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Kindle Notes & Highlights
by
Alex Belth
Read between
January 4 - January 4, 2023
During my first week with them, I spilled a garbage can in Margo’s room, the floor littered with paper cut-outs from the hole puncher. Ethan, who’d been standing in the doorway, came over without hesitation and helped clean up.
Remain humble and empathetic.
John Lyons, the Boys’ casting director, told me that Raising Arizona was the most perfectly realized script he had ever read: “The whole thing was there on the page.” After reading Lebowski, I understood what he meant.
Script direction.
Lebowski’s intricate plot paid tribute to Raymond Chandler, each scene containing a piece of information essential to what happened next.
Leading the audience.
Joel told me that he and Ethan didn’t plot their scripts ahead of time; they let the story take them where it wanted to go. If they reached a point where they weren’t sure what should come next, they put the story on the shelf. They would go back to it later, even if they had to wait for years for inspiration to strike.
Walter: “Saturday is Shabbos. Jewish Day of Rest.” Joel: “He enjoys educating whoever will listen to his bullshit. The Village Explainer.”
Great character direction.
I noticed it most in the way that they used storyboards. Joel and Ethan storyboarded almost every shot of their movie, motivated by economic concerns as much as aesthetic ones. If a scene was mapped out shot-by-shot, the art director, wardrobe department, and cinematographer all knew what was needed from them. The actors saw storyboards, in their “sides” — shrunken copies of the script pages that would be shot on a given day — and had a clear idea of what the camera was doing in each one of their scenes.
Preparation and due diligence is key.
What would he do? He’d smoke a joint and go bowling, that’s what he’d do. Nothing is fucked, man, I told myself. Don’t be un-Dude.
Stay the course.
We are looking across the length of the bowling alley at a tall, thin, Hispanic bowler displaying perfect form. He wears an all-in-one Dacron-polyester stretch bowling outfit with a racing stripe down each side. … Displaying great slow-motion form as the Dude and Walter’s conversation continues over.
8-year olds, Dude.
He improvised The Jesus’ slow-motion dance, which was shot in 48 frames per second.
Technical details.
He used a special, Wide-Lux camera with a 28mm lens that shot 180 degrees. Each picture looked as if it were in cinemascope.
Jeff Bridges’ personal camera.
It’s something I aspire to in all my work — a lack of preciousness that makes things more human and honest, a willingness to receive what's there in the moment, and to let go of the result.”
“Scene 8. WS Brandt approaches Dude.” Nine takes were filmed, each between 10 and 18 seconds long. Take 3 included the note “with push” [which means the camera moved in]; Take 6 had the note “faster.” In this case, all 9 takes were printed: 7 marked as “Good,” 1 “OK,” 1 “Great.” “Scene 18B. CU (close up) Quintana licks/kisses ball. They shot 4 takes, and printed the last two: 06, 08 seconds.”
Reel/script/edit notes by scene or shot.
Although the Boys had carefully mapped out storyboards, they weren’t slaves to them. If they got to a location and a shot needed to be changed, they changed it. And as they cut the movie, certain sequences came together based on the footage they had.
Be flexible with shots.
