Script To Screen: “Leaving Las Vegas”
The 1995 movie Leaving Las Vegas, screenplay by Mike Figgis, based on a novel by John O’Brien] features two key characters: Ben Sanderson…
The 1995 movie Leaving Las Vegas, screenplay by Mike Figgis, based on a novel by John O’Brien] features two key characters: Ben Sanderson (Nicholas Cage) as an alcoholic screenwriter intent on drinking himself to death and Sera (Elisabeth Shue), a prostitute who has befriended Ben, but only on the basis of a non-interference pact regarding Ben’s death wish.
Setup: While still in Los Angeles before he heads off to Las Vegas, Ben — drunk as usual — seeks out the companionship of a prostitute.
Here is the scene in the movie:
On the whole, the scene is quite like the script. There are a few changes. For example, the movie cuts the scene where Ben tries to kiss the prostitute. The focus is on how the prostitute sucks Ben’s finger, just his finger, not his whole fist. Ben waking up on the floor of his house, the flashback where he recalls how the prostitute sucked his wedding ring right off his finger, that’s directly in the movie as written.
The editorial choice there makes sense. With the ring gone, symbolically Ben is set free from his last tie to Los Angeles, setting the stage for his departure for Las Vegas.
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.
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