Although many indie filmmakers\u2014Gus Van Sant, Matthew Porterfield and Joe Swanberg, among others\u2014have used more minimal forms of scripts, such as outlines and treatments, Spencer Parsons and Line Langebek [Knudsen] have argued in favor of a more detailed and \u201coverwritten\u201d script, which they term the \u201cspacious screenplay.\u201d As they explain, \u201cThe screenplay is chiefly written for experiential performance and assumes non-traditional shooting strategies for narrative fiction, primarily focused on the recording of performance\u2014and in particular the unpredictable and possibly \u2018improvised.\u2019\u201d Their ideas are largely based on the film practice of John Cassavetes as well as their own experience. In contrast to the underwritten script, they posit \u201ca longer, more filled-out, and possibly even novelistic style of screenplay.\u201d<\/p>\n
The spacious screenplay is written less for the benefit of the director or producer than for the actors, who, as was the case with Cassavetes, assume a more privileged role in both the writing and production. Parsons and Langebek offer ten principles related to the concept of the spacious screenplay that extend through the various stages of production: pre-production, production, and editing. The spacious screenplay is written with particular performers in mind. As the authors make clear, \u201cPerformers must be able to make the most of the opportunities offered by the script in order to hold their own in improvisation or even simply reacting to improvisation.\u201d<\/p>\n
Prior to making his debut feature, I\u2019ll Come Running<\/em> (2008), Spencer Parsons had never met his co-screenwriter, Line Langebek, in person. In an SRN conference presentation, the two equated their collaboration to a blind date, or more accurately, to a form of online dating. They worked on developing the script together via electronic communication without the benefit of actual face-to-face interaction. One of the three producers on the film, Lars Knudsen, who, like Linebek, is Danish, suggested shooting the film as a co-production. As Parsons explains, \u201cAt that point in my experience, I would not have speculatively written a screenplay to take place in another country, which would have seemed a fool\u2019s errand for a small, independent film. Our open process, however, allowed us to shoot in Denmark when Knudsen suggested his home country as a location. The characters\u2019 unplanned adventure would be mine.\u201d The film\u2019s financing no doubt contributed to the development and shape of the resulting narrative.<\/p>\n I\u2019ll Come Running<\/em> begins with a group of three Danish tourists visiting the Alamo in San Antonio, Texas. The young men in their twenties are loud and obnoxious\u2014the equivalent of three macho jocks on an extended vacation. Their male camaraderie entails drinking heavily and ridiculing the locals. In a Mexican restaurant, they poke fun of the fake ethnic furnishings. The trio harass the patrons, as well as the Latina waitress who tries to get them to quiet down and behave. One of them, Pelle (Jon Lange), begins flirting with her.<\/p>\n A notorious ladies\u2019 man according to his friends who allude to his prior sexual escapades, Pelle decides to change his travel plans. Instead of flying back to Denmark with his pals in order to start a job that a close friend named S\u00f8ren has obtained for him, the former child television star decides to delay returning home in order to pursue the Latina waitress, Veronica (Melonie Diaz). When Pelle shows up back at the restaurant at closing time, Veronica invites Pelle to a party and the two commence a torrid sexual affair, in which they bond over the cartoon show, The Simpsons<\/em>, calling each other Milhouse and Lisa.<\/p>\n An unexpected event occurs at forty minutes, at which point the film structurally divides into two stories when it abruptly switches protagonists, recalling Alfred Hitchcock\u2019s Psycho<\/em> (1960), once Marion Crane is eliminated. The same shift in protagonists also occurs in Ethan and Joel Coen\u2019s Fargo<\/em> (1996), which is based on Psycho<\/em>, as well as in Derek Cianfrance\u2019s The Place Beyond the Pines<\/em> (2012), another film that pays homage to it. The manual writer Syd Field claims that it is not possible to switch protagonists in a film, yet that is precisely what occurs in all four films. In I\u2019ll Come Running,\u00a0<\/em>the protagonist suddenly and unexpectedly shifts from Pelle to Veronica, who impulsively flies to Denmark. There she encounters S\u00f8ren (Christian Tafdrup), who has been feeding Pelle\u2019s cat in his apartment while his friend has been away.<\/p>\n Parsons discusses the switch in protagonists that occurs in his film in terms of the horror genre, a destabilized narrative, and Steven Shaviro\u2019s The Cinematic Body <\/em>(1993). He reveals the impetus for the film\u2014a taxi ride in Greece in which he fell asleep and abruptly awoke from a dream\u2014and refers to the film as a \u201cPsycho<\/em> of romantic comedy.\u201d Out of a sense of guilt, Veronica goes to Pelle’s hometown of Aarhus in an attempt to learn more about him. In a sense, Veronica becomes a \u201cmonster\u201d\u2014an external threat\u2014who intrudes into the lives of his family and best friend. As Parsons comments: \u201cBeneath an ordinary surface, the story behaves as a surreal changeling narrative with the second protagonist uneasily usurping the place of the first\u2014not just in the plot, but in the lives of family and friends. I sketched the plot in variations for different genders\/sexualities of these \u2018relay protagonists,\u2019 and eventually the casting of Melonie Diaz (Fruitvale <\/em>[2013]) decided the final arrangement.\u201d<\/p>\n Almost from the point at which they meet, Veronica becomes emotionally involved with S\u00f8ren once she brings news of Pelle. S\u00f8ren, however, proves to be a destabilizing element. The film is remarkably complex in terms of character psychology. Not only does Veronica soon become intimate with Pelle\u2019s childhood friend, S\u00f8ren<\/em>, but she becomes the connection to Pelle for both him and Pelle\u2019s family, including his younger brother, Jonas. In the story that Pelle initially tells Veronica about S\u00f8ren, he is depicted as wild and crazy, but Pelle nevertheless adores him, which mimics the relationship between Bart and Milhouse. When they were once caught skinny-dipping in a private pool, S\u00f8ren, still naked, approached the security guard and proceeded to get an erection as he talked with him, which Pelle finds hilarious.<\/p>\n S\u00f8ren<\/em>, however, tells Veronica a different, modified version of the story, switching the naked person to be Pelle, which suggests a homoerotic subtext to their relationship, and represents a disturbing transference between the two friends. Not only does Veronica take the place of Pelle, but S\u00f8ren becomes Pelle\u2019s romantic substitute for her, thus creating a strange and disturbing psychological situation in which the two, in effect, mirror their lover\/friend. Pelle\u2019s mother, Mette (Birgitte Raaberg) warns Veronica about S\u00f8ren by telling her, \u201cYou have to be careful with him, Veronica. Always in this door, out that door with him. We\u2019ve known him since he was a kid. He\u2019s wonderful. He has a good heart, but sometimes his heart gets crazy too.\u201d<\/p>\n Parsons has described his working methods on I\u2019ll Come Running<\/em>: \u201cWe workshopped story and characters through rehearsal that included structured and unstructured improvisation, though the story had always been worked out through a highly detailed treatment. Major casting and some rehearsal took place before a true screenplay was written, and then a major rehearsal session took place again just before shooting, with the screenplay rewritten and reworked based on what we learned from that.\u201d<\/p>\n Parsons used two cameras to be sure capture the performances. It is in the scenes involving Veronica and S\u00f8ren that Parsons\u2019s improvisatory techniques become most obvious. When they initially meet and Veronica tells S\u00f8ren the news about his friend, he moves away from her, repeatedly tells her to \u201cgo away,\u201d and eventually screams at her. He slumps to the floor and Veronica comes to sit down next to him. S\u00f8ren begins to cry, begging her to get away from him. The camera holds close on Veronica\u2019s worried face. Her eyes flicker screen left and then she turns her head screen right toward S\u00f8ren.<\/p>\n She asks him how to get to the Viking Ship Museum, which is a joke that Pelle had told her about him. Veronica then tells him how sorry she is. He moves his body toward her and puts his arms around her. The camera, which is positioned from a side angle, holds on his S\u00f8ren\u2019s face. His eyes are wet with tears and his lips appear excessively red, making him look like a sad clown. Veronica tells him she has no idea what to do. Still in tears, S\u00f8ren tells her to stay in the apartment. When he bolts from the apartment, she chases after him.<\/p>\n Veronica finds S\u00f8ren drunk and setting off fireworks in the street. After she physically attacks him, he gets her to choose a firework. Later at a caf\u00e9, when he finds out that Lisa called Pelle \u201cMilhouse\u201d and he called her \u201cLisa,\u201d S\u00f8ren tells her, \u201cI can call you Lisa,\u201d indicating that he is taking the place of Pelle. The camera holds close on Veronica\u2019s face and then pans over to S\u00f8ren. He begins to fantasize about her and Pelle having children:<\/p>\n S\u00d8REN: You two would have had beautiful children, you know that? Very, very beautiful children.<\/p>\n LISA: No.<\/p>\n S\u00d8REN: I don\u2019t mean right now. But if you wanted to have children, it would have been beautiful.<\/p>\n LISA: It wasn\u2019t like that.<\/p>\n S\u00d8REN: But . . . don\u2019t misunderstand me. Later, if you wanted to have some kids, I just think that it would be . . .<\/p>\n LISA: No, like seriously. All we did was have a lot of sex.<\/p>\n S\u00d8REN: You made love?<\/p>\n LISA: No, it wasn\u2019t love. It was sex.<\/p>\n S\u00d8REN: But can I just say that you are beautiful and Pelle is beautiful. And I just think that you would have had beautiful children.<\/p>\n LISA: No.<\/p>\n For Parsons, the screenplay becomes an important element in his improvisatory work with the actors. The director cites the influence of work of the musician Brian Eno in terms of his approach: \u201cAs we improvise, the screenplay provides a structure of incident and rising action, or themes upon which to perform variations.\u201d I\u2019ll Come Running\u2014<\/em>the title is a reference to an Eno song\u2014is notable for its outstanding performances, especially the natural reactions that he was able to elicit from his actors, including the young boy. Pelle\u2019s mother is extremely emotional, but his father (Mads N\u00f8rby) conveys his feelings almost completely through a series of piercing facial gestures.<\/p>\n But, ultimately, it is the scenes between S\u00f8ren and Veronica that create intense unease and dramatic tension because Christian Tafdrup and Melonie Diaz manage to create a sense of unpredictability in their responses to each other, especially in their emotional flip flops or their abrupt sudden tonal shifts in their scenes together, which become psychologically unnerving to the viewer. It has to do how they play off each other as performers, as is evident in the scenes of their first meeting in Pelle\u2019s apartment or in S\u00f8ren\u2019s fantasies about Veronica and Pelle having beautiful children. Their raw interactions are reminiscent of scenes and moments in the films of Cassavetes, making a strong case for the benefits of the spacious screenplay.<\/p>\n I\u2019ll Come Running<\/em> is an overlooked American indie film that deserves to be more widely seen. Luckily, it is now available for streaming on a number of platforms, including: Hulu, iTunes, Google Play, and YouTube.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":" Although many indie filmmakers\u2014Gus Van Sant, Matthew Porterfield and Joe Swanberg, among others\u2014have used more minimal forms of scripts, such as outlines and treatments, Spencer Parsons and Line Langebek [Knudsen] have argued in favor of a more detailed and \u201coverwritten\u201dRead More<\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":3,"featured_media":4086,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"cybocfi_hide_featured_image":"","footnotes":""},"categories":[8,42,9,43,1],"tags":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.jjmurphyfilm.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/4084"}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.jjmurphyfilm.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.jjmurphyfilm.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.jjmurphyfilm.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/3"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.jjmurphyfilm.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=4084"}],"version-history":[{"count":9,"href":"https:\/\/www.jjmurphyfilm.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/4084\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":4095,"href":"https:\/\/www.jjmurphyfilm.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/4084\/revisions\/4095"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.jjmurphyfilm.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/4086"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.jjmurphyfilm.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=4084"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.jjmurphyfilm.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=4084"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.jjmurphyfilm.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=4084"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}