Loyalty vs. Betrayal When does betrayal look like loyalty and vice versa? Who can your character trust? Can a character be loyal to someone as he or she is betraying that person? Can loyalty be an act of betrayal?

Ally vs. Enemy How does the character’s view of “good” and “evil” shift or change? Who is hiding what? Who is working behind the character’s back for good or ill? How does the character work against him or her self?

Pursuer vs. Pursued What is the character running after and what is he or she running from? How does this change or reverse itself?

Truth vs. Lie How does the “truth” move and morph depending on perspective, or new or reinterpreted information? What is really the truth, how does the truth shift or change depending on shifting perceptions? What is delusion, what is misleading and what is outright active deception?

Desire to Suspect vs. Need to Trust How does the character wrestle with suspicion, paranoia, and the aftereffects of betrayal or seeming betrayal? Can your character fully know the heart of anyone? Can your character fully trust him or her self? Can anyone ever be 100% certain of anyone or anything?

Illusion vs. Reality What is real and what is a set-up, a lie, misinformation, a conspiracy, a delusion, or hidden below the surface of things? How much of perception is preconception, prejudice, ignorance, naivety, pretense, paranoia, duplicity, trickery, or a set up?

Certainty vs. Uncertainty What can be pinned down, proven and quantified, and what will always have an element of the unknown, the mysterious, or the unexplained? Is anyone ever all “good” or all “bad”? How does the character deal with moral ambiguity, shifting perceptions, or shades of gray? Isn’t every situation a shade of gray? Aren’t all people combinations of good and evil?

All great Power of Truth stories — mysteries, thrillers, suspense, and detective stories answer these key questions.

I finally caught up with Shutter Island last night.  I wasn’t interested in the movie when it was released.  Something about the trailer turned me off or was irritating.  I can’t remember what that was.  But I’m preparing for my Thriller Workshop in New York City and thought I should see it.  I’m glad I did.

I liked the movie a lot.  It’s a classic Power of Truth story asking: Who can I trust?  Do I see what I think I see? What’s really going on?  What does it all mean? ** SPOILERS AHEAD **

Shutter Island reminded me very much of Memento.  In both films a man’s wife dies in the aftermath of a violent act.  Each man constructs an elaborate narrative about what happened and who is responsible.  Each man searches for his wife’s “killer.”  After the shock of being confronted with the truth, each man retreats back to his fictional narrative.

The film is an interesting follow up to What The Bleep Do We Know.  That film and my interpretation of it argues:

I am who I say I am.  I am the story I tell about myself– to me and to others.

I chose my story and I continue to chose it consciously or unconsciously every day.

Events in the past do not create or destroy my character– my reaction to, attitude toward and interpretation of those events is what creates or destroys my character.

At the end of Shutter Island, the protagonist (Leonardo DiCaprio), chooses madness.  He can’t face his role in the deaths of his wife and children.  He would rather “Die a good man (his fictional self) than live as a monster (and face what really happened)”.  He cannot do the work to process his grief, forgive himself and resolve his loss.

At the end of Memento, the protagonist (Guy Pearce) chooses to kill the only man who has the key to his wife’s killer.  He can’t face his role in her death. The truth is too painful so he “makes up his own truth”.  He cannot forgive himself and resolve his loss.  So he creates a mystery he can never solve.

Reality is the story we choose to tell about ourselves and our world.  Power of Truth characters struggle to define what reality they can accept and what reality they choose to ignore (or to hide).  Although they seek the truth, the person most often lying to them is themselves.

The protagonists in Shutter Island and Memento choose a story that fictionalizes and twists the truth. Each would rather be insane/lobotomized/lost in a haze of distorted memories rather than face responsibility for the death that haunts him.

Shutter Island is a fascinating psychological thriller that unwraps the protagonist’s psyche in a slow tortuous fashion.  The surprise twist is extremely satisfying.   Although the protagonist is judged insane, he makes a choice that proves his sanity in that he is fully conscious of what he’s doing.

I chose this film because it was available on Watch Instantly on Netflix.  It’s a French thriller and the title appealed to me.  I didn’t really know much else about the movie. It turns out to be a classic.

The Wages of Fear (the French title is: Le Salaire de la Peur) is a directed by Henri-Georges Clouzot and stars a young Yves Montand.  It is based on a novel by Georges Arnaud.

Alfred Hitchcock had an intense rivalry with Clouzo and also tried to purchase the rights to the novel but was unsuccessful.  It is a Hitchcock worthy film with its own very distinct French identity.

The premise of the film is incredibly simple.  A large American oil company has several oil rigs in an unnamed South American country.  The workers have their own town behind the company gates– houses, cafeteria, stores, etc.  The nearby village exists on a meagre hardscrabble hand-to-mouth basis. Undocumented workers (from a variety of countries) who are no longer needed or were fired for cause by the company can’t get back to their homelands because airfare is too expensive. Their boredom and desperation are palpable.

A thuggish French grifter, Jo (Charles Vanel), flies into their midst (it was as far as $50 would take him).  Mario (Yves Montand) a young down-on-his-luck Frenchman is immediately entranced by his fellow countryman’s swagger.  Jo is a bully and takes it upon himself to humiliate Mario’s genial Italian roommate Luigi (Folco Lulli).

Jo pushes and pushes Luigi until finally Luigi threatens Jo with a broken bottle.  Jo raises his gun, Luigi backs down saying Jo is a big man because he has a pistol.  Jo hands the gun to Luigi and taunts him challenging Luigi to shoot him.  Luigi can’t and Jo slaps him and taunts him again.  Luigi gives the gun back and leaves saying that he is not a murderer.  This establishes Jo even more strongly as someone who fears no one and nothing.

When one of the large company oil wells explodes and catches fire several hundred miles away, the company offers to hire four men at an exorbitant $2000 each to drive two trucks over mountain dirt roads.  They will be carrying the nitroglycerine needed to blow up the well and extinguish the fire.  Mario, Luigi and Bimba (Peter van Eyck) are chosen.  Jo disposes of the other driver selected and takes the forth spot himself.

The company doubts that any of the men will make it alive but it’s the only chance to stop the fire.  The drilling boss says: “They don’t belong to a union, and they don’t have any relatives, so if anything happens, no one will come around causing trouble.”

The nitro is unstable and liable to blow at any hard jolt, the trucks lack adequate suspensions and the roads are third-world horrible.  The ride is an unrelenting journey of nail-biting suspense.  The direction, editing, psychological make-up of the men and the simple road hazards that could take their lives in an instant make the film much more suspenseful and nerve-wracking than any Hollywood extravaganza about the whole world ending.

Although the film is almost 60 years old it is amazingly contemporary.  The perils of the oil industry, how easily all things petroleum go terribly bad, how simple it is to exploit desperate people and how the same qualities that make men/women heroes (boldness, brashness and taking incredible risks) are the same qualities that also doom them.  It’s as urgent and compelling as it would be today.  It’s shocking how little we have learned from the various catastrophic oil disasters over the years– and how we keep making the same mistakes, are filled with the same hubris and have so little desire to change our ways.

Yes.  Those are all problems in my own life.  I’m looking at how my greatest strengths are also my greatest weakness, what mistakes I keep making repeatedly and where my own hubris has often blinded me.  It’s a nerve-wracking ride in its own way.  The answers (and solutions) aren’t far away.  And I have another 29 days.

Here is a post from a wonderful blogger Jan O’Hara writing on Tartitude.  She was thinking about Sherlock Holmes and asked if I thought he was a Power of Reason Character.  My answer was:  Sherlock Holmes is indeed a Power of Reason character– Everything can be explained/deduced rationally and logically. “It’s elementary, my dear Watson.” Power of Reason characters care more that something makes sense or is practical and less that it is moral or kind. Moving from a cold clinical analysis toward a more human evaluation (which takes into consideration connection, caring and a real valuing of others) is their journey toward greatness.

Here is Jan’s review of the new BBC re-envisioning of Sherlock Holmes in a modern day setting.  Looks interesting.

1. Have you seen BBC’s Sherlock Holmes? Thus far it’s a three-episode series set in contemporary London, and to podge a British term, it’s brill. Smart, fast-paced, relying more on intellect and issues about character than on the stars’ appearance, it won thumbs up from all four members of my family.

What they do well, IMHO:

a. Respectful blending of past with present: Watson is a recovering war vet, wounded from a tour as a physician in Afghanistan. He’s a blogger!  Despite modernization, though, the essence of the series feels true to the original books.

b. Technology is important in the sleuthing process, but not the focus. This is not a series about gadgets.

c. There’s a fascinating and believable relationship between Watson and Holmes in which each make the other bigger. Without Holmes, Watson would be limping in a half-existence,  devoid of the risk and stimulation which is his life’s blood. Watson, on the other hand, both grounds Holmes and validates him.

d. The writers have set up a central question about Sherlock, articulated by Lestrade in this quote: “He’s a great man. if we’re very lucky, one day he might be a good one.”

Will Sherlock cross from brilliance into psychopathy, perhaps out of sheer boredom? Will he learn to engage emotion and vulnerability along with his impressive intellect, particularly around the female sex? These are great questions to have a viewer asking within a few moments of beginning a series.

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.”