|
|
 |
|
   |
 |
CW Journal
: Summer 04 : Remastering a Masterwork
Dennis Montgomery
For weeks the
writers and creators of Williamsburg: The Story of A Patriot fretted and
studied and scratched their heads over a fundamental production dilemma -- a problem
that would have forced them to make an altogether different movie if they
hadn't noticed the solution that was waiting at their fingertips.
From inception,
the project's goal was to give audiences the illusion of being transported to
the 18th century and experiencing history first-hand. The theater itself was
designed to that purpose. The ground to be covered suggested a shot-on-location
drama of about two hours.
Nevertheless,
the film could be no more than a 30-minute scene-setter for visitors soon to be
ferried to the Historic Area for-real. That all but dictated a time-saving
device best suited to a documentary film: the omniscient narrator.
By merely
relating information that must otherwise be portrayed, an anonymous,
all-knowing, off-screen storyteller could more speedily advance the plot. But
he would as surely spoil the you-are-there illusion.
Revise as they
might, writer Emmet Lavery and director George Seaton could see no way out. In
January 1956, with shooting set for May, they resigned themselves to a
narrator.
A screenplay
finished March 12, however, solved the problem by recruiting lead-character
John Fry to double duty. Fry picks up a quill and starts to pen a letter home.
The audience overhears his thoughts; the narration is now part and parcel of
the drama.
A solution to a
writing problem found at the business end of a writer, Fry's missive carries
the story from 1769 to 1776. Running 1,210 words, his narrative takes 17
figurative years to finish. But it seamlessly advances the story with credence
and economy.
In fact, the
whole 33-minute, 53-second script now shown is thrifty. From opening line --
"Look, I found a duck with a broken wing. Where's Master Robert?" -- to closing
clause -- "I am now, as ever, your loving husband John." -- all the words
nestle comfortably within 11 stingy pages of a transcript. It is a model of
brevity, pace, and felicitous phrasing.
 The favorite
line? By a casual sampling of Patriot fans, it may be the sentence Fry's
dowager mother pronounces over a British bolt of blue brocade: "English goods
were ever the best."
Among other
stand-out sound-bites:
» Fry, in his
Ralegh Tavern accommodations against a background of snoring lodgers and a pair
of big bare feet thrust out above a footboard:
"I am forced to share this room
with three other men, being bedded with one who is of prodigious height, and
carries the combined scent of all the animals known to God."
» William Byrd
III, as the fiery Patrick Henry enters the Apollo Room:
"The temperature rises.
Our hot-headed orator has arrived."
» Governor
Botetourt, punishing the House of Burgesses for approving anti-tax resolutions:
"Gentlemen, I have heard of your resolves, and I augur their ill effects. You
have made it necessary to dissolve you, and you are, accordingly, dissolved."
» Henry, urging
continental union:
"It is our only defense. England is hungry, gentlemen. I
have never seen even the most ravenous of men devour a cluster of grapes in one
mouthful. But I have seen many, already fat with food, achieve the same result
by plucking the fruit one by one."
» Henry,
declining to introduce a resolution for a day of fasting, humiliation, and
prayer:
"Of late, if I merely propose the opening of a window on a sultry day
there are those who see in my request treachery and evil."
» John Randolph,
a Tory, on the consequences of Lexington and Concord:
"The sword has been
drawn. God knows when it will be sheathed."
» Randolph,
leaving for England:
"Yes, I am going home. And you?"
Fry: "I am
home."
» Fry, choosing
revolution over peace:
"It wasn't an easy choice, but it was a free one."
| |
|
Historic Triangle