film
Recently I set myself the task of writing
a character-based screenplay in which story was driven by
visuals and dialogue was minimal.
The result was the first draft of The
Stock, a feature-length psychological thriller set in
contemporary Ireland, written with funding from The Irish
Film Board.
Its setting came out of the experience of
seeing the effects of four forces - declining agriculture;
growth in technology; immigrant labour; and the consequent
cultural and economic disenfranchisement of the rural poor.
Its central theme is the underlying psychological
truth in folk rituals and beliefs. The characters are two
middle-aged brothers, their mother, and one brother’s
twenty-four year-old, pregnant Polish girlfriend.
This is an extract from an appraisal by my
script editor, novelist Kate O’Riordan:
“ The Stock is a dark and
intense work with a deliberate sense of claustrophobia and
well delineated throb of menace throughout, culminating in
what is essentially a bloodbath. It’s about the rivalry
between two brothers and how the characters see new life as
a threat to the secret bonds and unspoken agreements that
a mother and her two sons have sealed together…... much
of the language…. lies in tiny details, nuances almost.
Much is implied. It’s a powerful, deliberately stylized
piece of story-telling. ”
The Stock is my second screenplay.
The first, The Iroquois Gesture, is a romantic comedy,
set in NYC and upstate New York, about genetic engineering,
intellectual property rights and corporate bonding in the
woods.
|