Passage and Style analysis

Reading Log:
The X-Files (1998) Opening scene – INT. WHITE DOME TENT - NIGHT.

Plot Summary:
After a bizarre accident in North Texas in which three fireman and a young boy are killed, FBI agents Fox Mulder and Dana Scully become involved in an investigation of a terrorist bombing of a Dallas office building. Before long, Mulder and Scully trace the bombing to a coverup of evidence stored by FEMA from the accident in North Texas: the firemen's and the young boy's bodies. Meanwhile, a mysterious man, Alvin Kurtzweil, has contacted agent Mulder with information about the coverup; that it was an inside job from the FBI, and it involved unmarked white tanker trucks. Mulder and Scully go on the chase of one of these trucks, which leads them to a pair of strange white domes in the middle of a cornfield.

Themes Identified so far:
-Conspiracy
-Cover-ups
-Secret government
-Deception of the public

FADE IN:


EXT. SNOWSCAPE

A BLINDING WHITE SCREEN, under which we hear an ominous
low end Dolby THX Big Screen rumble. We're not in 19"
television land anymore, Toto. As the rumble builds, TWO
BLACK FIGURES appear on what now has resolved into a
distant horizon. From their movements we can shortly see
that the figures are men. Moving along a windswept ice
sheet in an otherwise featureless land.

A LEGEND appears: NORTH TEXAS, 35,000 B.C.


CLOSER ON THE TWO MEN

Continuing toward us, we can now see that they are
dressed in crude garments made of animal skins. If we
squint we can see their hair is long, their jutting
foreheads significant of primitive Homo Sapiens. They
continue toward us, the wind beating against them,
CAMERA IS CRANING DOWN to the snow that lies before
them. To LARGE THREE-TOED TRACKS.


This opening passage from X-Files (1998) exemplifies Chris Carter's writing. He uses vivid examples that remind us of things that we are familiar with. We all know what a Dolby THX rumble sounds like, which makes the job instantaneous for the post-production man; he knows immediately what the rumble is supposed to sound like, because Carter is unlocking in him, with one word, all the stored memories of a low-end Dolby THX rumble. This sort of situation raises an interesting truth about film versus the written word (a subject I will undoubtedly discuss at great length in my entries and paper).
While writing a screenplay, the author knows that what he is writing will not be read by the end-user. Therefore, he can allow himself to use language that might be inappropriate if the actual consumer were reading the scene descriptions. Carter's writing style in the scene descriptions is relaxed and at many times quite different from the tone of the dialog in the same scene. For example, in scenes containing the dark, mysterious Cigarette Smoking Man, and other dark, evil characters of the Conspiracy, Carter is almost joking around in the scene descriptions. His scene descriptions have a very omniscient, godlike aura to them, which makes sense; the writer is the creator of that world.
Another element of Carter's screenwriting that I can examine in my paper is how Carter effectively conveys a scene to the director and actors through scene descriptions, stage directions and camera directions, and what kind of information is necessary to make that descriptive connection to the actors and directors.