In Defender, the scene takes place right there in the prison yard. If they feel like they’ve seen it, they’re going to look for another way to write it. Good writers avoid expectation and cliche. Which is the number one sign that you shouldn’t write that scene. I’m guessing 90% of you imagined that scene.
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Would there be a large group of white people screaming the n-word at the black man as he’s marched to a tree? Would there be an evil sheriff with a wide grin on his face as he eagerly anticipates the man’s death? Would the sheriff then give a speech to the crowd of people about how “this is what happens” when you “disobey the law” complete with a drawn-out southern accent? There’s an early scene here where a black man is being marched to his hanging in Little Rock, Arkansas in 1919. If you start with something cliche, the reader expects a cliche script. If you start with something clumsy and unclear, the reader expects a messy script. If you start with something boring, the reader expects a boring script. Let’s start at the beginning and move our way through the script.Īs I’ve told you a million times, how a script begins tells the reader everything he needs to know about if the writer has the goods. But Mariani is one of those rare writers whose scripts are so easy to read (even when they’re dealing with serious subject matter) that the script doesn’t feel nearly as long as it is. My only real criticism of the script is that it’s too long. How he’s not pulling in million dollar rewrites on Oscar-hopeful projects is beyond me. I had little doubt I was going to like this one. But Scipio is one of the most clever lawyers you’ll ever meet so he concocts a multi-leveled plan that will invoke laws that pre-date the American legal system, all in the hopes of winning a case that, if he succeeds, will change America forever. Scipio realizes that the odds are against him for saving these 87 men, 12 of whom refuse to enter a guilty verdict, meaning that they will all be hanged. Somewhere between 300-1000 black people were killed. This created a frenzy and all the white people in town went to hunt down black people. Against his better judgement, Scipio goes down to Elaine, where he finds out that nothing about the stories in the paper were true.Ī group of white people attacked the church where the black people were planning the union and accidentally shot one of their own in the back of the head. In the process, all 87 of the men who were conspiring to do this are in jail. But Robert says he’s doing it anyway.Ī few days later, Scipio gets the news that black people down in Elaine who were planning to take over the town killed a white man.
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The second they find out that black people are forming a union, they’ll come after him. A young black man named Robert Hill comes to Scipio’s office and asks him to help him form a union in downstate Elaine, a town with lots of black people working the cotton fields. He’s since become very well-respected by people of all colors in town.īut that respect is about to be tested. He then clerked at a law office where he became a self-taught lawyer. Except for 55 year old black attorney Scipio (pronounced ‘Sippy-oh’) Africanus Jones, who’s just watched yet another black man he’s defended, a soldier no less, hanged. Let’s see where The Defender’s going to end up. And when you go all in, you either fall on your face in spectacular fashion, or you win an Oscar. You know, if there’s one thing I like about Nicholas Mariani, it’s that he doesn’t swing for doubles. Mahershala Ali for Scipio? Or will Denzel get it? Somehow, 41 other scripts scored higher than this one on the 2018 Black List. He is the author of the number one script on my Top 25. Nicholas Mariani needs no introduction on this site.
#SHADOW ERA DEFENDER FREE#
Premise: A black lawyer attempts to free 87 black men who were erroneously charged with killing a white man in 1919 Arkansas during the height of the Jim Crow era.Ībout: E.
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Today I review a script by the writer of the NUMBER 1 screenplay on my Top 25 List, E.