Walter Hill and David Giler’s opening section of their Alien screenplay is a collection of short, sharp sentences, some even just single words. But, as a whole, the rolling verse of juxtaposed elements push and pull the reader, or should we say viewer, through the immediate physical environment of the place they find themselves in, moving them across time and then, with the next ‘verse’, through space.

The second scene is a volta, a turn in thought and emotion. This action block,stripped of all extraneous fat, is the form made compact, everything arranged to fit a container of limited size. This image resonates deeply becauseof its economy, yielding a complex array of impressions and connotations. Much more so than the words themselves prescribe, giving the section from Hill and Giler’s screenplay a certain resemblance to a haibun [1].

Haibun is a prosimetric [2] literary form originating in Japan, combining prose and haiku in the form of a short description of a place, person or object. Haibun records a scene, or a special moment, in a highly descriptive and objective manner, it shares a memory or a journey, a journey that is both internal andexternal. The haibun ends on an accompanying haiku that may have a direct or subtle relationship with the preceding prose sometimes encompassing, other times hinting at, the gist of what came before.

The poetics[3]of the scene operate on two fundamental levels. On the scenic level, the horizontal axis, it describes a scene, capturing the sense of a place. On the vertical axis, it alludes to something beyond the ‘simple’ place it describes, offering an indirect suggestion of what kind of place this is, playing with the substance and solidity of the scene, connecting it to a larger body of associations, a larger frame going beyond the here and now. 

Haibun offers up sensory language that directly captures feelings and images, often inspired by a moment of beauty or poignant experience lifted from the everyday environment, attempting excitement through restraint. In this way, haibun poetics can offer screenwriters a literary methodology to produce modest poetry with a punch, objective and concise, yet revelatory and fecund, rich with meaning and feeling.

 A common understanding of a screenplay envisions it simply as set of references for the director to explicate and shape during the filmmaking process. And, as such, a common instruction for screenwriters is to be neutral and keep screenwriting stylistics to a minimum, which leaves the screenwriter between a rock and a hard place. Because, for the screenplay to be noticed in the first place, it must stand out, excite, be special. One solution to this conundrum might be to utilize the procedural model of haibun poetics, with its focus highly economic description, and objective observation, as a screenwriting methodology.

[1]The haibun was created by the 17th-century Japanese poet Matsuo Bashō.

[2]A prosimetrum is a poetic composition that exploits a combination of prose and verse.

[3]The study of linguistic techniques in poetry and literature.

References

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Blyth, R. H. (1964). A History of Haiku. Tokyo: Hokuseido.

Bordwell, D. (2008). Poetics of Cinema / David Bordwell. New York: Routledge.

Field, S. (2005). Screenplay: the foundations of screenwriting / Syd Field(Rev. ed.. ed.). New York, N.Y.: Delta Trade Paperbacks.

Giroux, J. (1974). The Haiku Form: Tuttle Publishing.

Hunter, L. (2004). Lew Hunter's Screenwriting 434: Perigee Books.

Matsuo, B. (1985). On Love and Barley: haiku of Basho / translated from the Japanese with an introduction by Lucien Stryk. Honolulu: University of Hawaii Press.

Mehring, M. (1990). The Screenplay: a blend of film form and content / Margaret Mehring. Boston: Focal Press.

Parker, P. (1999). The art and science of screenwriting / Philip Parker(2nd ed.). Exeter: Intellect.

Hill, W., & Giler, D. (1978). Alien.Retrieved from http://www.dailyscript.com/scripts/alien_shooting.html

Seger, L. (1994). Making a good script great / Linda Seger(2nd ed.). Hollywood: Samuel French Trade. 

Thompson, K. (1999). Storytelling in the New Hollywood: understanding classical narrative technique / Kristin Thompson. Cambridge, Mass.: Harvard University Press. 

Yasuda, K. (1957). The Japanese Haiku: its essential nature, history, and possibilities in English with selected examples. Rutland, Vt.: Tuttle.