🎞️ #186 - 2023 Oscar Nominees (Adapted Screenplay)
No opening monologue. Let's get to the writers!
Cord Jefferson - American Fiction
Looking back at Jefferson’s work in journalism, here’s an essay he wrote on facing fears, taking risks, and the suicidal paranoia of his best friend’s father. Cord sits down with Terry Gross to talk about his episode 6 script for Watchmen, and writing about generational trauma. Also, Cord and Jia Tolentino join chef Priay Krishna to eat some white bean stuffed poblanos and talk about processing life through work:
Greta Gerwig & Noah Baumbach - Barbie
In Scriptnotes episodes from 2020, John speaks with Gerwig and Baumbach about their evolution as writers and directors. Sarah Polley talks with Greta about creating the title character in Frances Ha, and the lack of inhibition required of an actor playing a deeply inhibited character. Gerwig and Sam Jones discuss what it means when writing feels like improv, and loving moments that feel like accidents. Shirley Li looks with Greta at her body of work, and how Barbie connects to her other projects so far:
Barbie’s massive debut makes the film Gerwig’s biggest box-office success as a director to date. Yet the movie fits cleanly into Gerwig’s oeuvre: Like 2017’s Lady Bird and 2019’s Little Women, it intimately considers how femininity is expressed.
Christopher Nolan - Oppenheimer
John sits down with Nolan to discuss his script for Oppenheimer, and his unusual first-person singular POV. Dan Jolin provides an oral history of Nolan’s Batman trilogy, and how they tie into the films he made in-between. Jeffrey Ressner interviews Christopher about his influences and filmmaking processes.
Tony McNamara - Poor Things
In an interview from 2020, John and Aline talk with McNamara about writing period stories. Jo Light offers a roundup of screenwriting advice from McNamara. During a panel at Lincoln Center, Tony McNamara joins Yorgos Lanthimos and several members of the Poor Things creative team to talk about a wide range of topics, including the difficulties with the first draft of this adaptation.
Jonathan Glazer - The Zone of Interest
David Hudson shares his thoughts on The Zone of Interest along with a selection of other critical takes. Matt Sigur covers Glazer’s career from Sexy Beast to Under The Skin, looking at the role of monstrous characters throughout his work. Jonathan takes time to go through his ten favorite films, with some annotations.
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📄 Learn more about the nominees and their scripts
All of the nominated scripts for Adapted Screenplay are available in the Weekend Read 2 collection “Awards 2023,” ready for you to add them to your library!
⏱️ Get ready to Write Sprint
Each week we post a comment thread for writers to meet up, cheer each other on, and put some words on the page with a Write Sprint.
What’s a Write Sprint?
John wrote up an explanation, but here’s the short version: Set a timer for 60 minutes, close down all distractions, and do nothing but write until that timer goes off.
Sometimes that’s all it takes to get some momentum going with your writing: You set aside this time for writing and nothing else, so you’d better use it!
Shout out to Dallas Gow, Elyse Moretti Forbes, Anne Marie Cruz, and Mark Leiren-Young for sprinting with us last week!
Previously on Inneresting…
In case you missed it, in last issue’s most clicked link Daniel Parris takes a dataset of user rankings from MovieLens to figure out what films continue to gain new viewers long after their release, and suggests a way of drawing a distinction between movies that have potential to be classics versus ones likely to be forgotten.
What else is inneresting?
When you want to go beyond mere super-villainy: qntm looks at the most probable methods of physically destroying Earth.
Maria Popover points to the optimism and resilience of David Byrne’s “One Fine Day,” featuring a performance of the song with Byrne and the Brooklyn Youth Chorus.
And that’s what’s inneresting this week!
Inneresting is edited by Chris Csont, with contributions from readers like you and the entire Quote-Unquote team.
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Post-Credits Scene
Just a quick reminder about Jonathan Glazer’s iconic work as a music video director: