By Simon Mol
‘Film is the future’. Beneath this single simple phrase prowls the entire screenwriting philosophy of Syd Field. Ardent faith in his self-style doctrine and diligence in sorting details both in scripts and life, added up to project Field as a leading authority in screenwriting along the comfy corridors of Hollywood. For this reason and others, the organizers of the Hartley-Merril International Screenwriting Prize had Field fly to Warsaw to address a group of aspiring screenwriters drawn from across the globe (except Africa) in a 2hr workshop, to mark the 2005 Eastern European Screenwriting Lab. This was how I met the sturdy soft-spoken humanistic artist whose sentiments could be felt in his words and works. To him film is serious business.
Held at the Warsaw-based film-school of the renowned Polish film director Andrzej Wajda, Field’s meeting with young screenwriters started formerly and ended informally. The two-hour event was interspaced with dramatic revelations as Field filed scenes from his life. In one such occasions I chucked a question to him, asking what drives him; “A wish to give back something to life and others. And there’s no better way to do this except through what I do best.”
Through conscientious contemplation on a given ‘thought’ and subsequent scribing, Field creates stars, i.e., he has an unparallel penchant for making a star out of a mediocre actor along the corridors of Hollywood. CNN dubs him ‘the guru of screenwriters’ and says he is the leading authority in the art and craft of screenwriting in the world today. The description isn’t superfluous;
“In the course of developing a character, the writer may come across a situation where the character becomes too powerful to an extent that its influence is felt; the character might stubbornly insist on becoming independent and wanting to have a say in its destiny, a destiny which the writer initially had sketched. In so doing a completely contrary character might emerge. Fine. Don’t fight with it! Write as much about its emerging traits, shove this in a drawer and carry on as initially planned. It is also pertinent to write as many pages about a character as possible… as much as a 20-page description of a character is sound. This isn’t much, considering the rule that a character is a living entity with multiple layers of lives, personal, professional, emotional, public, etc. All this should be felt by the reader of the script and it is only then that the character becomes real,” hammered the ultimate connoisseur who is a special script consultant to 20th Century Fox, the Disney Studios, Universal and Tristar Pictures.
He has taught at Harvard, Stanford, UC Berkeley, UCLA, the AFI and other noted institutions. On the helm of his achievements Field has published several books and is a screenwriting consultant to the governments of Austria, Argentina, Brazil, Germany, Mexico, Norway. Alphonso Cuaron (Y Tu Mama Tambien), James L. Brooks (Broadcast News, As Good As It Gets), Luis Mandoki (When A Man Loves A Woman), Roland Joffe (The Killing Fields, The Mission), and Tony Kaye American History X) are some productions that bare Fields credentials.
Anna Hamilton Phelan (Mask, Gorillas in the Mist), John Singleton (Boyz N the Hood, Poetic Justice), Randi Mayem Singer (Mrs. Doubtfire), Laura Esquival (Like Water For Chocalate), Michael Kane (The Color of Money), and Kevin Williamson (Scream, Scream 2& 3)., are some rising screenwriters whose visions are shaped by the Syd Field doctrine; they passed through the hands of Syd the star-maker.
Comments