Screenplays

I find both of these screenplays interesting. I found the Untitled screenplay a bit disorienting at certain places but after reading through to the end, most of the unclear passages begin to make sense. I'm not entirely sure if I am interpreting either of these stories in the same way the writers intended, but here are a few of my thoughts:

The first thought that came to my mind when trying to make connections with Grace's hair was the passage in the New Testament when Christ talks about forsaking sin when he tells us to figuratively cut off our hand if it offends us; for it is better that the hand is severed than that the body be destroyed by the hand. Throughout the story, Grace grapples with her struggle of cutting her hair off. She knows she needs to because it is causing her harm, but it is hard to let go of some things in life. It's not until she nearly dies that she has the courage to do what needs to be done.

I found it interesting that the hair had a will of it's own (I wonder how long this hair is? It would be interesting to see it played out on screen). There seems to be an internal struggle of discernment in Grace's character. When she is in her room she is about to cut off her hair, but then the hair "lovingly wraps around her fingers and snuggles up against her head." At this point she decides not to cut her hair. It seems events like this happen to many of us. We know we need to change or do something through inspiration, and moments later, Satan comes and proposes an alternative. His subtle tactics are convincing and difficult to discern from God's answers at times. I enjoyed this theme that was threaded throughout the script.

There was also some nice imagery of Grace walking into the wind while everyone else tried to find shelter from it. Clearly, Grace, like all of us, needed to fix some things in her life. An interesting thing I though about was the possibility of how Latter-day Saints view one another. There are a couple scenes that may suggest that Grace loses hope as she sees the good people around her. First, in this scene when she is walking against the wind as well as in the classroom; Grace struggles with her modeling as students around her seem like they are doing a perfect job. Many members of the Church negatively compare themselves to other members whom they think are more righteous then they are. Because we are a people striving for perfection, it is a natural inclination for us to focus on our weaknesses and perhaps see a misguided perfection in others, when in all reality, all members of the Church struggle in some way or another.

The screenplay about Mr. Bellpond reminded me of an independent film I recently saw called "The Ghost of Dicken's Past". The story is about how Charles Dickens's painful and suffering experiences in creating his famous story, "A Christmas Carol." In a similar way, Mr. Bellpond needed to learn the principle that in order to contribute goodness to the world, you first need to live a good life -- meaning God and family comes first. That is a lesson I think all Mormon artists should really think about. We cannot put forth quality material unless we qualify for the spirit in our lives through righteousness. If we put work or anything else above priorities of God and family, then life becomes a tragedy as it did for Mr. Bellpond; after his wife was missing, he stopped his career, he became a hermit inside his home, and wasn't able to enjoy life and move on.

I really like the ending of this script. I love that we don't have the complete resolution of the story, and because of that, Mr. Bellpond must take a leap of faith and move forward in hope believing that will see his wife. Faith and hope are key players in this story. The process of Mr. Bellpond receiving letters from an anonymous source that inspired him to work and exercise his faith reminded me of something that the Bible Dictionary states: "Faith is kindled by hearing the testimony of those who have faith." Even though the anonymous writer was kind of a jerk, he offered an outlet that provided Mr. Bellpond some "kindling" to get his faith moving in the right direction. Some people can't be expected to make giant leaps of faith without some prior kindling experiences to build them up beforehand. It could have been easy for the wife to write something on the blank paper or to have written more details about her life and things like that, but Mr. Bellpond needed to discover these things for himself so he could grow.

Again, I could be completely off in the way I interpreted some of these stories but I enjoyed both of them a lot.