Winter Films - 5

How was watching The Umbrellas of Cherbourg last week? Did you get lost in the story? How did you feel about the ending? Could you see the large number of parallels between this film and La La Land? Fascinating, right?

In talking about expanding your writing landscape, I think watching foreign films is of particular import. And streaming services like Netflix and Amazon have a fair number of foreign films available. Watch just one a month—just one—and see if looking at what filmmakers in other parts of the world are doing doesn’t expand your horizons.

Remember, the goal is to come up with a film you’d like to write that’s set against the backdrop of winter, so that we see your characters’ struggles mirror the weather they’re bucking as well.

This week, well, wait a minute—tomorrow is Christmas Eve, so if you’re even reading this you must be VERY writer-driven or very lonely or have all your presents already wrapped. But for those scenarios, or any other I can imagine, I have the movie for you: Love Actually [2003] by Richard Curtis. It’s a fantastic Christmas movie, sure, and it’s set in the weeks leading up to Christmas so it’s full of all kinds of wintery-coldness. One character even travels abroad and we get to see winter in Wisconsin! Lucky us!

One of the things that this film does is interweave multiple stories—and I’m not just talking two or three or four, but NINE stories. In my opinion, one story too many, but that’s splitting hairs.

Often, as you try to develop your own story, it’s hard enough to come up with that one perfect storyline that could entertain people for a couple of hours. So imagine coming up with nine. And that’s where this movie can really expand your horizons—it’s a great example of how to tell multiple stories that all have a similar theme and that all, pretty much, come together in the end.

We talk in screenwriting about having A stories and B stories and even C stories, but Love Actually has A, B, C, D, E, F, G, H and I stories. As I say, perhaps too many. But with one exception, all the stories keep my attention and feel integral to the overall theme.

This film is more complex, structurally, than many you’ll look at. So if you have the chance to look at the script, do it. See how the screenwriter transitions between one story and the next as the film progresses. It’s a textbook example of how to tell multiple stories.

While a few scenes are set in France for one character, most are set in chilly London and suburbs in the weeks preceding Christmas.

As you watch the multiple stories of this film unfold, remember that as you come up with your idea for a winter movie, you’ll need subplots and minor characters—and their stories should follow the main story’s thrust in some way. So have fun getting lost in Love Actually this week—and happy holidays!

Copyright © Diane Lake

23Dec18

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