Dream Wired
No Result
View All Result
  • Home
  • Celebrity
  • DramaAlert
  • Gossip
  • Movie
  • TV
  • Music
  • Comics
  • Shop
  • Home
  • Celebrity
  • DramaAlert
  • Gossip
  • Movie
  • TV
  • Music
  • Comics
  • Shop
No Result
View All Result
Dream Wired
No Result
View All Result
Home Movie

‘Sing Sing’ Screenwriters Break Down Parole Decision Scene

rmtsa by rmtsa
December 21, 2024
in Movie
0
‘Sing Sing’ Screenwriters Break Down Parole Decision Scene
74
SHARES
1.2k
VIEWS
Share on FacebookShare on Twitter


You might also like

FIRST STEPS Concept Art Offers a First Look at the Baxter Building in the MCU — GeekTyrant

Is Sherlock Holmes 3 Still Happening? Jared Harris Speaks Out

Peter Sarsgaard on Elon Musk Mars Plans, No Kings Protest, Connection

Crafting the script of Sing Sing — about a real-life theater company, Rehabilitation Through the Arts, in the Sing Sing Correctional Facility in upstate New York — proved an incredibly delicate needle to thread for screenwriters Greg Kwedar and Clint Bentley. “We held the program, and what they were doing, as sacred,” explains Bentley, who adds that the stakes were high. “If we had not done a good job in making this movie, it could have really jeopardized [currently incarcerated people’s] ability to function in prisons.” In this scene, a dress rehearsal for RTA’s upcoming new play, the film’s protagonist, based on the real-life figure John “Divine G” Whitfield (played by Colman Domingo), has a breakdown onstage after learning his parole appeal has been denied.

Courtesy of A24

Kwedar and Bentley first became aware of Sing Sing’s RTA program through an article in Esquire, which led them to volunteer at the facility. They centered their story on incarcerated actors Divine G and Divine Eye, and the filmmakers invited the pair into the process to write alongside them, which made the script feel “alive in a way it never had been before,” says Kwedar.

Courtesy of A24

The dialogue of the play within the film, Breaking the Mummy’s Code, remains unchanged from the actual script Brent Buell (the RTA volunteer portrayed in the film by Paul Raci) wrote. “There was something magical about the seesaw of the playfulness of the work juxtaposed against the environment it was set within,” explains Kwedar. “Early on, we met Buell, who invited us to New York to have breakfast with some alumni of this program. The real Divine Eye (actor Clarence Maclin, who plays himself in the movie) and the real Divine G (John Whitfield) were there. ‘If we can capture the feeling of this room, it could be special.’ ”

Courtesy of A24

This scene sees Divine G after a parole hearing where evidence proving his innocence is discarded and he learns he’ll remain incarcerated. While in real life his distress at this news didn’t play out in exactly this way, “this scene was built upon a real emotional state,” says Kwedar. The process, adds Bentley, involved talking through different scenes with Whitfield and Maclin, “making sure that this is what the script needs emotionally in this moment. What would that look like? And never wanting to go to a place where something felt false to who they were, even if it looked a bit different than what physically happened in real life.”

Courtesy of A24

Domingo’s dialogue in the final cut of the film doesn’t sound exactly like what’s written on the page. He adds a line — “You tell us to trust the fucking process, right? Well, the process is fucked” — in the height of his pain. Says Bentley: “I think we couldn’t write that line — ‘The process is fucked’ — because it felt like a step too far. But that’s what the scene is about. Coming out of Colman, it clarifies the scene. He was really a storyteller with us.”

Courtesy of A24

Throughout the film, Divine G has been encouraging Divine Eye to let down his emotional guard. “The character of Divine Eye, and what he represents, is somebody bringing a threat of violence into this program that is a sacred space,” says Bentley. “To see our character of Divine G go from someone who’s really advocating to leave violence in any form out of this space at all, to be somebody who is now posturing in that way — it felt very important to show that depth of despair.” 

Courtesy of A24

This line is a callback to the beginning of the film, when Divine G coaches Divine Eye through a monologue from Hamlet, explaining that while anger is the easiest emotion to play, hurt is more complex and interesting. This line doesn’t actually appear in the final cut. “We spent a lot of time making sure this scene not only got across all this myriad of feelings that Divine G is going through, but also that it called back to earlier things in the script,” explains Bentley. 

Courtesy of A24

While large chunks of the script went through extreme evolutions between drafts, a few choice lines carried through from the very beginning. “I’ve worked with Clint for 14 years. He has that gift of being able to say something truly from the depth of who a character is,” effuses Kwedar. “There are some amazing moments that Clint wrote in his first pass, like the very button on that scene of: “Are you done?” “No, I’m not, isn’t that hilarious?”

This story first appeared in a December stand-alone issue of The Hollywood Reporter magazine. To receive the magazine, click here to subscribe.



Source link

Tags: BreakDecisionParoleSceneScreenwritersSing
Share30Tweet19
rmtsa

rmtsa

Recommended For You

FIRST STEPS Concept Art Offers a First Look at the Baxter Building in the MCU — GeekTyrant

by rmtsa
July 5, 2025
0
FIRST STEPS Concept Art Offers a First Look at the Baxter Building in the MCU — GeekTyrant

Marvel Studios just shared a cool piece of concept art that gives us our clearest look yet at the MCU’s take on the iconic Baxter Building.The image gives...

Read more

Is Sherlock Holmes 3 Still Happening? Jared Harris Speaks Out

by rmtsa
July 5, 2025
0
Is Sherlock Holmes 3 Still Happening? Jared Harris Speaks Out

Jared Harris has “no clue” what’s happening with the third Sherlock Holmes movie.The 63-year-old actor portrayed James Moriarty in the 2009 original and its 2011 sequel Sherlock Holmes:...

Read more

Peter Sarsgaard on Elon Musk Mars Plans, No Kings Protest, Connection

by rmtsa
July 5, 2025
0
Peter Sarsgaard on Elon Musk Mars Plans, No Kings Protest, Connection

Humanity must work together or else, Peter Sarsgaard (Dead Man Walking, Boys Don’t Cry) told reporters during a Saturday roundtable interview conducted as part of the 59th edition of the Karlovy Vary International...

Read more

Hello r/movies! Ilya Naishuller here. I’m the director of Hardcore Henry, Nobody and vocalist/guitarist in the indie rock band Biting Elbows. My new movie, Heads of State (starring John Cena, Idris Elba, Priyanka Chopra Jonas and Jack Quaid), is hitting Amazon Prime today. AMA!

by rmtsa
July 5, 2025
0
Hello r/movies! Ilya Naishuller here. I’m the director of Hardcore Henry, Nobody and vocalist/guitarist in the indie rock band Biting Elbows. My new movie, Heads of State (starring John Cena, Idris Elba, Priyanka Chopra Jonas and Jack Quaid), is hitting Amazon Prime today. AMA!

Hello r/movies! Ilya Naishuller here. I'm the director of Hardcore Henry, Nobody and vocalist/guitarist in the indie rock band Biting Elbows. My new movie, Heads of State (starring...

Read more

FIONNA AND CAKE Season 2 Reveal a Return to “Normal, But It’s Still Pretty Strange” — GeekTyrant

by rmtsa
July 5, 2025
0
FIONNA AND CAKE Season 2 Reveal a Return to “Normal, But It’s Still Pretty Strange” — GeekTyrant

The Land of Ooo is stirring again, though maybe not in the way fans expect. At this year’s Annecy International Animation Film Festival, Adventure Time: Fionna and Cake...

Read more
Next Post
Original Sin’s Christina Milian on Maria LaGuerta in Episode 3

Original Sin's Christina Milian on Maria LaGuerta in Episode 3

Leave a Reply Cancel reply

Your email address will not be published. Required fields are marked *

Browse by Category

  • Celebrity
  • Comics
  • DramaAlert
  • Gossip
  • Movie
  • Music
  • TV
  • Uncategorized

CATEGORIES

  • Celebrity
  • Comics
  • DramaAlert
  • Gossip
  • Movie
  • Music
  • TV
  • Uncategorized
No Result
View All Result

Recent News

  • LL Cool J & Jazmine Sullivan Drop Philly Concert Over Strike
  • ‘Reasonable Doubt’ Season 3 Premiere Date — September on Hulu
  • FIRST STEPS Concept Art Offers a First Look at the Baxter Building in the MCU — GeekTyrant

Copyright © 2023 DramaWired.
DramaWired is a content aggregator and not responsible for the content of external sites.

No Result
View All Result
  • Home
  • Celebrity
  • DramaAlert
  • Gossip
  • Movie
  • TV
  • Music
  • Comics
  • Shop

Copyright © 2023 DramaWired.
DramaWired is a content aggregator and not responsible for the content of external sites.

Welcome Back!

Login to your account below

Forgotten Password?

Retrieve your password

Please enter your username or email address to reset your password.

Log In