and there's just maybe maybe it's a minute or two. His assistant is this sort of um awkward, sort of socially uh self-conscious character, and he has a couple moments interaction with the big movies that are hilarious because this guy's so clumsy and it's so he's so British, he's trying to be polite and he's making a fool of himself. And then our leading man, Hugh Grant, comes back on and the scene continues. And you realize, oh, in an American film, he would have come back on and said, My mother just said she has this uh solution for cancer, or something, you know, it would be something about that's why he had to go off camera. No, Curtis understands everything that interrupts them getting together makes us more invested in what the solution will be. It's so simple. And that's what I think my wife just sort of tumbled on, where she realized, oh, you can make up anything to make it a problem for them to get together. And here's the thing I I think that may be so great about this episode of my podcast. If you go and watch Notting Hill and you don't take away any of the important lessons I I tried to convey here about storytelling and how you can use it, it doesn't matter. You'll still have the incredible delight of watching this wonderful movie. So there's really kind of no downside for you. It all will turn out fine. In the same way, it will turn out fine next week when you join me for another episode of How to Talk to Humans. This has been Larry Wilson. I want to thank you for spending this time with me, and I hope you found this information useful. If you're looking for more, you can find it at thewilsonmethod.com. There's a ton of stuff there. In fact, if you want, you can even speak to me because I'm human. Send me an email at info at WilsonMethod.com because I read every single one. I hope that you'll join us next week in this continuing journey. And you'll be with me for the next episode of How to Talk to You.