Tony Grisoni has been working as a screenwriter since 1989 when his debut feature, Queen of Hearts , was met with critical praise and opened the doors to Hollywood interest. While he has worked on a number of personal projects with long-time collaborator Brian Catling (such as Vanished! A Video Séance in 1999) he is best known for his work with Terry Gilliam on their eye-popping adaptation of Hunter S. Thompson's Fear and Loathing in Las Vegas (1998) and the famously doomed project The Man Who Killed Don Quixote . His most recent work was the devised screenplay for Michael Winterbottom's In This World (2002). From his choice of projects it is clear that Grisoni has enjoyed a level of freedom and experimentation that is rare among career screenwriters and it is perhaps for this reason that he has been asked to talk about his background, experiences and the screenwriting process for the 2005 Raindance East festival.
The story of Grisoni's introduction to the industry is a familiar one - he studied film, worked his way through every job in the business from runner to sound recordist and eventually turned to screenwriting. He admits, as many writers have concerning their initial experiences, to "not knowing what a screenplay was" but his extensive work in the industry produced an unconventional approach to the writer's involvement in the filmmaking process - "I'm a strong believer in collaboration in film - it's the only way films can get made." There is a clear progression in his on-set involvement with his three major films - from the two visits he made to the set of Queen of Hearts , to the constant work involved with Fear and Loathing in Las Vegas, e-mailing script notes to Gilliam whenever he was not on set, to the culmination of this ideal with his work on In This World in which he was developing the story with the cast and crew from start to finish.
"I want to be there for every day of the shoot" he explains, "I want to see every cut. I want to talk to the director". Despite an unwritten rule that a writer's involvement ends once the script is finished "it's less of a problem with experienced people. The best directors field other people's energies and gather input." Gilliam is a good example of this, "When he shoots he's constantly appraising the script."
Grisoni cites British television as one of his early influences and uses the one-off drama Whistle and I'll Come To You as an example. Jonathan Miller's adaptation of the M.R. James story opens with a voice-over that delivers the story in its entirety before the film has even started. Used in this way the voice-over becomes a useful narrative tool as opposed to an economic delivery exposition; it shapes our opinion of the story before it has even happened. It is a technique Grisoni himself would experiment with in both Queen of Hearts and Fear and Loathing in Las Vegas, both of which are told in voice-over.
Dennis Potter was also a major influence and appropriately Grisoni worked with John Amiel, director of Potter's most famous work, The Singing Detective , on Queen of Hearts . Considering these influences it is less surprising that he would go on to adapt Hunter S. Thompson's notoriously unfilmable novel with Gilliam. Together they re-wrote the script in record time, realising that where other writers had failed was in trying to write like Thompson - "We decided that we wouldn't write anything. We used the book and collaged it."
His experiences on Michael Winterbottom's In This World , a film that follows the journey of two asylum seekers from Afghanistan as they travel to Great Britain , reveal that Grisoni does not adhere to the Hollywood practice of endless planning and even more re-writes. In fact, the film did not have a script at all - "We had twenty-five pages which was the outline for the film, but we were open to what we found . I started by collecting stories, we built up a route, then I'd go ahead of the crew and meet people who were prepared to be in the film." Despite the unconventional nature of the process Grisoni enjoys this method of development - "The film was almost a bonus as it was such an extraordinary thing to do."
For the aspiring screenwriter Grisoni admits to being wary towards giving advice, but offers, "you do need an agent. In the States you definitely need an agent". Like many writers he has found the process of adjusting his style to Hollywood standards a difficult one, an example being a thriller script he was commissioned to write early on in his career which the producer criticised with, "I'm on page fifteen and there aren't any thrills yet." He also re-emphasises the advantages of collaboration - "Try not to be on your own. You have so little power on your own and it's easier to get discouraged." Again he insists that a writer's work does not end with the script, and his collaborations with Brian Catling, some of which have taken several years to complete, are good examples of this - "A script is worth nothing unless it is completed, and completed means making the film."
On the art of writing itself Grisoni has an outlook relatively unique amongst his peers. Where the use of voice-over is concerned he says, "A lot of people make a lot of rules about screenwriting, but I don't see why someone should tell you or me what I can and can't do with a screenplay. There aren't any rules." A scene from Fear and Loathing adequately demonstrates this point - the Johnny Depp voice-over talks about meeting himself in a crowded nightclub while onscreen we see him looking at the real Hunter S. Thompson. Whether it is successful or not, Grisoni's writing is an attempt to open up the process by creating a world in which anything is possible. It is here that his work comes full circle as the influences of a by-gone era of British innovation manifest themselves on a Hollywood screen.
Chris Regan
|
