The script of "killing with a knife" can be said to be very good. The control of the plot's beginning, ending and ending and overall structure are worthy of praise. So, what is the gap in the entire script? After thinking about it carefully, Lance felt that it was still in terms of lines and character creation.

It can be seen that the screenwriter Stewart Beatty, who "kills with a knife", tried to inject a philosophical idea into the film, including the blurred boundary between evil and justice in contemporary society. Not only is the evil and darkness rampant, but even the righteous forces have begun to be corrupted and invaded. What is even more terrifying is that the tragedy similar to the genocide of World War II exploded in Rwanda again, while people living in the "other world" were indifferent; including the distance between people in modern society is gradually getting farther away, and the little people under the background of big cities are exhausted by life, disregarding disasters, sufferings, and strangeness, making life just become life, no longer meaningful, and not humanistic depth, as if they have returned to the primitive society where wood makes fire again.

In fact, the core of the script of "Borrowing a Knife to Kill" is very huge. The main line of the story is that a gangster buys murderers to kill people in order to evade legal sanctions and eliminates all witnesses directly, but skips this invisible main line, using the interaction between professional killer Vincent and taxi driver Max, the showdown runs through the entire movie, and then shows the tragedy of fate and moral decline in modern cities in the movie, and finally highlights the insignificance of human beings and the coldness of society.

But the problem is that Stewart's lines are less than one level, and the character portrayal is nothing but frame and soulless. This is actually a chain reaction. The characters' images are not profound and specific enough, which leads to the dialogue between Vincent and Max full of tension, but always lacks sparks and even more lacks depth. The lines are just a combination of pale and powerless fragments, not from the character, nor from the heart, and cannot be integrated with the characters. It is even more impossible to combine with the plot; the lines cannot be further promoted and penetrate into the plot, which affects the exploration of the core ideas of the entire script.

What truly witnesses a script skill is the lines.`

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

In fact, "killing people by borrowing a knife" can be a follow-up after "City of God", and the core of thought connects the past and the future. "City of God" tells the story of sin and darkness in another world that people do not know. People originally thought that the world is far away from their lives. But Lance photographed it naked and showed it to people; "killing people by borrowing a knife" tells the story of people who live in the same world as "City of God" but ignore the suffering of "City of God", cold-blooded, alienated, selfish, cruel, and indifferent. They ignore the city of God, Rwanda, their indulgence in the crimes around them, their indulgence in social issues, their indulgence in strangers, their indulgence in all their problems outside their lives... All of this is breeding, indulging, and even promoting the arrival of darkness.

Perhaps, soon, the second city of God will be born, and it will be darker, more depraved, and more chaotic.

Lance has even thought about it. "City of God" and "Killing with a Knife" are the first two works in the series, and the third work is "City of Sin", which completes his personal criminal trilogy.

Of course, this is just an idea. "City of Sin" is an adapted work from a comic, and the copyright of the adaptation is firmly in the hands of the original author Frank Miller (Frank-Fan 11er). If Lance remembers correctly, Robert Rodriguez is an enthusiast of this comic and has always hoped to bring this comic to the big screen. Maybe at this time, Robert is trying to convince Frank; maybe even without Robert, Lance has no way to convince Frank. There is no way to win the adaptation copyright...

In short, these are all future events. At present, Lance's biggest task is to complete the script of "killing with a knife". Lance's idea is to inject a philosophical core into "killing with a knife" and add a larger proposition to link sin with destiny.

In the original ending of the story of "Killing with a knife". Max successfully protected the prosecutor of the case, killed Vincent, and then achieved a victory escape. In short, justice defeated evil. In Hollywood, such a perfect ending would always be popular, but it weakened the impact of the story itself. It also affected the exploration of the story's ideas. 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 with the basics - first establish the two characters Vincent and Max, which are complete and full, giving the character vitality, and then use the characters to promote dialogue and the plot in the original plot framework. In this way, when the story is revealed to the end, the ending will naturally come out.

So, in the past week, Lance did not start writing the script, but established two characters from beginning to end, even including how Vincent was on the career killer path, why he fell in love with Jazz; the relationship between Max and 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 gangster who bought murderers behind him, as well as the investigation process of the case, the direct or indirect relationship between the five witnesses and the case...

Simply put, it is to write three short stories, the complete version.

In fact, these contents will not appear directly in the movie, because the first act of the movie is that the gang buys murder, Vincent takes over the case, and then the whole movie will revolve around this murderous night. Generally speaking, most of the Hollywood scripts follow the standard and classic three-act structure, namely the so-called beginning, subject and end, that is, the preparation, conflict, and resolution. However, "killing with a knife" skips the first two scenes and starts directly telling the content of the last scene.

Despite this, Lance wrote the first two acts in detail, and even wrote an autobiography for Vincent and Max. All of this is for script description service, giving the characters vitality and giving the story the whole story, in the real third act, the huge amount of information revealed by details will make the story more profound and broad.

At this moment, the information in Tom's hand was Vincent's autobiography, which lasted more than twenty pages and took Lance nearly four days. In fact, the autobiography was not directly related to the story of "Borrowing a Knife to Kill" movie, at least the content of the movie was not visible in the autobiography, but this autobiography has a close connection with the movie in all aspects. Most importantly, it is also the basis for Tom to interpret the role of Vincent.

Lance came to the door today and was definitely prepared. He would not accept any answers other than "yes".

The role of Vincent is not the most difficult role in Tom's career. His unruly performance in "Magnolia" and his evil charm/confused performance in "Night Visit to Vampire" are impressive; but what Lance is sure is that Vincent will be Tom's most difficult performance, because Vincent not only needs Tom to take off his charm coat that he is best at, but also needs to express his inner changes.

In Lance's conception, Vincent was a cold-blooded killer. There was no doubt that he had no change in his personality. He was decisive and cruel from beginning to end. However, in the whole movie, his mood would fluctuate twice. The first time was during the contact with Max, he began to be influenced by Max without realizing it, and his inner fragility was revealed in a conversation in the car, which was fleeting; the second time was at the end of the game, Vincent realized that his life was about to end, and despair and regret flashed through, and then came to an abrupt end.

These two fluctuations are actually not obvious, very delicate, but profound enough, and can be seen as a collision between a cold society and a trace of good thoughts. Unfortunately, the cruel and ruthless coldness gradually swallows up the good thoughts little by little, killing the last little warmth, and then completely letting the society escape into darkness.

This kind of performance that is extremely explosive until the end is extremely demanding on 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 potential of Tom and force Tom to a more extreme blind spot.

Tom is smart enough that he can see the difficulties of this character, and he can also see the potential of this character. As the saying goes, a poor person must have hateful things, and a hateful person must have pitiful things. Vincent is a hateful person, and he also has pitiful things, but he cruelly cut off his "poor" as if he cut off the rotten flesh of his body, leaving wounds as big as a bowl of mouth, and then completely ignores it. Even without the support of a specific story, Vincent is still a charming character.

The reason why the "Seven Deadly Sins" is recorded in history is not because Brad Pitt is charming, nor because Gwyneth Paltrow is unparalleled, but because Kevin Spacey plays an amazing person. In "Killing with a Knife", Vincent also has such an opportunity.

Tom quietly flipped through the autobiography in his hand. He originally thought that he would lose patience soon, and he stopped reading at most two pages, but then he found that he could not stop at all. When he came to his senses, he had already flipped through the twelfth page. The passage of time shocked Tom. He forced himself to give up the idea of ​​continuing to look down, but raised his head and looked at Lance.

Lance sat gracefully, refuting a cup of black tea for himself, steaming. Even without any magazines or entertainment, Lance sat there alone for half an hour, but was still content, as if even the air was not alarmed. This determination made Tom sigh.

"If you want, you can finish reading it all and then we'll talk about it." Lance said with a polite smile.

ps: The second update today, I beg all book friends to support the genuine subscription, thank you everyone!
Chapter completed!