QandA

Intrigued by a question asked at the live Scriptnotes NYC event, Tim Nicholas wonders whether the change in screenwriting style has affected [how scenes themselves work](http://somenotesonfilm.tumblr.com/post/62715721616/billy-wilder-physicality-screenwriting):

> A lack of “scenic density” is typical of what Bordwell calls the “intensified continuity style” that dominates post-60s Hollywood movies. Also characteristic of this style is less attention paid to blocking actors. Wide shots that allow actors to use their entire bodies as instruments of expression are less common, and filmmakers frequently default to one of two options for staging conversations: the “walk and talk” (think The West Wing) or the “sit and deliver” (see the previous link).

> Previously I’d thought of this as a directorial trend — Bordwell cites the proliferation of multi-camera shooting as one of its primary causes. Could it be that separate developments in screenwriting, with their own unique causes, also have an important role to play?

Nicholas uses Billy Wilder’s The Apartment as an example.

Attempting to answer the question during the live show, I proposed that part of why Wilder can go on for paragraphs about physical details is that he himself is directing the scene. But that’s at most a half-answer; Wilder’s scenes are more specific regardless of who is behind the camera. It’s not just blocking. The scenes themselves work differently.

Nicholas makes the case that something is lost in the modern, highly-compressed style:

> A contemporary screenwriter might condense those nine sentences to something like “Margie shoots straws in Bud’s direction, but he fails to notice them, even as they hit his bowler and cheek.” And one can easily imagine how this would be shot. The key thing missing would be allowing the action the time to take place. The trend today, first in screenwriting, then in directing, and finally in editing, is to replace the *depiction* of an action itself with the presentation of the *idea* of an action.

To me, that’s a terrific insight that speaks not only to filmmaking but most of popular culture. Increasingly, we replace the object with the reference, and the action with the outcome.