Very dialogue heavy. Although it may be less difficult to animate this, the action for most of the piece is god-mortal talk. Character is revealed in it, sure, but it gets too repetitive, both in words and in tone. Thus, I don't feel really engaged. The tragic ending, I feel, could have been set up better with actual interchanges with Zeus, Hades, and Sisyphus -- some actionable clashes, q.v. Jason and the Argonauts.

Too the writer...

I'm a fan of greek mythology.  I studied it religiously for my epic adventure so I'm familiar with the story.  Needless to say, it was a breeze for me to get through.  Having said that,  I didn't find nothing dark with this little piece.  I thought you did a good job with this re-telling though.  

Congrats

Ghostwriter

Hey AJR,

I will be honest and say I struggled through this. I know nothing about Greek myths, Sisyphus or anything like that so this was all new to me. A lot of talking, lots of things flying over my head, I felt like giving up.

I'm glad I didn't. I thought the ending was outstanding and I never saw it coming. Then again, I know nothing about Greek myths, but I've already mentioned that already.  

Great writing, very clean and crisp. Dialogue was exactly what you would have been aiming for, so well done on that. This is different, and you should be congratulated for attempting something like this, even if most of it is alien to people like me.

Top work!

Brian

AJR,

This is the one script that I knew for sure who the author was(aside from screenrider's junkie script).  But, only because of the discussion board where you mentioned you needed a red boulder.  Kind of a dead giveaway there.  But, I like how you put a spin on an ancient classic.  The dialogue was interesting and unusual enough to drive the story forward, although I think I would have liked even more imagery of Hades.  Gotta say I'd like to see this in moviestorm.

Cam

Okay, no fair, Cam and Brian knew who I was...

I'd like to thank everyone (except Jeff) for their kind words (except Jeff), and basically I agree with everything that was said (except Jeff)...

(o:

Seriously though, I do agree with those of you who said it got deep and a bit talky in places. George pretty much nailed it with what he said - it took more hard work than I initially expected to spoon feed the myth to the reader, so that the payoff would work.

For those of you not familiar with the myth, I'll give it to you in layman speak - Sisyphus was a crafty devil, but not a god. He fancied himself their equal though.

So he screws Zeus by announcing that Zeus has kidnapped Aegina. So Zeus banishes him to Tartarus (the region of Hades where punishment occurs) where he's ordered to be chained. He then tricks Thanatos (death personified) into wearing the chains and escapes. And while death is chained, no one can die in battle.

He's returned to Hades after his death, but convinces Persephone to let him go back to the upper world, since his wife Merope did not give him proper funeral offerings - only Sisyphus instructed her not to do so.

He's finally returned to Hades by Ares, and his punishment is to roll the boulder up the hill for all eternity.

Kudos to Rick (decadence) for knowing the Camus essay. This was really the crux of the piece - Camus' famous quote is that "we must imagine Sisyphus happy", i.e., the satisfaction is in the toil, not in the result.

And so the story begins - in my version, Sisyphus baits Zeus into releasing him by convincing him of that which Camus posited - that he was actually happy in his punishment.

And of course it leads up to the greek tragedian ending, where Sisyphus' hubris (sorry Blakkwolfe) causes him to be blind to the possible consquences of rolling the boulder up the hill in the upper world.

And Tim (Trojan) sniffed out a bit of a gaffe at the end (bastage!); the viewer would indeed not know that Merope was Sisyphus' wife. I was supposed to have Sisyphus call out to Merope and then exclaim in horror.

Thanks again all - Anthony

Anthony,

Good work, my friend. "Talky" scripts always appeal to me if the dialogue is engaging, which it was here. There's a real battle of wits happening - or so Sisyphus thinks.

You crafted the story in such a way as to make Sisyphus appear the calculated, clever one, and yet his folly is revealed for all to see at the end.

Your "layman" retelling there was also very engaging and it really does provide fertile ground for a feature script, I think. Clearly you enjoyed it as well.

Kudos for bringing something different to the challenge, and bigger kudos for doing so successfully.

That's two of your scripts I have read now, both very good, so I look forward to your future work.

Nice one.

Andrew

Very well written. It reads more like a play than a screenplay. I think it would make a nice play. Could even be expanded in that format.

As a screenplay, it’s a little talky and inactive.

Lady wife? Seems redundant.

Overall, I thought it was really good. Very well written with a good ending. I’m not really into machinima all that much but it seems like this script would make a good one.


Breanne

Hey Anthony. Now that we're no longer in competition for an anthology spot, I reckoned it was safe for me to come on here and say nice things about your script.

Which is what I intend to do, actually. I really enjoyed it, thought you went in a bold direction and I applaud you for that. I'm a fan of mythology - a good grasp of those old, fundamental stories can really help a writer - and so I think that helped my engagement somewhat. I can see what Michael meant when he said that this might not be right for the intended audience of the anthology, but that's not a criticism of you or your script.

You've responded to the comments and I don't know if you plan to develop this in another direction or just let it lie, but since I've read it I might as well list the handful of notes I took:

- Your opening slugline bothered me. It's an insignificant, personal thing, an issue that I ran into in my recent 7WC script that featured a section set in Limbo; can you have 'NIGHT' in a place where normal time doesn't really flow? I'm guessing you meant for everything to be dark, but it still jarred with me. In my script I put 'TIME UNKNOWN', but Jeff called me on that, so I have no idea what would work best!

- I think some sort of visual response to Zeus' "they all belong to me!" outburst would be nice. A thunderbolt striking the ground nearby, maybe an earth tremor that knocks Sisyphus off his feet, causing the boulder to nearly crush him...something like that.

- Generally with the dialogue...I didn't totally buy into what someone called the 'Olde Worlde' style. It lacked a bit of authenticity, and never quite got past the point where it felt like a modern writer trying to 'do' that kind of speech. It's very, very hard to do - Shakespeare in Love does it quite well, but then Stoppard has such a control of the language after years as a playwright. I have an idea for a script set in Elizabethean London but I've put it to the bottom of my pile now because making that kind of dialogue sound authentic is so difficult. So...a problem, but a very understandable one.

- The sequence where he struggled to push the boulder higher and higher up the hill as he left the underworld felt perhaps like it could be a SERIES OF SHOTS.

That's it, really. Well done on what was a very interesting, well-written and fine effort.

Hey Johnny,

Thanks very much for the detailed comments - as I recall now, I enjoyed It Gazes Back a lot, and though I've listed my "top 3" a number of times, I'd place yours a solid #4.

Really, really good idea with the thunderbolt. I guess the mistake I made here was not thinking visually enough as I wrote it, and being too worried about getting the myth told in the dialogue.

As for the "Olde English" - I read a number of these plays - Euripides, Aeschylus, etc. and I just tried to recall as best I could how the translators stated the language. Oh well...

As for the slug - yeah, no more thought went into it other than "I better not make this scene in the day or it won't get filmed!"

Breanne / Andrew / Brian,

Thanks for your kind comments as well. It means a lot coming very fine writers such as yourselves.

Anthony

I think this was a lovely creative take on legend.

I didn't feel like it was any kind of strain to read at all.

As far as the dialogue goes, I think you could punch it up and also do a little more action on screen, but I what I really feel strongly is that this would work well as a play rather than a film.

As a matter of fact, it would be cool if these guys would sing some of their lines.

Very good and solid job!

Sandra

Sandra,

Thanks for the read and for the nice words. I guess it does read like a play since I had all those tragedies playing in my head when I wrote this!

Anthony

Hey Anthony,

Nicely written. Although I'm not all that familiar with the source material, I believe I was able to "get" what your intention was with this piece. I thought the dialogue worked, it seemed "real", if you no what I mean - almost like a throwback to the early days of Hollywood where you had all these actors overacting every part as if they didn't know the difference between a stage and the silver screen.

But, and I suspect you already know this, the script is not very cinamatic. Not a whole lot happens throughout the story. Yes, you do have some - at times - wonderful exchanges - but reading that much continuous dialogue becomes a chore in the end.

This script would work great as a radio play. As a movies, not so much. It could though.

Cheers
Rob

Hey Rob,

Thanks for the read. Yeah, it's definitely been discussed. I think the visuals would be cool - they are in hell, after all - but something has to happen between the dialogue.

Someone earlier suggested thunderbolts from Zeus, which I thought was a really good suggestion.

Thanks again - Anthony

You might want to write this as part of a play about the Greek myths.  It was very well written for the most part.  Though I would have superimposed images of Zeus and Hades instead of voice-overs.  It would make it seem that Sisyphus can supposedly see right through the gods.  Richard

Richard,

Thanks for the read and I'm glad you enjoyed it. Obviously I wrote this for the OWC so as far as images I tried to keep it limited.

I had fun writing it though and who knows, maybe someday a very literate animator will pick up on this one.  

Anthony