And Then What? – The Oscars and the Power of Suspense

As I write this, the manhunt continues for Christopher Jordan Dorner, the vengeful ex-cop suspected of gunning down three innocents. Now, though Dorner seems to have vanished without a trace in the snowy mountains of Big Bear, tensions continue to rise. Where will he surface next? Who will be his target?

This kind of real-life suspense is something movies are always aiming to capture. Filmmakers know that viewers can be kept on the edge of their seats if they’re deeply invested in the fate of a film’s central characters. It helps if they find themselves surprised by plot twists and turns they didn’t anticipate. But what if the outcome is known in advance? Three of the nine films nominated for this year’s Best Picture Oscar -– Argo, Lincoln, and Zero Dark Thirty –- are based on actual historic incidents. In each case, when I walked into the theatre, I knew (at least in general terms) what would ultimately happen: that the beleaguered American Embassy personnel would safely escape from Tehran, that Lincoln and his allies would rally Congress to pass the 13th Amendment, that a squad of Navy SEALS would breach the Abbottabad compound and kill Osama Bin Laden. The success of these films lies in their ability to grip viewers like me, even when we know what’s coming.

Smart screenwriters dealing with historic episodes ratchet up suspense in several ways. Writers can create rich, complex charcters whose behavior is not always predictable. Tony Kushner’s script for Lincoln got me interested not only in the results of the Congressional vote but also in the diverse personalities who –- for their own reasons -- chose yea or nay. Writers can introduce heart-pounding chase scenes. Chris Terrio added to the climax of Argo a (doubtless exaggerated) pursuit on the airport tarmac that contributed hugely to the audience’s excitement level. Writers can flesh out an action sequence with so many real-seeming details that we can’t help but be caught up in the moment. All of us know the results of the Abbottabad raid, but it becomes much more powerful when Mark Boal’s script immerses us in its second-by-second chaos and confusion.

Back in 1995, Ron Howard and his screenwriting team faced a similar challenge when transforming the memoir of mission commander Jim Lovell into the film Apollo 13. The abortive Apollo 13 moon mission had blasted off in 1970, but in 1995 most moviegoers probably still remembered that it -- alone among America’s lunar missions -- hadn’t gone as planned. Due to crippling technical difficulties, the moon landing had to be scrubbed, and the astronauts barely made it back to earth. Because the astronauts’ survival was well known, screenwriters Willam Broyles Jr. and Al Reinert heightened their film’s suspense through character interaction. As the stakes grow higher, viewers shuttle between the apparently doomed astronauts in their capsule and the engineers at Houston’s manned space center, desperately relaying ideas to help fix the damaged spacecraft. Another key component of the film involves Jim Lovell’s wife, holding tight to her husband’s love as he yearns to return home to her and their family.

Apollo 13 was nominated for nine Oscars, including Best Picture. But there was no nomination for director Ron Howard. That fact seemed to doom the picture, even though it had won top honors from Hollywood’s acting, directing, and producing guilds several weeks earlier. On Oscar night, Braveheart was the big winner. Given the current Oscar snub for Argo’s director, Ben Affleck, is Argo fated to go the route of Apollo 13? That’s a question that will make for real suspense on February 23.

This post is dedicated to Roxanne Lane, a film industry veteran who’s one of Argo’s most loyal fans.

Note: Here’s a surprising editorial in today’s Los Angeles Times, pointing out Tony Kushner’s deliberate falsification of the voting record of four congressmen from Connecticut, in order to heighten the drama of the film Lincoln.