yesterday i was challenged to think of a plot for a dramatic movie that i could write. at first the prospect seemed rather simple — perhaps intended for a novice — but then i started concentrating harder, and i couldn’t come up with a single idea. how truly marvelous it is that i can conjure dark feelings in songs, or poems, or the occasional work of fiction, but when i think of movie plots it’s all goofball hack jokes.
i have written several “dramatic” pieces for class before, but most of them have gone the way of the corrupted hard disk on which i stored them. the only one that remains is a hard copy of a story about a kid returning home after many years for a family member’s funeral. through conversations with relatives he begins unraveling several mysteries involving his family, only to realize his entire upbringing was built on deceit.
but that’s boring. it’s partially autobiographical, and anyone who even remotely knows my own history wouldn’t have to think too hard about the inspiration for it. but then again i wrote it when i was nineteen. it was sophomoric, though, and it ended with the kid leaving to return to his life away from home totally defeated after learning all this horrible family history… and then his plane crashes. it was pretty morbid. i didn’t overtly state that the plane crashed, but it’s pretty obvious from the barrage of imagery at the end.
that has nothing to do with a movie, but it’s a start. sometimes i think there is only one drama movie. ennui. teenage ennui, twenty-something ennui, thirty-something ennui or old-folks ennui, it’s all based on love and loss. could i write something interesting that would be considered dramatic? probably. would someone invariably say, “but that’s been done before?” yes.
really i just want to tell the story of a disillusioned generation. which basically means a story about my friends and i being pathetic, hopeless dolts.
