Moving Narratives 2: Inspiration

Initially, none of the films really sparked my interest in terms of using ideas from them for my own film. At most was 'Wrong' which featured a bizzare sense of humour and some ties to crime with the use of an incompetent detective character. However, after being shown 'Down By Law', an idea grew from seeing three strangers bonding in prison.

The only idea I had to start with was two criminals sharing a cell with one wanting desperately to break out while the other would actually prefer to stay in jail. I used that as the base and build around it with a combination of improvisation and thinking about the interactions in 'Down By Law'. The three characters were surprisingly likable despite their negative demeanours for the most part and we earnestly want to see them make it to the end of their journey unscathed.

The interaction specifically with Roberto (Roberto Benigni) and the other two, Zack and Jack (Tom Waits and John Lurie), was the main driving force behind my film. We learn that, out of the three, Roberto had committed the worst crime as he murdered someone while the other two were set up for lesser crimes. It's interesting that the funny, light hearted member of the trio is the one who did the worst crime while the negative, down to earth characters are the seemingly innocent ones. I constructed the two prisoners in my film with this in mind as one simply broke into mall while the other, seemingly more comedic one, killed someone horrifically. It makes more a good comedic set up ripe for character interaction.