Script To Screen: “Being John Malkovich”
The 7 1/2 floor scene from Being John Malkovich (1999), written by Charlie Kaufman. Setup: Craig (John Cusack) goes to an unusual office…
The 7 1/2 floor scene from Being John Malkovich (1999), written by Charlie Kaufman. Setup: Craig (John Cusack) goes to an unusual office for an interview.
Here is the scene in the movie:
This scene plays almost word for word from the script with one notable exception: The Man in the elevator (script) is played by a Woman (movie), the wonderful Octavia Spencer.
One of the single best things you can do to learn the craft of screenwriting is to read the script while watching the movie. After all a screenplay is a blueprint to make a movie and it’s that magic of what happens between printed page and final print that can inform how you approach writing scenes. That is the purpose of Script to Screen, a Go Into The Story series where we analyze a memorable movie scene and the script pages that inspired it.
For more articles in the Script To Screen series, go here.