9 April 1999, 905 words
It's an old axiom in the film industry that good books always make bad movies. This means that any attempt to make a movie about The Good Book is doomed to failure. Today's column is a behind-the-scenes look at the difficulties which I imagine would present themselves. The characters are well-known producers Warner Goldwynn, better known as WG, and well-known director Alan Smithe, better known as Alan Smithe.
Scene: WG's sumptuous offices. Enter Smithe.
WG: Have a seat, Al.AS: Thanks, WG.
WG: I've been looking over the script. Great stuff. It's epic, it's violent, it's got intrigue, betrayal, sex - and that's just the first 20 minutes. And the special effects! Talking serpents, floods, earthquakes, men with long beards. To say nothing of creating a whole universe! We'll have them glued to their seats.
AS: Glad you like it, chief.
WG: Oh, I like it, I like it a lot. There are a few holes, though.
AS: Holes?
WG: A few. Nothing big. Nothing a good director can't handle.
AS: Well, you know, chief, the book's author mightn't like us changing his stuff.
WG: Then he should have written it right in the first place. (Smithee flinches, looking upwards.) I mean, look at Act 1, Scene 2. "I will make a helpmeet for him," says this God character. But in Scene 1, he's already created man and woman. Says so right in the instructions for the FX.
AS: Sorry, chief. This script had a few writers.
WG: I saw! Over twenty of them! What's with that? Even for us, that's kind of excessive.
AS: I know chief. But the book had even more authors than that.
WG: Oh, well that explains a lot.
AS: The guy whose wife became salt?
WG: No, that was okay. There's no motivation but, never mind, the audience
will eat it up. But they'll spit at Scene 4.AS: You mean where it says "Cain went out in the presence of the Lord and
dwelt in the land of Nod."WG: Exactly. I mean, besides it being a silly name for a land, the script also says Cain met his wife there. What's up with that? Or Scene 6, where the "sons of God saw the daughters of men that they were fair". Where did all these sons and daughters spring from? So far, there's only one set, the Garden of Eden, and only six characters: God, Adam, Eve, the serpent, Cain and Abel. That's it. Not a hint anywhere that there's any other country, let alone people living in it.
AS: Sorry, chief. That's what the book says.
WG: That may be so, Al, but the book is - what? Two thousand years old? Audiences are a lot more sophisticated these days. They tend to notice these glaring omissions.
AS: I'll have the writers write in some extra scenes.
WG: Good man. But the next problem mightn't be so easy to fix.
AS: What's that?
WG: Your main character. God. I don't get him.AS: Well, he's supposed to be mysterious. It builds dramatic tension.
WG: Mysterious is good. I have no problem with mysterious. It worked for Batman. But this guy just doesn't make sense.
AS: How so, chief?
WG: Okay. This is God. All-knowing, all-powerful and all that. Great. But in Act 1, Scene 4, line nine, he's asking Cain, "Where is Abel, thy brother?" I mean, why would God ask that? Doesn't he know?
AS: Maybe he was playing head games with Cain.
WG: God plays head games? And what about Scene 18?
AS: We've got to have a big disaster scene.
WG: I agree. The disaster's not my problem. My problem is God saying, "Because the cry of Sodom and Gomorrah is great, I will go down now and see whether they have done altogether according to the cry of it." Snappy dialogue, I admit. The critics will love it. But God doesn't have to go on down. He's not Bob Barker. It just doesn't make sense.
AS: My own feeling was that God didn't have to make sense.
WG: Maybe, maybe. Don't get me wrong, Al. I love the character! I mean, Act 3, Scene 20, where he declares death for everything from adultery to homosexuality and where he says a man and a woman who have sex during the woman's period must be exiled - all very Freudian. But you can't have all that and say that the character's a loving god. Not somebody who curses Ham and all his descendants just for seeing his father naked in a small tent. Not somebody so insecure he says anyone who insults him has to die. The audience won't buy it.
AS: I dunno, chief. They've been buying it for nearly 2000 years.
WG: That's true. But that's religion. This is the movies. We can only ask
people to suspend their disbelief so much.
AS: But that's the character, chief. I don't know if we can change him.
WG: Then don't. But cast him as the villian. I think that will work better.
AS: The villain!
WG: Sure. An all-powerful villain. People love that sort of thing. It helps them explain why their lives are so miserable. And we make a ton of money!
AS: Good point. Tommy Lee Jones as God?
WG: Who else? Now get those cameras rolling!
AS: You got it, chief! (Exits)
Copyright © 1999 Kevin Baldeosingh