Script Analysis: “Babylon” — Part 3: Characters

A week-long analysis of the screenplay for the Oscar nominated movie.

Download. Read. Discuss.

Reading scripts. Absolutely critical to learn the craft of screenwriting. The focus of this bi-weekly series is a deep structural and thematic analysis of each script we read. Our daily schedule:

Monday: Scene-By-Scene Breakdown
Tuesday: Plot
Wednesday: Characters
Thursday: Themes
Friday: Dialogue
Saturday: Takeaways

Today: Characters.

Characters are the players in our stories. They participate in scenes, move the plot forward through action and dialogue, influence each other, evolve and change. Each has their own distinct backstory, personality, world view, and voice. When a writer does their best, digging deep into their characters, tapping into their souls, the players in our stories magically lift up off the printed page and come to life in a reader’s imagination.

But there’s this: In a screenplay, characters exist for a reason. Hence my principle: Character = Function. Writers can shade and shape a story’s character in limitless ways. But if you dig down deep enough, you can find each character’s narrative function, and that can become a lens through which you develop the players in your stories.

Same thing with script and movie analysis: Look at each character and think about why they exist and what their function is.

Today, we discuss the characters in the script for Babylon. You may read the script here.

A list of the key players:

Manny Torres

Nellie Laroy

Jack Conrad

Sidney Palmer (musician)

Elinor St. John (gossip columnist)

Don Wallach (producer)

George Munn (Jack’s friend)

Ruth Adler (director)

James McKay (gangster)

Lady Fay Zhu

Irving Thalberg

The Count

Written by Damien Chazelle.

Plot summary: A tale of outsized ambition and outrageous excess, it traces the rise and fall of multiple characters during an era of unbridled decadence and depravity in early Hollywood.

Major kudos to Alison C. Wroblewski for doing this week’s scene-by-scene breakdown. Many thanks, Alison!

To download a PDF of the breakdown, go here.

For Part 1, to read the Scene-By-Scene Breakdown discussion, go here.

For Part 2, to read the Plot discussion, go here.

To access over 100 analyses of previous movie scripts we have read and discussed at Go Into The Story, go here.

I hope to see you in the RESPONSE section about this week’s script: Babylon.