Script To Screen: “Wag the Dog”
A key scene from the 1997 satire Wag the Dog, screenplay by Hilary Henkin and David Mamet, book by Larry Beinhart.
A key scene from the 1997 satire Wag the Dog, screenplay by Hilary Henkin and David Mamet, book by Larry Beinhart.
Plot summary: Shortly before an election, a spin-doctor and a Hollywood producer join efforts to fabricate a war in order to cover up a presidential sex scandal.
Here is the movie version of the scene:
Reminds you of Argo, doesn’t it? The actors pretty much stick to the dialogue as written. And when you have David Mamet as the screenwriter, that would be pretty much par for the course.
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.