Victor Grippi – The Atomic Writer

The Book of Eli

In The Book of Eli we see the hero, Denzel Washington on the road in a post-apocalyptic world littered with bomb craters and full of Mad Max characters that appear to be re-using the same costumes from the original movie. We never actually learn of what type of bombs these were only a “flash” that tore open the sky. We can assume atomic but then the survivors seemed to not have radiation poisoning. Don’t get the Atomic Writer wrong, I liked the movie and its powerful message almost as much as I like to write, but not quite.

Early in the story we have the scene where Eli beds down for the night, bar-b-cues a cat he hunted earlier, then gives a piece to a little mouse who somehow survives alright on his own. This is a screenwriting technique known as “save the cat”. The late Blake Synder coined the phrase which literally means to show your hero doing something nice so we the audience will like him. A character can save a cat from a tree, help a little child or throw a bone at man’s best friend. Showing the hero do this also prepares us for the other side of a complex character: The dark side.

Within minutes of “saving the mouse” we watch a brutal fight scene where, and yes this is another technique us screenwriters like to do; we show the hero doing something he’s very good at. In this case it’s killing other people, a skill undoubtedly valuable in this post-apocalyptic world. He whips his combat machete around and a half dozen men fall limp to the ground. We see him later wheeling a pistol around and shooting armed gunmen off the tops of roofs and over a hundred yards down the road, and when the twist comes at the end, and I’ll leave this out so this is not a total spoiler, it could only come from divine or supernatural intervention. He is protected because of the importance of his mission.

We begin to respect him when he turns down Mila Kunis for sex. Okay, on a personal note: I thought he was being stupid turning her down, and I know this sounds cheesy, but hey she’s HOT, and I’m a red blooded atomic writer!

He does this in the name of the book, which later we learn is the King James version of the Bible if we hadn’t already figured it out. This makes the divine intervention angle more plausible. He’s on a quest to deliver the book to a place where it will be respected and protected. Why not just take the back roads and stay away from other people? I mean if this really is the reason he has been given supernatural powers then why did it take him nearly 31 years to get to Alcatraz? Well why did it? Even if he started in the Northern most tip of Maine, it would not take someone, especially with supernatural powers, 31 years to get to the San Francisco Bay. One possible reason is that it makes a better story. Can’t make a movie about a guy tiptoeing through the woods to deliver a Bible. Nah, it just doesn’t work. We need at least three acts, 15 major beats, according to Mr. Snyder, in order to make up a well structured movie.

Good screenwriting is telling a story in pictures more than in dialogue. It is always better to move the story forward with images and actions that the character does instead of telling the story with talking heads. This is an axiom in the business, and The Book of Eli does this very well. If you want to tell a story in pictures you need these basic elements:

1. A single main character shown in 95% of the scenes.
2. A world that limits interaction between people, like the post-apocalyptic genre.
3. Make your hero do a lot of reading.
4. When he’s not reading show him pulling a Jackie Chan maneuver on the minor characters with a very sharp object.
5. Use supernatural or divine intervention to explain why bullets seem to just miss him.
a. if he does get shot at close range, make sure he can still walk down the road.
6. Create a twist to reveal at the end of the movie so that the audience leaves trying to wrap their heads around the validity of it, and not the central question of why it took him 31 years to get to San Francisco.

Please anyone out there correct me if I’m wrong…

Overall, The Atomic Writer recommends The Book of Eli and just wants his readers to know the full story and behind the scenes motivations that the writer, Gary Whitta had to deal with. Great job Gary.

Remember, never stop looking up at the night sky and asking what if.

Victor Grippi
The Atomic Writer