Solid Snake

THERE ARE SOME SPOILERS FOR HIS FILMS so watch out
For those of you that don't know, he's the writer for AMORES PERROS, BABEL, 21 GRAMS, and THE 3 BURIALS of MELQUIADES ESTRADA

I'm the young guy in this pic


So yeah...Arriaga was talking to us film students here at the University of North Texas in Denton, Texas. It was a big deal for sure. His talk here at school was mostly about his influences, inspirations, and the way that he structured his work for Amores Perros, 21 Grams, and Babel. Those 3 flicks specifically cuz he asked for a vote to see what the 200 students had seen. Well we had all seen the the Inarritu films, most had not seen The 3 Burials of Melquiades Estrada. I've seen it and I loved it. He said that we wouldn't talk about it cuz he didn't want to spoil it for those that didn't see it. So anyway these are things I've learned from Arriaga in our conference at UNT. Have fun with some interesting info from this wonderful man.

I'll try to put a horribly short and quiet video that I got of it. They told me to stop filming..grr.

-He never does extensive research on his works, he'll only work on the stuff that he knows. His example for that was the part of Morocco in Babel...all that, he'd never been there. That whole part, or to be exact the life of, the family in that area of the world is just an extension of what he's seen in Mexico.

-When people were congratulating 21 Grams' editing he was slightly, if jokingly, offended by those comments. He said that all that was in his script.

-For Amores Perros, the inspiration for the dog fighting bit was actually something he encountered when he was 8. The dog that would be killing other dogs and whatnot...was this 8 yrs. old's dog. I can't remember what type of dog it was but it was one that was not commonly known to be a Fighting Dog. His neighbors would "steal" his dog and use him to fight other dogs. And when accused of murdering other owners' dogs...they would face an 8 yr. old Arriaga who knew nothing about this because he never was there. The way this dog would kill the others would be to literally with one bite rip out the other dogs' throats. He said he saw it a few times after the neighbors had let the dog go, he at a much later time found out it was they who kept the dog for a while to use it for this purpose, and to provoke it's blood thirst they would always try to find a stray to fight it.

So when he later moved, with dog in tow, to a new area they kept him chained in the garage. This dog when near windows would try to bite whatever came near the window. Well...they lived next to woman who had many many dogs...and that dog killed them all. The dog was later stolen and never heard of again

Amores Perros was rejected by many many studios due to it's nature. The Studios wanted Romantic Urban Comedies, this was not it. For those of you who don't know...Mexico for a long time had struggled to get cash from it's Cinema. Trust me...a lot of the crap that got them money was crap. I remember when I was little all we had was crappy drug trafficking flicks acted by Norteno (aka Mexican Country) bands. When it was screened in different parts in Mexico he needed to ask the audience question as to what was good or bad about the flick. One guy responded he didn't like it cuz it wasn't a romantic comedy, Arriaga was dumbfounded. He was also heavily surprised by the international praise of Amores Perros.

-The accident in Amores Perros and the structure of the Death Trilogy, was all based on an accident he had. He had for a short time amnesia (whatever you would call that) of the days events, he didn't say for how long, after the accident. When they dragged him out he kept asking what had happened before, during, and after the accident. He wanted to know all the details and the structure of the accident.

- On his meeting Tommy Lee Jones, Jones had called Arriaga and had greatly admired Amores Perros. He asked Arriaga to come over. Arriaga told us he had a very hard time accepting a movie star asking a lowly writer to come over to eat in Texas. He seriously didn't think it was Jones. Anyways..before Arriaga committed to anything on a project with Jones he had to ask him somethings. Like what was his favorite writer, painter, director etc. Well Arriaga's and Jones' favorite writer is Cormac McCarthy, they both share a fav painter as well though the named escapes me. And the final thing was that Jones' favorite director was Kurosawa. Arriaga told us..that he was amazed that Jones' had amazing taste in a lot of things. He later agreed to work with Jones based on that meeting, which would lead up to The 3 Burials Melquiades Estrada

- On his basic stance of writing, he prefers to begin a story in the middle of an action to capture the reader/audience's attention to what led up to that point. He hates long scenes with dialogue, says it just doesn't work for him. THOUGH he said that maybe for him it doesn't work but that he really loves Clerks, that got an awesome chuckle from the the crowd. He tries to use what he happily called a 2 sentence minimum. He likes short conversations instead of those long dialogue scenes.

He also doesn't really feel much for the use of backstory, to him the character has to be strong as a figure in the moment. BTW...the way that the Death Trilogy was shot is the way it was scripted. It was never 3 tales that were later cut together. The way it was structured as interconnecting tales is the way he wrote it.

He likes to question everything about the characters, what's pushing them at that moment? What's the complexity? Believe in Conflict to bring Drama. Ex. Santiago and Susanna in Amores Perros, What if the boy falls in love with a girl? Well....what it's his brother's wife? To get the girl he has to have the cash from the dog fighting etc etc.


- His First time directed film, The Burning Plain, will be playing at the AFI in Dallas, he'll be there from what he said. He said within the next 2 months.

- minor trivia
Del Toro's character in 21 Grams was supposed be a rich business man.

He feels that for a character to reach a success they must trod through hell. Hell. Told us that his films while being kind of gritty are very positive as well....to him they are feel good films.

Last Bit from Arriaga- Just write for yourself, and in doing so try to balance it out with what a viewer/reader can understand. Don't bog down what you write with nonsense that only you know.

PopcornTreeCt

Very cool.

I'm sure, many if not all, on here will be wondering who Guillermo Arriaga is. I took a stab at it and thought he was a cinematography. For anyone wondering, he is the writer of the films mentioned above.

That must have been very, very cool, Solid Snake. When I was in film school, we didn't get to meet anyone famous.

Solid Snake

Guess I can edit the title a wee bit.

PopcornTreeCt : If you were in film school, what do you do now? We've had some famous people of the sort at my school. We had the editors to one of those new Horror Franchises...I can't remember really but it was around Halloween.


Mods: Well I tried to change the title but I guess a mod has to do it. Could one of you guys change it to: The writer of AMORES PERROS was at my university? I'd greatly appreciate it cuz he's a very interesting man that I think most would admire the details of my post.

PopcornTreeCt

Well, let me preface, my film school was in Orlando. It wasn't USC or NYU or anything even remotely close. But we did actually work on a real movie. A real movie starring UFC champ Bas Rutten!

I'm working an office job doing health benefits for various companies. People from my class have gone out to LA and have had success finding work. Others haven't gotten any work.

We did watch 21 Grams in class.

Rypro 525

sort of off topic (but kind of on), Amores Perros is on IFC tonight at 11:45pm

Solid Snake

I'd like to see what Inarritu can do now without Arriaga.