Day 10: Paper Moon

Alvin Sargent, 1972

You guys. I can't. I just finished this script a minute ago and oh god it is so good, it makes me tear up. I just. Ahh it is so good. Brian McDonald recommended this one, and I am so glad I finally read it. I'd really like to see it in movie form, too.

Armature: Family comes from relationships, not necessarily blood.

Before I try applying the 7 steps, I first want to mention what I love about this script. It is just so simple. The story is simple: a young girl spends some time with her maybe-father and, after a series of events that bond them together, chooses him as her family over her stranger blood relatives. There really isn't much to it. Moze and Addie dislike each other in the beginning, but steadily help each other out and, by the end, come to need each other.

This simplicity is what's so beautiful. There is nothing extraneous in this story. No time is spent on Addie's pre-Moze life, because it doesn't matter. There is no explanation of what the two of them do after the climax, because it doesn't matter. We never even find out if Moze is actually Addie's father, because it doesn't matter. Only the plot points that bring the two closer are included, because those make the story.

The problem with a lot of movies nowadays is that they feel they must be complex to be good. I strongly disagree with this idea. Simplicity and precision gets the armature across better, and thus makes a more satisfying movie. Paper Moon proves that.

This script is also brilliant at precision in visual storytelling. So many ideas get across without any speech. All of the reasoning behind Moze and Addie's con schemes are explained visually. The bible-selling sequence is the best example of this. That kind of precision takes a lot of skill to construct.

7 Steps:
1. Once upon a time, the con man Moze Pray is stuck transporting his potential daughter Addie to her nearest blood relatives after her mother dies.
2. And every day Moze makes money by conning people, trying to make enough to pay back Addie.
3. Until one day, Addie helps Moze in his cons and helps make them more money.
4. Because of this, Addie helps Moze in business and keeps him from losing all his money to a gold digger.
5. Because of this Moze and Addie get in over their heads with the law and lose everything.
6. Until finally, Moze takes Addie to her welcoming blood aunt, but Addie runs away and finds Moze again.
7. And ever since that day the two have stayed together as family.

As usual, I'm not sure how the 7 steps apply here. It's arguable that step 3 ("until one day") is actually when Moze gets initially stuck with Addie, or when Moze steals Addie's $200 and she calls him out on it. The reason I think that Addie helping Moze in his bible cons is step 3 is because that seems to be a major turning point in their story and relationship. That's the moment that their father-daughter relationship begins to build.

There doesn't actually seem to be a large act 1 in this movie. That's more of why I put that step 3 there. The exposition comes across pretty fast in the first scene, but the couple scenes after that (Moze trying to get money out of someone, Addie being stubborn about her $200) continue to establish some character traits. So perhaps those scenes could still be part of act 1.

Hmm. Well. I feel like placing exactly the right scene on each step is overall less important than understanding that the focus and precision in this script is what makes it really good.