Author's Note
This story is the third installment in my "Origins of a Writer" Series.
Part 1: http://www.launchora.com/story/origins-writer-part-1
Part 2: http://www.launchora.com/story/origins-writer-part-2
If you don't have time to read the previous parts, it's okay! Lucky for you, the actual stories aren't related, so all you really need to know before you start reading Part 3 below is the Author's Note portion of Part 1. And just because I'm so accommodating, here it is ---
Believe it or not, but I wasn't always a great writer (if you're laughing at this statement, I can't hear you).
In my first year of college at UC San Diego, I took a class called 'Theatre And Film' (I think), in which we studied (watched) films that were based on stage plays. Instead of exams, we were graded on essays comparing each adapted film we studied to its original written play.
Obviously, I got an 'A' in this class (this is a verifiable fact, and I am boasting because it was my first A in college). But on a more serious note, this class (and the 'A' grade, just saying) was particularly important to me because it was the first time I wrote something I wanted to write.
Basically, when historians in the future research my life, they will find traces of Launchora's origins in this class.
So to continue celebrating Launchora's first weekend of story-publishing (i.e. June 20-22, 2014), I'm going to publish some of my college writings/essays in this multiple part series, which I would like to call "The Origins of A Writer". Yes, I just made that up and then changed the name of this story to reflect it.
---- End of Author's Note from Part 1
This (we're back on Part 3) essay was written on June 7, 2008, and is reproduced here word-for-word, typo-for-typo. As always - don't judge my writing, judge 18-year-old me's writing.
ESSAY THREE
CLOSER: Film Vs. Play
If I had to summarize Closer, the play by Patrick Marber (who also wrote the screenplay of the film), I would say that it is a simple, sometimes unreal, story about love and companionship and how complicated such things can be if one does not believe in them. In fact, when I read the play, even though I liked it very much, I didn’t think it was anything unusual or special. By that I do not mean the play itself - it is beautifully written and paced - but rather the story itself. Because while the story is approached and told different than the others, but it is still just another story about love and relationships - a story about four really complicated people seen at different points in time through a third person approach.
After seeing the film Closer by Mike Nichols, I couldn’t stop thinking for days. The dialogues were the same, but the body language of the actors told an entirely new story. The film just had so much more, even though it did everything exactly like the play. And after a long time I spent on thinking about what the film was all about, I have to say I was moved by the sheer beauty of the film’s approach to the play.
Ever since the first scene of the film, the director is trying to tell us, the viewers, something. “You’re just too good to be true, I just can’t take my eyes off of you”- when I saw the first sequence with Natalie Portman and heard the song in the background, I, as everyone else, just assumed Nichols is gesturing to Alice’s physical beauty and attraction. After I had finished the film I started thinking that why did Nichols do everything that the play did, have every single dialogue appear word to word, but have two completely new sequences at the beginning and the end?
And then it came to me. Alice IS too good to be true. Closer the play is a story about four people as seen by the audience, but Closer the film is a story about three people being seen and observed by Alice, who is a personification of the audience.
In the film, Nichols concentrates on Alice the whole time, starting with the first scene - which is not in the play - where the song is telling us to keep our eyes on Alice. She is the one character we are told least about, and after seeing the other characters and their behavior, we end up feeling that we don’t know them at all, and in fact, neither do those people themselves. So by the end we find ourselves feeling for Alice, since she is the only one we can actually relate to; she is the only one we can understand.
Throughout the film, and the play, we see Larry, Anna, and Dan making decisions, making some kind of action that affects the others. Their decisions especially affect Alice, as if she is the innocent witness being forced to deal with the consequence of their actions. To Alice these people and this world is as unreal as it is to the viewers; that is evident by the first scene where we see her looking to the left before crossing the street (since people drive on the right side of the road in the United States), not knowing that in London cars come from the opposite side. She comes to London and she meets Dan, she takes a new name and in a way experiments with the people she meets. She observes, asks questions, but is seldom the one who gets to make any decisions. The only time we hear her opinion about anything is in the art gallery, and even then her response is “Everything is a lie”.
Of all the three characters we meet in London, Larry is, in my opinion, the closest to being normal or real. Alice feels the same and that is probably why she tells him her real name. But Larry fails to pass Alice’s test. She decides to trust Dan in the end by taking him to New York, but seeing that he hasn’t changed she gives up all hope. When he still questions her even though he knows the truth, I gave up looking for any reason to feel bad for Dan’s character. And again Alice does exactly what everyone in the audience would have probably done. The people of London disappoint her. In fact, Alice feels that if she stays here she will become like Anna - who in a way seems like an older version of Alice - an American who got lost in London, pretending. Alice decides to go back home where people carry their emotions on their faces, that can be inferred by the last scene where the guys who see her pass by just stare at her, looking back at her in awe. She is content to be home where people don’t have deceptive faces that hide their complicated emotions and personalities.
The one scene, or in fact, the one line that explains and proves my theory is at the end of the film where Alice says to Dan "I would have loved you, forever". This one line is what made me realize what Alice’s role is in the story. We are put into Alice’s shoes from the first scene till the end. Alice is the audience, who throughout the film observes the people, the world which is new to her just like the audience, and in the end, just like how the audience decides what they think about the characters after seeing them throughout the film, she decides that these people are just messed up, and again just like the audience, we see her coming back to the real world, and keep on living her life. Marber’s decision to not kill Alice at the end of the film (her character dies at the end of the play, but you already knew that) hints that she signifies a lot more than just a character. Some would say that the red stop sign at the end means she dies off-screen, but we can also see the other people walking too, not like the first scene in London where the other people stop behind her.
This film takes the art of storytelling to a whole new level, and it does not even take credit for it. Till now, when we saw a film we were only limited to watch what the characters do - from a seat far away in another dimension. In Closer, we are not only given a more personal approach, but an entire character to transform into.
We are taken a lot more ‘closer’ to a film or story than ever before. Might I call Closer a truer 3-Dimensional film?
This film, to me, is a one of a kind so rare I doubt we would be able to see more of; all due to the cinematic genius of Mike Nichols, the absolutely brilliant and perfect cast, and, what I have now come to believe, the enchanting story by Patrick Marber.