Write for God

I was reading an online selection of the best film scenes from the silents to the present day and I found it difficult to read many of the scenes from the past 20 years. In the scripts from the time before sound to the end of the 1960s, actors spoke eloquently and writers wrote skillfully–without profanity. Today’s films can’t seem to avoid it.

The modern scenes from a host of films, some of them Academy Award winners, dropped more “f-bombs” than I cared to count. In the case of Good Will Hunting, a sweet story with a wonderful cast, the gratuitous use of the f-word made the script impossible to read and the film difficult to watch. Reservoir Dogs, Pulp Fiction, Goodfellas…the list goes on. Whether Quentin Tarantino sits at his Final Draft screen and actually types endless four-letter words or whether he lets his actors “create,” the trend is tiresome as well as a lazy way to write dialogue.

Some of my favorite film scenes are from the days when writers were more creative in how they crafted scenes. A film that’s always worth seeing is On the Waterfront, a beautifully written movie that I never tire of. There’s a particularly beautiful scene played by Karl Malden, whose character, Father Barry, is a socially-conscious priest guiding the longshoremen in his parish to resist the intimidation of the mobsters who’ve taken over their union. After a worker who had promised to turn in the mobsters is killed in a staged accident, Father Barry goes to the hold of a ship for an impromptu homily. (To see the entire script, click here.)

FATHER BARRY
Some people think the Crucifixion
only took place on Calvary. They better wise
up. Taking Joey Doyle’s life to stop him from
testifying is a crucifixion— Dropping a sling on Kayo
Nolan because he was ready to spill his guts
tomorrow— that’s a crucifixion. Every time the
mob puts the crusher on a good man— tries to
stop him from doing his duty as a citizen— it’s a
crucifixion. And anybody who sits around and lets it happen,
keeps silent about something he knows has happened—
shares the guilt of it just as much as the Roman soldier
who pierced the flesh of Our Lord to see if He was dead.

(A mobster then tells Father Barry to go back to his church.)  

Boys, this is my church. If you don’t think
Christ is here on the waterfront, you got another
guess coming. And who do you think He lines up
with—

He sees why some of you get picked and some
of you get passed over. He sees the family men
worrying about getting their rent and getting food
in the house for the wife and kids. He sees them
selling their souls to the mob for a day’s pay.

What does Christ think of the easy-money boys
who do none of the work and take all of the gravy?
What does He think of these fellows wearing
hundred-and-fifty-dollar suits and diamond rings—
on your union dues and your kickback money?
How does He feel about bloodsuckers picking
up a longshoreman’s work tab and grabbing
twenty percent interest at the end of a week?

How does He, who spoke up without fear
against evil, feel about your silence?

You want to know what’s wrong
with our waterfront? It’s love of a lousy buck. It’s
making love of a buck— the cushy job— more
important than the love of man. It’s forgetting
that every fellow down here is your brother in
Christ.

But remember, fellows, Christ is always with you—
Christ is in the shape-up, He’s in the hatch—
He’s in the union hall— He’s kneeling
here beside Nolan and He’s saying with all
of you—If you do it to the least of mine,
you do it to me! What they did to Joey, what they
did to Nolan, they’re doing to you. And you. And
YOU. And only you, with God’s help, have the
power to knock ‘em off for good!
(turns to Nolan’s corpse)
Okay, Kayo?
(then looks up and says, harshly)
Amen.

Father Barry’s homily is beautifully written and speaks to the power of Christian principles. It has force and poignancy…and no foul language. In this case, screenwriter Budd Schulberg wove a scene without one profane word. Nothing in Pulp Fiction is as good as this scene; it never fails to move me. The film is worth seeing to catch the nuances in the characters who are witnessing Father Barry’s speech and the abuse the priest takes from the mobsters who pelt him with rotten fruit and objects that gash his head.

Profanity has become so overused in films that many of us don’t notice it anymore. The occasional use of a foul word that sets the mood or establishes the character doesn’t offend me, but the constant reliance on certain words in lieu of originality is insulting. One of my favorite filmmakers, Martin Scorsese, is just as guilty as hack writers and directors who overuse the f-bomb when other words would suit the project better.

On a positive note, Scorsese’s upcoming film project promises to be a film we could take our children to see. His 2010 release is going to focus on the 17th century martyrdom of the victims of Nagasaki, whose deaths established a toehold for Christianity in Japan. (Ironically, the second atomic bomb was dropped on Nagasaki, the cradle of Catholicism in Japan. The atomic destruction of Nagasaki on August 9, 1945 left the shell of the cathedral as a reminder of this crime against humanity.) Top names like Daniel Day Lewis and Benicio del Toro are said to be in Scorsese’s cast.

When a film about the Nagasaki victims is news I’m excited about and films bursting with profanity are the usual fare, we who appreciate quality films have to rely on old favorites for entertainment. Here’s hoping a “Father Barry” scene is somewhere in the pages of Scorsese’s film script.