My Problem With Aaron Sorkin (Mini Post)
On creating for a medium
My longer post on Art vs. Commerce isn’t quite ready this week, so I’m going to devote a mini-post to something that’s been stewing in my brain for a while now: Aaron Sorkin. If this sounds like a bad move for my entertainment career, you’re right! Enjoy the slow motion model train derailment (Get it? Model? Cuz it’s a mini post? No? Ahh fuck off).
I apologize for the sparse illustration in this week’s post. I hope that the brevity of the post will make up for the lack of visuals.
What’s My Beef With Sorkin?
I will be the first to acknowledge: Aaron Sorkin is a brilliant writer and has been a foundational figure in the world of entertainment.
Still, for the longest time, his TV shows and movies didn’t sit well with me.
Whenever I watched something written by Aaron Sorkin - The West Wing, The Social Network, A Few Good Men - I’d think to myself: “Man, that dude can write.”
The way he finds a perfect rhythm in dialogue. The way he plays with dramatic tension between characters. The delicate balance between heartfelt drama and biting comedy.
But in the back of my mind, I’d also nod for a while and admit: “That probably should have been a stage play.”
This is not surprising, considering Sorkin started writing for the stage. That’s the world he comes from, and he’s exceptionally good at it. You may be aware that A Few Good Men was originally a play written by Sorkin, before being adapted to film.
But even apart from that background, I’ve found Sorkin’s style to be better suited for a dialogue-driven medium like the stage.
Think about it:
What’s the thing you remember most about a Spielberg movie?
The T-Rex chasing the Jeep… E.T. flying past the full moon in a bicycle basket… The opening of the Ark of the Covenant melting faces...
Visuals. Spielberg was (is) a master of visual storytelling, which - incidentally - is the optimal form of storytelling for a screen-based medium (I will fight you on this). See this quote from Dune director and fellow Frenchman Denis Villeneuve:
“Frankly, I hate dialogue […] Dialogue is for theatre and television. I don’t remember movies because of a good line, I remember movies because of a strong image […] Pure image and sound, that is the power of cinema.”
On a side note which deserves its own post: My biggest complaint with modern entertainment is how we’ve ended up with so many scenes that are just two people talking in a room. (That article is from 12 years ago and it hasn’t gotten any better).
Obviously there’s a balance to be struck between entirely action-driven storytelling and entirely dialogue-driven storytelling. Even Villeneuve’s character’s have to talk to each other at some point. But I would say the balance has shifted too far in the “everyone talk about everything” direction.
Sorkin’s most memorable moments occur in dialogue: A snappy one-liner between PJ and President Bartlett, a tense courtroom scene, or tense lecture hall scene or… a tense legal deposition scene…
Action-based storytelling was never Sorkin’s specialty.
“But the walk and talks! What about them??”
I would classify the walk and talks in the halls of the West Wing as “motion” not “action”. These weren’t necessary or additive to the story. And when there was a joke or story beat that involved some bit of action, it almost always was in service of Sorkin’s dialogue and not the other way around.
That isn’t to say I wasn’t entertained by this proscenium approach to storytelling. I’m a huge fan. It’s just: Is TV the right medium? Is film the right medium?
I would argue not, apart from it being a way to expand the potential audience for Sorkin’s writing.
Why is this important?
I believe that there is a perfect medium/format for every piece of written material, and I believe in creating for the appropriate medium/format. It’s how we get our best entertainment. It’s why - if you’ve seen Les Miserables or In The Heights or Hamilton on stage - you’ll know the screen adaptation is almost never as good.
On stage, these performances are powerful, exhilarating. There’s something that you lose in translation when you port it over to TV and/or film.
Again - I’m not going to argue that Sorkin’s TV & film fare is boring or not entertaining. I just don’t think TV / film is its natural habitat. And finding the natural habitat for your own work is a really powerful way to set it apart.
If it’s 2011 and everyone has a web series on YouTube because that’s what’s in vogue, why not try to stage a play or write a novel?
Creating for The Newest Medium
I’ve been thinking about this a lot when making videos for the internet. But particularly when deciding whether to hold my phone sideways or upright when shooting (so far, it’s only been upright).
When telling our idiotic, silly stories for LoFi Comedy Collective (TikTok | YouTube | Instagram), my goal was to create videos specifically for the medium where those videos would live.
There’s a reason we shoot on iPhone: Because we’re satirizing videos that were shot on iPhone. There’s a reason the videos are short: Because they’re made for an audience that has come to expect short-form entertainment.
They’re social/UGC projects made for the social/UGC age.
Say what you want about the quality of the stuff, it’s almost certainly in its natural habitat.
Sometimes what you’re making is definitely meant to be a TV pilot. Sometimes it’s a scripted podcast. Sometimes the right medium is Medium and a lot of times, the only reason you want your story to be a web series or TV show is to reach a broader audience, not because it’s what’s right for the piece.
I encourage you all to think about what medium you’re creating for and why. Think about the characteristics of the story you want to tell and consider where you as an audience member would most like to see that story told. Where is its home?
Are you writing a feature film because you truly believe the story is best told on the big screen? Or are you doing it because that’s what you’ve been told you should do? Could your short story be better told as a short film or a staged performance or a podcast? Or like a poem…?
I’m clearly running out of mediums I can think of off the top of my head so maybe it’s time we wrap it up. Thanks for bearing with me. Til next time…
Stay tuned,
Jon
Yup, there's definitely a balance to be struck. Every time I think about this balance, I keep going back to rule #1 of TV/Film: "Show, don't tell." If there's a good way to tell story by showing what's happening / what has happened, do that. If that's not possible, use dialogue. And if you ever find yourself writing the line: "What are we doing here again?" please, just give me a call. I'll talk you down and give you some alternative ways to convey necessary information.
Oh, and watch Severance! They do a great job of not overwhelming the viewer with tedious exposition that isn't additive to the story. The best-written shows are not afraid to let the viewer piece things together themselves. If your characters / situations / goals are compelling enough, you outgrow the need to explain every little thing about the world you've built.
Sorkin's style is instead of "kill your darlings" he kills everything BUT his darlings, then comes up with a few more darlings to fill in the gaps where that other stuff was and then they shoot it