Saturday, February 3, 2007

Guillermo Arriaga

I am currently listening to a Q&A with Guillermo Arriaga, the screenwriter of Babel (as well as 21 Grams & Amores Perros - these movies are intended to be a trilogy of sorts). He is a genius and I'm gaining respect for Babel. The man doesn't write notes and doesn't research (he proudly notes he has never been to Morocco or Japan) and starts over each draft from page one. All this while writing in the out-of-order style you can see in these three films. He mentions being upset when someone commented on the amazing editing in 21 Grams, because that's exactly how he wrote it. Again, no notes means he doesn't have each storyline thought out ahead of time.

He sites Hemingway and Faulkner as his influences and that Amores Perros intentionally flows like The Sound and the Fury.

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