Extraordinary People: The Oscar-winning Screenwriting of Alvin Sargent

Within the annals of film history, Ordinary People has the misfortune of being chiefly remembered as the movie that beat out Raging Bull for the Best Picture Oscar in 1980. It won three other Academy Awards, for Best Supporting Actor (Timothy Hutton), Best Director (Robert Redford), and Best Adapted Screenplay (Alvin Sargent). Most film majors at Columbia remain baffled about how a low-key “soap opera” could have won the top prize over Scorsese’s masterpiece. And although Bull remains one of the greatest films of its decade, People has a tangible reason for its success. Beyond its amazing performances and sensitive direction, it is the screenplay that allows the film’s themes to emanate from the behavior and emotions of its characters. Screenwriter Sargent’s use of metaphor, dialogue, and character complexity are the reasons why I chose to study this film, before I wrote my own screenplay entitled Role Play, which is also a character study. My screenplay, like People, also deals with the façades we seek comfort in, and centers around a young character on a journey toward self-discovery.

First of all, Sargent’s use of metaphors is sparse but potent. These are the moments that you may not catch upon the first viewing, and thus makes any repeated viewings immensely rewarding (instead of merely repetitive). The metaphors in People also contain hints about character nuance that would seem obvious if openly stated. Sargent makes sure that not a frame is wasted, and that every moment contains a deeper meaning. Consider an early scene in Conrad’s English class, where his teacher asks him about a key character within the text they are reading. “Do you feel he was powerless to the grip of circumstance?” she asks, prompting a clueless Conrad to respond inconclusively. The guilt over his brother’s death causes Conrad to become distracted in everyday life, and he therefore can’t see the truth staring him the face. The truth is, Conrad was powerless to the grip of circumstance, in that the storm that killed his brother (during their boat trip) was not the fault of his own, but in reality, the result of his brother simply giving up (and letting go of the boat). This scene foreshadows the discoveries to come without the audience (upon first viewing) being conscious of it, and Conrad’s behavior “metaphorically” hints at his inability to see the truth of his predicament.

Some metaphors are more silent ones, such as when Conrad’s father Calvin is jogging through a forest, while remembering a preceding fight between his wife and son. His ever-failing struggle to create peace in his family, and the fact he’s allowing himself to be the ‘rope’ in his family’s emotional tug of war, finally causes him to collapse. This moment viscerally illustrates Calvin’s internal struggle reaching a boiling point, as his increasingly frenzied running is seen over dialogue from his family’s argument. The sequence climaxes with Calvin tripping and falling, leading immediately to the scene it was foreshadowing, Calvin’s visit to Conrad’s psychiatrist. Here, Calvin’s articulated feelings (about his losing battle to keep his family together) are easily comprehended by the audience, after metaphorically experiencing them during the previous scene.

My favorite metaphor in the film occurs after one of its most wrenching scenes, in which Conrad’s mother Beth refuses to be in a photograph with her son. Although she cheerily suggests that Conrad take a picture with Calvin instead, Conrad can easily sense her feeling of discomfort and coldness around him, and he eventually explodes. This comes as a shock to Beth’s parents, who are present in the room. Beth flees to the kitchen, and accidentally drops a plate a plate on the floor, splitting it in half. As she calmly informs her mother that she can’t deal with Conrad’s outbursts anymore, her attention drifts toward the plate, which her eyes study methodically. Finally, she interrupts further interrogations from her mother by holding up the plate and observing, “I think we can save this. It’s a nice clean break.” This one moment brilliantly encompasses the character of Beth, who is unable to deal with life’s “mess”, and can only fix problems that have a “nice, clean” solution. Her relationship with Conrad cannot be saved because there are too many painful complexities to their relationship – she had always favored the deceased older son (Buck), which only intensifies Conrad’s guilt, and led to his failed suicide attempt. As Calvin later observes, Beth “buried her love along with Buck”, and is now a broken woman who hides behind a hollow smile, and can only live within a limited existence under her own control. She wants to break off from Conrad like a plate neatly breaking in two, but life will prove to be not so easy.

This leads to the next major strength of the film, which is the dialogue. The mainstream cinema of today routinely insults the intelligence of its audience by having characters spell out emotions and motivations in long-winded exposition. In the latest Star Wars film (for example), when Padme wants to tell Anakin that he’s breaking her heart, and that he’s going down a path she can’t follow, she simply states, “Anakin, you’re breaking my heart. You’re going down a path I can’t follow.” How boring is that? The dialogue in People is exquisitely subtle in comparison, allowing the characters to partake in the kind of discussion that is commonplace in suburban households. What is implied under this mundane chatter is always more resonant than what is being heard.

After Conrad accidentally startles her mother, who is silently sitting in the Buck’s room, he makes another of his earnest attempts to connect with her. The dialogue in this scene wonderfully captures the essence of their relationship, by implying (rather than stating) their true feelings:

Beth: Weren’t you swimming?

Conrad: Yeah, sorry I scared you.

Beth: How’d it go?

Conrad: Good. I swam well.

Beth: Good. [heads for her bedroom]

Conrad: I think I could swim the 50 if my timing was better. I’m a little off.

Beth: You’ll have to work at that. [opens bedroom door]

Conrad: I got 74 on a Trig quiz.

Beth: 74? Gee, I was awful at Trig.

Conrad: Oh. Yeah? Did you…You took Trig?

Beth: Wait a minute. Did I take Trig? I bought you two shirts. They’re on your bed.

With that, Beth escapes into her bedroom and shuts the door. Conrad wants Beth to love him (and take an active interest in him), but Beth’s emotional weakness causes her to remain oblivious to anyone’s emotions other than her own. If the characters had simply stated these facts, they wouldn’t resonate nearly as much as they are when implied. Sargent’s dialogue is deceptively simple, yet subtly conveys volumes.

The final element of People’s screenplay I find inspiring, and want to include in my own feature script, is the character complexities. With the exception of Conrad’s psychiatrist (who mainly functions as a source of grounded wisdom), every character in the film has enough depth to defy being labeled an archetype (or stereotype). When Conrad’s friends turn on him when he quits the swim team, they aren’t just acting like villainous jocks. Conrad’s seemingly cold indifference to the team leads his friends to understandably feel betrayed, and it isn’t until late in the film that Conrad admits why he can’t hang out with them anymore. He admits that “it’s too painful to be around” the friends that he and his deceased brother hung out with. This is an unfortunate end to a friendship, where both sides are equally hurt, and no ‘good guy’ or ‘bad guy’ labels are issued. Similarly, his relationship with soon-to-be-girlfriend Jeannine has its own flaws and awkwardness, such as when her laughter disrupts Conrad’s serious description of his attempted suicide. Her laughter is generated by the embarrassment she feels when Conrad’s friends begin to tease her, although Conrad initially takes it as a sign of her insensitivity. Such misunderstandings are simple, yet very common in everyday life.

The character of Karen, Conrad’s friend at the hospital, is similar to the character complexities in my feature script. She believes that in order to exist in the ‘real world’, she must ignore her own problems, and thus play the role of a fully-functional, upbeat person (which explains her involvement in her high school drama club). Yet playing a role your entire life soon leads to self-destruction and Karen later commits suicide. The main character in Role Play is on a journey toward discovering similar truths about himself and his own “artificial roles”, although his ending is a happier one.

In the end, Ordinary People is a profoundly inspiring film to me as both a filmmaker and a film lover. It demonstrates how characters truly can carry a film themselves, if they are written in a way that their emotional journeys can provide as much discovery to the audience as they can for themselves. Through subtle metaphor, perceptive dialogue, and character complexity, Alvin Sargent’s screenplay for this film is a masterpiece of character nuance. What seems ordinary on the surface, is revealed to be quite the opposite underneath, and as the characters in my screenplay struggle with their own identities, I hope their struggle can be even a fraction as involving as this film.