Challenging the dichotomy
between reading a book and watching a movie, a film can include writing lessons
within a narrative that is oriented to a romance and the business of a
publishing house signing a writer for a second book. In the film, Shadows in the Sun (2005),
Jeremy, a young employee of a major publisher, is sent by his brass, business-minded
boss, Andrew Benton, to sign Weldon Parish, who lives hundreds of miles away
from London and has retired from writing due to his fear of failure. In
resisting Jeremy’s efforts to manipulate him to sign, Parish agrees to talk
shop with the young writer. Although by no means a major part of the film,
Weldon’s brief lessons and exercises can be of use to viewers. Film can indeed serve
the cause of writing rather than merely draw readers away from books to the
screen. In fact, astute viewers can critique the brief lessons and thus
actively make use of film for intellectual and vocational purposes. Going
through the lessons and exercises in the film can illustrate such an active
engagement.
The first lesson occurs when Weldon
and Jeremy are looking out at a beautiful sunset over an impressive landscape. Weldon
suggests that Jeremy think of words as colors, and the paper as the canvas. The
accomplished, elder writer demonstrates how words can be utilized as such, by describing
the sunset in the following words: “The sunset, slowly, (is) igniting the sky
in fiery shades of red and orange; in the distance, dark clouds rolled over the
horizon, riding the summer winds. Soon day will give way to night, and with it
will come the silence that washes over everything.” Besides the problematic
grammatical lapses, which I submit are problematic even if done for stylistic
purposes, Weldon goes off topic when he slides into describing the night, which
obviously does not include the sunset. Regarding the sunset itself, the clouds
are arguably not dark. If he is overstating the darkness here, perhaps the
shadows in his published book, Shadow Dancers, are also overstated. On a
macro or “meta” level, perhaps the film’s title, Shadows in the Sun,
overstates the salience of the metaphor of shadow in the film. Weldon misses
completely the beautiful colored reflection of the sky on the fields below.
Those colors are as vibrant as the orange and yellow part of the sky nearest to
the sliver of sun. In fact, the colors in the sky and on the fields make for a
rustic overall hue. In hurrying into the night, the writer’s “painting” of the
sunset in words falls short.
The inattentiveness to detail
is all the more significant because of what Weldon teaches Jeremy on the importance
of drawing on one’s own experiences in writing. “If you’re writing a fight
scene,” Weldon explains, “it helps if you have been in a fight.” Weldon then
asks Jeremy to describe being hit in the stomach. Not impressed, Weldon proceeds
to punch his de facto apprentice so Jeremy can experience being hit in stomach.
Sure enough, Jeremy is then able to flush out the details that he had missed
for lack of experience, like snot coming out of one’s nose and the watering of
one’s eyes. The film’s screenwriter could have had Jeremy subsequently ask Weldon
whether a writer should be bound by one’s experience; Weldon himself mentions
the role of imagination in writing.
The lessons then move beyond
technique to what makes a writer great. Such a writer finds that part of
oneself that has something to say. “You know when you’ve found it,” Weldon
says. Jeremy has not found it in himself, so he is dissatisfied with his
writing. Weldon tries another way of making his point. “Art is not something
you choose to do; it’s something that chooses you.” Good writing comes out of
an irresistible urge to say or express something in particular; both the urge
and the content lies within, so the challenge is to find or realize it. Even if
experience does not limit what a writer can write about in detail, that which a
writer is passionate about is limited, it does not come from the will, as if a writer
could choose that which must be written. In writing short essays, I try
to restrict myself to points I feel strongly about expressing; I resist writing
just to keep the essays coming.
Knowing that Jeremy has fallen
in love with Isabella, who is one of Weldon’s daughters, Weldon asks Jeremy to
describe her face. The point is to try to put in words that which one is
passionate about. Jeremy makes the following attempt: “Sunlight frames her body
in a golden glow of honey light while the wind dances gently through the long
strands of her hair. Her face is strong, proud, with eyes that don’t easily
give away their secrets. It’s a face that doesn’t call out, but softly beckons.”
Although Weldon is impressed, this coloring with words can be critiqued. First
of all, Isabella is framed by grass rather than any “glow of honey light”—this description
of light may itself be overdone. Sunlight does not frame her body; rather,
green grass does. Furthermore, her hair is not long, and she has it in a pony
tail so it is not dancing with the wind. As for her strong, proud face, her
broad jaw bones do give that impression. As for eyes not giving away their secrets,
her facial expressions vividly and straightforwardly show her disproval of the
mischief of her father and Jeremy and then her affection for both men, obviously
different in kind. In fact, her blue eyes sparkle such that they fill out her
marvelous smile, but Jeremy misses this rather obvious point. As for a face
that does not call out, I must confess that don’t know what a face that calls
out looks like; I’m equally at a loss with regard to a face that softly beckons;
usually people beckon with their arms and hands. So maybe it is for the best
that I don’t write novels.
My point is that potential and even actual writers can learn how to write better from Weldon’s mini-lessons and exercises in the film by interiorizing these and going on to critique them. The medium of non-documentary, fictional film can be actively engaging for viewers both intellectually in terms of added knowledge and vocationally in terms of improved work-product.
