Script To Screen: “The Verdict”

One of the great monologues in recent cinema, taken from the 1982 movie The Verdict, screenplay by David Mamet, novel by Barry Reed.

Plot summary: A lawyer sees the chance to salvage his career and self-respect by taking a medical malpractice case to trial rather than settling.

Here is the scripted version of the scene:

Here is the movie version of the scene:

A couple of things. First, note how Mamet includes a bunch of parentheticals (beat) and ellipses. It’s one of the trademarks of his scripts as he writes it exactly as he imagines a character speaking, including all the hesitations, stop and starts. We don’t do that. Why? Because it doesn’t flow so well when reading it and we’re not David Mamet.

Second, there are some slight, but key changes Newman makes to the dialogue. See if you can pick them up. 90% he delivers as is, but he makes the side his own including dropping “thank you” at the end, choosing to end his monologue with “justice in our hearts,” a stronger line to linger in the silence.

I consider it a great honor that I got the opportunity to meet Paul Newman during the final interview he ever granted. It took place at The Dressing Room, an organic restaurant Newman built in Westport, Connecticut on the grounds of the Westport Country Playhouse. His Newman’s Own Foundation oversees dozens of philanthropic causes. Newman was not only a great actor, he has left a profound legacy on many fronts.

One last thing. Notice this guy?

That’s Bruce Willis.

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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