“Failoor” is how my mom says the word “Failure”. “Oor” (I’m not spelling it right) means city or town in Tamil so when my mom says failure it sounds like ‘fail-town’. I have been a resident of fail-town today. Writing this morning? Fail. Writing this afternoon? Fail. Running?! Fail. Huge fail. Well, not that huge, I am being dramatic but fail for sure fail.
Adapting Master and Margarita is difficult. I am spending so much time on the script that all ability to distinguish decent/good from bad/embarrassing is fading away rapidly (not entirely true). On Friday and Saturday and most of Sunday, I was creating this musical almost of the events of the first chapter but I wasn’t able to solve the problem of missing information and have the solution be musical. Plus, the dialogue that I have written, again, I am not able to gauge if it’s any good. Yesterday night, I reread chapter one and two and did what I first did when I started adapting this business: I read the chapter and then wrote a little bit of dialogue/constructed a scene and that was that.
If I am honest, the musical sounds more fun. And the problem of missing information, maybe it can be incorporated simply through exposition at first and then we can mould it into musical dialogue after. A good place to find that missing information is the book and the dialogue can be stolen from there directly, at least for the time being.
After I watched 12 Angry Men, I got a little depressed. That picture has a great script that continues to deliver over time. I also didn’t see the mention of the name “Stanley Kubrick” in Sidney Lumet’s “Making Movies” and he’d listed practically every male director alive at the time. I took this to be a direct diss against Kubrick and his movies.
Solution: Just because Lumet doesn’t like Kubrick doesn’t mean I have to dislike Kubrick who has played a pivotal role in my cinematic upbringing.
Second, the main character of Gaspar Noe’s porno (it is a porno) “Love,” says that his favourite movie of all time is “2001”. I do not want to be associated with filmmakers like Gaspar Noe.
Solution: A lot of people are into “2001,” which was even referenced in the opening images of Greta Gerwig’s (a director I respect) Barbie (whether it was an homage or a parody). Plus, Nolan (another director pivotal in my cinematic upbringing) loves “2001”.
Another problem: my sister and Justin and my parents and frankly, everyone I know loves “12 Angry Men” and though I try to show them pictures like “Full Metal Jacket,” I am fully aware of the fact that they will most likely hate Kubrick’s movies.
Solution: Not everyone has to like Kubrick for me to like Kubrick. Plus, remember watching “Full Metal Jacket” in summer in Kuala Lumpur? The connection between my eyes and the screen couldn’t be broken with a knife. I will never forget how involved I was in that picture and how that picture has made me feel.
Another problem: I really want to upload my progress to LinkedIn to show people what I am working on. Plus, it allows me to feel a sense of satisfaction, a sense of completion but I can’t upload an incomplete screenplay. I only wanted to write four pages for the first chapter but already (well, it has only been 4 days) the task is proving to be very difficult.
Solution: Give yourself a little slack. The musical idea sounds very fun. The rhythm is exciting. The text is exciting too. A solution for Berlioz’s panic attack/heatstroke exists, in a musical way. And the solution to their conversation about God/self-determination/fate, or whatever else they are meant to discuss exists. The solutions that will lead to the completion of the first four pages exist. Perhaps we can set ourselves a timeline. Since we already have about a page and a half, maybe in another three or four days, we can be done with the adaptation of the first chapter. Perhaps, by the end of the week (Friday, April 18th) we can publish our 4-page adaptation of Chapter 1 of “The Master and Margarita”.