Just read a bit of the script for The Big Short.
Right at the beginning, I found this:
"A bunch of FAT BOND TRADERS eat deli sandwiches and smoke cigarettes on the Solomon Brothers Bond Trading floor. It’s not exactly Michael Douglas in Wall Street."
The scriptwriter refers to another movie. So I began wondering how kosher this is. The reference here is very general and steers the reader away from a wrong mental image which might appear. I'm thinking it should be okay to do this.
But what about more specific references? For example, I may want to show a terriffic sword fight, but not to choreograph it down to every single cut and thrust. This is better left to the director. Now it would seem rather feeble to write something like
"Harry fights the three robbers. He cuts and stabs with great skill. Eventually, they all lie dead."
So I thought I could write something like
"The robbers run and jump, frantically trying to get at Harry, who walks calmly among them, his blade flashing. It's like Toshiro Mifune killing the bandits in in 'Yojimbo'".
Would that suck?
Right at the beginning, I found this:
"A bunch of FAT BOND TRADERS eat deli sandwiches and smoke cigarettes on the Solomon Brothers Bond Trading floor. It’s not exactly Michael Douglas in Wall Street."
The scriptwriter refers to another movie. So I began wondering how kosher this is. The reference here is very general and steers the reader away from a wrong mental image which might appear. I'm thinking it should be okay to do this.
But what about more specific references? For example, I may want to show a terriffic sword fight, but not to choreograph it down to every single cut and thrust. This is better left to the director. Now it would seem rather feeble to write something like
"Harry fights the three robbers. He cuts and stabs with great skill. Eventually, they all lie dead."
So I thought I could write something like
"The robbers run and jump, frantically trying to get at Harry, who walks calmly among them, his blade flashing. It's like Toshiro Mifune killing the bandits in in 'Yojimbo'".
Would that suck?
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