On Writing Movies

I'm starting a new screenplay today, and I feel it's important to always be reading about writing while writing because it keeps you asking questions and evoking new thoughts about your approach and such. And today I was skimming through one of the David Mamet books on writing, and he said that viewers watch films wanting to know what's going to happen next, so any scenes that dwell on backstory exposition will slow your film down. And I agree with him for the most part. But what I think is more important to me as a director is that I want the audience to want to see my film more than once. And the key to that is performance and behavior. Once you've seen the plot in a film, the question of what's next goes away. So I sit on the side of the fence that believes that character is more important than plot. And character comes from interaction. Eye contact. Blocking. Unsaid magic. Those are the things that make me want to see films over and over. That, and of course the marriage of cinematography and music.

So my bottom line: plot is the least important element. And remember that story and plot are not the same thing.