My husband was on a panel at a legal conference right around the time The Silence of the Lambs was released.  An FBI profiler was also on a panel at the conference.  The moderator asked what the profiler thought of the film.  He said, “I was scared to death”.  The moderator asked why. “Don’t you deal with this stuff every day in your job?”  The profiler replied, “Yes.  But in my job, there’s no music.”

Jonathan Demme is known for marrying sound and picture in a very evocative way.  He creates a sound atmosphere’s that heightens emotion that’s already there but doesn’t hit you over the head telling you how to feel.  Howard Shore wrote the score and he talks about music in film HERE.

This is also my impression of your score for SILENCE OF THE LAMBS. The music is very “neutral” and monochromatic. It’s just flowing without much counterpoint.

I tried to write in a way that goes right into the fabric of the movie. I tried to make the music just fit in. When you watch the movie you are not aware of the music. You get your feelings from all elements simultaneously, lighting, cinematography, costumes, acting, music. Jonathan Demme was very specific about the music. His suggestions were valuable…

Here is an analysis of Shore’s score for The Fellowship of the Rings trilogy.  He is, indeed, a modern master.

Contrast Howard Shore with John Williams.  While visiting my family this summer we went to an outdoor orchestral performance of John Williams’ scores. So much of it sound vaguely alike.  Personally, I am not a fan.  I especially disliked his heavy-handed work on Steven Spielberg’s War Horse. The script was very weak and very episodic and the score tried to box the audience in the ears to get them to feel something.

The following video essay on Marvel movies is a great analysis of modern scores:

I am a screenwriting heretic.  I don’t believe in many of the so-called foundational tenets of screenwriting.  For example, I don’t believe genre is a helpful term for writers.

Genre is mostly style, tone, and setting.  It’s a marketing tool.  It’s designed to help people scanning Netflix or Hulu for something to watch that fits their mood.

The Silence of the Lambs, on a streaming service, could be found under keywords: detective, crime, serial killer (sub-genre), mystery, thriller, or even coming of age (it’s about a young woman who is assigned her first professional job).  How is that mix helpful to a writer?

A detective story sometimes involves a murder, but not always. A thriller often involves a crime, but not always. A serial killer story sometimes involves a mystery, but not always.

This is very hazy ambiguous stuff when great writing is always about specificity.  What to do instead?

Apocalypse Now and Chinatown would never be located on the same “genre” shelf, but they both have the same emotional structure.  To me, emotional structure is key.

Both of these films feature a protagonist trying to find the truth about one simple thing (AN: where is Colonel Kurtz? CT: Who killed Hollis Mulwray?).

Over the course of the film, the protagonist finds out the truth about a much larger thing (N: The moral quagmire that was the war in Vietnam. CT: The corruption in City of Los Angeles water system.).

And in the end, the protagonist finds out the truth about himself (AN: Captain Willard could easily become Colonel Kurtz and, in fact, Kurtz’s followers want him to do just that. Willard looks into his own heart of darkness. CT: Jake Gittes lost two women he loved because he refused to ask for help.).

In Chinatown, we know Gittes has a strong relationship with the press because he threatens the bureaucrat with exposure in the press.  He could expose Noah Cross publically.  His ex-partner is a decent cop.  Gittes admits as much to Cross.  But Gittes doesn’t go to his partner for help in exposing Cross.

In each alternative, Evelyn Mulwray probably would never speak to or see Gittes again for revealing their monstrous family secret, but she wouldn’t be dead and her daughter/sister wouldn’t be in the hands of Cross.

Emotionally, Apocalypse Now and Chinatown have the same structure.  This is a specific emotional pattern that I think is much more useful than undefined notions of genre.

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The just completed Thrillerfest — think  Comic-Con for thriller authors and their fans —   featured a lecture that caught my eye. Sleepers author Lorenzo Carcaterra chose the 10 best thriller films made from books, the 10 worst, and the 10 he most wants to see get made.

Carcaterra’s Sleepers was turned into a hit film by Barry Levinson, and most of his subsequent thrillers are under option by studios and big producers.  His latest, Midnight Angels — an art history thriller set in Florence — was just published by Ballantine and is just being shopped now. Carcaterra cautioned that his  lists (culled with the help of other authors and editors) were subjective, guaranteed to stir rancor, and maybe a frivolous exercise. So I say, what’s wrong with a little subjectivity, rancor, and frivolity on a summer Sunday morning?

The 10 Best:  The Bourne Trilogy, Silence of the Lambs, Day of the Jackal, 3 Days of the Condor, The Manchurian Candidate, The Talented Mr. Ripley, The Getaway (Steve McQueen version), The Girl With The Dragon Tattoo, The French Connection, Patriot Games and Marathon Man (the last two tie for 10th).

The 10 Worst: The Getaway (Alec Baldwin version),  The Eiger Sanction, The Osterman Weekend, The Manchurian Candidate (Denzel Washington version), The Sum of All Fears, The Da Vinci Code, Hannibal Rising, The Chamber, Hostage, Heat (the William Goldman novel adapted into a Burt Reynolds pic). Carcaterra hated the Richard Chamberlain TV adaptation of The Bourne Identity so much, he gave it dishonorable mention.

The 10 That Should Be Made: The Vince Flynn-written series about government operative Mitch Rapp (CBS Films is trying to make Consent to Kill, hoping Gerard Butler or Matthew Fox will star for Antoine Fuqua); Brad Thor ‘s Scot Horvath series;  Lee Child’s series on hulking drifter Jack Reacher (last I recall, Cruise/Wagner had the rights, and while Reacher might be the top selling thriller protagonist without a film series, little has happened to get a film like The Killing Floor made); James Rollins’ Sigma Force series, William Diehl’s The Hunt, Bill Granger’s The November Man, Daniel Silva’s Gabriel Alon series, any of  Matthew Pearl’s novels that include The Dante Club, The Poe Shadow and The Last Dickens;  Christopher Reich’s Numbered Account; and PD James’ Innocent Blood and Jack Higgins’ Luciano’s Luck (tied for 10th).

Carcaterra put numerous authors on the best and the worst lists, including author Robert Ludlum, Tom Clancy’s Jack Ryan series, the Jim Thompson novel The Getaway (Carcaterra thought McQueen’s Doc McCoy was the personification of cool while Baldwin was too pretty)  Tom Harris’s Hannibal Lecter series and William Goldman. Carcaterra  considers Goldman’s Marathon Man to be one of the best adaptations ever, but he’s friends with Goldman, and the author/screenwriter suggested his own work, Heat, for the bad list). What becomes clear from Carcaterra’s experience is that the best adaptations are the ones where the screenwriter/director has the guts to tear apart the book to serve the film, even if a superstar author (think Clancy in Patriot Games or Anne Rice at the start of Interview with the Vampire) kicks and screams. The other make or break variable is the impact of actors who can use their influence to screw things up, or elevate the film.  On Sleepers, Carcaterra said  when they got Robert De Niro and Dustin Hoffman, the scenes for their characters escalated and made the movie much better.

“The Bourne Identity film is much better than the book, and when Tony Gilroy was asked to write, he told them he didn’t care for the book,” Carcaterra said. “He finally said the only part that interested him was an assassin who didn’t know who he was, wanted to find out, but didn’t want to kill. Of course, to find out, he has to kill.  It was a troubled shoot, a lot of reshoots, but that core idea and the script started what has become the best thriller book series. I put all three into the same category because they’re all so good.”

Carcaterra said it was smart to change James Grady’s 6 Days of the Condor: “Whether it was a screenwriter economizing or a producer short of cash, it was a better title and the tightened time line helped the movie.” He said the David Fincher adaptation of The Girl With the Dragon Tattoo likely won’t come close to the darkness of the Swedish film that he feels will be tough to improve. Carcaterra worked on TV shows with Sonny Grosso, one of the two cops in The French Connection. Grosso  told him that William Friedkin didn’t even read the book when he first met the cops, but studied them closely. “He was interested in these two cowboys on the streets, and the details of the case got sketched over,” Carcaterra said. “The chase scene was invented, the subway shooting scene didn’t happened. And when Sonny told Friedkin that shooting that Frenchman in the back wouldn’t happen because cops don’t shoot fleeing suspects in the back, Friedkin said, this guy killed five people, and the crowd will go nuts. He was absolutely right.”

Carcaterra said The Da Vinci Code suffered from reverence to Dan Brown’s huge bestseller and the fear of turning off the book’s huge fan base. Angels & Demons was a much better film, Carcaterra said, because the screenwriting and plotting were bolder.

Authors who get script approval can often hamper a screen adaptation, unless it is someone like Elmore Leonard, who wrote so many scripts himself that he knows what works on the screen and isn’t precious about his prose.  “Authors like Elmore realize it’s unseemly to complain, when you consider how much we get paid. When Sydney Pollack mentioned to John Grisham he hoped they hadn’t messed up The Firm, Grisham  said ‘if you did, you’ll never hear it from me.’ Anne Rice took out full page ads about the casting of Interview with the Vampire, until maybe somebody explained her backend definition, and suddenly she was ecstatic,” Carcaterra said. “Adapting books into movies is a hard job that becomes impossible with an author standing over your shoulder who doesn’t understand the process. Authors get paid very well, and so you have to take the money and shut up.”

Power of Ambition characters believe that nothing is as important as projecting a successful, polished or accomplished image– Even if the character has to go deep into debt or lie, cheat and steal to do so. Image is everything to these characters.

How others view or rate them is crucial. They value themselves and others by the toys, the trappings, the prestige, the awards, the money, the status or the other public forms of recognition accrued. How it is accrued is irrelevant.

Power of Ambition characters want the reassurance of the visible, tangible evidence of their outward success or status.  The definition and meaning of “success” is at the heart of a Power of Ambition character’s story. Is success truly measured from the outside or from the inside?

A character driven by the Power of Ambition can be a hardworking, eager, charming optimist with a “can-do” spirit—or a lying, manipulative, backstabbing striver who will do anything to get ahead in life.  These characters are eager charmers, con artists, slick salesmen/saleswomen, lovable impostors and literal or metaphorical prostitutes.

They can be aspirational characters who want to rise from a lowly station to a more exalted one.  Or they can be selfish whores, frauds, fakers or con artists, always on the hustle.  In either case, their perceived status, popularity and social importance is key their sense of themselves.

Character Examples

Christopher, Uncle Junior and Carmela in The Sopranos; Miranda in Sex and the City; David Brent in the UK version and Michael Scott in the US version of The Office, are all great television examples of this character.  For more television examples see the Power of Ambition blog posts.

Film examples include:  Vivian Ward in Pretty Woman; Bud Fox in Wall Street; Vicomte de Valmont in Dangerous Liaisons; and Suzanne Stone in To Die For.  Tom Cruise has played many Power of Ambition characters over his career including:  Charlie Babbitt in Rain Man, Jerry Maguire in Jerry Maguire, Vincent in The Color of Money, Mitch McDeere in The Firm, Jasper Irving in Lions for Lambs, and Frank TJ Mackey in Magnolia.  For movie examples see the Power of Ambition blog posts.

Power of Ambition eBook

The Power of Ambition Character Type eBook explains how these characters are alike and how each character is made individually distinct. It Ambition help you develop unique, original, evocative and authentic Power of Ambition characters that fully explore all the contradictions, reversals and surprises of a fully formed human being.

Discover the Power of Ambition character’s specific goals, unique emotional obstacles and very distinct responses and reactions to any opportunity, challenge or threat. Create this character’s Immediate Tactics, Long-term Orientation and Strategic Approach in a way that is recognizably “true” at every step of the story and during every moment of screen time. The audience Ambition instantaneously recognize and relate to your character because your character is complex, three-dimensional and “feels real.”

This eBook is thorough analysis of the Power of Ambition Character Type in his or her many guises and roles as a protagonist or a member of a larger ensemble. It is packed with numerous examples from film, television and even real life! Examples from scores of scenes and dozens of quotes from film and television characters clearly illustrate this character’s motivations and psychological dynamics in a story.

Comprehensive Analysis

The Power of Ambition Character Type eBook illustrates exactly how to create and differentiate this character based on his or her:

(1.) World View (beliefs about how the world works) What are the essential core beliefs that motivate a Power of Ambition character’s ordinary actions?

(2.) Role or Function (position in the story or role in the ensemble) What do the other players look to a Power of Ambition character to do or provide in the story?

(3.) Values in Conflict (competing values that push the character to extremes) What opposing choices or goals establish the Power of Ambition character’s moral code? What is this character willing to fight, sacrifice or die for? And why?

(4.) Story Questions (emotional journey in the story) What personal issues, dilemmas and internal conflicts does a Power of Ambition character wrestle with over the course of the story? What does this character ask of him or her self? What is this character’s Leap of Faith in an emotionally satisfying story?

(5.) Story Paradox (emotional dilemma) What is the duality or the contradiction at the heart of a Power of Ambition character’s story struggle? How is the character’s internal conflict expressed in actions.

(6.) Life Lessons (how to complete the emotional journey) What must a Power of Ambition character learn over the course of the story to make a clear, satisfying personal transformation? What actions lead to this character’s emotional salvation?

(7.) Dark Side (this character as a predator or villain) What happens when a Power of Ambition character’s actions are driven entirely by fear? How might or how does the story end in tragedy?

(8.) Leadership Style (what defines and qualifies this character as a leader) How does a Power of Ambition character convince others to follow? How does this character act to take charge and command?

(9.) Film Examples (the Power of Ambition character as a protagonist)

(10.) Television Examples (the Power of Ambition character as central to an ensemble)

(11.) Real Life Examples (historical Power of Ambition figures on the world stage)

Power of Truth characters believe the world is filled with hidden dangers, secretive enemies and concealed pitfalls. This character’s philosophy might be stated:  “Things are never what they seem.”  “Trust no one.”  “Question everything.” “Watch out for secret agendas and hidden pitfalls.”

On a personal level, they are hyper-aware of shifting alliances and are always on the lookout for possible falseness, duplicity or treachery in any relationship or situation. These characters are very imaginative and perceptive and that creativity and sensitivity can also get them into trouble. They can spin disaster scenarios or conspiracy theories inside their heads that have no basis in reality.

The Power of Truth character asks “What does society demand, expect or value?” and then often sets out to debunk or disprove the answer.  These characters are compelled to uncover the concealed nature and (often rotten) underbelly of things.

A character driven by the Power of Truth is often the protagonist in mystery stories, mistaken identity stories, investigative stories and detective stories.  In an ensemble cast, these characters are frequently secret keepers, strategists, counselors or advisers.  In whatever role they play, they look beneath the surface of things to discover what lies below or is hidden from view.

Character Examples

Film examples include Clarice Starling in The Silence of the Lambs, Captain Benjamin L. Willard in Apocalypse Now, Jake Gittes in Chinatown and Leonard Shelby in Memento.  For more movie examples see the Power of Truth blog posts.

A comedic version of this character is the anxious urban neurotic played by Woody Allen in Manhattan, Hannah and Her Sisters and Annie Hall, Billy Crystal in When Harry Met Sally and Analyze This or Jerry Seinfeld and George Costanza in Seinfeld. These comedic characters are often keen observers and slightly neurotic worriers who see the potential for disaster around every corner.

Television drama examples include Nick George in Dirty Sexy Money, Fox Mulder in The X Files and Dr. Jennifer Melfi and Silvo Dante in The Sopranos and Patrick Jane in The Mentalist. for more television example see the Power of Truth blog posts.

Power of Truth eBook