What movies have influenced your writing?

I'm currently writing historical fiction set in the 1920s Prohibition era and I get no influence from today's movies, but Louise Brooks, W.C. Fields, Billie Dove, Wallace Reid and Douglas Fairbanks are secondary characters so I have often viewed their movies as part of my research. My timeline has not reached talkies yet and watching silent movies takes a bit of getting used to at first. Even though I don't hear their voices, just the way they move helps to understand them. BTW I agree that American Grafitti 2 is much under-rated. Several people I have talked to about it were not even aware of its existence! I do get inspiration from 1920s jazz music. It is a great mirror to the major societal changes that took place in the 1920s.

I've definitely been influenced by film and television; back when it first came out in theaters, the Lord of the Rings trilogy inspired me to delve into fantasy fiction and that has become my genre "home." I read the LoTR books after the movies, but didn't find them as inspirational, though of course I have great respect for Tolkien and his legacy. Before LoTR I was into mainly horror and literary stuff, which I still dig, but they have taken a backseat to fantasy for me in the last ten years or so.

I also found Anne Rice through watching Interview with a Vampire when I was a wee one in the early 90's, and her writing style, her characters, all of that has been a huge influence on me as well.

I feel that I've learned a lot about storytelling through certain movies and shows; The Wire comes to mind as a classic show that I studied pretty intently for how it handled immersing the viewer in its world (and having faith in/ not hand-holding the viewer through that), and more recently there was Westworld, which I had about a million writer-fangirl moments over as I watched and re-watched it...

The thing about movies and television is that you only have dialogue, action and scenery as tools to tell your story; it's been a huge help for me to focus on utilizing those tools as much as possible within writing, because I've often tended toward naval-gazing characters in the past and I have had to train myself to get them out of their heads and moving the plot forward. Certainly I don't eliminate their inner reactions and struggles, now, but my writing is much better for having tried to approach storytelling in this fashion. I recommend it for others who gravitate toward overly passive or thoughtful characters!

I have so many that I can't name right now. Give me a moment.

Phantasmagoria said:

The thing about movies and television is that you only have dialogue, action and scenery as tools to tell your story; it's been a huge help for me to focus on utilizing those tools as much as possible within writing, because I've often tended toward naval-gazing characters in the past and I have had to train myself to get them out of their heads and moving the plot forward. Certainly I don't eliminate their inner reactions and struggles, now, but my writing is much better for having tried to approach storytelling in this fashion. I recommend it for others who gravitate toward overly passive or thoughtful characters!

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In movies, music, camera technique, and editing are also integral to story-telling. These really make a difference to a film.

I'm sure you know this -- The Wire had several crime novelists working as scriptwriters. Might be interesting to compare their books with the eps based on their scripts.

I've been inspired and influenced by books mostly. And music, too. But the only movie I can think of as an influence is Network, from 1970-something, with William Holden and Faye Dunaway. Script by Paddy Cheyefsky (sp). My novel's setting has some inspiration from that movie. But there's also a scene that might have been influenced by Warner Brothers cartoons.

That's all, folks.

The ones where the MC dies, gets crippled, or is terminally f*cked by the end of the movie. I used to be a member at IMDB before the trolls blew it up. People always asked you to post your top ten movie favorites. Here are mine:

1. Lawrence of Arabia
2. The Duellists
3. Dances with Wolves
4. The Remains of the Day
5. Braveheart
6. The Last of the Mohicans
7. The Assassination of Jesse James by the Coward Robert Ford
8. One Flew Over the Cuckoo's Nest
9. The Wild Bunch
10. Patton

Might as well throw in Little Big Man too, although it's not on the list.

Helix said:

In movies, music, camera technique, and editing are also integral to story-telling. These really make a difference to a film.

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This is true- I was thinking more along the lines of tools that a script-writer could use, I guess; not so much tools that are unusable to novel writers. But yeah, you're really right and I should have clarified here!

I never have read any novels penned by the Wire writers, but I'm sure I'll get around to it eventually (she says... from behind the stack of as-yet-unread doorstopper fantasy novels she has amassed......)

Can it be movies that we hated, but stuck with us?

You learn as much from bad writing as you do good, so why not?

Okay, Antichrist by Lars Von Tier. Awful movie, but it stuck with me.

I can't name any that have directly influence things I've written, but I can nominate a few that I wish had:

Chinatown, Roman Polanski directed, with Jack Nicholson, Faye Dunaway and John Huston. Dark and extremely well-constructed 1930s detective story.

Blood Simple, an early Cohen Brothers film, also noir mystery, with a wonderfully executed and intricate plot. Also a great use of POV in a movie.

Posse, a 1960ish black-and-white western with Kirk Douglas and Bruce Dern. Two of their finest performances in a very strong character-driven story.

Nebraska a recent black-and-white drama, also with Bruce Dern, lots of humor and pathos, very well constructed.

Apocalypse Now, my nominee for the best war movie ever made

I've left off great movies made directly from novels I've read, because that seems to dodge the question of this thread.

caw

Thorn Birds
Underworld
and an anime known as Blood+

Cool Hand Luke

Paper Moon

The Last Picture Show

The Other

Robinson Caruso On Mars

One Flew Over The Cuckoo's Nest.

Fight Club

The Wizard Of Oz

Fried Green Tomatoes

Men Don't Leave

Frankie007 said:

Thorn Birds
Underworld
and an anime known as Blood+

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I need to watch Blood+.

Believe it or not, Zootopia got me really thinking about the concept of "race relations" when entirely different species are involved. And, it does make sense, as when dealing with a fantasy world that is populated by a myriad host of different intelligent species, race relations go beyond things such as country of origin and skin color.

These movies have influenced more than my writing...they've shaped my mind.

The Descendants - 2011
Fehérlófia (Son of the White Mare) - 1981
Forrest Gump - 1994
King of California - 2007
A Raisin in the Sun - 1961
Mr. Holland's Opus - 1995
Cool Hand Luke - 1967
The Plague Dogs - 1982
Rear Window - 1954
True Grit - 1969
One Flew Over The Cuckoo's Nest - 1975
Patton - 1970
Of Mice and Men - 1939
Redline - 2009

Edit:

Frankie007 said:

Thorn Birds
Underworld
and an anime known as Blood+

Click to expand...

*Googles Blood+...and then kicks self*
Wish I had watched this before Blood C. Then again, I wish I had never watched Blood C at all.

When I first started out writing, Star Trek movies and TV shows, Star Wars, and Babylon 5 influenced me a lot in the creation of my own science fiction Universe. I drew inspiration from Dragonheart in creating my dragons personality-wise.

In my third book, I developed ideas inspired by Avatar (the aerial battle in my dragon/fighter battles) and Star Wars III: Revenge of the Sith (Anakin/Obi-Wan duel, but with dragons and I reversed the roles). One might say How to Train Your Dragon 2 influenced my work, too. In the climax, Varthikes tries to reach a brainwashed Audwin just like Hiccup does with Toothless, but I wrote the scene a month before the movie came out.

StarGazer770 said:

Edit:

*Googles Blood+...and then kicks self*
Wish I had watched this before Blood C. Then again, I wish I had never watched Blood C at all.

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i saw....the first minute of Blood C and was like...nope. and about helping you discover Blood+...you're welcome! PM me on how you liked that anime. i really didn't like any of the movie versions.

RoadTripDog said:

BTW I agree that American Grafitti 2 is much under-rated. Several people I have talked to about it were not even aware of its existence!

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I wasn't, and I rather liked the first.

Heath Ledger's Joker in The Dark Knight set the gold standard for how to write a supervillain with grander goals than simply "beat the hero in a fist-fight," and Iron Man III inspired me to explore sides of PTSD that I had not been aware of.

Also, pretty much any unrealistic action sequence from allegedly-real-world action movies inspires me to write about characters using SFF abilities to pull of action-movie stunts that non-powered opponents cannot.

ManWithTheMetalArm said:

Believe it or not, Zootopia got me really thinking about the concept of "race relations" when entirely different species are involved. And, it does make sense, as when dealing with a fantasy world that is populated by a myriad host of different intelligent species, race relations go beyond things such as country of origin and skin color.

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I actually loved Zootopia so much because that's what I'd already planned on doing: emphasize that "X supremacists" and "Y supremacists" are actually a single enemy who falsely believe themselves to be on opposite sides. Same thing for Dawn of the Planet of the Apes

Though I do take it in a slightly different direction: in my own SFF works with other sentient species, seeing the world as "Group vs. Group" is a uniquely human instinct regarded as mental illness by everybody else.

EDIT: also, Underworld was the first movie to make me think about vampirism scientifically

Frankie007 said:

i saw....the first minute of Blood C and was like...nope. and about helping you discover Blood+...you're welcome! PM me on how you liked that anime. i really didn't like any of the movie versions.

Click to expand...

I don't like the movie versions of Blood+ either, but the 50-episode anime series is spectacular. It's my go-to sick-in-bed binge-watch of choice.

StarGazer770 said:

These movies have influenced more than my writing...they've shaped my mind.

The Descendants - 2011
Fehérlófia (Son of the White Mare) - 1981
Forrest Gump - 1994
King of California - 2007
A Raisin in the Sun - 1961
Mr. Holland's Opus - 1995
Cool Hand Luke - 1967
The Plague Dogs - 1982
Rear Window - 1954
True Grit - 1969
One Flew Over The Cuckoo's Nest - 1975
Patton - 1970
Of Mice and Men - 1939
Redline - 2009

Edit:

*Googles Blood+...and then kicks self*
Wish I had watched this before Blood C. Then again, I wish I had never watched Blood C at all.

Click to expand...

Which version of Redline-- the anime?