Do The Right Thing Sample PDF
Do The Right Thing Sample PDF
ACKNOWLEDGMENTS ����������������������������������������������������������������vii
INTRODUCTION ������������������������������������������������������������������������������x
Doing the Right Thing: A Changing Industry
CHAPTER ONE ����������������������������������������������������������������������������������1
A Different Shade of Love in Moonlight (2016)
The Universal from the Specific ������������������������������������������6
Adaptation and Ownership ��������������������������������������������������7
A Less Traditional Three-Act Structure������������������������������10
Naming and Identity ����������������������������������������������������������16
Upending Urban Stereotypes����������������������������������������������20
Symbolism����������������������������������������������������������������������������21
CHAPTER TWO ������������������������������������������������������������������������������25
The Haunted Legacy of Slavery in Get Out (2017)
Conventions of Horror��������������������������������������������������������31
Four-Act Structure ��������������������������������������������������������������34
Premise and Setup����������������������������������������������������������������36
Symbols of Slavery ��������������������������������������������������������������38
Reworking Elements from Classic Films ��������������������������40
Critique of Societal Politics������������������������������������������������44
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CHAPTER FOUR ������������������������������������������������������������������������������74
Memories of Childhood Revisited in Roma (2018)
Short Story Structure ����������������������������������������������������������78
Class, Gender, and Systemic Racism ��������������������������������83
The Supporting Role in the Family Becomes the Lead������85
Colonia Roma in Mexico City ������������������������������������������89
Symbolism����������������������������������������������������������������������������91
CHAPTER FIVE ��������������������������������������������������������������������������������94
Not So Crazy and Not So Rich
Asian Americans in Always Be My Maybe (2019)
Conventions of the Romantic Comedy ����������������������������97
Playing with Structure ������������������������������������������������������ 101
Breaking Free of Racial Stereotypes ��������������������������������102
Asian Americans Are Americans, Not Foreigners ����������105
Quirky and Multidimensional Characters����������������������106
Inclusion of Tragedy and Resilience ��������������������������������107
True Love, Not Romance��������������������������������������������������108
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INTRODUCTION
Doing
the
Right
Thing
A Changing Industry
x
INTRODUCTION
reinforce the status quo. The cinematic narratives chosen for this
book prove that many different dimensions, not just age or race or
gender or sexuality, make a person who they are. Characters need
to be relatable, which doesn’t mean predictable or even necessarily
always sympathetic — oftentimes a big misunderstanding of many
beginning screenwriters.
Crafting a compelling screenplay that reflects diversity, equity,
and inclusion can pay off commercially as well as artistically. Chang-
ing demographics of U.S. movie audiences suggest the more diversity
— the more success! Nearly 50 percent of frequent moviegoers are
nonwhite, according to the Motion Picture Association (MPA) 2019
THEME Report.1 Mass media has to appeal to a more colorful
audience, an audience with a mix of races, ethnicities, genders, sex-
ualities, and countless untold stories.
This book is guided by specific foundational ideas — goals and
actions you can take to “liberate” your screenplay from clichéd and
formulaic approaches:
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xii
INTRODUCTION
3
Janko Roettgers, “‘The Perfect Date,’ ‘Always Be My Maybe’ Draw Big Crowds on Netflix,” Variety,
July 17, 2019, https://variety.com/2019/digital/news/the-perfect-date-always-be-my-maybe-draw-big-
crowds-on-netflix-1203270482/.
4
“2019 THEME Report.”
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5
“2019 THEME Report.”
6
Oscars, “Academy Establishes Representation and Inclusion Standards for Oscars Eligibility,”
September 8, 2020, https://www.oscars.org/news/academy-establishes-representation-and-inclusion-
standards-oscarsr-eligibility.
xiv
CHAPTER ONE
A
Different
Shade
of
Love
in MOONLIGHT (2016)
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grew from one screen to four screens, and gradually all the way up
to over fifteen hundred. On a budget of $1.5 million,3 Moonlight’s
box office gross totaled $27 million domestically (in the United
States, Canada, and Puerto Rico) and, even more remarkable, $65
million worldwide.4 It won Academy Awards for Best Picture, Best
Supporting Actor, and, most importantly for our purposes here, Best
Adapted Screenplay by Barry Jenkins from the story in the unpro-
duced play by Tarell Alvin McCraney.
McCraney’s original title — “In Moonlight Black Boys Look
Blue” — tells us an awful lot about the spirit and nature of this
story, even though it wasn’t used for the film. Moonlight, it suggests,
has the power to transform a stereotypical appearance of blackness
(and all the assumptions that go with it), of “Black Boys,” to some-
thing more poetic and as deep as the color of the ocean, dark blue
and filled with life.
In the film, our protagonist is given three names (Little, Chi-
ron, and Black), none of which say much of anything about his
inner life, his sense of self beyond visual appearances or how others
name him. His story, his journey, reminds us that a character’s inner
life, where often their authentic wants and needs live, is the most
important thing that they can bring to relationships. We see during
the course of the film how our embattled protagonist navigates his
world, filled with brief moments of love and caring yet also, much
too often, neglect, fear, and a lack of love. But in the end, he has a
serious reckoning with the authentic self that he (and we) thought
might be permanently lost. And even if we don’t know exactly what
will happen after this brief reappearance of profound vulnerability
and love, we know this: that all people, despite appearances to the
contrary, have the need for love and deep connection.
3
Barry Jenkins (@BarryJenkins), “Yes fellas by why on earth…,” Twitter Post, February 28, 2018, 6:06
PM, https://twitter.com/barryjenkins/status/968985836439052288?lang=en.
4
Box Office Mojo, “Moonlight – Box Office,” IMDbPro, accessed February 8, 2022, https://pro.imdb.
com/title/tt4975722/boxoffice.
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Sy nopsis
This story takes place in the Liberty City section of Miami
in the 1980s at three different points in the protagonist’s life,
as a child, a teenager, and a young adult.
Part I. Little
A little boy runs away from a group of bullies who are out
for blood — life or death. The boy runs into an abandoned
crack house and waits until a man, Juan, comes in and res-
cues him after a bit of coaxing. Juan takes Little out to eat
and notices how hungry he is. He tries to get the boy to talk
but he is too busy eating. Juan then takes Little to spend the
night at his home with his girlfriend Teresa. When he takes
the boy back to his own home the next day, his mother,
Paula, is very angry that he didn’t tell her where he was.
Little starts spending more and more time with Juan,
who teaches him how to swim, or at least to float on his
back. They grow very close.
Little goes to Juan and Teresa’s house. He expresses his
hatred for his mother Paula, who is a drug addict, then asks
Juan what a faggot is. After Juan explains, Little asks if he
himself is one. He then asks Juan about his drug dealing
and selling to his mother. Little leaves, and Juan appears
tearfully remorseful.
Part II. Chiron
Little has turned into a teenaged boy going by the name
Chiron who looks lonely and lost. He is attending high
school, where he basically has only one friend, Kevin. Juan
has long since passed away. Chiron is harassed at school by
a punk named Terrel, who mocks Chiron in the middle of
class until their teacher kicks Terrel out. Chiron is shown
on his own, isolated and angry at his mother’s ongoing drug
addiction and at his classmates, who bully him even during
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class time. Kevin, who he’s known since he was Little, shares
with Chiron his sexual experiences with girls, which con-
stantly keep him in trouble at school. Chiron has a dream
about Kevin having sex from what he described and is dis-
turbed by it.
One night, Chiron goes out to the beach at night for
some peace and quiet. Suddenly, Kevin appears, seemingly
out of nowhere. They talk honestly about their struggles and
feelings, especially their dark ones. Kevin nicknames Chiron
“Black,” but when Chiron reacts negatively, Kevin inno-
cently asks him, “Don’t you like it?” This is the first time
anyone has ever asked Chiron what he wishes to be called.
Though Chiron simply responds by shrugging his shoulders,
the boys discover a mutual attraction during their conversa-
tion, ending in a kiss and Kevin giving Chiron a hand job.
The next day at school Chiron attempts to talk with
Kevin but is stopped by Terrel. Terrel, sensing a bond
between Chiron and Kevin, sets them up in a violent game
where Kevin is forced to hit Chiron until he stops getting
back up from being knocked down. Chiron continues to
get back up despite the blows, even though Kevin begs him
to stay down. The next day, an enraged Chiron hits Terrel
with a classroom chair so hard that he breaks it. Afterward,
Chiron is taken away by the police.
Part III. Black
The story jumps forward about ten years. Chiron, now
named Black, is living in Atlanta, Georgia. Black now
dresses similar to Juan, and he has similarly become a drug
dealer. He looks physically strong, with a muscular phy-
sique. Black taunts his criminal underlings with a cruel
sense of humor that instills fear in them.
One night, Black receives an unexpected phone call
from Kevin, who apologizes for what happened in high
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6
Chris O’Falt, “Barry Jenkins’ ‘Moonlight’: See the Seven Foreign Films That Inspired the Oscar
Winner,” IndieWire, May 31, 2017, https://www.indiewire.com/2017/05/barry-jenkins-film-style-
wong-kar-wai-claire-denis-lynne-ramsay-1201834261/2/.
7
O’Falt, “See the Seven Foreign Films.”
8
Tyler Aquilina, “Why you should dive into the work of Hong Kong director Wong Kar Wai,”
Entertainment Weekly, March 20, 2021, https://ew.com/movies/why-you-should-watch-films-of-
wong-kar-wai/.
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11
Adams, “Moonlight’s writer.”
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Though the first scene features Juan and other drug dealers on
the streets of Liberty City, we almost immediately switch to Little
being chased by bullies out for blood. This is Little’s ordinary world,
where his rescuer Juan is a drug dealer and his hiding place a former
crack house — in other words, a hostile environment for a young
boy to grow up in.
The inciting incident occurs in a conversation that reveals Little’s
growing knowledge of the world outside of Juan’s house. Initially,
Juan and his girlfriend Teresa attempt to protect Little from not
only his environment, but also from his unstable and drug addicted
mother, Paula, in the hopes of creating a world of love and affec-
tion. But when Little asks what “faggot” means and if he is one,
the cruelty of the world comes into the caring domestic world
offered by Juan.
The final turning point in Act I is when Little follows up his
question about “faggots” with one that forces Juan to admits that he
12 T
he following explanations of the three-act structure are adapted from MasterClass.com: “How to
Write Three Act Structure,” accessed February 4, 2022, https://www.masterclass.com/articles/how-
to-write-three-act-structure.
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is not only a drug dealer, but also a drug dealer who supplies Little’s
mother Paula with drugs. After that painful admission by Juan, Lit-
tle purposefully leaves Juan’s home, the only real home that he has
ever known, because his trust in Juan is broken. At that moment, in
that scene, Little has to grow up in his rejection of Juan’s deception.
A story’s middle act consists of a rising action that leads to a mid-
point, then devolves into a crisis. Act two will raise the stakes of
the protagonist’s journey. The second act typically ends with another
turning point that makes it seem as if the protagonist will fail. This
is sometimes called the “dark night of the soul.”
In act two, we discover that Juan has died and that a now teen-
aged Little is known as Chiron and is still being bullied relentlessly
at his high school. However, Chiron’s hope and trust shifts to Kevin,
a friend from childhood and currently his only friend in high school.
By the story’s midpoint, Chiron is fully immersed in his journey,
as depicted in the scene between him and Kevin at the beach when
their emotional and sexual connection is first made. The “dark night
of the soul” in Moonlight occurs the very next day in school when
Kevin is pressured by bullies into fighting Chiron, whose trust in
his newly found lover is broken. The following day builds on this
final turning point of act two when Chiron is taken away by police
for attacking the head bully, Terrel. At this moment, it seems as if
things couldn’t get any worse for our protagonist.
The third act begins with what’s known as a pre-climax. This con-
sists of events leading up to a climactic confrontation in which the
hero faces a point of no return: They must either prevail or perish.
This launches us into the actual climax. Finally, the story deescalates
in a denouement, where the events of the climax wind back down
into normal life.
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encounter with Kevin. This is the actual climax of the story. The
denouement occurs when Black allows Kevin to physically comfort
him by gently stroking his head.
While the three-act structure is clear in Moonlight, it plays out
in the film in a most unusual way. In the first act, the character of
Little, played by ten-year-old Alex Hibbert, is introduced. In the
second act, a different actor portrays Chiron as he reaches a crisis
point in his teenage years. And in the third act, substantially imag-
ined by Jenkins, the adult Chiron has transformed himself into a
drug dealer named Black and is depicted by yet another actor. In a
review for The Observer, Tim Adams wrote: “Physically, the three
actors are very different, but Jenkins’ concentration on their interior
lives means that you don’t for a moment feel the disjunction.”13 The
first two acts are taken from the original play, but the third and final
act is a new creation by Barry Jenkins, a clear departure from the
reality of McCraney’s life (as he became a writer, not a drug dealer).
The foregrounding of the three acts using the different names and
ages of one character is a bold choice that could either take an audi-
ence out of the story, especially when the third act might be felt as a
separate piece, or draw them closer in. And yet, the interiority that
Adams so astutely noted ties that final piece together with the oth-
ers to tell a cohesive tale of a young man’s life.
The choice of the three-act structure and casting three differ-
ent actors in Moonlight isn’t the first high profile cinematic effort
to represent a protagonist with a number of different actors. For
example, in the 2007 film I’m Not There, six different actors play
six different aspects of the music icon Bob Dylan’s life and work.
Writer/director Todd Haynes took a creative risk that was in some
ways overshadowed by its unconventional casting (both male and
female actors played the male singer) and at times characterized as
a dramatic stunt. By contrast, Moonlight’s choice, rather than veer-
ing toward the sensational, actually unifies and expands the nature
of the story as memory and meditation so that it at once focuses
13
Adams, “Moonlight’s writer.”
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first with character descriptions that are evocative but not too spe-
cific so as to limit casting choices. For example, Juan is described as
“30s, some sort of Afro-Latino thing about him,” Little as a “simi-
larly aged [to those chasing him] (adolescent, 12/13 years old) but
smaller, a runt.” At least in these two instances, the most distinctive
physical characteristics that the actors need to have — the things
that others would notice about them — are clearly stated.
The prologue further sets up the world of street drug deal-
ers and the danger lurking beneath the surface as Juan’s domain.
He’s the confident leader, but of a terrible enterprise. He initially
comes across as callous and heartless, especially to his underlings
and addicts, in a potentially stereotypical scene that audiences have
seen time and time again in the urban landscape. However, the film
switches to an adjacent scene, equally fraught with danger, that takes
its form in an all-out chase, with Little as the unfortunate target of
a group of toughs. The script description distinguishes this instance
of bullying as “not a game, more like a hunt.” Most cinematic chases
are saved for the second or sometimes third act, but we are still in
the prologue, the setup. Immediately, we are invested in this story
and shown the palpable terror of our young protagonist, as well as
the subsequent reassuring kindness of Juan that coaxes Little out of
the abandoned crack house where he finds temporary refuge. This
first meeting between Little and Juan begins the tender process that
allows the boy to begin to show trust and love.
There are a number of questions that need to be answered in
part two, in which Chiron is shown not in his ordinary world as
Little but fully immersed in the world of high school adolescence
after moving on from his childhood rescuer. And the answers to
these questions reveal Chiron’s vulnerability, his pain, and a loneli-
ness typical of a teenager who lacks any friends his own age. Will
Chiron return to Juan? Yes and no. He returns to Juan’s house, but
Juan has died. Will Chiron overcome the bullying at school, and
more specifically a bully named Terrel? Not really; he strikes out, but
must pay the price of incarceration as a juvenile delinquent. Will
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Chiron’s situation at home with his mother Paula get better? Not
in this act; his situation stays the same as in part one. Will Chiron
find at least one friend at school? Yes, and more, but it doesn’t last.
Chiron is intimate with Kevin but is also betrayed by him when
Kevin is pressured by bullies to beat Chiron up in a violent “game.”
Even though we begin the second act with several questions, and
even though they are all answered to some extent, the overarching
and most urgent question is whether Chiron will find someone to
love and trust. The main plot of this act concerns only the friend-
ship, attraction, intimacy, and betrayal between Chiron and Kevin.
Traditionally, act two introduces a romantic subplot for the protago-
nist. However, Chiron’s same-sex romantic longing for Kevin is not
merely a subplot, it exists at the center of his maturation and sense
of well-being. The rising action in part two introduces Kevin as a
love object, someone Chiron has known since he was Little, and
now someone who is described in the screenplay as being a “smooth-
as-hell-looking teen.” The midpoint dramatizes both the emotional
and physical intimacy between the teen boys. It is a rare moment of
safety and tenderness that is effectively framed between the numer-
ous attacks, taunts, and intimidation by the school bullies. We end
the act with Chiron striking out, fighting back against his main tor-
mentor Terrel, but the win is momentary when he pays the heavy
price of juvenile incarceration. Chiron doesn’t win in love or war.
But we empathize with his attempts to assert his needs and strength.
Part three begins with a resolution of a subplot even more
important in the screenplay than in the finished film: the relation-
ship between Chiron (now called Black) and his mother, and his
forgiveness of her. He visits her in rehab, and she tells him that she
is sorry for the way she treated him, that she loves him, but that
he doesn’t have to love her back after all that she’s done. But most
importantly, Paula addresses the issue of trust with Black in a way
that allows the subplot to reflect back on the questions of the main
plot: “I am your mother, ain’t I? You can talk to me if you want to?
Or at least somebody, you got to trust somebody, you hear?” This is
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still the central question for our protagonist: Will he find someone
that he can love and trust?
Another subplot comes full circle through Black, who has become
exactly what he walked away from with Juan: a drug dealer. But the
difference could be Kevin, and the fact that Black drives from his new
home in Atlanta, Georgia, back to Florida to see him. Kevin does not
approve of Black’s pushing drugs and reveals that he’s been married
and has a child. The conversation between them is a bit awkward, but
the subtext is of two men who have a great deal of love and affection
for one another. A key moment of the story is when Black admits that
he has never been intimate with anyone since Kevin. This both shows
that Black hasn’t let himself care for anyone since Kevin and that he
has continued caring for Kevin over the years. The climax addresses
the question of whether Black, in the new version of himself, can even
be reached emotionally, whether he can love and trust again. This is
where the screenplay and film significantly diverge. As laid out in
the script, Kevin and Black make love in the dark, the audience only
able to hear them. In the finished film, Kevin takes Black and gently
strokes his head. Each ending is somewhat open, but both the script
and film versions answer that yes: Black’s emotional and physical vul-
nerability is reawakened in this meeting with Kevin.
In many ways, the film version speaks more to Black’s entire
journey, as Little, Chiron, and Black, as Kevin’s gesture almost
evokes a sense of giving comfort to a child. And so the resolution
or denouement that rests in the lyrical final image of Little at the
edge of the ocean makes complete sense. It harkens back to the time
when Black as Little from the opening act was fully open and capa-
ble of trusting and loving, especially in the moonlight.
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The disconnect for Chiron between his given name and what
the people in his world call him is clear, his identity lying somewhere
in between, somewhere unknown. And the shrug that is indicated
in the script is proof that he has given up, at least momentarily, on
asserting himself even on something as basic as his name.
In a subsequent scene with Juan, Little comments that he rec-
ognizes Juan’s name as Spanish but is confused by his father figure’s
African American appearance:
LITTLE: Okay . . . why your name Juan?
JUAN: How you mean?
LITTLE: Juan is like a Spanish name. (and
after a thought) But you black just like
me.
This amuses Juan, who then uses this moment to teach Little
about the fact that “it’s black people everywhere, you remember
that, okay?” and also explains that he himself is from Cuba. But
that scene also goes even further into the act of being named by
others. This time, a nickname comes from an old lady Juan knew
when he was a little boy in Cuba. Juan recalls: “Then she smiled
and she say, ‘Running around catching up all this light. In moon-
light,’ she say, ‘black boys look blue. You blue,’ she say. ‘That’s
what I’m gone call you: Blue.’” Juan and Little’s conversation about
Juan’s given name inspires Juan to become a benevolent teacher
about his race and share the story about his nickname, Blue, from
a personal childhood memory, indicating a growing vulnerabil-
ity and strong identification with Little. In other words, the act
of being named in these instances reveals character as well as the
nature of relationships.
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“Don’t call me that.” Teresa jokes that he’s “grown now” so the name
doesn’t fit anymore, but that he has to earn the right to be something
different with a new name. She says, “You gotta make your name
true, understand?” This scene functions as a bridge between the
first two acts of the story, helping the viewers shift their focus from
Little and Juan to Chiron and Kevin. In fact, the last scene before
the part two intertitle introducing Chiron shows Kevin becoming
a more dominant character, as indicated by introducing another
name for Chiron, affectionately calling him “Black” when he says
goodbye at school.
Nicknames work to great dramatic effect to reveal how charac-
ters feel about themselves or identify, as well as how characters feel
about one another. Because Chiron says Little is what “they” call
him when we first hear that name, it’s clear how Chiron feels about
that name. “They” refers to everyone in the community who doesn’t
see him for who he is. Similarly, Juan shares how he got the nick-
name Blue through a story about his childhood in Cuba when he
was just a boy like Little. The nickname reveals the title of the play
on which the movie was based, as mentioned, but more than this,
Juan is sharing that he, too, was named by others. And sometimes,
Juan calls Little “lil’ man,” as when teaching him how to swim, for
encouragement and strength.
But Kevin’s nickname for Chiron, “Black,” confuses him. Chi-
ron even asks at one point why Kevin keeps calling him that. Kevin
explains simply that it’s his nickname for Chiron, not really explain-
ing at all. “You don’t like it?” he asks. Chiron responds with a simple
shrug. It seems like another instance of being named by someone
else, but it is qualitatively different because Kevin cares whether
Chiron likes it or not. In this way, Kevin seems to be offering a nick-
name rather than imposing an identity, like the community did with
Little. Ultimately, as noted in the script, Chiron accepts the name
Kevin gave him and even has a vanity license plate with the name
“Black.” This license plate is also an indication that even though he
would at first glance appear to have moved on in the third act, he
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is still very much attached to Kevin and appreciates that Kevin gave
him a name and an identity that suits him.
14
Adams, “Moonlight’s writer.”
15
Amanda N’Duka, “Tarell Alvin McCraney on ‘Moonlight’s’ Message: “I Think People Were Hungry
for That,” Deadline, February 17, 2017, https://deadline.com/2017/02/tarell-alvin-mccraney-moon-
light-barry-jenkins-a24-oscars-interview-1201915105.
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Symbolism
Symbolism is used to great effect in Moonlight to establish or rein-
force character traits, reveal relationships, and provide powerful
metaphors at key points in the plot. Some incorrectly think sym-
bolism is just a literary device, not to be used in screenplays, but
Moonlight makes it clear this is not the case. Films can be filled with
symbolism that seeks to immerse the audience more deeply into the
narrative. For example, the element of food appears at particular dra-
matic moments in the film to tell us more about what characters are
needing and giving. In the scene with Juan and Little at the first res-
taurant they visit together, a local diner, Juan tries to find out more
about this young stranger who he rescued — his name and where he
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his gaze of openness and trust, a gift from Juan. The final moment
is described in the screenplay thusly:
Little turning from us, his form and
movement slowly, steadily melding into the
flow of light and waves as he heads out
into the ocean and we . . . FADE TO BLACK.
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24
A BOU T T HE AU T HOR
113