The flesh of the script: sensory screenwriting and aesthetic experimentation in the fiction feature screenpla

• Grant number: 19/10787-4
• Support Opportunities: Scholarships in Brazil - Doctorate
• Start date: August 01, 2019
• End date: April 08, 2024
• Field of knowledge: Linguistics, Literature and Arts - Arts - Cinema
• Principal Investigator: Esther Império Hamburger
• Grantee: Éri Ramos Sarmet dos Santos
• Host Institution: Escola de Comunicações e Artes (ECA). Universidade de São Paulo (USP). São Paulo , SP, Brazil
• Associated scholarship(s): 22/10294-0 - Unproductive writing: body, sensation and excess in screenplays, BE.EP.DR

Abstract

This dissertation investigates screenwriting from a historical, theoretical, and critical perspective that understands it simultaneously as both practice and discourse (Maras, 2009). To this end, I trace a genealogy of the film script form, analyzing the cultural, economic, and social transformations that have shaped its structure, from the earliest scenarios to the contemporary normative poetics institutionalized by manuals and their so-called "gurus." The rigidity surrounding narrative structure conventions and the compartmentalization of creative roles significantly limits the artistic potential of the fiction screenplay, as it neglects the very aspects that define what it means to "write for the screen."More than just a blueprint for film planning, the screenplay is a privileged space for anticipating mise-en-scène, capable of eliciting affects, constructing atmospheres, and provoking sensations. My hypothesis is that the screenplay engages its readers through words that aspire to become something else, a concept I define as sensory screenwriting or "writing of sensations". This type of writing challenges the orthodoxy of screenwriting manuals and engages readers/spectators through narrative, discursive, and poetic strategies that appeal to the body, particularly to emotions and non-verbal behaviors that involve the senses, such as touch, sound, and gaze.I draw upon the notion of excess to explore the possibilities of constructing sensation within the materiality of the filmic text, while also examining how the political and aesthetic projects of films manifest in word choices. The corpus of this research privileges contemporary fiction feature screenplays, including Friendly Beast (Gabriela Amaral Almeida, 2016), The Father's Shadow (Gabriela Amaral Almeida, 2018), Portrait of a Lady on Fire (Céline Sciamma, 2019), Moonlight (Barry Jenkins, screenplay by Barry Jenkins and Tarell Alvin McCraney, 2017), The Matrix (Lana and Lilly Wachowski, 1999), and Carol (Todd Haynes, 2015, screenplay by Phyllis Nagy).The analysis of these works demonstrates that screenwriters from different production contexts consistently challenge the "principles" and "paradigms" that constrain the artistic and cinematic expressive potential of the genre. This study focuses on scene text analysis, with particular emphasis on the commentary mode (Sternberg, 1997), a mechanism through which screenwriters can articulate the mental states and emotions of both characters and themselves. By exploring the interaction between the body and a language that is simultaneously literary and cinematic, this research not only reexamines the screenplay as an active space for aesthetic experimentation but also proposes new ways of thinking about and teaching the relationship between text and film.