The script of "Borrowing a Knife to Kill" can be said to be very good, and the control of the plot and the overall structure are commendable. So, where are the gaps in the whole script? After thinking about it carefully, Lance felt that it was still in terms of lines and character creation after all.

It can be seen that Stuart Beatty, the screenwriter of "Killing with a Knife", tried to inject a philosophical idea into the film, including the blurred line between evil and justice in contemporary society, not only the darkness of evil is rampant, but even the forces of justice have begun to be corrupted and invaded, and what is even more terrible is that the tragedy similar to the genocide of World War II broke out in Rwanda again, while the people living in the "other world" are indifferent; Including the distance between people in modern society is gradually narrowing, the little people under the background of big cities are tired of life, ignoring disasters, ignoring suffering, and ignoring strangeness, so that life is only reduced to life, no longer meaningful, and does not have humanistic depth, as if once again returning to the primitive society of drilling wood for fire.

In fact, the core of the script of "Murder with a Knife" is very huge, the main story line is a gangster who buys murder in order to escape legal punishment, and directly eliminates all witnesses, but skips this invisible main line, and runs through the whole movie with the interaction and duel between professional killer Vincent and taxi driver Max, and then sees the big from the small, showing the pathos of fate and the fall of morality in the modern city in the movie, and finally highlighting the insignificance of human beings and the coldness of society.

But the problem is that Stewart's line skills are more than one rank behind, and the character portrayal is also frameless and soulless. This is actually a chain reaction, the characters are not deep and specific enough, the dialogue between the director Vincent and Max is full of tension, but there is always a lack of spark, even less depth, and the lines are just a combination of pale fragments, not from the characters. It doesn't come from the heart, it can't be integrated with the characters, and it can't be integrated with the plot; The lines could not further advance and penetrate into the plot, so much so that it affected the excavation of the core idea of the entire script.

What really witnesses the power of a script is precisely the lines.

Therefore, after getting the script, Lance thought seriously and repeatedly for a long time.

In fact, "borrowing a knife to kill" can become a follow-up to the "City of God", and the ideological core is connected from the previous to the next. "City of God °C∴°C∴" is about a world where sin and darkness run rampant in an alternate world that people don't know about. People thought that the world was far away from their lives, but Lance filmed it and showed it in front of people; "Murder with a Knife" is about the people who live in the same world as the "City of God" but ignore the suffering of the "City of God", cold-blooded, alienated, selfish, cruel, and indifferent, their ignorance of the City of God, their indifference to Rwanda, their connivance at the crimes around them, their indifference to social problems, their callousness to strangers, and their indifference to all problems outside of their own lives...... This qiē is breeding, conniving, and even promoting the coming of darkness.

Perhaps, not long after. A second City of God is about to be born, and it will be darker, more depraved, and more chaotic.

Lance has even figured out that "City of God" and "Murder by a Knife" are the first two installments in the series, and the third installment is "Sin City". Complete his personal trilogy of crimes.

Of course, this is just an idea. "Sin City" is an adaptation of the comics, and the rights to the adaptation are firmly in the hands of the original author, Frank-Miller. If Lance remembers correctly, Robert Rodriguez was an avid fan of this set of comics. I've always wanted to get this set of comics on the big screen, and maybe at this point in time, Robert is trying to convince Frank; Maybe even without Robert. Lance also had no way to convince Frank to win the rights to the adaptation......

In short, these are things for the future. At present, Lance's biggest task is to complete the script of "borrowing a knife to kill". Lance's idea was to inject a philosophical core into "murder with a knife" and to add a larger proposition linking sin to fate.

In the original "Murder by Knife" story ending, Max successfully protects the prosecutor of the case, kills Vincent, and then achieves a triumphant escape. In short, good triumphs over evil. In Hollywood, such a happy ending will always be welcome, but it weakens the impact of the story itself, and also affects the mining of the story's ideas, and Lance has been thinking that he should change an ending, a more realistic, more realistic, and more profound ending.

However, before thinking about the ending, Lance needs to start from the basics - first establish the two characters of Vincent and Max, complete and full, give the characters vitality, and then use the characters to drive the dialogue and the plot within the original plot framework, so that when the story develops to the end, the ending will naturally come out.

So, in the past week or so, Lance didn't start writing the script, but built the two characters from start to finish, even including how Vincent embarked on the path of a professional killer and why he fell in love with Jazz; It also includes Max's relationship with his mother, how he became a taxi driver, and why he drove a taxi for twelve years; and the whole picture of the case designed by the gang who bought the murder behind it, as well as the investigation process of the case, and the direct or indirect relationship between the five witnesses and the case......

To put it simply, it is to write three short stories, full version.

In fact, none of these things appear directly in the movie, because the first scene of the movie is the gang buying the murder, Vincent takes over the case, and then the whole movie will revolve around this murderous night. Generally speaking, most Hollywood scripts follow the standard and classic three-act structure, that is, the so-called beginning, main body and end, that is, foreshadowing, conflict, and resolution. However, "Killing with a Knife" skips the first two scenes and directly begins to tell the content of the last scene.

Despite this, Lance wrote the first two acts in detail, and even wrote autobiographies for Vincent and Max. All of this is for the sake of the script, giving life to the characters and giving the story its ins and outs, and in the real third act, the sheer amount of information revealed in the details will give the story more depth and breadth.

At this moment, the document in Tom's hand is Vincent's autobiography, which is more than twenty pages long and took Lance nearly four days. In fact, there is no direct connection between that autobiography and the story of the "Murder by a Knife" movie, at least the content of the film is not visible in the autobiography, but this autobiography is inextricably linked to the film in every way, and most importantly, it is also the basis for Tom's interpretation of the role of Vincent.

Lance came to the door today, definitely prepared, and he would not accept any answer other than "yes".

The role of Vincent is not the most difficult role of Tom's career, his bohemian performance in "Magnolia" and the evil charm/seduction performance in "Interview with the Vampire" are impressive; But Lance is certain that Vincent will be Tom's toughest performance, because Vincent will not only need Tom to strip the charm that he does best, but also to show the changes in his heart.

In Lance's conception, Vincent is a cold-blooded killer, and there is no doubt that he has no personality changes, and he is decisive and ruthless from beginning to end. But throughout the movie, there will be two obvious fluctuations in his mood, the first is during the contact with Max, he unknowingly begins to be influenced by Max, and in a conversation in the car, he reveals his inner vulnerability, which is fleeting; The second time is the finale, when Vincent realizes that his life is coming to an end, despair and regret flash by, and then come to an abrupt end.

These two fluctuations are actually not obvious, very delicate, but deep enough, it can be seen as a collision between the cold society and a trace of kindness, but unfortunately, the cruel and ruthless coldness gradually swallows up the kindness little by little, stifling the last bit of warmth, and then letting the society completely escape into darkness.

This kind of point-to-point but extremely explosive performance has extremely high requirements for actors. In the previous life of "Killing with a Knife", Tom missed the opportunity, his performance was good, but far from exciting; This time, Lance hopes to tap into more of Tom's potential and push Tom to a more extreme corner.

Tom is smart enough that he can see the difficulties of the character, and he can also see the potential of the character. As the saying goes, the poor must have something to hate, and the hateful must have something to hate. Vincent's character is a hateful man, and he also has pitiful points, but he brutally cuts off his "pitiful places", as if cutting off the carrion of his body, leaving a bowl-sized wound, and then completely ignores it. Even without a specific story to back it up, Vincent is still a charismatic character.

The reason why "The Seven Deadly Sins" went down in history is not because of Brad Pitt's charm, nor because Gwyneth Paltrow is so glamorous, but because Kevin Spacey plays Anonymous. In "Murder by a Knife", Vincent also has such an opportunity.

Tom quietly flipped through the autobiography in his hand, he had thought that he would soon lose patience and stop after two pages at most, but then he found that he could not stop, and by the time he came back to his senses, he had already turned to page twelve, and the passage of time frightened Tom. He forced himself to give up the idea of looking down, and instead looked up at Lance.

Lance still sat elegantly in place, refilling himself a cup of black tea, the steam curling, even without any magazines, without any pastime, Lance sat there alone for more than half an hour, but still comfortable, as if not even the air was alarmed. This determination made Tom sigh to himself.

"If you want, you can read it all and we'll talk." Lance said thoughtfully with a polite smile. (To be continued.) )

ps: Today's second update, I implore all book friends to support genuine subscriptions, thank you! uw