How the Storytelling in Documentaries Helps My Writing

"The best laid plans of mice and men often go awry." - Robert Burns

I watched two documentaries last week that were vastly different but shared a common storytelling thread: the protagonists' plans went heartbreakingly wrong. One was darkly comedic, the other tragic-yet-inevitable.

The first, Catfish, concerned a series of online relationships, including a romance, that turned out to be false or at least deeply misleading. The slow reveal was filled with tension, dread, and even an awful kind of humor as the protag and his friends paid a surprise visit to their internet friend's family and scrambled to figure out what was really going on.

The second documentary, Last Train Home, involved a modern Chinese family's disintegration. The parents had made the impossible decision, 16 years prior, to leave the country and find factory work in the city. Their plan was to send money home to fund their children's education so the youngsters could go to university someday and never have to work in a factory.

So what happens? The oldest, a teenage girl, resents her mom and dad for not raising her and decides to rebel by quitting school, heading to the city, and... working in a factory. You could see it coming, and yet you hoped it wouldn't be so.

I love documentaries because they provide a refreshing, even jarring, change of pace to the usual movie experience. There are fewer tropes, fewer predictable outcomes, and occasionally better dialogue and more authentic human interaction, even if it's painful, awkward or even boring at times.

Just like with sports, you don't know what's going to happen, and there's absolutely no guarantee of a happy or tidy ending. At the same time, the directors and editors frame the events in such a way that audiences can see structure and purpose to the story.

With Last Train Home in particular, I was reminded that the best stories often have a deceptively simple premise (parents try to make a better life for their children; children don't understand the behavior and resent it) that can be rich and full.

Seen any good documentaries lately? Did they help with your novel writing, or remind you that going "off-book" can be a good thing?

P.S. Edited to add: Lest you think I'm a dirty rotten spoiler, the plot points I've mentioned above happen fairly early on in each documentary.

Recommended Viewing: "Somewhere" Written & Directed by Sofia Coppola

Lost in Translation is one of my favorite films. I think it perfectly captures not only the bewilderment and beauty of visiting a foreign country, but also the ennui that comes from mid-life crises and post-college crises, when you either regret how you've spent your life so far, or you can't figure out who you're supposed to be.

This line never ceases to make me laugh:

Charlotte (Scarlett Johansson): "I tried being a writer but I hate what I write. I tried taking pictures, but they were so mediocre. I guess every girl goes through a photography phase. You know, horses... taking pictures of your feet."

Despite my love for the film, I was reluctant to watch Ms. Coppola's most recent project, Somewhere, because I feared it would be more of the same, yet less of what was so great about Lost in Translation.

There are a few obvious similarities. A movie star (this time played by Stephen Dorff instead of Bill Murray) lives in a hotel, drifting through his pampered, rather absurd life without purpose. And yes, once again he's jolted out of his stupor by a "younger woman" (his 11-year-old daughter Cleo, play by Elle Fanning).

The performances are terrific, and I especially appreciated the way the film was bookended. We begin with a static partial shot of a race track, and watch as Dorff, in his expensive and noisy Ferrari, speeds around it (briefly out of sight) four times. The symbolism is clear: he's going nowhere; he's going in circles.

The final shot (spoiler alert) is Dorff in the same car, alone again, but driving out of the city, out onto the open road, going somewhere at last. And when he exits the car this time, there's a hint of a smile on his face.

When I write novels or short stories, I aspire to make my endings relate directly to my beginnings -- either by referring back to the opening imagery, or using similar allusions so the story feels like it's come full circle.

Do you believe endings should directly reference beginnings, or do you think it should be up to readers to interpret any potential parallels for themselves?

Recommended Viewing: "The People vs George Lucas"

I caught a documentary screening at the L.A. Film Festival last night called The People vs George Lucas. It was a brilliant examination of the Star Wars franchise, its most ardent fans, and the disappointment/rage the fans felt when Lucas tinkered with the original trilogy and released the prequels.

I was a fairly casual fan of the series. I was born the year Episode IV: A New Hope first hit theaters, I rented the original trilogy on VHS as a kid, and my friends and I watched the films regularly in college. Oh, and I had a lifesize Han Solo cardboard cutout in my first apartment. And at one point I collected the cards... (Okay, upon further reflection, I was a medium-sized fan.) So I well remember the anticipation and frustration provoked by Lucas' misadventures in the late 1990s and early 2000s that seemed to undermine the greatness of his creation.

The People vs George Lucas is an often-hilarious and touching celebration of film and fandom, and poses the question: Does Lucas alone control the rights to his masterpiece, or, once something becomes a part of the global cultural zeitgeist, do the people who made it a success/were most affected by it have some say? *

As the film progressed, I changed my mind quite a few times regarding this central theme -- and that, to me, is a good indication of a well-produced and thoughtful documentary.

*edited to add: especially when it comes to the altered re-releases, which, some argue, fundamentally changed the characters (*cough* Han)