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The Great Opening Scene

posted 3 years ago by ecarle (14979)
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Licorice Pizza did not win the Best Original Screenplay Oscar. I've not seen the movie that did(Belfast) but for the time being, Licorice Pizza DOES have the best screenplay I encountered in 2021. I've rewatched the film and rather studied how it works in detail. If you love "Licorice Pizza" -- and I do -- that script, and how it is shot, and how it is acted, looks better all the time.

I don't intend for this analysis to win you over if you didn't like the film, but I would like to at least express my pleasure over why I DID.

The opening scene in Licorice Pizza isn't REALLY the scene I want to talk about. Perhaps it is a subset of the opening scene. The FIRST scene in Licorice Pizza is a re-do of a scene in American Graffiti(1973), in which Ron Howard is in the "Boy's Room" at his high school and an unseen cherry bomb goes off in a toilet stall. Repeated here, with our "new" young hero, Gary Valentine(Cooper Hoffman) and his friends confronting "the bomb." Noteable: the friends with Gary in that opening scene are his "posse" all through the movie, plus his little brother, who treats gary like the father they don't have.

But NOW the REAL opening scene begins: Gary Valentine meets Alana Kane. A love story begins.

Roger Ebert wrote that he wasn't interested as much in what a movie is about as "HOW the movie is about it." So here, the stage is set first with a beautiful song by Nina Simone from the 70's called "July Tree." The first words are "true love seed in the autumn ground." That seed is being planted NOW, and the song plays UNDER all of the dialogue between Gary and Alana, all the way to the end when Alana walks away with a smile. Thus the scene has an EMOTIONAL grounding.

The cinematography captures the bright sun of a Southern California morning (in "The Valley" -- the San Fernando Valley near Hollywood), and I think another color makes for a sunny opening: the powder blue shirt worn by Alana(and all her other cute co-workers at Tiny Toes photography) along with the crisp white "skirt-shorts" that compose their uniform.

So...the lovely love song. The golden sun. The blue outfits.

Gary and Alana will now meet.

He's in line to get his school picture taken. Its a long line -- long enough to give these two time to talk , IF Gary can keep Alana there TO talk.

He pokes out of the line, stretching to see Alana --"smitten." The thunderbolt. He will tell his brother "I met the girl I'm going to marry today" and we are going to watch this film wondering if that's possible. First of all -- is Gary really just a seducer of ALL girls he meets? Or is Alana special? Second of all...about that age difference.

Alana is first shown from BEHIND, sexily swaying as she walks to July Tree. This is key. Alana Haim has a face which is, at times and from certain angles, plain to unattractive. But her BODY is in fine, curvy shape and she walks and sways like the rock star she is in real life. Writer-director Paul Thomas Anderson(PTA) wants us to "feel the total package of Alana Haim" before we adjust to her face and features. (That PTA didn't cast a traditionally beautiful girl helps make the story work -- Alana is probably a bit down on her own looks.)

Alana has a job she hates for the photographer -- walking down the line with a comb and a mirror -- and saying "comb?" "mirror?"

...and Gary sees that as his way to start the flirt.

Gary: I'll take that.
(Alana has to do her job. She stops and holds the mirror up to his face -- but she turns her head away, refuses to look at him. She neither wants to look at this boy, nor give him the opportunity TO flirt. She knows the drill.)
Gary : What's your name?
(Alana grunts in refusal. No flirting allowed.)
Gary: Talkative, aren't you?
(Alana moves to his other side, ready to conclude the mirror task and move on. Gary tries harder.)
Gary: Having a good day so far?
Alana: (Sarcastic, but FINALLY responding.) Yeah...
(Alana is about to walk away -- forever. Gary goes for the "Hail Mary.")
Gary: Dinner tonight?
(THAT stops Alana in her tracks. Surprised. A bit disgusted.)
Alana: Creep! What are you, twelve?
Gary: That's funny. I'm fifteen. (Depending on Alana's age, we now have a problem. But 15 is definitely older than twelve. Its a teenager. Its three years into BEING a teenager.)
(Alana could walk away at this point, but she doesn't. She's intrigued enough.)
Gary: How old are you?
Alana: Don't ask that! You never ask a woman how old she is!(Gary has hit a sore spot; Alana's too old to be doing this job.) How are you going to pay? If I say yes and go on this date with you, how are you going to pay?
Gary: You say everything twice.
Alana: I don't! Don't say everything twice.
(Alana thought she was shutting Gary down ,but he threw her with the intimacy of his you say everything twice, and PTA makes sure that she CONTINUES to say things twice as this scene moves along, like "You are such an actor. You are SUCH an actor.")

CONT

[–] ecarle (14979) 3 years ago

Alana: So c'mon, how are you going to pay? (Alana thinks she has "gotcha-ed" this kid? What 15 year old can pay for a date. Plus -- girls still get to make boys pay in 1973. Today , too. How unfair.)
Gary: Do you go to the movies?
Alana: (Grouchy as usual) Of course I go to the movies.
Gary: Did you see Under One Roof?
(Alana slows down, interested. As we shall see, being an actor who was actually in a movie...draws women. Gary will attract a flight attendant with the information and Alana will fall for actor Lance for the same reason, briefly.)
Gary: You're looking at Tony! (Cooper Hoffman looks rather handsome for his age here, a little bit of acne and all. His confidence is compelling.)
Alana: There were like, a million kids in that. What else have you been in?
Gary: I want you to go on a date with me, not my work but (reels off his credits as Alana says "no" or "umm mmm." She hasn't seen these films, and tells him he's getting braggy.)
Moving on:
Alana: Look, man, I'm not going on a date with you.
Gary: "Man!" I like that.
Alana: OK, KID. I'm not going on a date with you, KID. (She's trying to cut him off but flirtatious at the same time; he's just too fun to talk to. They keep moving.)
Gary: OK, don't consider it a date. Just come by and say hello(a legitimate start to whatever this relationship is.)
Where do you live?
Alana : In Encino.
Gary: Where in Encino?
Alana: On Hatteras.
Gary: Hatteras and what?
Alana: I'm not going to tell you where I live, creep. "Hatteras and what? Hatteras and what?"
(Again, Alana says everything twice. Almost.)

CONT

[–] ecarle (14979) 3 years ago

ALANA Where are your parents during all this?
(Alana will again ask "WHERE are your parents" when they have dinner later on. Its important to her, we learn, because she and her older sisters still live with their traditional Jewish parents and are on a tight leash.)
Gary: Working. They're working! (Gary early on needs to deflect the fact that -- from what we will see-- his father no longer lives with the family, and Gary is "the man of the house.")

Now the line is moving from outside into the gym where the photos are taken. Time is running out. Gary has to make the close on Alana.

Gary: I'm not trying to pressure you.
Alana: But you are! You are trying to pressure me, that's what you're doing!

(They reach the check in table where Alana introduces Gary to the other cute blue-shirted girls - who are, frankly , a bit cuter than Alana, which is important.)

Alana: This guy's a movie star.
Girl: Should I get his autograph?
Alana: Don't bother
Girl: (To Gary) What's your name?
Gary: Gary Valentine
Alana: Gary VALENTINE?
Gary: Valentine.

(Note that before this exchange, Alana says "What are you , a little Dean Martin...Robert Goulet?" There's a crossover to Quentin Tarantino's 1969-set Once Upon a Time in Hollywood, where we see Robert Goulet singing on TV in Brad Pitt's trailer.)

Gary: Fate brought us together.
Alana: Don't you know I'm twenty-five(she stumbles on the "five" -- line mess up or the character?) That's ILLEGAL. I can be your friend but not your girl friend.
Gary: You give me hope!

(This is a key moment. Now we have their age difference. 15 and 25. Problematic. But Alana has offered that she MIGHT be able to be Gary's friend. I expect he is that interesting to her with his show biz career and the snappy banter she can share with him. And Gary senses he can at LEAST be friends with this gal. The door is open. She gives him hope -- and he will later tell his brother "I've met the girl I'm going to marry.")

CONT

[–] ecarle (14979) 3 years ago

(Gary gets his photo taken. Alana strikes a rock star's open legged, sexy pose to watch him get the picture. She has not left his side. But now they are almost through, and he has to make the sale.)

They are walking to the door leading outside the other part of the building:

Alana: Well you have to get back to class and I have to get back to work.
Gary: Don't use time as an excuse. Our paths brought us here.
Alana: OK stop being Mr. Philosophy, Mr. Einstein. We'll see. Maybe I'll see you again (Pause.) I won't see you again.
Goodbye.

Its a sad moment -- Gary's mission has failed?

Gary leaves out the door, Alana goes back the way she came, but we see -- as Gary cannot -- a big smile on Alana's face. And when Alana smiles, she IS pretty.

Alana passes the older male photographer , who slaps her ass. She does nothing. Its 1973. But that casually sexist older male has probably given Gary his biggest break: Alana would rather be with a younger fellow than THIS kind of guy.

In this instant, the scene ends -- and so does the lovely "July Tree." The seed of love has grown a tree. This MOVIE will grow its own tree. Two hours or so to go.

--
I did the dialogue above from memory. I left some of it out, and probably misquoted it. But I know I got some of it right.

It was nominated for an Oscar, and it IS a good script. Watching these two banter brought back warm memories of flirtations past and the dialogue is also a bit more intelligent than how kids REALLY talk. Its screwball Hollywood banter.

I think this opening scene sold the critics right from the get go on the talent and draw of Alana Haim and Cooper Hoffman. I think it drew them into the story and demonstrated that PTA was still a talent.

CONT

[–] ecarle (14979) 3 years ago

These five scenes follow that opening flirtation:

ONE: Gary at home. Gary loves his brother, tells him "I've met the girl I'm going to marry, and you're gonna be my best man."(So Gary is for real, not just a seducer.)
TWO To his surprise , Alana shows up at the bar at the Tail of the Cock. (the piano bar plays "I Left My Heart in San Francisco" at the moment she enters.") An awkward but heartfelt dialogue ensues at the bar.
THREE: In the restaurant. The dinner date Gary sought and Alana delivers and at the end of it , we see Alana's yearning for this kid who has upended her life.
FOUR: Walking home together for awhile. Gary asks for Alana's phone number in a roundabout way("If I asked you for your phone number, would you give it to me?") Alana resists, but then gives it, and is upset when Gary seems to remember it wrong(proof: she's hooked. She doesn't want to lose HIM. If only as a friend.)
FIVE: Alana goes home and we see that her father is a heavily accented tyrant who wants to know where's she been. She lies. Mother and sisters are all on one couch in the small living room. Alana retreats to her cell-like bedroom. THIS is the life she will want to escape, loving though it seems to be.

That GROUP of scenes maybe gets Licorice Pizza to the 20 minute mark. Many adventures will follow. But I contend that once these scenes are over -- especially the opening flirtation -- we are totally FOR Gary and Alana to make it as a couple. Somehow. Every other man who will come into Alana's life -- we don't want that man to interfere. The comparatively fewer girls who come into Gary's life -- we don't want those girls to interfere. We want Gary and Alana to make it. Just like in every great love story ever made.

Its the opening scene that plants the seed.