Script Analysis Of Empire Strikes Back

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FIL 2107 6 September 2007 Writing Assignment #2 – Empire and Sternberg In the screenplay The Empire Strikes Back, in scene where Han kisses Leia for the first time, scene text modes like "report" and "speech" are utilized and balanced in harmony for the effective creation of a sense of images. In Claudia Sternberg's Written for the Screen: The American Motion-Picture Screenplay as Text, the author explores the differences in these scene text modes, explaining that "report" functions as a text mode that "is centered on the actions of human beings" (72), whereas "speech" is "identical to the dialogue text" (76). Empire is not a dialogue heavy script, as described by Sternberg, because the modes of presentation are distributed in different rations (in action scenes: "report," dialogue: "speech"). There are examples of this in the aforementioned scene were Han and Leia kiss. When Chewie, Leia and Han are attempting to repair the Millennium Falcon the script molds to the "report" function when describing the action of Leia's struggle to weld the valves correctly ("Han notices her struggle and moves to help her"). Choosing to write this scene with attention to this particular mode works to the advantage of the plot because it allows the reader of the text to catch a shift in tone between Han and Leia. If the script were written with the "description" mode, Sternberg points out that this would add a quality of "immobility," of "frozeness" (71) which would contradict the subtext of a relationship that is "moving forward." The "speech" mode is also predominately evident because the scene incorporates dialogue. The maintenance of these two modes in healthy distribution accomplishes a sense of "wholeness" which works in favor of the script as a narrative. Word Count:
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