True Stories 47: 20s—One Night in Miami

It’s hard to make a film based on a piece of history that, in fact, we can only imagine. But One Night in Miami [2020], by Kemp Powers, does a pretty good job of it.

In many ways, we don’t really know if this IS a true story. We know the protagonists were at the setting in the film but we don’t know what happened, really, do we? In fact, this is an imagined retelling of what might have happened.

So that’s the first thing—how do you go about telling a plausible story when you only know the outline of that story? This is one of the reasons you see the legend “inspired by real events” in the opening credits for a film. It’s an acknowledgement that, hey, we don’t know for sure what happened, but based on our knowledge of the characters involved, here’s a plausible storyline.

The second interesting feature of this film's genesis is that its screenwriter based it on his own play of the same name. This is of interest because it’s just hard to convert a play into a film. Think about it. A play is confined to a stage—there are no outdoor scenes, no drives in cars, no airplane rides, no scenes walking across city bridges, etc., etc. And there are no flashbacks, no filmic techniques that you can use to help tell the story. You are, as I said, confined to a stage. Consequently, you can only show what happens within those four walls. Sure, you can change the stage setting and go into different rooms from scene to scene, you can even fake an outdoor scene, but you’re stuck with action happening in a limited space, in a specific place.

There’s so much you can’t do in a play. You can’t have a character daydream and then show that daydream, you can’t have people play a football game, you can’t show a plane lift off and zoom into the air, you can’t have a montage of a couple falling in love over the course of a minute.

So it’s hard—really hard—to bring a play to the screen. Was One Night in Miami successful in dong that? I think, as much as possible, it was. Take a look at the trailer for the film: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=K8vf_Cmh9nY

You can see how scenes were filmed that were outside the hotel room where most of the film takes place. That definitely adds texture to the story. If you’re ever trying to convert a play into a film, take a lesson from One Night in Miami and get out of that room for a bit!

In the end, the film does what it wanted to do—lets us inside this amazing story of universal figures talking about what will have to happen for the world to change, for them to be truly free. It’s a powerful story.

Next week we’ll look at a film about a legend: Respect.

Copyright © Diane Lake

07May23

Email Diane a question to Diane@DianeLake.com