2012 Muriels: Best Screenplay

This one's up later than I wanted it to be - got unexpectedly tied up today. But I think it's worth the wait.

Third place:



Rian Johnson, Looper [110 points / 18 votes]

Second place:



Tony Kushner, Lincoln (based on the book Team of Rivals by Doris Kearns Goodwin) [137 points / 21 votes]

And your winner...




Wes Anderson and Roman Coppola, Moonrise Kingdom [154 points / 24 votes]

"It’s just as much of a cliche to call a screenplay a “blueprint” for a finished film as it is to describe Wes Anderson’s movies as “meticulous” or to liken his compositions to dioramas. Most films, especially those not written by their eventual directors, are indeed “just” a spine, a foundation to be enhanced and refined by dozens of collaborators. But you only need to look at any single given page of Anderson and Roman Coppola’s script for Moonrise Kingdom to understand that the control he has over his material, because it’s all there, every detail, right from the top.

Here’s the very first paragraph:

INT. BISHOP’S HOUSE. DAY

A landing at the top of a crooked, wooden staircase. There

is a threadbare, braided rug on the floor. There is a long, wide corridor decorated with faded paintings of sailboats and battleships. The wallpapers are sun-bleached and peeling at the corners except for a few newly-hung strips which are clean and bright. A small easel sits stored in the corner.

After I read this, my thought was that of course, of all people, Wes Anderson packs every art-directed detail into his screenplays. But then you start to notice that the microscopic attention extends not just to sets and cinematography but even the smallest edits, like this:

INSERT:

A portable night stand. There is a reel-to-reel tape recorder recording on it. A framed photograph next to it shows the Scout-Master-in-Chief posing with a troop in front of the Matterhorn.

More visual minutiae, I know, but it keeps going deeper. Look at the tiny moments of human behavior he catalogs on nearly every page:

Mrs. Bishop from overhead as she comes out the back door of the house carrying a basket of damp laundry. She pauses at a clothesline, looks left and right, then walks quickly into the trees. She crosses a foot-bridge and arrives at the dirt road. Captain Sharp stands up. They talk briefly but intensely. Mrs. Bishop leans against the car and stares into space. Captain Sharp touches her hair. Mrs. Bishop makes a gesture with her fingers. Captain Sharp hands her his cigarette. Mrs. Bishop takes a puff, hands it back, and strides away again through the woods. Captain Sharp gets into his station wagon and drives off.

One last one:

EXT. CHURCH ROOF. NIGHT

Scout Master Ward, Mr. and Mrs. Bishop, and Social Services stare with their mouths open in frozen horror. The entire steeple has disappeared. Only a twisted stump remains. Off the edge of the roof, at the end of the rope, dangling in the rain, Captain Sharp hangs swinging with Sam’s hand in his fist and Suzy’s in Sam’s. Voices shout in a panic above. Sam and Suzy look up at Captain Sharp. He says to them evenly, swaying above the rushing water:

CAPTAIN SHARP

Don’t let go.

I’d understand if all this made Anderson’s critics more ambivalent about his style, but where a few see overdetermined asphyxiation, I see the hyperspecificity as a way of organizing the almost screwball emotional cacophony in his films that always winds up overwhelming me. Don't let go, indeed." - Matt Lynch

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